Blog @ MoreWhat.com

As you can see, there are two articles listed below. Reading the headlines it is relatively simple to get a sense of what the stories are about. And just like other stories there is more to it than you might expect. One story is about the CHIPs legislation. If you don’t know it is pretty much like the headline of the first story reads. A mandate from the federal government to the state governments for a shared expense to cover uninsured children.

The second story is essentially more of the same but it tells of the haggling and politics of Washington and connects paying for children’s insurance with the Iraq war and competition for federal dollars. Number one, there should not be children in this country without healthcare. As a matter of fact, there should not be any of the 45 or 50 million people currently without health insurance. But the political realities of Washington and elsewhere are the constant that deprive this country from realizing the greatness that it is capable of achieving. This is not a salute the flag piece.

Bill Would Mandate Dental Coverage for Children in State Programs

Politico, DC - Apr 9, 2007
The legislation is on track to be folded into the biannual reauthorization of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, known as SCHIP, which the House …

Kids’ insurance tied to Iraq pullout legislation

Jackson Clarion Ledger, MS - Apr 8, 2007
Future health care coverage for more than 60000 Mississippi children hinges on a bill now in the hands of a committee in Congress where House and Senate …

It is a reminder of how irresponsible we are in abandoning our duty to break the continuous logjam in Congress and other places by determining with a clear conscience what is right and pressuring elected representatives to do the same.

Just like every individual, group, family or business, everyone allocates available funds to cover expenses by priority. Certainly, like Congress, some have misguided priorities and do not spend wisely. But most people at least attend to the most basic expenses first. You could say that first is food, clothing and shelter. Or to be more specific, most people make sure the necessities are paid for if the money is available. The mortgage or rent is paid. The energy needs like natural gas and electricity are paid as well as water and telephone and a car payment or fuel for the car, etc.

At least since the sixties, some of the highest ticket items on the federal budget were defense and entitlements. Many years ago there was either a cover or main feature in Time magazine that claimed 76 cents out of every tax dollar went to the defense budget. Even at my age then, I was shocked. I wondered how that was possible. But not having reached the age of majority and being the responsibility of adults, I couldn’t have done anything about it anyway. But I digress. Insanity in government ‘revenue enhancements’, spending and methods of accounting are as corrupt now as they were then and we, the public, allow that and every other problem to continue.

The whole point is, whatever the condition, balance or imbalance between revenue and expenses experienced by the government at any given time, the only sensible arrangement is to start by allocating revenue to each major expense item as a percentage of what is needed and what is available. If the revenue is short that is too bad. You don’t cut other accounts out, you simply allocate a percentage of revenue based on the account’s percentage of total expenses.

Let’s say you have 1000 dollars of revenue and 2000 dollars of expenses. Your largest single expense is 40% of the total expense or 800 dollars. This time only 400 dollar is available as 40% of revenue. You don’t borrow. You don’t unfairly cut out other less popular or politically correct expenses. You do this to all accounts and honestly trim excess or waster as you can. And if you can’t cover everything after that, only those items that are absolutely necessary can be covered by borrowed funds, maybe. I think you get the idea. So why does Washington continue to do the wrong thing and why do we let them?

Certainly the example was an oversimplification. But it was not intended as a guide for Congress because it would have been too complicated for them to understand. I’m sorry that was a cheap shot. And I lied. I’m not really sorry. At least not for that. I am sorry that I have not done enough to change Washington for the better. I am sorry that my fellow citizens in large part have done the same. I also know that many of the ‘citizens’ in this country are part of the power and influence and others who are not learn how to get their cut from the government. Or they think they do.

Here comes the plug. We have decided to post what is a suggestion and request for comment in one. And we have decided to do it from time to time as the notion strikes us. We have some ideas but have postponed any highly detailed plans in case it goes nowhere we won’t feel like it was all a big waste of time. What the hell am I talking about you ask?

We would like to begin developing a large group of people who are willing to lend their voice to wake up the government. I know, you are thinking there are way too many people asking this. Maybe. But based on things like voter turnout and the apparent apathy of the general public, we have a slightly different approach. We intend to make it so easy to participate that we hope it will outperform other efforts.

The way we want to start is to make it perfectly clear there is no set or predetermined agenda. That gets decided along the way by user input. Don’t despair. It will be easy. All you need to do is be willing to add a comment on this post that you have some interest. That’s it. It will take some time if it even draws enough interest so for now, that is all we ask. If you would be interested in participating in an extremely simple way to get the attention of those in Washington and other parts of the public and private sector, post a comment to that effect.

And remember you will not be asked to participate in something with which you are not in agreement. As a hint, any issue that draws enough support will be presented for those interested to participate. As mentioned before, every part of this will be simple, straight forward and quite possibly effective. Wouldn’t you feel silly if it was extraordinarily successful and you did not participate? I thought so.

This was a rather hastily prepared post. And the plug at the end was a last minute decision. But it was presented with the usual sincerity. All of us here hope readers will consider this simple call to action for letting the politicians and business leaders hear your voice in a compelling manner. Post a comment and join this simple effort. When this catches fire we’re gonna run with it so get in early.

Stanford Matthews
and the MoreWhat.com staff
a tiny little group

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 12th, 2007 at 12:15 am and is filed under Public Affairs, Health, Announcement, wordpress, Politics, lobbyist, disclosure, ethics, oversight, United States, Advertising, Public, Congress. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.