Sound Off for Feb. 10, 2020

A waste?

A recent newscast featured three people who could be poster children for the litany of reasons the lottery is harmful to poor people. They described The Mega Millions and Powerball as “needed” and “very important.” These are the very people who should not be wasting their money.

One-payer system

Sounds good politically and popular, but will it work? Maybe it will possibly be cheaper and more effective, not sure, but certainly more complicated. We don’t have enough medical providers to begin with. With added government requirements and mandates, the medical community cannot keep up. Doctors are retiring in increasing numbers. Administration duties to comply with Medicare policies have added to worthless paper work burdens. You may have some wonderful and cheap governmental medical insurance coverage and no one to address your medical problems.

Pre-existing conditions

To the Pollyanna who said at Trump pep rallies he always says he wants to give healthcare, not take away protections for pre-existing conditions, wake up. When GOP ran Congress for two Trump years, they voted 50+ times to get rid of ACA, no replacement as he campaigned on, and at last count 27-30 states are suing still to drop Obamacare and yes, pre-existing clauses. Facts, not crap.

What is fair?

You know, you see the reference to the rich “paying their fair share.” I really need help understanding what that exactly means. The most obvious definition would be someone that has more money should pay more. But if I pay say 15% of what I earn, and they make more than I do, and they pay 15% of what they make they already pay more. And by all sense of reason, “their fair share.” If not, and they need to pay a higher percentage, who is qualified to determine exactly what is fair?

Economy

The U.S. deficit is $1.10 trillion, FY 2020. Deficits occur because the government spending of 4.75 trillion is higher than its revenue of 3.65 trillion. What happened to the fiscal conservatives?

Life lesson 101

A professor at St. John’s College, Oxford University, England, just taught student protesters an invaluable life lesson. The students had been occupying the college for a few days in protest of the school’s investments in fossil fuels. Two students sent a letter to the school’s financial affairs manager demanding it divest. The school officer responded with a letter saying that couldn’t be done on short notice, but they could arrange for the gas central heating to be switched off immediately.

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This story was originally published February 10, 2020 at 12:21 AM with the headline "Sound Off for Feb. 10, 2020."