Fried Rice

"We face a $17 trillion federal deficit and $128 trillion in unfunded liabilities. Continuing to look to Washington as a bottomless pit of money that we can draw on just by complying with increased federal conditions is irresponsible and leads to greater dependence on government for everything in our lives."

--Fred Rice, Republican Delegate House of Representatives, New Hampshire

Whenever people start throwing around big numbers, you can be pretty sure they have no idea what they are talking about. When they talk about thousands, they may have some inkling; millions, they are in a fog; billions, they are listening to someone else; trillions, they haven't the faintest idea.  There is a strong inverse correlation between large numbers and solid evidence.

--Mad Dog, Hampton New Hampshire Democrat

Fred Rice voices the standard Tea Party Republican tripe when he says we cannot afford Medicaid for our New Hampshire citizens, and we cannot afford health care for our nation. The line is so old  and wrong it is like a worn out pair of shoes: leaky, inadequate, but  comfortable.

Here's how it goes:  We are spending more money than we can afford. This will result in catastrophe, not necessarily today, but tomorrow, when the bill comes due.If we agree to this Medicaid thing, then we will be involving ourselves more with the federal government, and that is always bad. The federal government is bad. Government is bad. Someday, when the bill comes due, we will be owned by the Chinese, and our grand children will have to learn Chinese. They will be working for Chinese companies, living in dormitories next to the factories and they will live in a soulless country where there is no free market. Government spending is always bad. If we had only not spent government money during the Great Recession, we'd be oh so much better off. General Motors would have gone bankrupt, but that would have only hurt the unions, so that would have been a good thing.

One advantage of mouthing this line is that it is easy to remember and it never changes and it sounds homey and has the ring of truthiness.

Only problem is, it is total rubbish.

We have the money.  Medicare is not,  and never has been,  and in the foreseeable future will not be in economic trouble. Social Security is not in danger of default, unless the Republicans drive it in that direction. Medicaid will not bankrupt the state of New Hampshire, especially given the federal government's generosity when it comes to this program. (Of course, Mr. Rice knows the federal government is just trying to trick us into taking part in this program so it can control us later.)

What Mr. Rice and his Republican colleagues really fear is not that Medicaid will hurt New Hampshire, but that New Hampshire will come to love Obamacare as much as it loves Medicare, and maybe, just maybe, New Hampshire voters will remember who tried to give them health insurance and who tried to stand in the way.

Remember, expanding Medicaid is not a way to help the few, but the many. The reason we worry about denying Medicaid to fellow citizens is not because we care so much about those who need Medicaid. What we really care about is if we don't insure those Medicaid eligible people, they will go to the Emergency Rooms, where they will run up the bills for all the rest of us. 

As for Mr. Rice, as an example of a specimen of this Republican species, we must always remember that Mr. Rice has (and continues) to insist that building a motorway along the abandoned railroad line between Hampton and Portsmouth would be better for the environment than building a bicycle path.  You see, Mr. Rice informs us, the new two lane road would reduce traffic along Route 1, and with fewer cars, there would be fewer cars idling their motors at traffic signals and that would reduce emissions and seacoast air would be cleaner.  So there you have it: Worried about air pollution? Build roads.  Build roads and the roads will carry fewer cars. (If you build it, they will not come. Roads are good. Roads do not simply fill up with more cars if you build them--they empty out.)

Mr. Rice is probably not, at heart, a bad sort. It is true, he voted for lowering cigarette taxes because his unfailing economic compass told him if we lower taxes we could sell more product and if we sold more product, even at a lower price, we'd make more money. When confronted with the question about why we tax cigarettes, what we hope to accomplish, he looked like a deer in the headlights. Why? To make money, of course. But do we not hope to diminish the use of cigarettes by taxing them? Are we not concerned with the health of the citizens of New Hampshire?  Well, Mr. Rice replied, what we are really going to see is all those Massachusetts residents will drive across the border for the cheap cigarettes. So, Mr. Rice was asked:  "Are we trying to export our lung cancer to Massachusetts?"

Mr. Rice replied, "Well, cigarettes are legal aren't they?"

Fellow citizens of Hampton, do we not have a single human being willing to stand in the next election against Mr. Rice?  Can we not rid our town of this vexatious priest of Republican obtuseness? 

The man, plainly put, is an embarrassment. And he represents Hampton! People up there in Concord must look at him, listen to him and say, "Do they still have lead in the drinking water in Hampton?"