By Dee Richard
The sleeping giant has been awakened. Many Americans are wiping the sleep of complacency from their eyes.
There were numerous anti-tax Tea Party protests being staged all over America last spring. All summer there were angry town hall meetings about the newly proposed health care revisions and the end result was the formation of The 9-12 Project, an online, conservative campaign founded by talk show host Glenn Beck, as well as the conservative grassroots organizer Freedom Works.
This past Saturday there was a huge rally in the form of a march in Washington. The rally numbered in the tens of thousands. There is unrest in the country because people believe their politicians have gone too far and have forgotten what they were elected to do. That supposition causes a real problem for our elected officials. Do they rally around the Democratic Party and President Barack Obama to show a united front or do they take heed of their constituents, saying if you do not do the job we elected you to do than this will be your last term in office? And there is no mistaking the fact their constituents mean what they say.
This past Saturday Beck was broadcasting the Washington march and televising it for all those who, for whatever reason, could not take one of the bus trips to D.C. The broadcast was simultaneously televised in strategic places for all interested people to see and hear for themselves exactly what was going on.
The local broadcast I attended was held at the Woodhaven House on Woodhaven Boulevard in Rego Park from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. More than 100 people came to watch, which was pretty good for a local pub/restaurant.
Their discontent with the way things were done were obvious and real. This is not the time to spout a “Let them eat cake” comment. Stay tuned as I’m sure we have not heard the last of this.
Myself as well as others when we discuss the health care situation, while we admittedly are not number-crunchers of any sort, we still cannot comprehend how the president can say his plan will not cause an increase in our country’s deficit.
Everyone admits that our present heath care system is heading toward financial disaster. How can you possibly insure 40-some-odd additional millions of people without increasing the cost? You will have to hire thousands of additional doctors, nurses and other health care professionals, including pharmacists to administer to that many additional recipients. Where will you provide this care? Whether you build additional facilities or rent them, it adds up to astronomical sums of money.
The one thing no one has mentioned is where will the army of federal employees come from to do the additional paperwork involved in administering the program?
It will take years to set up such systems. What kind of health care can we Americans expect to have in the interim? Where will all those additional billions come from to pay the salaries and benefits of all these new federal employees? How can any reasonable person believe it will not put us further into debt to accomplish and implement all these goals?
I am sure the president has the best of intentions in trying to provide health care for all, but mathematically it just doesn’t add up. You simply cannot make a dollar out of 15 cents.
This column is rather pessimistic and gloomy, but this country is in dire financial circumstances. Americans don’t really own America anymore — our debtors do. They are alarmingly concerned about protecting their investments. What would happen if the Chinese decided to call in the debt owed them? Unfortunately, history tells us when a country finds itself in this situation, the only way out is war.
That’s it for this week.
I look forward to hearing from you with information on people, parties and politics or gossip.
I like receiving your voice mails at 718-767-6484, faxes at 718-746-0066 and e-mails at deerrichard@aol.com.
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Till next week, Dee.
