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Healthcare Reform Plan Calorie Count May Change American Diets
Tweet Share on Facebook March 26, 2010 Comment (6)By Mary Kate Cary, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
My beef with the healthcare bill is that it's not fiscally responsible, that it creates a nearly trillion-dollar new entitlement program that doesn't pay for itself. On the substance of it, there are parts that aren't so bad. As the parent of a 14-year-old with type 1 diabetes, I like the fact that she can no longer be denied coverage because of a pre-existing condition, and that she can stay on our policy until she's 26 (we were very worried about both when she leaves for college in a few years). Similarly, I'm glad pregnant women can no longer be denied because of their pre-existing condition, which happened to me once. But I still think the bill should be paid for in the long run.
Here's something else buried in those 2,000 pages of text: according to the AP, the law includes a requirement that restaurant chains with more than 20 locations have to post the calorie count next to items on the menu. Right now, many chains either post the information on their websites (nowhere near the food itself) or print it in a pamphlet or on a poster somewhere. The restaurant association supported the idea because restaurants face so many rules in different states about nutrition information that they preferred uniformity over conflicting local laws. Most restaurants already have to spend the money to find out the calorie counts; if anything, they might save money by having all locations display the information in the same way.
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Sarah Palin, Tea Party Leaders, Must Condemn Healthcare Threats
Tweet Share on Facebook March 25, 2010 Comment (61)By Mary Kate Cary, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Democratic members of Congress are complaining that they're receiving threatening E-mails and voicemails and even acts of vandalism, as a result of their vote on the healthcare bill. So House Republican leader John Boehner went on Fox yesterday and said:
"Well, there are a lot of angry Americans and they are angry over this healthcare bill. They're angry about the fact that the Democrats here in Washington aren't listening to them. But I've got to tell you that violence and threats are unacceptable. It is not the American way. Yes, I know there is anger, but let's take that anger, and go out and register people to vote, go volunteer on a political campaign, and let's do it the right way. I'm concerned about the amount of violence and anger that's out there … it's unacceptable."
It's very understandable that people are angry, and they're not crazy to be upset at the level of government spending we've seen under the Democrat Congress and the Obama administration. Ugliness is nothing new in politics, but it does seem like the anger has been getting worse, really since the 2000 recount. And it's not just politics--the faceless anonymity of E-mails and voicemails has shielded all kinds of bad behavior in business, sports, even PTAs as people write things they'd never say in a million years to someone's face.
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Smug Democrats Don’t Have the Healthcare Moral High Ground
Tweet Share on Facebook March 23, 2010 Comment (119)By Mary Kate Cary, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
If you look at the optics during the last few days of coverage from the healthcare bill's passage, you'll see shots of the Democratic leadership arm-in-arm with civil rights leader John Lewis; last night, Ted Kennedy's widow was on CNN saying how proud he'd be that the legislation passed; today the coverage of the signing ceremony included Chris Matthews and Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC marveling at the fact that Bernie Sanders and Bart Stupak were standing side by side in support for the "historic" bill. No mention of the fact that not a single Republican was there, or that the bill passed with only Democratic support--and even then, just barely.
Not only are Democrats overreaching a bit in terms of congratulating themselves, but they're going out of their way to vilify Republicans. My congressman here in Maryland, Chris Van Hollen, told Politico this morning that nothing would make him happier than Republicans running on a "repeal the bill" platform this fall. "Who am I to give my Republican colleagues advice, but if they want to run on, 'Repeal the bill,' we say: Make my day," Van Hollen said. "They will be clearly siding with the insurance industry ... to try to prevent kids from getting coverage."
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Don’t Blame the Media for Healthcare Uncertainty, Blame Democrats
Tweet Share on Facebook March 22, 2010 Comment (13)By Mary Kate Cary, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Howard Kurtz, the Washington Post media critic, puts some blame on the media for why people still don't understand what's in the healthcare bill: "The larger narrative came to resemble a long-running soap opera in which the plot made sense only if you had been following all the previous twists and turns." This is exactly why I don't watch Lost on TV--every time I turn it on I have no idea what's going on. Apparently if you missed the first episode, you're "lost" too.
Well, that's how many people felt about the healthcare reform debate, except it's not just the first episode that's missing. It's any discussion of how the nearly trillion-dollar legislation will be paid for, how it will lower costs while expanding coverage to 30 million Americans, or what exactly is in the 2,400-page bill. The CBO only gave a preliminary score two business days ago.
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Democrats Undecided on Healthcare Reform Are Being Drama Queens
Tweet Share on Facebook March 19, 2010 Comment (7)By Mary Kate Cary, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
As the mother of middle school and high school girls, I know a drama queen when I see one. This week, the drama queens are large and in charge--and I'm not talking about the seventh graders. I'm talking about the undecided Democrats in the House. This morning, Politico actually calls them the "Drama Queen Caucus," defining them as "Members of Congress who labor mostly in obscurity, lucky to get a daytime cable hit, let alone a Sunday talk show invitation, until the big vote nears. And then they engage in an oh-so-public exercise deliberating over how they will vote ..."
"They have something very valuable, which is a vote on the floor of the House when the president doesn't have enough votes," Democratic strategist Paul Begala told Politico. "And as my mom used to say to my sister, nobody is going to buy a cow if they get free milk."
I mean really. How can any member of Congress, after a YEAR of debating healthcare reform--with every possible pitch, argument, poll, statistic, and anecdote thrown back and forth by both sides--possibly be undecided at this point? There's no other explanation for it than ego ... and the "free milk" of cable TV coverage. Most moms know that with drama queens, you just have to rise above the theatrics and not stoop to their level. Just ignore them ... which is what most voters seem to be doing.
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Obama’s Healthcare Reform Is Bad for Small Business
Tweet Share on Facebook March 19, 2010 Comment (44)By Mary Kate Cary, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
I'm self-employed, as a growing number of women are: Over the last 30 years, the number of self-employed workers who are women has grown to nearly 4 in 10, according to the Wall Street Journal. Like me, many women of child-rearing age have realized that being self-employed allows us to make some money and still have a flexible enough schedule to be there for the kids. Among my friends, many have some sort of part-time or full-time work outside of a regular office, either consulting from home or doing contract work for a small business--like a public relations firm, a law firm, or a doctor's office, mostly. In fact, small businesses like those now account for 55 percent of the jobs in the United States, the Journal reports.
So when the $940 billion healthcare bill was posted online yesterday along with the CBO estimate--and the barrage of analysis began--I found this opinion to be one of the most interesting. It's from Karen Kerrigan, president of the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council:
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‘Deem and Pass’ Shows Democrats’ Healthcare Arrogance Problem
Tweet Share on Facebook March 16, 2010 Comment (63)By Mary Kate Cary, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
This, from the party that claims to be all about transparency, in today's Washington Post:
"It's more insider and process-oriented than most people want to know," the speaker said in a roundtable discussion with bloggers Monday about the reconciliation package. "But I like it," she said, "because people don't have to vote on the Senate bill."
So Speaker Pelosi will "deem" the $875 billion Senate healthcare reform bill to have already passed the House, a process the Post's editorial page says "threatens to turn into something unseemly." Threatens? It turned unseemly a long time ago--let's recall the Cornhusker Compromise--which is why the speaker can't get enough votes to pass it. So she's turned to parliamentary sleight-of-hand in an effort to get the measure passed in the next few days. It would allow wavering Democrats to say they never voted for the bill--or against it. My colleague Robert Schlesinger wrote yesterday that the whole thing reminds him of John Kerry's famous "I was for it before I was against it." I agree.
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Women in the World Summit Starts Something in the Name of Freedom
Tweet Share on Facebook March 15, 2010 CommentBy Mary Kate Cary, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Sorry to disappoint you, but I won't be writing about Rielle Hunter's GQ interview today, unlike the rest of the blogosphere. Life's too short. I'd rather write about something important ...
Jacqueline Novogratz, head of the Acumen nonprofit venture capital fund, spoke at the Women in the World summit over the weekend and she said this: "When I see people that are my age and reaching 50, the ones that are really sparkly and full of joy are the ones that are committed to something bigger than themselves."
If you feel like learning about something bigger than yourself--namely, the struggle for women's rights around the world--take a look at some of the video clips and written reports from panel discussions and speeches over the weekend. There's something for everybody ... interesting pieces on women and technology, women's rights in war zones, women's economic power, you name it. Some of the videos are funny, some made me want to cry. All of them were moving in some way or another.
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Why Aren’t Republicans Rallying to the Reagan-esque Paul Ryan?
Tweet Share on Facebook March 12, 2010 Comment (18)By Mary Kate Cary, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
It's been about six weeks since Republican Paul Ryan released his Roadmap for America's Future. Marc Ambinder noticed in the Atlantic this week that very few members of the Republican conference have endorsed Ryan's plan for cutting the deficit. "So the question for Republicans is: yes, Paul Ryan has a plan. But if you don't support it, then what, specifically, would you do to reduce the deficit over the long term?"
Well, Ryan calls for a consumption tax and not too many Republicans are interested in raising taxes, because they fear they'll lose their seats. But they've got it backwards. As incumbents, these days there may be more risk in appearing to do nothing about the deficit than there is in appearing to favor tax increases--especially if there's a way to establish a simpler, fairer tax, as Ryan advocates. It all depends on how much of a moral imperative exists for restoring fiscal sanity, and polls show that imperative is clear to a growing number of voters.
Republicans--Ronald Reagan is the most famous one--have raised taxes before in order to cut deficits and gotten re-elected. It's the ones who pledge not to raise taxes and then break their pledge who get in trouble. Believe me, Bush 41 speechwriters like me know how NOT to communicate on taxes. We learned the hard way. Here's what Bush 41 said in his daughter Doro's biography of him:
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Pelosi’s Inaction on Massa Harassment Inexcusable
Tweet Share on Facebook March 11, 2010 Comment (107)By Mary Kate Cary, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
My first reaction to the whole Eric Massa craziness is that this is Reason No. 42 why we need more women in politics.
Then the Washington Post reported that Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office knew about concerns about Massa as far back as October. Now, this afternoon, the Daily Caller reports the House voted 402 to 1 to refer the charge that Pelosi mishandled the matter to the House Ethics Committee. This was the woman who promised to "drain the swamp" when Democrats took over the House. So much for that.
You'd think that as a woman, Nancy Pelosi would be a little more tuned into issues involving harassment, but apparently not. It's surprising that the entire House voted to refer charges against her to the Ethics Committee, 402 to 1. That's a statement.
