Posts by Hines Brian

I'm not sure what the origin of the term is, but calling Congressional Republicans bat-shit crazy sounds so right to me. They're acting insane on many issues, but global warming is where their disconnect from reality reaches its zenith. I've never seen a political party in this country go so far astray from facts. We're not talking here about a difference of opinion, a philosophical dispute, or a questioning of which data are more accurate. No, the freshly empowered Republicans who have taken control of the House of Representatives are purely and simply lying. So I'll amend my description of…

Ah, vindication. Confirmation. An Oregonian story: "Oregon tax burden remains in bottom third of states, new report says." No matter how you slice or dice the numbers, Oregonians bear a smaller tax burden than people in most other states, according to a new state report. When all charges are considered, including federal taxes and fees, Oregon's share was $7,663 per person in 2008, the latest numbers available. That ranks 33 out of 50 states. ...Warner's staff has looked at the impact of the tax increases imposed by last year's measures 66 and 67. "It didn't change the relative rankings," Warner…

Brilliant! Genius! Marvelous! Those were my thoughts as I read an editorial in today's Salem (Oregon) Statesman Journal, "DeFazio offers a common-sense solution" -- to the possibly unconstitutional mandate in the Affordable Care Act that everyone have health insurance. Oregon Rep. Peter DeFazio has a sensible proposal to fix the most controversial part of the federal health reform, the requirement that everyone buy insurance. His idea: Make people put their money where there mouth is. People who object to the health-care insurance mandate could sign a waiver, guaranteeing that no one else would be stuck paying their medical bills. Not…

Conservatives are crowing over a federal judge's recent ruling that the requirement to purchase health insurance in the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare) is unconstitutional. But Judge Roger Vinson's ruling actually showed that what Republicans have been claiming is false: it isn't possible to repeal the health insurance mandate and leave other more popular parts of the law intact. Vinson came to the legally questionable conclusion that the mandate is unconstitutional. He then went further, saying that the entire Affordable Care Act should be struck down even though only this one part of it fails to pass constitutional muster. (In…

Last night I was inspired by President Obama's State of the Union speech. He seemed like the adult in the room, rising above childish political pettiness with his call for Americans to come together and work to improve our country's position in an increasingly competitive world economy. But it doesn't take a crystal ball for me to predict that almost all Republicans in Congress will ignore Obama's urging to put patriotism above politics, and idealism above ideology. So they'll keep on spouting platitudes about creeping socialism, reckless spending, liberty being threatened, blah, blah, blah. Which drives me nuts. As does…

Republicans keep saying that the 2010 midterm election was a mandate from the American people to repeal the health care reform bill, a.k.a. "Obamacare." That's not true, like so much else that leaves the lips of Republican leaders these days. A  New York Times/CBS poll found that only 20% of people said they want to do away with the entire bill. And of those, it turns out that when asked about specific parts of the bill, very few wanted to repeal anything. The poll first asked people a straight-up question -- should we do away with the law completely, or…