One of the great mysteries of modern society is what goes on in the brains of Republican Members of Congress (Motto: "If I Hurts Obama, It Helps America.") Forget the insane obsession (is that redundant?) to slash the budget in emulation of those economic powerhouses Greece, Ireland, and Portugal. Forget the editing of those stirring words on the Statue of Liberty to now read: "No more room, go home greaseballs and ragheads." Forget the fiscal blinders they're required to wear, the only explanation for policies that continue to empower the wealthy at the expense of our dwindling middle class.
These so-called patriots are not only insensitive and cruel, apparently believing that people in poverty want to be poor, and that all it takes it a little hard work and gumption, they're fiscal morons.
Take the latest bill passed by House Republicans...which has as much chance of being enacted into law as me growing more hair on my head...and I've tried Rogaine so don't even think of mentioning that. An article in the Friday, June 17th Washington Post announces that House Elephants have voted to cut food safety funds and emergency food programs for poor mothers, infants, and children.
The last Congress passed a landmark foodsafety program, the first major overall of our food safety laws since 1938. This congress was to fund it. The goal was not only to have better and more frequent inspections of U.S. producers but the growing foreign invasion of food stuffs. Ah, but wise Rep. Jack Kingston (R.-GA) said that our food supply is "99.9%" safe, so the pachyderms looked at President Obama's $955 million request and cut it to $750 million--$87 million less than the FDA is currently receiving. Leave it up to the private sector to control safety, they proclaimed. Look how well they've done in the past, they said...and look at the coal and oil industries for examples of companies who put safety first. They must have looked at the Centers for Disease Control data and shrugged, "Not to bad." The CDC "estimates that 48 million Americans get sick from tainted food every year. Of those, about 28,000 are hospitalized and 3,000 die." (On the right are e-coli...want the bad ones in your gut???)
They also slashed $832 million from a an emergency food program that supports 325,000 mothers and children.
But in the heated negotiations led by VP Biden to come to agreement on the budget and debt ceiling, defense cuts are off the table. No way. We need every cruise missile, Defense Department contract to the defense industry, and military marching band.
The lack of humanity, of Christian charity, of empathy for their fellow Americans is, well, breathtaking.
But the problem is that the Republicans are terrible at math, too. Perhaps the biggest conservative blind spot is the cost of doing nothing. Let's run some rough numbers.
What's the cost of 48 million people getting sick? I'm no actuary but let's just assume two doctor visits, one prescription, and various sundries like Hostess Cup Cakes to make the illness more tolerable, although I'd think people with food poisoning might want to hold off on the cupcakes until they're better. I'm going to guess $200, which means an annual cost of, believe it or not, $9.6 billion dollars.
The average cost for one night in a hospital is about $4,000. Having enjoyed a rather rambunctious bout of food poisoning, I can tell you one night isn't going to cut it. You'd be lucky to get out in three or four, but let's say two for the sake of argument. That's $224,000,000 for those hospitalized. Of course, that doesn't count time at home to recover, potential loss of wages or additional medical costs.
And I'm not even going to try to figure out the cost of a death...but the reality is we don't need to.
The Republican math wizards are imposing a cost of almost $10 billion dollars on the American people to save spending $205 million dollars. Ah, let's be fair, even that extra money isn't going to catch every case of food-born illness, so let's say it reduces the incidence by 25 percent. That's an imposition of $2.5 billion (the amount spent by those who wouldn't have gotten ill) to save $205 million.
Yeah, Big Government does nothing right. Corporate America does nothing wrong. And if I close my eyes and wish really, really hard, I'll wake up tomorrow having lost that extra 15 pounds by magic.
I simply don't understand the Republicans. It's as if they're anti-American or something.
Sigh...
In Jameson Veritas