It’s almost impossible to process the Supreme Court’s decision allowing certain corporations to impose its religious beliefs on health care and, therefore, not cover the cost of birth control as written in the Affordable Care Act. Justice Ginsburg fought mightily against five of her colleagues antiquated and politically convenient stand. Here’s one of her concerns, and many others, included in the New York Times link below:
Justice Ginsburg presses the majority on its contention that for-profit corporations are protected by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Religious organizations and nonprofits can claim to be a unified community, but workers in a for-profit company may well have views and needs that are distinct from those of their employers — a “key difference,” she writes.
How do you talk about freedom and impose your beliefs on half of the population? Probably the same way you impose flawed economic doctrine on a state, like Kansas, where Governor Brownback slashed taxes across the board two years ago to raise revenues under the proven-false belief that fewer taxes mean increased spending. Paul Krugman’s NY Times column, “Charlatans, Cranks and Kansas,” explains below and in the second link:
But Kansas isn’t booming — in fact, its economy is lagging both neighboring states and America as a whole. Meanwhile, the state’s budget has plunged deep into deficit, provoking a Moody’s downgrade of its debt.
We learned in the Reagan ’80s there’s no trickle-down effect with supply side economics. But that’s the point. The rich continue to get richer, and the rest of us are taxed every-which-way until we slump into the financial swamp from which conservatives somehow emerge and flourish.
For the Brownback tax cuts didn’t emerge out of thin air. They closely followed a blueprint laid out by the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, which has also supported a series of economic studies purporting to show that tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy will promote rapid economic growth. The studies are embarrassingly bad, and the council’s Board of Scholars — which includes both Mr. Laffer and Stephen Moore of the Heritage Foundation — doesn’t exactly shout credibility. But it’s good enough for antigovernment work.
And what is ALEC? It’s a secretive group, financed by major corporations, that drafts model legislation for conservative state-level politicians. Ed Pilkington of The Guardian, who acquired a number of leaked ALEC documents, describes it as “almost a dating service between politicians at the state level, local elected politicians, and many of America’s biggest companies.” And most of ALEC’s efforts are directed, not surprisingly, at privatization, deregulation, and tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy.
This is “giving power to the few.” Do you know how many freedoms are lost when powerful interests are backed by huge amounts of corporate dollars? You don’t have to go to our borders anymore to figure out that old white men in suits are running our country. About 98% of us and the state of Kansas need only to try to balance our check books to know whose in charge now.
“Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas any more,” Dorothy said in The Wizard of Oz.
I’ve a feeling we’re no longer in The Land of the Free anymore. And we should be scared.
Filed under: basic human rights, civil rights, Conservative Politics, Economy, Employment, GOP Hypocrisy, Paul Krugman, U.S. Politics, U.S. Supreme Court Tagged: Affordable Care Act, American Legislative Reform Exchange Council, Dorothy, Economy, Freedom of Religion, Governor Brownback, health care, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Kansas, NY Times, Religious Freedom Restoration Act, supply-side economics, Taxes, Toto, Trickle Down effect, Wizard of Oz, Women's Rights
