Politicians Call for Sacrifice to Solve the Mess They Created

Sylvia Bokor

Congress voted for and created terrible problems as a result of their own negligence and excesses and lack of aforethought. They should cease demanding that earners/producers "sacrifice" to save politician's rear ends.

Jeff Bingaman is one of New Mexico's Senators. On July 07, 2011 he sent a newsletter to his constituents. It is a very long newsletter, filled with many questionable statements, premised on the usual Leftists' view of man as a sacrificial goat.

I'm posting here only some of Senator Bingaman's paragraphs and my comments. The Senator's paragraphs I've chosen to post here do not necessarily reflect the Senator's worse demands. They do, however, reveal his worse premises.

Senator Bingaman writes: 1. There has been a lot of discussion in Washington and around the country about how we can sustain and strengthen our country's two federally-funded health insurance programs - Medicaid and Medicare - even while we rein in our budget deficit.

Note Senator Bingaman's characterization of who pays for government health programs. "Federally funded?" Surely, the Senator knows the source of "federal funds." Is it possible he's trying a bit of sleight of hand?

2. Medicare and Medicaid are extremely important to New Mexico. Medicare pays for the bulk of health care provided for Americans age 65 and older as well as people with disabilities; about 300,000 New Mexicans are enrolled in Medicare.

"Medicare pays?" No. Earners pay. Through their taxes. Why does Senator Bingaman ignore the fact that taxpayers pay those costs?

Out of New Mexico's population of 2.1 million, with only about 1/3 the population being producers/earners and about 9% of these out of work, 300,000 enrollees are a mammoth number. The cost to earners who are expected to foot that bill will be onerous.

Senator Bingaman and his colleagues are adroit at making citizens pay for politician-created problems. Notice how they pretend Medicare is absolutely imperative, the totally essential life and death remedy to care for "the children," "the elderly" and "the disabled." Without Medicare, Senator Bingaman seeks to convince us, these helpless and dependent souls would horribly suffer for eons and/or die in a New York minute.

3. As we take the necessary steps to address our budget deficit . . .

The budget deficit is not ours. It is Senator Bingaman's and his colleagues'. They are the ones who voted for the reckless spending, the stimulus packages, the bailouts and buy-outs and forced lending and approval of risky loans and "affordable housing" and implemented Fannie Mae and Freddie Max corruption. They created it. Let them dig into their own pockets and pay for it.

But, of course, for Senator Bingaman and all such politicians, such an idea is not de rigueur.

4. Medicaid primarily provides health care coverage to Americans with low incomes, for example children and the elderly. It will come as a surprise that two-thirds of Medicaid funds go toward care for low-income seniors and the disabled.

Why on earth would anyone be surprised? The entire "affordable" health care law is undisguised robbery of those who earn in order to support those who do not. It's not about the children and seniors and the disabled. It's about politicians' lust to control the entire medical industry, including pharmaceuticals and insurance. It's a wholesale attack on the medical profession and the innumerable charitable foundations and organizations---to which Americans generously give---in order to place those skills and those funds under government control.

5. I believe we must ensure that the burden of sacrifice is shared broadly and not placed largely on the backs of our most vulnerable populations, such as seniors and children.

Seniors and children are our most vulnerable? Not true. With the numerous taxes, regulations, restrictions, guidelines, ruled by thousands of agencies and thousands of bureaucrats, our most vulnerable population is producers/earners. They are the ones who work to create values that we all need and buy. They are the most burdened with government's intrusive laws, which make them virtually helpless, vulnerable to any government official's whim demanding bribes, "kickbacks" and the like. Our businesspeople are the ones who take the risks and sink or swim on their own judgement. Who is it that goes down the drain if they are not protected? The entire nation, including the children and the elderly.

You can bet that politicians who are paid salaries 3 to 4 times more than the average earner most assuredly will not carry on their backs "the children" and "the elderly." Instead, as the Senator amply makes clear, it is earners that must bear the "burden of sacrifice." Why?

The call for producers/earners to "sacrifice" has worn thin. Senator Bingaman and his colleagues, snug in their taxpayer financed retirements, taxpayer financed pensions and self-exempt status, continue to demand that producers/earners "sacrifice"---counting on that word like some holy moral principle that will work its magic by making producers and earners feel guilty if they protest. Politicians such as Senator Bingaman seek to flood taxpayers with guilt should anyone dare say they have not the slightest interest in using their hard-earned money to help strangers when they want instead to help their own higher values, their loved ones.

The demand for sacrifice is long past needing to be expunged as a solution to politically generated problems. In the name of common sense and the well being of those who work and work and work and pay and pay and pay, the demand for sacrifice must be ended. Senator Bingaman and his colleagues created the problems. They should solve them without demanding that taxpayers' "sacrfice."

Congress voted for and created terrible problems as a result of their own negligence and excesses and lack of aforethought. They should cease demanding that earners/producers "sacrifice" to save politician's rear ends.

Determined to make producers/earners pay for politician's errors of judgement, Senator Bingaman of course is not at all in favor of Paul Ryan's proposed budget. He claims Paul Ryan's proposal does "not require a shared burden"---by which he means: not enough sacrifice.

There is more to object to and reject in Senator Bingaman's Newsletter. However, nothing Mr. Bingaman says is new or news or even a letter. It is a prolonged complaint that earners pay for Congress' devastating mistakes and dreadfully bad judgement.

I hope producers/earners say, "No way."