What? Don’t you trust me? ARE YOU FOR RACISM? Is that what this is about? Gee, I never would have thought it of you. Then again, I did see you using last Sunday’s NYT to line the budgie cage. We all know what that means. (I also noticed that you didn’t even read Krugman’s column, with accompanying nods, chuckles and sighs, before Petey pooped on it. I oughta turn you in.)
It’s actually a combo of the Boston Globe, the NYT, and a Shakira interview that happens to be triggering me this morning. But let’s start with the Globe:
In health bill, billions for parks, paths
WASHINGTON – Sweeping healthcare legislation working its way through Congress is more than an effort to provide insurance to millions of Americans without coverage. Tucked within is a provision that could provide billions of dollars for walking paths, streetlights, jungle gyms, and even farmers’ markets.
The add-ons – characterized as part of a broad effort to improve the nation’s health “infrastructure” – appear in House and Senate versions of the bill.
Critics argue the provision is a thinly disguised effort to insert pork-barrel spending into a bill that has been widely portrayed to the public as dealing with expanding health coverage and cutting medical costs. A leading critic, Senator Mike Enzi, a Wyoming Republican, ridicules the local projects, asking: “How can Democrats justify the wasteful spending in this bill?”
Hmm, the pork is “tucked within.” How cozy. A veritable pig in a blanket—of legislation. And I wonder why we’re all so inured to statism. Anyway, where’s my billion? I want to fight racism. Seriously. It’s all for a good cause, right? I mean, supposedly racism hurts people’s health, too; I just wanna contribute to building the “health infrastructure.” But I bet all you selfish bastards, who no doubt vote Republican, are going to tell me that you’re not gonna give me that billion. I’ve got to work for it, or raise, it or something.
Ok, fine. I don’t get a billion. Can I at least get half-a-mil for my farmer’s market? I think we’ve got limes coming in. Or lemons. Hard to say. They’re green, at any rate. Green is good, right? Paul Krugman seems to think so (Save the Frogs! Or something—it’s a little unclear), so I know it must be true.
I’m a little braindead of late, so please forgive my slowness of thought. But if poverty is correlated with negative health outcomes, while wealth is associated with better health, then…wouldn’t it be better to let people keep their money? (I mean, compound interest, anyone? Taxes aren’t returned to you, nor do they pay interest. Bet if you could sock away half your income, even at rates that barely outpace inflation, you’d be doing better in a hurry.) Of course, cutting taxes while keeping spending at its current level, or increasing it, is insane, or so I understand. (By the way, isn’t it just a little insane to propose spending increases at a time like this? Are people really more worried about “bike paths” than keeping food on the table?* Is anyone but the privileged concerned about bike paths?) So maybe we could start with cutting subsidies to corn growers and start bringing down the concentration of high-fructose corn syrup in our food. According to current Evidence and Science and Studies**—which are being trotted out to justify the boondoggles listed in the Globe article—HFCS is strongly linked to obesity and diabetes. Now will someone please give me a taxpayer-funded mansion for pointing that out? NO? God. What a bunch of anti-health tightwads you are. I bet you also hate roads.
*Right, I know. The solution, as ever, is to tax the rich more and the poor less. Not that I favor taxing the poor more, but gouging “the rich,” nebulously defined, can have unintended consequences. For one thing, whole tabloid industries would dry up if we drove the Hiltons out of the country through excessive taxation. Hey, somebody’s got to think about the important issues.
**We all know that study results are never superseded or disproved or distorted or just plain false to begin with, so it’s totally justifiable to use force to make people comply with their recommendations. That’s never had bad outcomes before, particularly in public health.
