I have no sympathy for people living in states
currently in financial difficulties.
They voted for the people who promised to cut taxes and cut
government. Now they have what they
desired. Kansas has a huge shortfall and
is cutting aid to education. Some school
districts will be closing early this spring.
Apparently, Kansas has no minimum number of days a school must be in
session. In NJ schools must be operating
for 180 days/year or the year does not count. North Carolina has allowed it’s school system
to drop down to 42 in the country and the Legislature is working to ruin UNC’s
excellent OB-Gyn program by limiting abortion funding. New Jersey will have the state Supreme Court
determine that our illustrious governor must pay what he promised into the
pension fund that is owed $30 billion dollars. He refused to increase the gasoline tax to
help with roads and bridges that are in total disarray and refuses to increase
taxes on the highest earners in the state.
Wisconsin, Louisiana and other red states are also in financial
difficulty, thanks to their conservative Republican governors. The citizens of these states voted not once
but twice for these “conservative” governors.
You get what you wish for.
The most vehemently red states receive the most money
from the Federal Government. Many of
them receive over $1.50 for every dollar sent to Washington. Their state needs every dollar of aid it
receives. However, these are the people
who vote in every election for congressional representatives who want to
destroy the federal government and cut every program that benefits the poor and
middle class. They elect conservative
legislators and governors as well. Their
governors have refused to extend Medicaid to help provide health insurance for
hundreds of thousands of their citizens.
Florida’s governor is an example.
Rick Scott refuses to accept the extension of Medicaid that would
provide insurance to 800,000 residents.
Only Kentucky has benefited from the ACA. Yet Scott was CEO of a major health insurance
company that was fined over $1 billion dollars for Medicare fraud.
Scott and Walker in Wisconsin have issued orders that
their state officials may not use the phrase “Climate Change” or “Global
Warming”. They prefer to keep their
heads in the sand. Wisconsin may not be
in great danger but Florida is. Of
course, the areas in greatest danger are those liberal places like Dade and
Brower Counties that vote for those damned Democrats.
These states have used the scare tactic of election
fraud to push through restrictions on voting times, places and ID requirements. These steps have been openly called ways to
decrease the Democratic turnout. A state
legislator in Pennsylvania actually said in public that now the state would go
for Governor Romney after they passed voter restriction laws. It did not!
If they want people to have photo identification, they
need to provide easy access to a suitable ID.
One state refused to allow student IDs from their college system. All this fuss is for a problem that barely
exists. The number of proven voter fraud
cases in the past decade is less
than 100.
The legislators in every state swear to uphold the
Constitution of their state and of the United States. Yet, many of them have no idea of what the
Federal Constitution states or means. A
Tennessee legislator submitted a law naming the Bible as the state book. The Governor and the Attorney General have
said that it would be unconstitutional.
Several religious leaders have said that such a law would be demeaning
to the Bible, placing it with the state bird, state song, etc. Still this yo-yo proceeds. Another legislator wants to hand out bibles
in school under the Freedom of Religion laws.
A legislator in Arizona thought that mandatory church attendance would
improve society. Don’t these people
understand that the USA is no longer a white Christian country? It hasn’t been since the millions of
immigrants arrived between 1890 and 1920.
Besides, there are differences between the King James Bible, the Torah,
and the Catholic bible. Which one will
they distribute?
There are other minorities in most of these
states. Jewish citizens, Catholics,
Muslims and atheists need to be considered but these legislators only pander to
the white Christians in their districts.
I think if some of them ever walked down 7th Avenue in NYC
they would think they are in a foreign country.
However, they are not! Riding NJ
Transit, one is easily aware that NJ is the most ethnically diverse state in
the union. Such pandering just would not
work here.
The younger generation needs to become active
politically. Only about 33% of American
voters participated in the mid-term elections in 2014. The Republicans claim a major landslide
victory but they received only about 18-19% of the vote. That is not exactly a rousing mandate. The people who did vote are the elderly who
tend to be conservative (not my friends!).
Just as in the Iowa caucuses, they dominate the elections. Things will change only when and if the young
and the minorities VOTE in every election.
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