Build Back Better
President Joe Biden won the 2020 election by promising that America would Build Back Better. Slowly, the Democratic Congress has been fulfilling that promise.
A big step occurred last month. Democrats crafted a bi-partisan infrastructure bill. It included $110 billion for building, repairing, and replacing roads, bridges and bicycle paths.
The infrastructure bill also included the expansion of broadband, or high speed internet, services. This funding is especially important to rural areas.
Private companies don’t want to pay the upfront costs of running cable to low density populations. Few customers mean investors would have to wait years for a return on investment. This reality has left rural American behind.
Biden, however, followed the approach used by Franklin Delano Roosevelt during the New Deal. FDR did not wait for the private sector to deliver electricity or telephone services. The Federal government paid for the lines and reaped the rewards as rural areas grew.
Private companies are already bidding for these infrastructure projects. When they start the work, millions of Americans will have a steady paycheck.
The second half of the Build Back Better Plan is still being negotiated in Washington. On November 19, Democrats in the House, without a single Republican vote, approved their version of the plan.
The House Democratic Bill significantly improves the financial position of millions of Americans. For example, it increased the Federal subsidies for individuals and families to buy private health insurance.
It also made Health Insurance more affordable in states like Texas. Texas Republicans had blocked federal dollars to expand Medicare. If the Senate agrees with the House plan, individuals can bypass the Republican road block and get help directly when buying insurance.
The House Build Back Better bill makes child tax credits permanent. During the Covid 19 pandemic, Democrats gave families with children a monthly $300 credit. House Democrats know it is expensive to raise children and want this tax credit extended past January.
Another substantial improvement for Texas families would be the creation of a preschool program. Many parents struggle to work and pay for childcare. This provision would expand preschool programs in public schools, community-based programs, and Head Start programs.
Now, we have to wait on the Senate to act. Every Republican is opposing the Build Back Better program. Two conservative Democrats are hesitant, but they have been negotiating the final bill. Once the Build Back Better bill passes both Houses of Congress, President Biden will deliver a big win for American families.
Advent
One of the best parts growing up as a Roman Catholic was enjoying all of the Holy Days. During the Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic Church controlled the calendar and established celebrations year- round. These “holidays†taught and reinforced the faith.
After the Sixteenth Century Protestant Reformation, non-Catholic politicians began canceling many of these celebrations. For example, when the Pilgrims landed in America, they were determined to create their version of a Godly society.
The Pilgrims, or more accurately English Puritans, outlawed Holy Days because they only recognized one. The Bible only mentions to rest on the Sabbath, which they interpreted as Sunday.
To rest on other days was against the will of God. Puritans also hated celebrating the holidays with food and drink. Their Christian society required everyone to work year round, canceling all of the Catholic Holy Days.
This war on Christmas didn’t take off in Catholic and Lutheran countries. My ancestors, the Cajuns, were the descendants of Roman Catholics. I never questioned the need to stop periodically and enjoy life.
As Mary Poppins sang, “A Spoonful of Sugar Helps the Medicine Go Down.â€
The damage done by the Pilgrims has had a lasting impact. Many Christians don’t know that we are in the Advent Season. Advent means that “Christ is coming toward us†and we need to prepare.
How should we prepare for Christmas? I believe the best way is to heed the words of the words of John the Baptist in the Gospel of Matthew.
It should be obvious that Christians should prepare for the “Coming of Christ†by “bearing good fruit.†The Gospels then spend page after page explaining to the hard headed the meaning of “bear good fruit.â€
Jesus insists that we feed the hungry, cloth the naked, welcome the stranger and comfort the oppressed. These are the true Christmas gifts. We are not going to find them in any store.
We need to start preparing our heart to act now. We can then wish all of our neighbors Happy Holidays.
Coming Covid Winter?
The Covid 19 vaccine has been a lifesaver for millions of Americans. Nearly 59% of Americans over 12 have taken advantage of this pro-life drug. The unvaccinated patients account for nearly all deaths and hospitalizations.
Unfortunately, we live a region of the country that still believes lies about Covid and the vaccine. For example, while Connecticut and Massachusetts vaccination rates of 79%, Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana have vaccination rates of 65%, 57%, and 53% respectively.
The vaccination rate in rural counties is even worse. Grayson County (my home county) has a 42% rate. Bowie and Marion counties are at 38%. This does not bode well for the winter months.
All we have to do is look at Europe to predict how this will play out. Europeans started moving indoors for the colder weather several weeks ago. That change in behavior has caused an uptick in Covid cases.
The outbreaks, however, are not uniform. In places like Portugal, with a vaccination rate of 86%, there are a few cases. In Russia, the epicenter of anti- vaccine propaganda, the vaccination rate is 36% and a high number of cases.
The science and practical experience is clear. Vaccines save lives and money. Refusing the vaccine is like playing Russia roulette. Even if the virus doesn’t kill you, it could leave you disabled or bankrupt.
As we approach the colder months, we do have some advantages over Europeans. The Center of Disease Control has approved the vaccine of children over 5. Vaccinating more children will slow the spread.
We also now know that the booster shots help increase the vaccines’ effectiveness. Both natural immunity and vaccine immunity decreases over time. Giving a vaccine to those that had Covid or a vaccine already strengthens the immune response.
If we act now, we can save lives. We have the knowledge. Too many of our neighbors, however, have decided to believe the lies. Texas Governor Gregg Abbot is even fighting against vaccinations.
This problem is a tougher nut to crack. Every time a conservative politician and talk show host tries to nudge their audience toward the vaccine, the audience lashes out. Like the mob that attacked the United States’ Capitol on January 6, conservatives prefer the destructive lies to the truth.
What does this mean for you and me? First, talk to your doctor about the vaccine or booster for yourself and your loved one. Take it if you can. Second, practice sensible social distancing. Don’t stand in other people’s personal space and avoid tightly packed indoor events.
It gives me great comfort knowing that my wife and children have taken the vaccine. We’ll survive the winter. I can’t help but wonder how many more Americans must die for a lie.
Building a Brighter Future
Last week America won. It received strong news about the present economy and the outlook for the future. President Joe Biden and the Democratic Congress delivered on their promise to create and improve American jobs.
The CNBC headline read “Job creation roars back in October as payrolls rise by 531,000.â€Â This rate of job creation beat expectations and drove the unemployment rate down to 4.6%.Â
Private payrolls were even stronger, rising 604,000 as a loss of 73,000 government jobs pulled down the headline number. October’s gains represented a sharp pickup from September, which gained 312,000 jobs after the initial Bureau of Labor Statistics estimate of 194,000 saw a substantial upward revision in Friday’s report.
Published Fri, Nov 5 20218:31 AM EDT Updated Fri, Nov 5 20212:23 PM EDT Jeff Cox
Not only are more Americans working, but they are earning higher wages. Wages today are 4.8% higher than they were a year ago. The labor market is working for the first time in years as wage earners take home more pay.
As more and more of us take a Covid shot for America, the economy is growing again. We are traveling and spending money on hospitality and recreation. These industries attracted new workers by offering hourly wages of $15 and $20 per hour.
This situation is quite a turnaround from Donald Trump. Donald argued that American wages were too high. Conservatives want low wages to pay investors. Liberals want workers to earn their fair share.
On the heels of this good news, Congress finished its negotiation of an infrastructure package. Infrastructure is like the skeleton or circulatory system of the body. It keeps the many parts standing up and moves products around.
Any infrastructure bill had been elusive for years. This bill, part of Biden’s Build Back Better program, invests $110 billion in roads, bridges and bicycle paths. This money will replace or repair existing infrastructure.
The infrastructure bill also addresses railroads. Railroads are an essential part of our supply chain. Just as important, however, passenger rail provides a vital commuter service. Improving rail service will create jobs and reduce greenhouse gases.
The future of job and business growth also requires investing in information infrastructure. The Democratic bill provides $65 billion dollars to expand high speed internet, or broadband, services. This investment is a big win for rural areas left behind fast growing urban areas.
Add all of this up, and we have a big win for America. America is building back better. Job creation is strong now and will be in the years to come. Despite the efforts to sabotage the Biden Administration, American resilience is forging ahead with a future full of hope.
Are You A barn Swallow?
Several years ago, we had a surprise visitor set up house on our porch. It was a barn swallow. We were excited to watch it create a new home out of mud.
Our boys were still out home at the time, and they had a front row seat to watching nature in action. The bright blue bird swooped back and forth to bring building material, slowly shaping a small nest.
At dusk it would patrol my yard. I always imagined it eating mosquitos. I hate mosquitos. Mosquitos would drain every ounce of my blood if I stayed outside during the summer nights.
I saw barn swallows as a good neighbor. Then the babies came.
My friend, Eric Weisberg, always liked to use birds to contrast with humans. Eric would say, “Do you know birds don’t poop in their own nest. Humans do. We’re constantly polluting the earth, our nest.â€
Baby barn swallows proved Eric right. At an early age, they learned to put their little bottoms over the side of the nest. I never imagined baby birds could make so much poop. They were a mess.
I have to say though, Eric was only half right. I think we are more like barn swallows than his original statement implied.
I don’t think either human or barn swallows poop in their own nest. They both poop on their neighbors’ porch. We both project our pollution in our neighbors’ direction. Neither of us thinks about our neighbor.
In the 1970s we in the United States made a big push to reduce pollution and clean up our environment. This effort went a long way to improve our quality of life.
One of the biggest changes was removing an unseen enemy: lead. Lead made its way into a wide variety of products from gasoline to paint to shotgun shells.
The impact was devastating. Lead killed bald eagles. Lead created mental disabilities. Lead increased crime rates. Government mandates removed lead and life improved.
The next big frontier is petroleum products and byproducts. Can we reduce our dependence on them? Plastic waste is everywhere from the road side to the oceans. Carbon dioxide and methane are trapping heat in the atmosphere.
Like lead, CO2 and methane are invisible. They have big money protecting them. They have big money lying to make us ignore the poop in our nest. The damage from greenhouse gases, however, have become all too visible.
Wild Fires. Droughts. Tropical Storms. Melting glaciers. The earth seems to be treating humanity like I eventually treated the barn swallows. I got fed up with them so I knocked down the nest and washed the poop away. Let’s improve our behavior before Mother Nature does the same to us.
Who Is Playing Dr. Death Now?
In the 1980s Jack Kevorkian made headlines by advocating for assisted suicide. Kevorkian, a medical doctor, argued that terminally ill patients had the right to die with dignity. When the state of Michigan discovered that he had helped his patients die, he lost his medical license, and prosecutors they put him on trial.
Prosecutors dropped the charges because he committed no crime. His attorneys presented enough evidence to show that Kevorkian only provided the means to commit suicide. The dead actually made the decision and triggered the devices.
Several years later, however, Kevorkian faced a jury. This time the circumstances were different. Kevorkian, no longer a doctor, injected a deadly drug into a man with Lou Gehrig’s disease. The man had asked for the drug, but Kevorkian delivered it.
The Kevorkian case illustrates an important aspect of American law. Our legal system allows an individual to participate in a large number of self-harming behaviors. Adults in particular can drink and smoke, or even refuse medication.
We do draw the line, however, at harming others. We tell people that they can’t drink and drive. We tell people that they can’t smoke in public spaces. We tell parents they must allow a blood transfusion for a child. We don’t allow individuals the right to use liberty as excuse for harming others.
This principle is not a novel concept. The 1800 BC Law Code of Hammurabi begins “Anu and Bel called by name me, Hammurabi, the exalted prince, who feared God, to bring about the rule of righteousness in the land, to destroy the wicked and the evil-doers; so that the strong should not harm the weak.â€
Governments enact laws to stop us from hurting one another. As my dad used to say, “Your freedom ends at my nose.â€
It shouldn’t come as a surprise then, that I have never questioned vaccine mandates. Growing up, vaccines were simply part of life. Every time we moved from one military base to another, we needed to show an updated vaccine card.
I never heard once the false claim that I had a right to spread a contagious disease. Even as a child, I knew that the United States government promoted vaccines around the world. Vaccines save lives.
Now, I watch in disgust as politicians and talk show hosts claim the right to spread death. If they were only killing themselves, we would have no authority to stop them, but Covid 19 is not like cancer or Lou Gehrig’s disease. It kills others.
Covid politicians are playing Dr. Death with the public. We need vaccine mandates. We reduced drunk driving. We reduced second hand smoke. We have the ability to reduce the impact of Covid. It is time to return to our lives.
Earth Race
You don’t have to listen long to hear what workers are saying about their lives. Their hours are long. Their pay is stagnant. They want more time with their children. They live one healthcare emergency away from bankruptcy.
Millionaires and billionaires, however, have never had it better. They have the lowest tax rate since the 1930s. They have fortunes so big that they created a market for joy rides in space. Tickets range from at least $100,000 to $450,000.
How long do these experiences last? The Virgin Galactic flight lasts from 2 to 3 hours. The Blue Origin flight lasts about 11 minutes.
American workers are creating an incredible amount of wealth. American millionaires and billionaires are collecting an incredible amount of that wealth. The first struggles to survive. The latter literally lights money on fire to float in space.
It doesn’t have to be this way. In the 1950s and 60s we had a tax and labor structure that encouraged paying workers a decent wage, then came the 1980s.
Ronald Reagan started a trend across the country. He convinced voters that investors, not workers, needed a break. Reagan started cutting capital gains taxes at the top and raising payroll taxes on workers.
Reagan also launched an attack on Unions. Unions allowed workers to defend themselves against large corporations. Unions set the wage and benefit standards in the rest of the economy. Without strong Unions, wages and benefits have been slowly declining for everyone.
Joe Biden and the Democratic Congress want to restore some balance to the work place. They want to increase health insurance subsidies, empowering workers to buy better coverage. They want to expand Medicaid to fund more Long Term Care.
Working families also need help. The Build Back Better plan would fund child care and pre-K education. This would create and improve thousands of jobs. It would relieve the anxiety of young families.
Paying for these programs requires raising taxes on individuals earning more than $400,000 per year. Individuals earning less will not pay a dime more. Franklin Roosevelt used this strategy during the New Deal and built the American Middle Class.
Reagan wanted to reverse the New Deal. In many ways he did. He created a trickle up economy. The wealth created by workers flows up into space.
Now, it’s time to build America from the ground up. We need to make life better for those that work and walk on this earth. We need an earth race, not a billionaire space race.
Don’t Bear False Witness
Justice requires the truth. As Americans we require anyone testifying to do it under oath. Oath breakers face penalties for perjury.
The truth is no less important in other aspects of life. Both Civil Law and the Bible made bearing false witness a crime. Civil law calls it liable. Psalm 6 calls bearing false witness an abomination.
Bearing false witness also made it into the Bible’s Ten Commandments. Exodus 23 states, “You shall not spread a false report.â€Â In Gospel of Matthew (15:18-20), Jesus himself listed slander and false witness as actions that defile a person.
How much more will bearing false witness, tolerating false witness and encouraging false witness defile a society?
Unfortunately, that is exactly what conservatives are doing by supporting The Loser, Donald Trump. The Loser started planting his lies before he lost. In fact he made a multi-year habit of lying about election results from President Obama’s Presidential victory to Senator Ted Cruz’s momentary victory in the Iowa caucuses.
The Loser’s slander didn’t cost him much. Conservatives flocked to his slander like moths to flames. The more he and his friends lied, the brighter his fire burned.
None of these lies survived in a Court Room. They all died quickly as oaths revealed the truth. Every state followed the law. Every state certified their votes. When Congress counted the votes, Joe Biden became the President.
Court after court listened to the lies and false allegations presented by The Loser’s lawyers. Time and again, however, they were dismissed as frivolous. When The Loser appealed his cases, even his handpicked justices on the United States Supreme Court dismissed him.
We now know that The Loser began calling Republican officials around the country. He wanted them to throw away millions of our votes. Even Republican officials refused.
Next, The Loser wanted his appointees at the United States Justice Department to intervene. They remained faithful to their oath. Still, The Loser pushed them. Only when they threatened mass resignations, did he back down.
On January 6, 2021, The Loser placed one last bet. He incited a mob to storm the United States Capital. He instructed them to disrupt our Constitution. The mob broke into the building and beat capital police officers with an American flag. The Loser watched on TV.
You have a choice to make. You have to decide whether to bear false witness. You have to decide if you will help the Loser continue defiling America and our Constitution. What will you do?
I’m Not Scared of Words
Every time we turn around Fox News and the rest of the professional conservatives cry like babies about scary socialism. It doesn’t take much education to know they haven’t a clue what socialism is. They simply want to scare and paralyze American.
In the early 1900s apartment and factory fires killed thousands. As a society we decided to require manufacturers to build safer buildings. Death by fire dropped dramatically.
During the Great Depression, Americans used government to dramatically improve their lives. Voters supported the FDIC to insure bank deposits and the SEC to police the financial industry. Americans elected Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1932 and then re-elected him three more times, including two after he created Social Security.
Republicans opposed each and every one of these improvements. They screamed “socialism” each and every time. FDR and Democrats pushed ahead anyway.
After FDR died, President Harry Truman famously retorted, “Socialism is a scare word they have hurled at every advance the people have made in the last 20 years.” Truman refused to fear a word.
Democratic reforms were so popular Republicans got on board after the Second World War. Veterans demanded, and a bipartisan Congress provided, a host of new government benefits including education, healthcare, and housing. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a Republican, pushed forward with Interstate Highways and actively enforced Federal Court desegregation orders.
In the 1960s Barry Goldwater tried to get Americans to turn back the clock. He wanted to reverse the New Deal by privatizing Social Security. Goldwater opposed federal Civil Rights legislation. Lyndon Johnson crushed him at the ballot box.
With the support of the American people, politicians of both parties surged ahead again. They created Medicare and Medicaid. They passed the Clean Water and Air acts. Congress and presidents did this against a back drop of radical politicians screaming socialism.
It wasn’t until 1980 that the fear mongering finally broke through. Ronald Reagan shamelessly, and falsely, blamed government regulation for the 1970s energy crisis. The origin of that crisis lay in the Middle East, not the Halls of Congress. Arab states punished the United States for supporting Israel during the Cold War.
The truth didn’t matter to Reagan, however. He plowed ahead with his sales pitch. Reagan blamed Federal Legislation for everything from energy to poverty to struggling schools. He found his scape goat and demanded a sacrifice.