Thursday, January 12, 2006

Party Chair Candidate Forum

4th CD Dems and the Hispanic Caucus sponsor a candidiates forum for the state party chair contenders. Saturday, 10 AM, at the Carpenter's Hall in Pasco. Come see who wants to lead the Washington State Democrats!

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Hastings, Marianas, Abramoff refresher

From the June Tri-City Herald.

Doc Hastings visits Framatome.

He still doesn't understand that Social Security is more solvent than the rest of our government.

On inheritance tax he thinks that the big money should remain in the family. Those children were born with a silver spoon in their mouths and no one has the right to take it away.

Any questions about Congressional ethics are dealt with in secret. The public does not have a right to know.

The American healthcare system is the best thing since sliced bread. If people would just go ahead and die younger everyone's insurance costs would be much less. On the positive side he floated the idea that individuals should be entitled to the same tax break for insurance premiums that employers get. If you really want to save money on healthcare keep your foreign citizenship handy.

Prescription benefit is not really all that complicated. Just go to the various providers with your list of prescriptions and see who gives you the best deal. Now how many providers are there? God help you if you sign a contract and your health situation changes and you need different drugs. Tried to blame the complexity on government when the complexity is due to the drug companies who wrote the bill.

Legal immigration is so difficult it's no wonder we have so many illegals. Major sections of agriculture have always depended on migrant workers. In early days the migrant workers were citizens, now they are almost all aliens. Any immigration reform must have a workable guest worker provision because alien workers are an important part of our economy.

Yucca Mountain will be built eventually regardless of what Nevadans think.

He would like to replace the progressive income tax with an (un)FAIR tax. Essentially a sales tax at the national level. The only problem is the 16th amendment to the constitution.