I'm Just Saying!

Representative Aaron Shock (R, IL) is only twenty-eight, so why doesn't he buy his own health insurance?


Time for a grab bag of end-of-the-year musings;

--If Congress doesn’t see the merits of expanding Medicare to fifty-five-year-old uninsured citizens, shouldn’t Congress require that all its members under the age of 65 must buy private health insurance? That would be most of them; the average representative is 56 and the average senator is 62.

--If the citizens of Connecticut don’t launch a recall vote of Joe Lieberman we can only conclude that residents of the Nutmeg State are unworthy of suffrage rights.

--American families racked up $973 billion worth of unpaid credit card debt in 2008 (the last year for which statistics were compiled). Shouldn’t a lot of folks clean up their own act before they criticize the government’s deficit spending habits?

--Need more evidence that the Democrats are brain dead? Martha Coakley, the heir presumptive to Ted Kennedy's Senate seat, reversed herself and said she will vote for a health care overhaul that includes abortion restrictions. She's not even been elected yet and already she's back pedaling.

--If we do want to cut government spending a good place to start would be to abolish the U.S. Senate and move to a unicameral legislature based on population. Maybe bicameralism made sense in 1783, but in 2010 it’s ridiculous that states with less population than Los Angeles or New York wield the same amount of power. Dumping the Senate would also be the first step in getting rid of the Electoral College, an institution beloved only by Republican lawyers and ballot box stuffers.

--If you really care about government debt, a very simple way to cut into it is to check the label of things that you buy. If it says “Made in China,” put it back on the shelf. You’ll kill two birds with one stone—you’ll reduce America’s balance of trade deficit and you’ll end up purchasing higher-quality goods.

--Why does the U.S. have an ambassador to the Vatican? Nobody lives there and aren’t Catholics virtually represented in the embassies of nations in which they actually reside?

--What if we ran the nation like we run Major League Baseball? Let’s set a cap on what businesses can dole out in salaries and require a dollar-for-dollar match for what is spent above the cap that gets divided equally among those below the cap.

--Donald Trump has $3 billion in net worth. If we got rid of him we could give ten bucks to every man, woman, and child. I could use a Hamilton, so I say we do it!