I can't imagine I'm the only Gen X Plusser here whose default reaction to these outbreaks is something like "Eh, what's the big deal? I got mumps, measles, rubella AND chicken pox as a kid, and the worst that happened was a week's holiday from school each time, but now it gets reported in the NEWS??"
You had all four? I'm a late baby boomer and I only had chickenpox. I was vaccinated against measles in 1965 and re-vaccinated in 1977 because that early vaccine didn't last (everyone vaccinated in the mid-60s should have their immune titres tested). There were posters in doctors' offices when I was a kid encouraging people to be vaccinated against rubella because it causes miscarriage at a very high rate; I was vaccinated in 1970. Mumps is apparently not that big a deal unless you're a man housed in close quarters; wikipedia says it was a big problem for soldiers in WWI, debilitated by painful testicular swelling, a common complication for men. So did you really have all four? And do you really think they're all no big deal? The painful testicular swelling affects 10-40% of males past puberty.
There are lots of things people shrug off. I had something as an infant that gave me a very high fever -- might have been mumps (Mom was always vague about it, and my shot records show no mumps vaccine). I was treated with an antibiotic, I got over it, no big deal. But a high fever at the right time disrupts tooth formation. All of my permanent teeth came in deformed, with big pits and soft enamel. (Added bonus: the tetracycline left a dark line across every tooth.) My teeth all had to be filled before I got caries, and most are now crowned. Some are on their second crowns, and one on its third (crowns don't last forever). There will be more, and the one I had a couple months ago was $1175 with insurance. Every crowned tooth is more likely to need a root canal. I've only had one so far, but I've been told to budget for more. Do I wish there had been a vaccine for whatever I had? YES.
I would like to see Blue States develop resident-only programs to help their citizens reduce their Federal Tax liabilities as much as possible. Let Red States actually pay their own way and take up the slack for this MAGA legislative abomination.
Thanks for nothing, <unprintable>. You do know--or don't you?--that the large cities in the Red States tend to swing blue?
We'll have plenty of suffering here, all right, without you wishing more of it on me and mine.
@The_Riv should correct me if I'm wrong, but if memory serves he lives in a red state. As a resident of California, I have a lot of sympathy with his view. The rest of the US is basically living off of California, Massachusetts, and New Jersey. The_Riv isn't necessarily wishing suffering on red state residents; politics in red states might change for the better if they couldn't count on federal subsidies that they currently take for granted. If FEMA isn't there during storm season, for instance, they might place more value on the federal government.
As bad as this bill is (and so many other things are), I did read something really positive about the current moment, about how the pre-emptive pushback by people, many of them white US citizens, is something the US didn't see in previous purges (eg., Operation Wetback, the 1929-39 "repatriations" of Mexican Americans, the internment of Japanese Americans during WW2).
I should have controlled my temper. Yes, we're facing hell here already as a result of Trump and his policies, and I'm frankly terrified about what's coming down on us now that this bill has passed; but nobody's obliged to be concerned about my community.
I'm willing to ask the questions, because like you, I don't know "the laws governing municipalities in all 50 states." And political realities, even strong, seemingly insurmountable ones, aren't permanent. That's one thing we remembered and celebrated yesterday.
Well, I don't know if it's a political reality, so much as it is a legal one. Even if the political will existed in a city to help the residents avoid paying federal taxes, and even if they put such a law on the books, my assumption would be that the federal government would still maintain the power to collect those taxes, and to use neccesary police power to enforce the levies when the tax-dodging crosses over into criminality.
IOW no law passed at the municipal level is going to be binding on the federal government in this regard.
I mean, it would be enough if CA/NY/IL did all they could to reduce their residents' federal taxes. CA is what, now -- the 4th largest economy on the planet?
I don't think there's really anything California can do to reduce Californians' federal taxes -- maybe fund TurboTax or the like for everyone to make sure people get all their deductions. Or give people state tax credits for paying given amounts of federal taxes, but that would cut into the state budget, and we have a $12 billion state budget deficit. The legislature has already voted to stop enrolling adult immigrants with no legal status in Medi-Cal (healthcare program for low-income residents), cutting off a benefit they only started receiving last year. In a year, all adult non-citizens will lose dental benefits, and in two years, most adults will start paying a $30/mo premium. So our bid for universal healthcare was short-lived, and it was over even before the Big Ugly Bill.
So maybe CA state taxes, already among the highest in the country, should be higher? IMO, only if the state magically starts being well-run.
I'm willing to ask the questions, because like you, I don't know "the laws governing municipalities in all 50 states." And political realities, even strong, seemingly insurmountable ones, aren't permanent. That's one thing we remembered and celebrated yesterday.
Well, I don't know if it's a political reality, so much as it is a legal one. Even if the political will existed in a city to help the residents avoid paying federal taxes, and even if they put such a law on the books, my assumption would be that the federal government would still maintain the power to collect those taxes, and to use neccesary police power to enforce the levies when the tax-dodging crosses over into criminality.
IOW no law passed at the municipal level is going to be binding on the federal government in this regard.
Whoa, there, @stetson — no one is suggesting any state or municipality help residents avoid paying federal taxes. I’m only suggesting that if there are people in blue places who are paying more than they legally ought, then perhaps those blue places could provide services or mechanisms to help residents reduce that liability, and perhaps there could be other measures taken to redirect that federal overpayment toward more locally-oriented progressive measures. I dunno. I’m spitballing. These are not exhaustively researched and definitive findings. We’ll now have to reap the whirlwind of this ghastly bill. What can we do to mitigate?
Honestly, all I could see municipalities doing is stuff like setting up free tax-consultants to help residents ensure that they're not paying more taxes than they need to, claiming all relevant deductions etc. Basically, what H & R Block now does for a fee.
And the basis for your knowledge about what American municipalities can and can’t do is . . . ?
Well, I'm assuming the power to levy federal taxes is constitutionally granted to the federal government, and hence any law passed by a municipality saying "No, actually we're the ones who get the final say on what our residents have to pay to the feds" would eventually be invalidated by the courts?
Sure, but what was being discussed was states and municipalities “mak[ing] make every effort to help its residents reduce their Federal tax liability as much as possible to be able to help redirect and fund progressive policies and programs on their local level.” That’s potentially a different and much more complicated thing than municipalities claiming to have the final say over whether their residents have to pay in federal taxes.
But those are all concepts about what states might do. I was responding to a specific assertion about what municipalities, specifically blue municipalities in red states, might do.
I don’t have anything against spitballing. But I generally don’t find spitballing that is divorced from political realities a satisfying alternative to rolling over into a fetal position.
I'm willing to ask the questions, because like you, I don't know "the laws governing municipalities in all 50 states." And political realities, even strong, seemingly insurmountable ones, aren't permanent. That's one thing we remembered and celebrated yesterday.
Yes, but then the spitballing becomes something more than a simple “a municipality can/could.” The spitballing acknowledges that the “can/could” in question involves an “if” regarding willingness to upend in some way the political order.
So while it may be theoretically true that blue municipalities can make every effort to help its residents reduce their federal tax liability as much as possible to be able to help redirect and fund progressive policies and programs on their local level, practically speaking the “every effort” they have authority to make may be little to nothing.
Even theoretically, what exactly could municipalities do to reduce residents federal tax liabilities?
To be honest, I’m not sure there’s anything they can do where I live. I was holding open the possibility that there may be things a municipality can do elsewhere. Hence “may be theoretically true.”
Thanks. I guess you meant that in theory municipalities have the legal right to do something, but what exactly that would be seems beyond my imagination.
I meant what I said. I do not know the laws governing municipalities in all 50 states, so I am not going to make a blanket, definitive statement about what American municipalities can and cannot do. My imagination had nothing to do with it.
Just to be clear, "...my imagination..." referred to MY imagination, ie. Stetson's. That is, you might be correct that municipalities could theoretically pass such laws, but I can't imagine what those would be.
And, yes, you're correct that I don't know every single municipal law in the USA. But I think I've got the gist of federal tax law well enough to assume there's nothing in it that would obligate the federal government to go along with the municipalities, whatever laws the municipalities may pass.
I would like to see Blue States develop resident-only programs to help their citizens reduce their Federal Tax liabilities as much as possible. Let Red States actually pay their own way and take up the slack for this MAGA legislative abomination.
Thanks for nothing, <unprintable>. You do know--or don't you?--that the large cities in the Red States tend to swing blue?
We'll have plenty of suffering here, all right, without you wishing more of it on me and mine.
Might want to get some help with that martyrdom complex. For Christ's sake I'm not thinking of you, @Lamb Chopped, when I type here, and the sanctimony that often seems to pepper your comments toward me in response don't help me do so all that endearingly. Not that you care, which is perfectly fine, of course.
Hostly beret on
@The_Riv the above is a personal attack. Desist or take it to hell please.
But I think I've got the gist of federal tax law well enough to assume there's nothing in it that would obligate the federal government to go along with the municipalities, whatever laws the municipalities may pass.
Which, so far as I’ve seen, no one has actually suggested.
But I think I've got the gist of federal tax law well enough to assume there's nothing in it that would obligate the federal government to go along with the municipalities, whatever laws the municipalities may pass.
Which, so far as I’ve seen, no one has actually suggested.
Well, unless I'm misunderstanding @The_Riv's proposal, it would implicitly require federal compliance in order to work. There's no point in saying that municipalities should help their residents withhold federal taxes, if the IRS just refuses to recognize the resultant assessments.
But I think I've got the gist of federal tax law well enough to assume there's nothing in it that would obligate the federal government to go along with the municipalities, whatever laws the municipalities may pass.
Which, so far as I’ve seen, no one has actually suggested.
Well, unless I'm misunderstanding @The_Riv's proposal, it would implicitly require federal compliance in order to work. There's no point in saying that municipalities should help their residents withhold federal taxes, if the IRS just refuses to recognize the resultant assessments.
I think you are misunderstanding @The_Riv. I understand him to have explicitly said that’s not what he’s suggesting.
But I think I've got the gist of federal tax law well enough to assume there's nothing in it that would obligate the federal government to go along with the municipalities, whatever laws the municipalities may pass.
Which, so far as I’ve seen, no one has actually suggested.
Well, unless I'm misunderstanding @The_Riv's proposal, it would implicitly require federal compliance in order to work. There's no point in saying that municipalities should help their residents withhold federal taxes, if the IRS just refuses to recognize the resultant assessments.
I think you are misunderstanding @The_Riv. I understand him to have explicitly said that’s not what he’s suggesting.
Think yer a smart guy, eh?
And you are! Smarter than me anyway. Believe it or not, I had totally missed that post. Apologies to @The_Riv.
And yeah, as I said with my H & R Block reference, that's something that could be done. Though I don't know how much extra revenue it would bring in, plus some people paying taxes to the municipality might object to funding a free tax-service, if the savings are just gonna be channeled into local spending rather than back to the taxpayer for beer and porn.
A key problem is NOT states, municipalities or counties working to reduce the federal taxes its citizens are paying, but the president withholding authorized federal remittances back to said entities because of their progressive agendas. As pointed out said entities cannot do anything to the federal payments going into the IRS, but I am not sure if the big ugly bill empowers the president to continue to impound critical funds. Just this past week, the man impounded close to 7 billion in funds that should have been released to schools by July 1. Story here.
I’m only suggesting that if there are people in blue places who are paying more than they legally ought, then perhaps those blue places could provide services or mechanisms to help residents reduce that liability, and perhaps there could be other measures taken to redirect that federal overpayment toward more locally-oriented progressive measures. I dunno. I’m spitballing. These are not exhaustively researched and definitive findings.
I think this is a non-starter. Most people who pay a decent percentage of their income to the federal government do it through payroll withholding, and if they overpay because too much is withheld, it's refunded to them. If people are somehow really overpaying to the federal government because they're overlooking credits they're eligible for or something like that, they're not going to sign up for a state mechanism that re-directs that money to the state - they'll want that money for themselves, and rightfully so. Why should people who've been paying too much to the IRS turn around and give that extra money to the state tax board instead? Especially in states that already have high taxes and a high cost of living?
We’ll now have to reap the whirlwind of this ghastly bill. What can we do to mitigate?
State legislatures are going to have to figure out how much they want to or can offset the federal cuts and how much they want to/can pass those cuts on to their residents. The answers will vary, but the reality is that things will suck for some people even in comparatively rich blue states.
California has a huge economy. We also have huge wealth inequality. We are a net donor to the federal government because we have a fair number of rich people paying taxes. We also have a lot of poor people. According to the CA Hospital Association, 38% of the population is on Medicaid, 50% in rural counties, 50% of all children. The difference between California and the federal government is that the feds can literally print money, while California must balance its budget.
@stetson - I don't know where you were living that you didn't get vaccinated, but I don't know any American my age (62) or younger who had mumps, measles, rubella, and chickenpox.
My experience with vaccination was in Alberta. Generally considered one of the more conservative provinces, but I doubt ideology had anything to do with it, since we did get the polio, whooping cough etc shots, and I don't think anti-vax was an ideological thing at that time and place. Maybe MMR just wasn't a priority for distribution through the schools, due to the lower complication/fatality rates.
And yeah, I should partially retract my blanket claim that Gen X Plussers have a near-universal experience of the standard childhood viruses. Maybe MMR vaccination in those days was one of those things like fluoridation of water, some places do it, some places don't? Or Alberta truly was a backwater, but again, we had the other vaccines.
You should totally retract generalizing from your own experience in a different country when discussing the US (again). Measles cases in the US plummeted between 1963, when the measles vaccine was first administered, and 1968, when the oldest Gen X-ers turned 3. It was not administered in schools; the first dose was given to infants, still the case for the MMR.
You should totally retract generalizing from your own experience in a different country when discussing the US (again). Measles cases in the US plummeted between 1963, when the measles vaccine was first administered, and 1968, when the oldest Gen X-ers turned 3. It was not administered in schools; the first dose was given to infants, still the case for the MMR.
I didn't get mumps, but I think I got the other three--in California in the late 1960s and early 70s, with a nurse for a mother. Not sure how that was let to happen, given she usually used us as pincushions. I mean, I got a tetanus shot every freaking year, as I managed to injure myself like kids do--and she didn't track vaccination dates and wouldn't believe us kids when we said we'd just have one. So I'm pretty sure I can walk down the street and clear the neighborhood of tetanus just by being there, even now.
I should be careful about generalizing from my experience too - my dad was a doctor who was absolutely on top of stuff like this, and the Air Force sent my parents and me to Okinawa before I turned 1, so there was someone besides my parents checking on my vaccinations. A certain Col. Rudolph M.D. signed off on a bunch of my early childhood shots - my dad's commanding officer.
This will likely come across as a tanget, but today I heard a sermon that addressed some of my concerns. It was based on Jeremiah 29, where Jeremiah tells the people in exile to build houses, have kids. God says the exile will be for 70 years, but God will remain with the people. Point is, even though we will be going through tough times. God is still with us. Title of the sermon, These are the Days.
I am in my 80s, and I got mumps, measles, rubella, whooping cough and chickenpox. I saw my classmates crippled from polio, and one died from complications of measles. I think part of the problem of people not wanting vaccinations is they have no life experiences of these diseases, and do not understand how serious they can be.
I was vaccinated. I remember reading as a child one of the stories in the My Naughty Little Sister books, the Sister gets measles and has to stay in bed for a few days and a neighbor gives her some new toys to play with. Obviously as it was a young children's book it wasn't going to say that measles could be dangerous so the impression I got was that it wasn't any more threatening than chicken pox. That may be another source of the misapprehension.
The brother of a former girlfriend, he was a keen rugby player, about ten years my junior, was very ill with complications from measles and lost the use of his legs.
When I was a kid, we had the Childcraft collection of books, published by the WorldBook people. The first book was little poems with nifty illustrations, two of which were humourous odes to mumps and measles, respectively.
One thing that people don't always appreciate is that people often are ashamed of disability, and I think this used to be a lot more intense, especially in America with the "frontier" culture. When you're living close to survival, nobody wants to be thought of as a liability because they'll just decide to cut you off. So you hide weakness, you hide deformity as much as you can. You just don't talk about it.
And even without that, it's awkward. It's uncomfortable. It doesn't fit in when you want to do fun things and there's that one relative that just...can't. My mom was one of those.
So, yeah, I can see how a lot of these stories were probably hush hush back in the day.
But yeah, if you do even a little serious investigation, there are a lot of quiet nightmares hidden behind stoic faces.
I think this is one reason "kids these days" my age and younger tend to boldly share a lot of awkward content about mental health and disability, because we've caught too much off the horror from our parents and grandparents and do not wish to pass it on to our kids.
And it makes me truly enraged as a father to see us being dragged back.
This will likely come across as a tanget, but today I heard a sermon that addressed some of my concerns. It was based on Jeremiah 29, where Jeremiah tells the people in exile to build houses, have kids. God says the exile will be for 70 years, but God will remain with the people. Point is, even though we will be going through tough times. God is still with us. Title of the sermon, These are the Days.
God was presumably with the little girls who died in the flooding in Texas. And is still with the people being tortured in CECOT. And with the people in Gaza. My concerns remain unaddressed.
This will likely come across as a tanget, but today I heard a sermon that addressed some of my concerns. It was based on Jeremiah 29, where Jeremiah tells the people in exile to build houses, have kids. God says the exile will be for 70 years, but God will remain with the people. Point is, even though we will be going through tough times. God is still with us. Title of the sermon, These are the Days.
God was presumably with the little girls who died in the flooding in Texas. And is still with the people being tortured in CECOT. And with the people in Gaza. My concerns remain unaddressed.
I said, some of my concerns. It is a very dark day for the families who lost loved ones in Texas, and the men being tortured at CECOT, and then there is Gaza. But, if anything, the sermon encouraged me not to give up the fight. It still continues.
My personal forecast is that I will have an increased amount of shitty paperwork as our vulnerable people get thrown out of various programs (why yes, this DOES happen without reason, and it takes roughly 40 hours per family to get them reinstated just because somebody somewhere was trying to reach a quota of de-enrollments when they're actually still eligible!). Guess who has to do the 40 hours? Grrrrrrrrrr.
Saying this happens without reason is ignoring that throwing people out of programs is the reason for increased paperwork requirements in laws like this. When Republicans talk about "waste", what they mean is that it's a waste to spend money helping poor people. The whole purpose of erecting paper barriers is that a lot of people don't have forty spare hours to spend regaining benefits to which they're entitled and don't know anyone like @Lamb Chopped who can do it on their behalf. Everywhere else work requirements, or other increased paperwork, has been implemented those removed from the rolls were almost all eligible for the benefits they had been receiving, even under the new rules. They just couldn't keep up with the second (third? fourth?) job of filing all the correct paperwork.
You had all four? I'm a late baby boomer and I only had chickenpox. I was vaccinated against measles in 1965 and re-vaccinated in 1977 because that early vaccine didn't last (everyone vaccinated in the mid-60s should have their immune titres tested).
I fell into the same category with my measles vaccine. When I was completing my degree at a land grant college they wouldn't let me graduate until I'd received a measles booster because the one I'd received as a child was from an early batch that was no longer considered reliable. I'm not sure the same legal requirement would be enforced today.
Yah, I think there's a willful detachment where Republicans will say on principle that they want to "cut costs" and "be efficient." And they just assume that the world must be "fair," that if you just do this, then of course the results will shake down appropriately and you don't have to think about it too hard, right?
Trouble is that taking care of people with even moderate disabilities is always a money sink, economically, so there is no way to run on "efficiency" and "cost-effectiveness" in a short-sighted fashion without cutting a lot of people out of the economy, full stop.
And I've even had this conversation with a few people, and their cow-like inability to even comprehend how siloing disabled people into a separate health insurance programme is effectively consigning people to misery and death is mind-boggling to me.
Again, some people just don't understand weakness until it's them personally, and by the time it's there, it's too late.
I was thinking about the Texas flash flood where a bunch of people died and how they could've spent the money to set up some kind of warning system, and they decided it wasn't worth the money. And I think that a lot of people, small people in small towns teach themselves that they're just not worth it. Economically, they're not worth it until they're making enough money to justify the expense. So they shortchange themselves and when something awful happens, it's just an act of God. God must keep the balance, somehow.
And so, deep down, they assume this death is the natural order, close their eyes, and pray.
Anselm has a lot to answer for, making God enslaved to some higher accountant, incapable of providing grace without paying for it in blood.
I'm still a Christian somehow, but even if I empathize, this kind of theology makes me rather upset, especially when it gets people killed.
I was actually thinking, not just of increased paperwork, but of people (like one family I know) who were routinely dumped out of the system altogether for no stated reason, forcing a completely new application--essentially repeating the same damn stuff every year. (I began keeping copies from the previous year just to make it faster). We went through years of this foolishness before the children became adults and took over most of their parents' paperwork needs.
And now I've got a woman who missed her citizenship interview back in May (for good reason) and we simply can't get Immigration to give us the same answer twice on what happens now. She's probably dying, so it's not likely to matter long term; but she wasn't when this started, and getting three different letters/phone calls on the subject, telling us three different things to do, well....
No doubt I need to go have a cup of tea or something.
I was actually thinking, not just of increased paperwork, but of people (like one family I know) who were routinely dumped out of the system altogether for no stated reason, forcing a completely new application--essentially repeating the same damn stuff every year. (I began keeping copies from the previous year just to make it faster). We went through years of this foolishness before the children became adults and took over most of their parents' paperwork needs.
And now I've got a woman who missed her citizenship interview back in May (for good reason) and we simply can't get Immigration to give us the same answer twice on what happens now. She's probably dying, so it's not likely to matter long term; but she wasn't when this started, and getting three different letters/phone calls on the subject, telling us three different things to do, well....
No doubt I need to go have a cup of tea or something.
One thing I recognize, per Kafka, is that what makes logic at one end of the system can create absolute insanity at the other. So politicians will make choices according to their logic, and the taxpayers' logic, and this will create literal insanity for the recipients.
I think a wise politician understands that there is a need to balance all of these interest and try to serve people appropriately, and to minimize the bureaucratic hell. And there will always be some of that for some people because of...lots of unfortunate reasons.
Alas, we are not in a time of wise politicians. And some of them are, I think, actively malicious.
Thanks. I guess you meant that in theory municipalities have the legal right to do something, but what exactly that would be seems beyond my imagination. If the federal tax laws dictate that I will owe X number of dollars in the next tax season, there doesn't seem to me a way for city government to alter that outcome.
There are, in theory, games you can play with cost-of-living. If a city had, for example, free public transportation, then people working and living in the city wouldn't need to spend money on transportation, so could accept a lower wage, and so pay less federal tax.
On the small scale, these kinds of things are pretty vulnerable to arbitrage, though.
Trouble is that taking care of people with even moderate disabilities is always a money sink, economically, so there is no way to run on "efficiency" and "cost-effectiveness" in a short-sighted fashion without cutting a lot of people out of the economy, full stop.
So, are you saying, paying for their health needs, developing their skills base, taking care of adequate housing losses money?
I would argue providing housing, developing skills, and ensuring health care needs will actually save money in the long run, even provide a return on investment since the person would be paying taxes and helping to improve the lives of others. This study shows that while it may cost around $16,000 per person per year to place a person in housing and cover other needs, the median benefit would be around $18,000 per year.
Trouble is that taking care of people with even moderate disabilities is always a money sink, economically, so there is no way to run on "efficiency" and "cost-effectiveness" in a short-sighted fashion without cutting a lot of people out of the economy, full stop.
So, are you saying, paying for their health needs, developing their skills base, taking care of adequate housing losses money?
I would argue providing housing, developing skills, and ensuring health care needs will actually save money in the long run, even provide a return on investment since the person would be paying taxes and helping to improve the lives of others. This study shows that while it may cost around $16,000 per person per year to place a person in housing and cover other needs, the median benefit would be around $18,000 per year.
No, I'm not saying that. If you really think I'm saying that, you clearly don't read my posts very much. Wow.
Though I think there are different populations to speak of. And I do think I overstated in that particular paragraph, probably skewed somewhat by my own personal and professional experience. I have spent a lot of my life in contact with people who...sorry, they're not going to turn into taxpayers. You can't train them to the point of holding down jobs. Some folks are still in diapers at 50. Some still need to be fed, hand to mouth, can barely speak.
I think I agree with your paragraph, and it's a very popular argument to emphasize "yes, this is more cost effective than you think!" by emphasizing job training, emphasizing the folks who can do jobs and, with a lot of support, achieve measures of independence. And that is a world worth investing in and fighting for. And I think, on the margins, there are collective savings in the long run, socially speaking.
But I'm wary of that logic because I also recognize the shadow of fear for people who aren't lucrative. Some people refuse housing. Some people are more seriously disabled and for various reasons aren't going to stabilize, either for lack of will or other capacity.
And it will always cost.
On another level, I think another difficulty we have is that America especially is very individualized, and Americans tend to think of "my territory" before "our territory." And so the socialized cost of supporting someone feels greater than the socialized gain of their support, it might feel cheaper to make everything simpler and just leave people on their own. Of course, this does create costs in the long run...yeah. I agree with you there. But I fear the kind of stupid people who are currently ascendant may have to learn that one the hard way, and then they'll go yearning for more police. Because violence is easier and just makes "the problem" "go away."
Pardon me if I'm a bit cynical. I agree with your vision, but I often feel obliged to reckon with the world that I live in and grapple with it. And I sometimes speak from what I understand of political reality, even if it disagrees with me.
This will likely come across as a tanget, but today I heard a sermon that addressed some of my concerns. It was based on Jeremiah 29, where Jeremiah tells the people in exile to build houses, have kids. God says the exile will be for 70 years, but God will remain with the people. Point is, even though we will be going through tough times. God is still with us. Title of the sermon, These are the Days.
God was presumably with the little girls who died in the flooding in Texas. And is still with the people being tortured in CECOT. And with the people in Gaza. My concerns remain unaddressed.
Or, God determined that all of these thing should happen exactly as they did/are. Like the story of the man born blind, who didn't sin, nor did his parents, but according to Jesus his blindness was for the express purpose of 'displaying the works of God.'
Trouble is that taking care of people with even moderate disabilities is always a money sink, economically, so there is no way to run on "efficiency" and "cost-effectiveness" in a short-sighted fashion without cutting a lot of people out of the economy, full stop.
But I'm wary of that logic because I also recognize the shadow of fear for people who aren't lucrative. Some people refuse housing. Some people are more seriously disabled and for various reasons aren't going to stabilize, either for lack of will or other capacity.
Ah, the convenience of easily portable goalposts! When most of us read the phrase "moderate disabilities" we typically think of a disability that can be mostly or wholly mitigated through some kind of intervention; a wheelchair ramp, a prosthetic leg, prescription drugs, etc. At the low end of moderate disability mitigations we could even list prescription eyeglasses, something we tend to take for granted given how commonplace they are in the modern world and yet for millions they represent the dividing line between functional adult and unable to perform many key tasks. When you start talking about people that can't function well even with massive interventions most of us would think that crosses the line from "moderate disabilities" to "more seriously disabled". If you're going to draw that distinction differently than almost everyone else I don't think the problem is with your readers.
On what basis do you claim this is what "most of us" and "almost everyone else" think, @Crœsos?
Yeah. I'll be honest and say I'm not entirely sure what @Crœsos is coming at me with here.
[OK, having posted all that, I see what he's picking at, and I think I answered it...as noted, I hate the way people differentiate disabilities, within the field it's forever a touchy topic and often rather insulting even if it's an unavoidable topic if you want to talk about people who can be accommodated to a greater or lesser extent with adaptive equipment. That was a fair point.]
I'm perfectly aware of what he's describing, perhaps more than he realizes. I spend a lot of time near the bottom of the functional scale professionally. And I do take these topics rather personally. Folks who watch me post may notice.
My concern was responding to a post by @Gramps49 that seemed to say that disabled people were worth the investment because they can be trained up to providing a return on investment.
The conversation as to how much disability qualifies as "severe" or "moderate" is touchy as hell and, truthfully, I should've probably put more care into my phrasing (mea culpa) but it remains true that there will always be a chunk of people with disabilities who are not going to pay for themselves. Logically, this creates a problem for people who want to fund disabled people on the basis of "well, they'll pay for themselves if we give them enough effort, right?"
Some of them don't. I care for some of these personally. What will you do then?
I do not type these words from calloused indifference or spits crass ableism. It's an honest question given political reality. If you want to support people, you have to be willing to do it even when it isn't economically expedient. You can't just do it because it feels good.
[Final snark removed because it seems to have been inspired by a miscommunication that has been corrected at my end.]
Do you have a reasonable case for the morality of God's behavior toward the blind man and his parents? Are you okay with a human being enduring a lifelong affliction for the mere sake of being a human prop?
I happen to be disabled, and my disability forms a significant part of my ministry. I'm okay with that. Yes, I have chronic pain, and yes, it prevents me from doing a bunch of things I'd really like to do. But I count it a privilege to be able to do what I do as a result of the disability, and I'm not in a fight with God about it, and I suspect if you could ask the man born blind how he felt about it, he'd say the same. He certainly doesn't appear to be angry in the story. And he has the right to his own reaction.
There is no doubt questions like this are difficult. We can give some answers but they feel inadequate and cliched.
I was born with severe epilepsy, very severe but grew out of it. Did God make me like that?
The late Senator Dirkson, who was often ill but showed up anyway, said, "Much of the world's important work is done by people who are not well." I'm not sure if this is the exact quote, but as a teenager, it impressed me to always soldier on.
Comments
I should have controlled my temper. Yes, we're facing hell here already as a result of Trump and his policies, and I'm frankly terrified about what's coming down on us now that this bill has passed; but nobody's obliged to be concerned about my community.
Well, I don't know if it's a political reality, so much as it is a legal one. Even if the political will existed in a city to help the residents avoid paying federal taxes, and even if they put such a law on the books, my assumption would be that the federal government would still maintain the power to collect those taxes, and to use neccesary police power to enforce the levies when the tax-dodging crosses over into criminality.
IOW no law passed at the municipal level is going to be binding on the federal government in this regard.
I don't think there's really anything California can do to reduce Californians' federal taxes -- maybe fund TurboTax or the like for everyone to make sure people get all their deductions. Or give people state tax credits for paying given amounts of federal taxes, but that would cut into the state budget, and we have a $12 billion state budget deficit. The legislature has already voted to stop enrolling adult immigrants with no legal status in Medi-Cal (healthcare program for low-income residents), cutting off a benefit they only started receiving last year. In a year, all adult non-citizens will lose dental benefits, and in two years, most adults will start paying a $30/mo premium. So our bid for universal healthcare was short-lived, and it was over even before the Big Ugly Bill.
So maybe CA state taxes, already among the highest in the country, should be higher? IMO, only if the state magically starts being well-run.
Whoa, there, @stetson — no one is suggesting any state or municipality help residents avoid paying federal taxes. I’m only suggesting that if there are people in blue places who are paying more than they legally ought, then perhaps those blue places could provide services or mechanisms to help residents reduce that liability, and perhaps there could be other measures taken to redirect that federal overpayment toward more locally-oriented progressive measures. I dunno. I’m spitballing. These are not exhaustively researched and definitive findings. We’ll now have to reap the whirlwind of this ghastly bill. What can we do to mitigate?
Yes, but then the spitballing becomes something more than a simple “a municipality can/could.” The spitballing acknowledges that the “can/could” in question involves an “if” regarding willingness to upend in some way the political order.
Just to be clear, "...my imagination..." referred to MY imagination, ie. Stetson's. That is, you might be correct that municipalities could theoretically pass such laws, but I can't imagine what those would be.
And, yes, you're correct that I don't know every single municipal law in the USA. But I think I've got the gist of federal tax law well enough to assume there's nothing in it that would obligate the federal government to go along with the municipalities, whatever laws the municipalities may pass.
Hostly beret on
@The_Riv the above is a personal attack. Desist or take it to hell please.
Hostly beret off
la vie en rouge, Purgatory host
Well, unless I'm misunderstanding @The_Riv's proposal, it would implicitly require federal compliance in order to work. There's no point in saying that municipalities should help their residents withhold federal taxes, if the IRS just refuses to recognize the resultant assessments.
Think yer a smart guy, eh?
And yeah, as I said with my H & R Block reference, that's something that could be done. Though I don't know how much extra revenue it would bring in, plus some people paying taxes to the municipality might object to funding a free tax-service, if the savings are just gonna be channeled into local spending rather than back to the taxpayer for beer and porn.
I think this is a non-starter. Most people who pay a decent percentage of their income to the federal government do it through payroll withholding, and if they overpay because too much is withheld, it's refunded to them. If people are somehow really overpaying to the federal government because they're overlooking credits they're eligible for or something like that, they're not going to sign up for a state mechanism that re-directs that money to the state - they'll want that money for themselves, and rightfully so. Why should people who've been paying too much to the IRS turn around and give that extra money to the state tax board instead? Especially in states that already have high taxes and a high cost of living?
State legislatures are going to have to figure out how much they want to or can offset the federal cuts and how much they want to/can pass those cuts on to their residents. The answers will vary, but the reality is that things will suck for some people even in comparatively rich blue states.
California has a huge economy. We also have huge wealth inequality. We are a net donor to the federal government because we have a fair number of rich people paying taxes. We also have a lot of poor people. According to the CA Hospital Association, 38% of the population is on Medicaid, 50% in rural counties, 50% of all children. The difference between California and the federal government is that the feds can literally print money, while California must balance its budget.
The only thing that I think will ultimately make a difference is making people like David Valadao (Republican from a rural CA Congressional district) wear their votes for things that are actively cruel to their constituents. When rural clinics close, when people die, it will be his fault. There's already a billboard up: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/billboard-near-fresno-criticizes-us-rep-david-valadaos-vote-for-medi-cal-cuts/ar-AA1HV0Ma
@stetson - I don't know where you were living that you didn't get vaccinated, but I don't know any American my age (62) or younger who had mumps, measles, rubella, and chickenpox.
My experience with vaccination was in Alberta. Generally considered one of the more conservative provinces, but I doubt ideology had anything to do with it, since we did get the polio, whooping cough etc shots, and I don't think anti-vax was an ideological thing at that time and place. Maybe MMR just wasn't a priority for distribution through the schools, due to the lower complication/fatality rates.
Okay. Totally retracted. I was wrong.
One thing that people don't always appreciate is that people often are ashamed of disability, and I think this used to be a lot more intense, especially in America with the "frontier" culture. When you're living close to survival, nobody wants to be thought of as a liability because they'll just decide to cut you off. So you hide weakness, you hide deformity as much as you can. You just don't talk about it.
And even without that, it's awkward. It's uncomfortable. It doesn't fit in when you want to do fun things and there's that one relative that just...can't. My mom was one of those.
So, yeah, I can see how a lot of these stories were probably hush hush back in the day.
But yeah, if you do even a little serious investigation, there are a lot of quiet nightmares hidden behind stoic faces.
I think this is one reason "kids these days" my age and younger tend to boldly share a lot of awkward content about mental health and disability, because we've caught too much off the horror from our parents and grandparents and do not wish to pass it on to our kids.
And it makes me truly enraged as a father to see us being dragged back.
God was presumably with the little girls who died in the flooding in Texas. And is still with the people being tortured in CECOT. And with the people in Gaza. My concerns remain unaddressed.
I said, some of my concerns. It is a very dark day for the families who lost loved ones in Texas, and the men being tortured at CECOT, and then there is Gaza. But, if anything, the sermon encouraged me not to give up the fight. It still continues.
Saying this happens without reason is ignoring that throwing people out of programs is the reason for increased paperwork requirements in laws like this. When Republicans talk about "waste", what they mean is that it's a waste to spend money helping poor people. The whole purpose of erecting paper barriers is that a lot of people don't have forty spare hours to spend regaining benefits to which they're entitled and don't know anyone like @Lamb Chopped who can do it on their behalf. Everywhere else work requirements, or other increased paperwork, has been implemented those removed from the rolls were almost all eligible for the benefits they had been receiving, even under the new rules. They just couldn't keep up with the second (third? fourth?) job of filing all the correct paperwork.
I fell into the same category with my measles vaccine. When I was completing my degree at a land grant college they wouldn't let me graduate until I'd received a measles booster because the one I'd received as a child was from an early batch that was no longer considered reliable. I'm not sure the same legal requirement would be enforced today.
Trouble is that taking care of people with even moderate disabilities is always a money sink, economically, so there is no way to run on "efficiency" and "cost-effectiveness" in a short-sighted fashion without cutting a lot of people out of the economy, full stop.
And I've even had this conversation with a few people, and their cow-like inability to even comprehend how siloing disabled people into a separate health insurance programme is effectively consigning people to misery and death is mind-boggling to me.
Again, some people just don't understand weakness until it's them personally, and by the time it's there, it's too late.
I was thinking about the Texas flash flood where a bunch of people died and how they could've spent the money to set up some kind of warning system, and they decided it wasn't worth the money. And I think that a lot of people, small people in small towns teach themselves that they're just not worth it. Economically, they're not worth it until they're making enough money to justify the expense. So they shortchange themselves and when something awful happens, it's just an act of God. God must keep the balance, somehow.
And so, deep down, they assume this death is the natural order, close their eyes, and pray.
Anselm has a lot to answer for, making God enslaved to some higher accountant, incapable of providing grace without paying for it in blood.
I'm still a Christian somehow, but even if I empathize, this kind of theology makes me rather upset, especially when it gets people killed.
I was actually thinking, not just of increased paperwork, but of people (like one family I know) who were routinely dumped out of the system altogether for no stated reason, forcing a completely new application--essentially repeating the same damn stuff every year. (I began keeping copies from the previous year just to make it faster). We went through years of this foolishness before the children became adults and took over most of their parents' paperwork needs.
And now I've got a woman who missed her citizenship interview back in May (for good reason) and we simply can't get Immigration to give us the same answer twice on what happens now. She's probably dying, so it's not likely to matter long term; but she wasn't when this started, and getting three different letters/phone calls on the subject, telling us three different things to do, well....
No doubt I need to go have a cup of tea or something.
One thing I recognize, per Kafka, is that what makes logic at one end of the system can create absolute insanity at the other. So politicians will make choices according to their logic, and the taxpayers' logic, and this will create literal insanity for the recipients.
I think a wise politician understands that there is a need to balance all of these interest and try to serve people appropriately, and to minimize the bureaucratic hell. And there will always be some of that for some people because of...lots of unfortunate reasons.
Alas, we are not in a time of wise politicians. And some of them are, I think, actively malicious.
Keep up the good work, these times really suck.
There are, in theory, games you can play with cost-of-living. If a city had, for example, free public transportation, then people working and living in the city wouldn't need to spend money on transportation, so could accept a lower wage, and so pay less federal tax.
On the small scale, these kinds of things are pretty vulnerable to arbitrage, though.
So, are you saying, paying for their health needs, developing their skills base, taking care of adequate housing losses money?
I would argue providing housing, developing skills, and ensuring health care needs will actually save money in the long run, even provide a return on investment since the person would be paying taxes and helping to improve the lives of others. This study shows that while it may cost around $16,000 per person per year to place a person in housing and cover other needs, the median benefit would be around $18,000 per year.
No, I'm not saying that. If you really think I'm saying that, you clearly don't read my posts very much. Wow.
Though I think there are different populations to speak of. And I do think I overstated in that particular paragraph, probably skewed somewhat by my own personal and professional experience. I have spent a lot of my life in contact with people who...sorry, they're not going to turn into taxpayers. You can't train them to the point of holding down jobs. Some folks are still in diapers at 50. Some still need to be fed, hand to mouth, can barely speak.
I think I agree with your paragraph, and it's a very popular argument to emphasize "yes, this is more cost effective than you think!" by emphasizing job training, emphasizing the folks who can do jobs and, with a lot of support, achieve measures of independence. And that is a world worth investing in and fighting for. And I think, on the margins, there are collective savings in the long run, socially speaking.
But I'm wary of that logic because I also recognize the shadow of fear for people who aren't lucrative. Some people refuse housing. Some people are more seriously disabled and for various reasons aren't going to stabilize, either for lack of will or other capacity.
And it will always cost.
On another level, I think another difficulty we have is that America especially is very individualized, and Americans tend to think of "my territory" before "our territory." And so the socialized cost of supporting someone feels greater than the socialized gain of their support, it might feel cheaper to make everything simpler and just leave people on their own. Of course, this does create costs in the long run...yeah. I agree with you there. But I fear the kind of stupid people who are currently ascendant may have to learn that one the hard way, and then they'll go yearning for more police. Because violence is easier and just makes "the problem" "go away."
Pardon me if I'm a bit cynical. I agree with your vision, but I often feel obliged to reckon with the world that I live in and grapple with it. And I sometimes speak from what I understand of political reality, even if it disagrees with me.
Or, God determined that all of these thing should happen exactly as they did/are. Like the story of the man born blind, who didn't sin, nor did his parents, but according to Jesus his blindness was for the express purpose of 'displaying the works of God.'
Sigh ......
Ah, the convenience of easily portable goalposts! When most of us read the phrase "moderate disabilities" we typically think of a disability that can be mostly or wholly mitigated through some kind of intervention; a wheelchair ramp, a prosthetic leg, prescription drugs, etc. At the low end of moderate disability mitigations we could even list prescription eyeglasses, something we tend to take for granted given how commonplace they are in the modern world and yet for millions they represent the dividing line between functional adult and unable to perform many key tasks. When you start talking about people that can't function well even with massive interventions most of us would think that crosses the line from "moderate disabilities" to "more seriously disabled". If you're going to draw that distinction differently than almost everyone else I don't think the problem is with your readers.
Yeah. I'll be honest and say I'm not entirely sure what @Crœsos is coming at me with here.
[OK, having posted all that, I see what he's picking at, and I think I answered it...as noted, I hate the way people differentiate disabilities, within the field it's forever a touchy topic and often rather insulting even if it's an unavoidable topic if you want to talk about people who can be accommodated to a greater or lesser extent with adaptive equipment. That was a fair point.]
I'm perfectly aware of what he's describing, perhaps more than he realizes. I spend a lot of time near the bottom of the functional scale professionally. And I do take these topics rather personally. Folks who watch me post may notice.
My concern was responding to a post by @Gramps49 that seemed to say that disabled people were worth the investment because they can be trained up to providing a return on investment.
The conversation as to how much disability qualifies as "severe" or "moderate" is touchy as hell and, truthfully, I should've probably put more care into my phrasing (mea culpa) but it remains true that there will always be a chunk of people with disabilities who are not going to pay for themselves. Logically, this creates a problem for people who want to fund disabled people on the basis of "well, they'll pay for themselves if we give them enough effort, right?"
Some of them don't. I care for some of these personally. What will you do then?
I do not type these words from calloused indifference or spits crass ableism. It's an honest question given political reality. If you want to support people, you have to be willing to do it even when it isn't economically expedient. You can't just do it because it feels good.
[Final snark removed because it seems to have been inspired by a miscommunication that has been corrected at my end.]
Do you have a reasonable case for the morality of God's behavior toward the blind man and his parents? Are you okay with a human being enduring a lifelong affliction for the mere sake of being a human prop?
And there are more than a few able-bodied people who do.
This is a curious thing.
I don't mean to be flippant, but I don't have time to get my thoughts out properly, so I'll have to settle for this.
I happen to be disabled, and my disability forms a significant part of my ministry. I'm okay with that. Yes, I have chronic pain, and yes, it prevents me from doing a bunch of things I'd really like to do. But I count it a privilege to be able to do what I do as a result of the disability, and I'm not in a fight with God about it, and I suspect if you could ask the man born blind how he felt about it, he'd say the same. He certainly doesn't appear to be angry in the story. And he has the right to his own reaction.
I was born with severe epilepsy, very severe but grew out of it. Did God make me like that?
la vie en rouge, Purgatory host