GAZETTE ED: POLITICAL SLEIGHT OF HAND by John Flannery

Political Sleight of hand works best when we’re slight of mind – when we don’t pay careful attention.

Only days ago, President Barack Obama encouraged our leaders to talk “with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds.”

Some have agreed to curb their rhetoric and others propose to sit with other partisans when the President addresses a joint session of Congress on January 25, 2011.

But what a Congress does can cause violence as destructive as a 9mm bullet.

A former federal employee, living in Loudoun, retired when he was 55, now 10 years ago.  He counts on his monthly retirement check.  Days ago the government told him that he was not getting a COLA (a cost of living adjustment), and his monthly payment has been reduced.  What does he do now?

The government told a woman on Social Security disability that they’ve been over paying her for years, she disputes it, but they are going to pay her less, and the new amount won’t cover her monthly rent.  She said days ago they’re forcing her onto the street.

Across the nation, state governments including Virginia are telling state employees that their retirement will be cut short and they have to pay or do without the benefits they were promised when they agreed to become public servants.  No stimulus for these working men and women.  We depress them instead.

Only last month, a congress of invertebrates told the wealthiest in the nation, their principal contributors, not to pay more in taxes (3% more), and so now the middle class are getting less and being asked to pay and suffer more.

Republican House Speaker John Boehner, a beneficiary of significant contributions from the insurance industry, with a gilt-edged health plan himself, has set out to repeal health care.  The Congressional Budget Office says the cost of repealing this bill will be $230 billion over the next ten years.  Boehner is concerned about reducing the deficit except when it’s inconvenient to his contributors.  If the Speaker succeeds and kills this cost-saving health reform, then millions of Americans won’t be insured, and if you get sick or lose your job, you may lose your coverage as well.  Pre-existing conditions won’t be covered, children will not be covered, and lifetime caps on insurance pay-outs will be restored.

As for Social Security, the trust fund has $2.9 Trillion.  It’s your money.  You pay into this fund every time you’re paid a wage or salary.  Did you know that our government has been borrowing from this trust fund to reduce the deficit?  Speaker Boehner thinks maybe you can wait from 65 until you are seventy to retire, reducing your lifetime benefits by 30 percent.  Republican Congressman Paul Ryan has drafted a program for Speaker Boehner to privatize Social Security and provide vouchers for Medicare. 

Civility is part of the answer but good conduct is the rest and cutting health care and social security doesn’t heal, it wounds, steals dignity, causes pain, and costs lives.