Mountain Views News          Saturday, July 17, 2010

10

OPINION

 Mountain Views News Saturday, July 17, 2010 

STUART TOLCHIN ..........On LIFE

HAIL Hamilton

My Turn

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John Aveny 

 In 1969, a 
Union Oil well 
blew out five 
miles off the coast 
of Santa Barbara, 
Calif. People attacked the oil washing ashore 
by skimming it off the surface, dispersing it 
with chemicals, and soaking it up with straw 
and other materials.

 Forty-one years and many generations of 
technology later, BP is attacking the oil spill 
in the Gulf of Mexico with techniques similar 
to those used in Santa Barbara. And just as 
in those days, choppy water and strong winds 
can make it impossible to use those tools to 
bottle up oil once it has leaked into open sea.

 Unlike the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, 
the well that blew up April 20 while being 
drilled by Transocean’s Deepwater Horizon 
rig is much farther out and has given BP and 
federal authorities an extra week or more to 
respond to the oil leaking into the gulf before 
it makes landfall.

 While oil companies have spent billions of 
dollars to drill deeper and farther out to sea, 
relatively little money and research have gone 
into finding new, improved ways to respond 
to oil spills in deep sea conditions like those 
in the Gulf of Mexico.

 Experts say the massive Gulf spill has 
exposed a failure by the industry and the 
federal government to commit adequate 
resources to oil cleanup and response 
technology.

 Improvements to these methods have been 
incremental few new ones have been ones 
developed, critics say, because oil companies 
have no financial incentive.

 Five companies - Shell Oil, ExxonMobil, 
ConocoPhillips, Chevron Corp., BP America 
- together spent about $33.8 billion to explore 
for new oil and gas in the past three years, 
according to answers the companies provided 
this month to a House Energy & Commerce 
subcommittee.

 But their spending on research for safety, 
accident prevention and spill response 
is paltry by comparison. These same 
five companies - Shell Oil, ExxonMobil, 
ConocoPhillips, Chevron Corp., BP America 
- spent less than $200 million during the 
same period on safety, accident prevention, 
spill control and cleanup technologies.

 For its part, the federal government has 
spent relatively little to advance cleanup 

technology for spills.

 Congress appropriated only about one-
sixth of the $30 million in research grants 
to universities authorized under the Oil 
Pollution Act of 1990 after the Exxon Valdez, 
according to the Coastal Response Research 
Center. It mandated among other things a 
multiagency federal effort to research better 
ways to clean up oil spills.

 The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, 
Regulation and Enforcement - which was 
known as the Minerals Management Service 
until this month - collects $13 billion a year 
in oil drilling royalties. But the agency has 
been spending only between $6 million to $7 
million a year since 1995 on oil spill research.

 And the Coast Guard’s annual oil spill 
research budget has steadily dropped from 
about $5.6 million in 1993 to about $500,000 
for each of the past four years.

 Two other agencies, the EPA and 
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric 
Administration, spent less, according to 
congressional reports. Overall federal 
spending fell far below a planned $28 million 
a year, and the multiagency task force filed its 
last research plan 13 years ago.

 Last year, legislation to increase federal 
spending on better oil cleanup research and 
to reorganize the effort died in the U.S. House 
of Representative’s Science and Technology 
Committee - the victim of other priorities. 

 The law would have amended OPA 90 
to mandate newer techniques or better 
skimmers and boom, not just more of them 
with more capacity. 

 In a nutshell: Our priorities have been 
about how to extract more oil in greater 
volumes and for greater profits, and there 
haven’t been corresponding priorities on how 
to do so safely and how to prepare if there is 
an accident.

 So what have we learned in the past 4 
decades? Not much. Forty-one years after 
the Santa Barbara oil spill the mantra is still-- 
“drill baby drill!” 


“Drill Baby Drill”--

What have we learned?

 Last week’s 
paper contained 
an amusing but 
critical response 
to my July 3, 
2010 article Self-
Defense. Val Usle satirizes my 
position relating to healthy food 
by imagining the establishment 
of huge governmental agencies 
employing “tens of thousands of 
government workers to enforces 
food consumption laws and to crack 
down on illegal drive-by donut 
purveyors or the rogue individual 
who drops a piece of dough into 
a fish fryer behind closed curtains 
in their home”. The author of the 
response laments that it was bad 
enough that the government first 
came after his or her gun but now 
they seem to be coming after an 
innocent apple fritter.

 Well is that so wrong? 
Answer—yes, it is wrong. 
Generally, I do not favor laws that 
require, in the words of Val Usle, 
“a surrender of citizens’ freedoms”. 
There are some tough calls. The 
response seems to consider the 
legalization of abortion a violation 
of the rights of the unborn. To me 
this is a simplistic doctrinaire way 
of viewing a difficult question that 
concerns all of us. Admittedly, I 
used to be an opponent of abortion 
laws until I had a discussion with my 
grandmother. In a very few words, 
but with great facial expression and 
intensity, she explained the horrors 
endured by women inevitably 
connected to illegal abortions. Her 
expression conveyed the fact that 
I knew little of the pain endured 
and was unqualified to discuss 
the matter. The word she used I 
spell phonetically as “Nahrishkeit” 
which is an individual’s propensity 
to exemplify the qualities of the 
irretrievably and irreparably 
stupid.

 I think my grandmother’s 
characterization applies to much 
of the debate regarding the 
Constitutional application of 
governmental power to restrict 
individual actions. One of the 
columnists whose articles generally 
appear on the same page as mine 
asked me if there were actual 
statistics proving that the use of 
guns caused more harm then they 
prevented. Unhappy as the obvious 
truth might make Charlton Heston 
(also quoted in the response to my 
article) a person need only look 
around. Guns are bad—they hurt 
people—sometimes inadvertently 
but they hurt people just the same. 
The recently concluded trial of 
the BART officer who allegedly 
reached for his gun thinking it 
was a taser and killed an unarmed 
teenager emphasizes the point. 
One more time, GUNS ARE BAD, 
and their use and availability must 
be limited.

 Really though my article 
was not intended to be about 
abortion rights or gun control. It 
was about self-defense. How can 
individuals like you and me defend 
ourselves against the moneyed-
interests that have placed us under 
attack? Furthermore, is it the 
province of government to aid us 
in our defense? I maintain that 
the main purpose of government 
is to provide for the safety of its 
citizenry. The justification for the 
Declaration of Independence was 
that people in the colonies were 
being treated unjustly and unfairly 
and were unsafe and therefore had 
the right and obligation to throw 
off the Colonial Rulers and cobble 
together a new and independent 
Country.

 Citizens of this new 
Country, we Americans, are now 
imperiled by a different oppressor; 
or maybe, it’s always the same old 
oppressor? The rich and powerful 
are utilizing their power to 
damage the rest of us. Yes, this is a 
capitalist, consumer society which 
by definition is fueled by greed. The 
manufacturers and retailers want to 
sell us stuff whether or not we need 
the stuff or whether or not the stuff 
is good for us. That’s the way the 
system works and along the way 
jobs are created for us wage earner 
types who gain a certain amount 
of power and as we gain power we 
can obtain other services. Part of 
the way we exercise our power is 
through elections but in order to 
make decisions that benefit us we 
need to be an informed electorate. 
Our election process has become 
so dominated by the rich and 
powerful that many of us are too 
confused to define our own self-
interest. Instead of understanding 
what’s really going on we are 
captured by a way of thinking that 
prevents rational consideration. It 
is very possible that we are all being 
poisoned by the food we eat, the 
water we drink, the air we breathe, 
and even the education we receive.

 I maintain that it is the 
responsibility of government to 
assist its citizens to separate the lies 
from the truth. Given this service 
we can make our own decisions. 
Sure, maybe we want to eat that 
fritter and maybe we want to feed 
that fritter and other sugars, salts, 
and fats to our kids. They taste 
good don’t they? Well, maybe they 
wouldn’t taste as good if we knew 
what we were doing to ourselves 
and to the future health of our kids, 
and to the future of the planet. We 
need to know what’s happening in 
order to make informed decisions. 
That’s all—now you can decide 
what to do with your fritter. 

DO YOU REALLY WANT TO 
HOLD ON TO THAT FRITTER?


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Left Turn/Right Turn

 The most prominent news of the week is 
the NAACP’s decision to label Tea Parties 
as racist is not the most important news 
of the week. That moniker belongs to 
President Obama’s recess appointment of 
Dr. Donald Berwick to head the Centers 
for Medicare and Medicaid Services 
(CMS). Now some of you are probably 
already bored with my article this week. 
After all, the Centers for Medicare and 
Medicaid Services sounds like a boring 
title, boring job and boring topic. And I 
would agree with you. Unfortunately, this 
agency, and therefore its head, represents 
one of the most important players in our 
country’s healthcare system. This is the 
agency which will ultimately decide how 
doctors are reimbursed, what procedures 
are allowed, how doctors are trained, 
how much input the patient will have in 
his or her medical decisions; in short, 
the person who heads this agency will 
determine what healthcare looks like for 
most of us average Americans. And the 
outlook is really, really, really ugly. That’s 
why Obama appointed him at a time when 
there would be no confirmation hearings 
and no media scrutiny.

 So, let’s explore a little bit what this guy 
stands for, and let’s do this using his own 
words, writings and pronouncements. 
Here’s just a mild sampling of what Dr. 
Donald Berwick believes and will try to 
foist onto the rest of us.

- Any healthcare funding plan that is just, 
equitable, civilized and humane must-
must-redistribute wealth from the richer 
among us to the poorer and less fortunate.

- I do not believe that the individual 
consumer can enforce through their 
personal choices a proper configuration of 
healthcare. This is for the leaders to do.

- You have to cap your national healthcare 
budget and then make the choices to keep 
it affordable regardless of who pays the 
price.

- Don’t put your faith in the invisible 
forces of the consumer to do a better job 
of designing care than leaders can.

- It may be necessary to limit the growth 
of healthcare spending.

- 8% of GDP is sufficient.

- A progressive policy will control 
healthcare supply. It will have to be 
limited.

- The unaided human mind cannot assure 
excellence. Leaders must do this.

- Healthcare is a common good. It is not 
an individual issue.

- Healthcare must be made to be a 
collective human right so we can argue for 
control of nutrition, housing, employment 
and the like.

- Those working in healthcare must not be 
allowed to work the 
system for the benefit 
of the specific patient. 
They must work the 
system for the benefit 
of the collective good.

- Prevention, annual 
physicals, and other 
screening tests are 
over-demanded services. They should be 
discouraged.

- Young doctors and nurses should come 
out of their training understanding the 
risk of putting an emphasis on individual 
autonomy.

 If after reading these, you don’t 
understand what a disaster healthcare 
under the Obama plan is going to be, then 
you and I are living on different planets. 
The President’s claims that choice would 
be expanded, and that we could keep the 
healthcare plans we currently have in place 
if we want to, always appeared fanciful. 
This appointment of a man holding these 
views makes it clear that the President’s 
statements were bold-faced lies.

 We can’t really be mad at Dr. Donald 
Berwick. He has been very clear from 
his earliest writings and speeches about 
what he believes and what he would do if 
put in charge. In that, there is a certain 
admirable intellectual honesty. Our anger 
should be directed toward a President 
who knowingly lied to us and then has 
purposefully waited until the 4th of July 
Congressional recess to appoint Dr. 
Berwick so that there would be no public 
Congressional hearings on his opinions 
and on what he will be doing for the next 
several years.

 If the American people really want a 
government mandated, controlled and 
RATIONED healthcare system, which 
has as one of its primary goals decreasing 
choice and bringing down the quality of 
care at the top so that everyone is equal 
in receiving the lowest quality (that’s what 
true “equality” means), then so be it. But 
Americans have a right to know that this is 
what is being proposed and to vote on it – 
either directly at the polls or through their 
elected representatives, who themselves 
have to stand for re-election. By bypassing 
the traditional and constitutionally 
proscribed Senate confirmation hearings, 
President Obama has denied all of us that 
right.

 So much for bringing us the most 
transparent administration in history, 
or for eschewing the “old” ways of doing 
politics in D.C. through hidden or 
backroom deals. This appointment is only 
the latest in a series of traditional corrupt, 
Chicago-machine (continued on page 11)

GREG Welborn

Healthcare’s Destruction

HOWARD Hays 

As I See It

 I took time off from 
my column last week and 
accompanied the Mountain 
Views News crew in the 
Fourth of July parade.   I got a 
shout-out from a couple friends who came from 
Pasadena.   Rich Johnson and Susan got shout-
outs from everyone else.   I took some time to 
do yard work and thought I’d solve the problems 
facing our state, our nation, and the world - along 
with coming up with the meaning of life.   So I 
did.   (But there’s still yard work to do).

   For the world, we should never commit to 
ensuring the survival of the leadership of a 
country whose citizens would never allow the 
survival of that leadership if we weren’t there 
committed to ensuring it.   This goes back to the 
Vietnam era - but bears repeating.

   For the state, it’s to establish single-payer 
health coverage for state employees and retirees. 
  
In a column last March, I figured the savings in a 
single-payer public vs. a private plan to be about 
$250 per person per month.   Figuring 350,000 
current state employees and 400,000 retirees, this 
comes out to savings of $187.5 million a month, 
or $2.25 billion a year.   I’m not sure how many 
jobs of laid-off firefighters, teachers and others 
this would save, but those folks would pump the 
money back into the economy, and it would be 
a better investment than taxpayers’ footing the 
bill for multi-million dollar bonuses added to the 
multi-million dollar salaries of insurance execs 
to sequester in offshore tax havens.

   For the nation, the solution is twofold:   Raise 
taxes and increase government spending.   It may 
not be effective as a campaign slogan, but the fact 
is, it works .   Over the past hundred years, the 
periods when our economy has been strongest, 
unemployment lowest and prosperity most 
widespread, have been those periods when the 
top marginal rate has been highest, our unions 
strongest and our government most dedicated to 
investing in our schools, our infrastructure and 
our people.

   To make it simple, one could just look back 
to see who’s been right and who’s been wrong. 
  
I remember nearly thirty years ago when then-
Sen. Pete Wilson (R-CA) was wheeled onto the 
Senate floor on a hospital gurney to cast the 
deciding vote on the Reagan tax cuts.   There 
was the “Laffer Curve” showing how deficits 
go down as a result of the increased prosperity 
brought about by tax cuts.   Democrats said no, 
it’ll increase the deficit.   The national debt went 
from a third of Gross Domestic Product under 
President Carter to well over half of GDP after 
the tax cuts.   It neared 70% of GDP by the end of 
the first President Bush’s term.

   There was another party-line vote twelve years 
later for President Clinton’s budget; Republicans 
warned the tax hikes would result in soaring 
deficits, unemployment and economic ruin. 
  
The bill passed, the deficit dropped below 60% 
of GDP and the country saw its greatest 
economic growth since the postwar boom. 
  
George W. Bush took office, top tax rates 
were cut again and the deficit went up past 
80% of GDP - helping create the mess we’re 
still trying to dig out of.

   Ironically, Senators blocking extension of 
unemployment benefits are insisting they be “paid 
for”, but have no such concerns about billions in 
tax cuts for the wealthiest among us.   One of 
those is Sen. John Kyl (R-AZ), who was asked last 
week on Fox News Sunday by host Chris Wallace 
how he can insist on offsetting spending cuts 
before extending help for desperate American 
families, but not for extending the Bush tax cuts 
shelling out $678 billion to those making over 
$250,000 a year.   His reply was simply that as far 
as tax cuts are concerned, “you should never have 
to offset the cost”.

   That line we hear about corporate tax cuts 
leading to job creation sounds familiar, but fewer 
people fall for it nowadays.   Sam Pizzigati of the 
Institute for Policy Studies notes that the CEO of 
an S&P 500 company makes 319 times as much as 
the average American worker; back in the 1970’s 
the ratio was 30 to 1 (in Japan it’s 16 to 1).   “We’ve 
seen, over the past three decades, a tenfold-plus 
increase in the gap between top executives and 
average American workers”.   Pizzigati attributes 
this largely to the fact that back when the top 
marginal rate was higher (91% in the 1960’s, 
28% under Reagan, 35% today), there was more 
incentive to put profits back into the business, 
rather than the pockets of top execs.  

   Government spending works.   According to 
the President’s Council of Economic Advisors, 
his stimulus bill has already created 3 million 
jobs, and is on track to reach the goal of 3.5 
million new jobs by the end of the year.   This 
doesn’t make up for the 8 million jobs lost from 
the Bush recession, but with growth predicted 
to hold steady through 2011, it looks like we’ll 
pretty much have the recession behind us as we 
near the end of President Obama’s first term.

   In his 2008 Congressional testimony, Mark 
Zandi, former advisor to Sen. John McCain 
(R-AZ) explained how certain government 
investments are more beneficial, in that the 
money goes right back into the economy.   He 
prepared a chart showing the dollar effect on 
the GDP of each dollar spent.   Unemployment 
benefits ($1.64 benefit for each dollar spent) 
came in second to food stamps ($1.73), with 
infrastructure spending ($1.59) third.   Towards 
the bottom were extending Bush’s dividends and 
capital gains tax cut ($0.37) and his income tax 
cuts ($0.29).   Whatever happens in the world of 
exotic derivatives and collateralized securities, 
the fact remains that two-thirds of our economy 
is based on consumer spending.

   As to the meaning of life:   I’m reminded of 
something we were told in Boy Scouts - “Always 
leave the campsite in better shape than it was 
when you came.”   Something to strive for.

   That takes care of the world, the state, the 
country and the meaning of life.   Now back to 
the yard work.


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