- What should be done about global warming?
- What should we do about Iraq? Will withdrawal cause a cataclysm? Can it be defunded constitutionally?
- What should be done about Massachusetts’ budget deficit? What combination of taxes, cuts, and appropriations would work best?
- What would rejuvenate the Massachusetts economy?
- What steps need to be taken in healthcare and health insurance?
On few of these is there a Democratic position, and these are hard questions. They all involve research, analysis, and careful thought.
If we arrive at greater Democratic unity on the answers, we’re more likely to carry some of them to legislative victory.
If we get them right, Democrats will make gains in 2008 and, more important, Massachusetts and the U.S. will become better places.
So we have a choice. This blog can be a big and useful part of hammering away at those quesions. Or it can become a fun playground where Jeff Jacoby enthusiasts provide us exciting stimulation.
We can work hard at getting a Democratic consensus on the Massachusetts budget deficit or we can put effort into proving the merits of progressive taxation to conservatives.
So I’m asking. Please eat your broccoli. There’s work to be done.
this question
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isn’t yours to decide. That authority resides with the owners. They have obviously chosen a different course than the one you (and I) find useful.
which threads are the most active, or that they are all that authoritarian about what the theme of the place is. It’s up to people here to get discussions going about what interests us–the best way to nudge things in that direction would probably be to try and ignore the Jeff Jacoby stuff, or at least refrain from contributing to those threads.
in devising a solution to say, the precarious role of women in Gaza, while sitting in a bar with fifteen drunken B.U. seniors yelling “Poon-tang!”
Steverino, I notice that you haven’t posted any user posts yet. Rather than complaining about the “course” that the editors have chosen, why not take KBusch’s advice and write up something on an issue about which you feel passionately and which you can bring some expertise? Any of KBusch’s short list of issues would be great, or whatever you like.
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If you want a better “signal-to-noise ratio” for this blog, as it were, you can try to get rid of the noise, or boost the signal. Why not concentrate on the latter, as KBusch suggests?
but I suspect practice will be much harder to pull off. The trollish brightshinythings are hard to ignore, for sure, and, in sufficient numbers, will prove to be such a distraction that I’m not sure as concentrated an effort as we’d like can be forthcoming from this site. A lot will depend on the current batch of Republican flamethrowers–and the potential circumference of their secousse de cercle.
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Considering that there’s no such thing as progressive taxation in MA, that’s not such bad ground to cover.
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In a larger sense, the better conservatives here can sharpen our arguments and can maybe even cause us to adjust our policy prescriptions to handle their most cogent points while still being true to our ideals.
That’s kind of my point, though. It’s more fun, it’s more natural, and it’s the momentum of the last six years for us to spend our time refuting, disputing, and arguing with conservatives.
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When we’re done doing that, we don’t have much to show for it. On the other hand, there are both liberal and moderate Democrats on this site. Delving into the controversies between moderate and liberal Democrats is much more likely to produce something useful, something that could affect energy, Iraq, and policy in the Commonwealth. There are plenty of controversies there.
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Maybe we should call each other names more to, er, motivate debate? Well, I hope that answered your question, Rhinocerous-face.
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(N.B. I have no idea what you look like.)
we currently at least 3 posters whose profuse writings suggest a frequent habit of lunching at the Christ Church soup line on Cambridge Common. Which makes for a rather unwelcoming environment for detailed policy debates.
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Also, developing a statewide agenda of the kind you suggest–an “Energize Massachusetts” proposal, for example–would probably require a deeper bench of experience than simple familiarity with the sophisticated stylings of Jay Severin.
I wonder if the Romans had as much trouble recruiting Cincinnatus from his plough.
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Trouble is, Steverino, you write too well and intelligently. You even do alliteration and satire ferociously well. I think you could handle a Vide Supra debate better than I could so that stuff stays properly focused.
I just play one on the Internet.
The last time I checked, you had a shiny new house and senate majority. Besides, if you only listen to each other, you’re missing out on the wisdom of a whole other ideology. While both sides don’t agree with each other, there’s always something for one to impart on the other. Perfection won’t be achieved by some stroke of of the Democrats or Republicans; it will be a situation, God willing, that finds the best of both worlds. So don’t give on arguing with me, Trench-foot. We both have so much to learn from each other in the glorious pursuit of a better America.
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And no, I’m not bloviating…I’m just still young and inexperienced enough to have some semblance of idealism and optimism left before the world kills it.
Hey, I expect you to read me more closely than that!
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My point was that 2007 is very different from 2005. In 2005, disputation was the key for Democrats; in 2007, policy and unity have overtaken them in importance for Democrats.
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I think that there is no danger, either, that we will only listen to each other. Liberals love listening to other people. I bet we can probably spell out the neoconservative foreign policy positions better than we can spell out what we should ourselves be advocating.
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Far be it from me to crush the tender shoots of optimism and idealism that you so carefully nourish in your young heart.
I’m at least experienced enough to know love doesn’t exist and the best we can hope for life is to find someone we’re relatively compatible with at best. But I digress…
I figure part and parcel of this blog is politics, not just policy. While all those issues that KBusch are worth noting, it is also worth keeping in mind that this blog (like most) hit a big break due to an election season, not fur flying about health care. I have some policy interests, but find politics fascinating — and Jeff Jacoby is part of that equation.
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And yes we have trolls. There are plenty of jerks, and some have found their way online. Can we move on from this already? You’d think they were threatening American democracy the way some people are carrying on round these parts.
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Oh, and by the way, could we put education on that list too?
Didn’t there used to be a link that said “HOME’ at the bottom right of the page? It was handy and I miss it…
Yes there did! There has been a software upgrade recently, and apparently the bottom “home” link vanished in the course of it. I hadn’t noticed that — will see if I can restore it.
We have to put that back. Thanks for pointing it out.
It’s back…in the middle of the page now, and in a different font, but it’s there. And yes, I spend too much time here.
The question of “what we should do about trolls,” I find boring as a general matter and, right now, beaten to death. In the event, we’ll be judged by the quality of our content, not the precision of our internal policies.
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Steverino and KBusch, you are two of our sharpest, most passionate bloggers. If you could devote yourselves more to substance and less to procedure, as Charley suggests, that would be wonderful in MHO.
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So, to your interesting question of what Democrats should stand for I say: pragmatism. Bush’s refusal to compromise and blind adherence to a series of failed, or failing, policies, creates a huge opportunity for us to define ourselves as the party of rationality and workable solutions, as opposed to “power of magical thinking” Republicans. The “reality based” title of this blog has huge power.
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In practice, this means, for example:
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. Democrats are the party of national security. Who lost the Middle East in a botched war because they denied reality? The Republicans. Democrats are stronger on defense.
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. Democrats are the party of freedom. Who wants to take us back to a Medieval society where religion merges into the state? The Republicans. Democrats use reason to set social policy.
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. Democrats are the party of prosperity. Who is willing to see our cities flood and our animals driven to extinction because they refuse to accept the reality of climate change? The Republicans. Pragmatic Democrats are better stewards of our national future.
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I could go on. Have at it.
Pragmatism with vision for a more equitable, sustainable world. Beginning with the commitment to establish dignity for everyone through providing the structure and resources to support humane living conditions. That means health, education, energy, environment, economic and social policies that cleave to the Democratic ideals of equitable and sustainable. It sometimes happens that when a simple but high standard is established, change can be achieved.
The Republicans have dropped the ball, but the Democrats have to pick it up and dunk it. The Republicans botched a war, but the Democrats have to do something to show they can do better instead of just say we botched the war.
who wish to hash some of this out in the flesh:
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Town Hall Meeting to End the War – An Invitation to All Residents
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What Can We Do?
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A Community Discussion
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Sunday, March 11, 2007
3-5 PM
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Arlington Town Hall
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An open meeting to discuss ending the war in Iraq will be held in Arlington Town Hall on Sunday, March 11 from 3-5 PM. All Arlington residents are encouraged to attend and participate in this important community discussion.
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In November, a ballot resolution calling for immediate withdrawal of all U.S troops passed in Arlington by a margin of nearly 2-1 (11,678-6,254). The Town Hall Meeting will bring together Arlington’s anti-war majority to ask what we can do as a community to help bring the troops home. Residents will be able to voice their own ideas for ending the war, and to get involved in existing campaigns to pressure Congress and through other local, state, and national actions. Residents who have not yet become involved are especially welcome.
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The Iraq war is about to enter its fifth year. Every day it continues, an average of 3 US troops and more than 100 Iraqis die. The war has already cost more than $366 billion dollars and President Bush has just asked Congress for another $93 billion. The cost to Arlington taxpayers so far is $88 million. (By comparison, the 2005 Arlington override was $6 million).
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We hope that everyone who opposes the war – from longtime peace activists to people who have never attended an anti-war event before – will come to this meeting and let their ! voice be heard.
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The meeting is sponsored by Arlington United for Justice with Peace. For more information, please call (781) 646-8256 or visit http://www.arlingtonujp.org.
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Childcare will be available for the meeting. To make arrangements, please call 781-648-6756.
Among the 22 posts above I didn’t see any policy prescriptions, just “we’re better than them.”
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No one made a single suggestion. “Get out of Iraq” and “Stop global warming now!” are not policy recommendations, just tired mantras that will not win re-election. Keep it up.
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The only salient observation: what do you progressives stand for? /crickets chirping/ Anybody?
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Give some specific policy ideas. Stick to MA issues.
that none of the commenters to postings I made on Iraq included any proposals on the Massachusetts economy.
Some may be good, others will likely be terrible. But, here’ goes.
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Nationally:
1. Increase subsidies for green electricity (excluding old/large hydro), and make it revenue neutral by taxing coal, oil, and natural gas for electricity generation. Since fossil fuel generation is about 25 times larger than green, the price increase will be slight, but the subsidy incentive quite large. Revenue neutral.
2. Increase CAFE standards, and don’t break up trucks from cars. If it’s a vehicle designed for personal or “combination” (personal/commercial), it’s all lumped together. You can have your truck, you’ll just pay more for it because you’ll be subsidizing somebody else’s civic/festiva/whatever. Furthermore, implement a CAFE type standard for big rig trucks, taking biodiesel into account. Revenue neutral.
3. Increase the gas tax. A half cent a month. Every month. Indefinitely. Revenue positive.
4. Subsidize the heck out of mass transit. Subway. Commuter rail. Expand and improve and cheapen Acela. Revenue negative.
5. As discussed here, add a light bulb tax as a linear function of the number of watts the bulb consumes. Revenue positive.
6. As discussed here, expand net metering to allow for more people and businesses to have a greater financial incentive to generate their own electricity and feed it to the grid, thereby distributing power generation which aids stability, and overwhelmingly generating power during peak load, which reduces the need for excessively polluting peaking plants and lowers the price for consumers. Additionally, require that customer service charge for “time of use” is the same as the customer service charge for “flat rate” and that all new meters be “time of use” functional. I want the infrastructure in place now so that time of use uses can be optimized. Electric cars, regeneration from net metering, running the dishwasher, whatever. Furthermore, allow for increasing rates for “electricity hogs” as a function of the number of minors in the house, whether electrical heat is used, etc. Finally, make increasing renewable portfolio standards (RPS) nationwide. Revenue neutral.
7. Increase the pollution standards for the old power plants. The investors have made their money many times over on those old nasties, and they need to be improved.
8. Gradually reduce the tax on ethanol imports. Currently, we’re protecting American ethanol producers, which is OK — but the ethanol from Brazil is perfectly good, in fact better (in the sense that it requires less fossil fuel input to generate the equivalent amount of ethanol energy). By gradually lowering the tariff, it forces American companies to keep innovating or to get off of the public dole.
9. Massively increase funding for non-fuel transportation. What am I talking about? Sidewalks. Rail-to-trail programs. Community cycling programs.
10. Bottle deposit program. Enact it (everywhere). Expand it (a la Maine — water bottles, milk containers, wine bottles, liquor bottles, etc). Increase it to $0.10 (like Michigan) and make it $0.25 for wine and booze. Bottle deposit programs increase recycling rates. The numbers are clear. As an added bonus, it’s a volunteer tax similar to lottery, and it provides income to those currently “between jobs.” Is canning an actual benefit? To the woman and kids in a shelter for two weeks, sure. To the wino living in the Common? Probably not.
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This is far from any expertise I may have in life, but I think Murtha’s plan has merit. Don’t send anyone new over until they are fully equipped, and fully trained with that equipment. When somebody comes back from duty, they get the full year off. No back-door drafts.
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While I’m at it, I’d love to see some serious investigations about wartime spending, w.r.t. the black holes of Haliburton et al.
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You mean other than a graduated income tax, which is currently not kosher? This is hard, and generally takes some serious expertise. Of course, close the loopholes, yadda yadda. I don’t even know where to begin looking for those. I generally like the idea of increasing certain user fees (Romney be damned), particularly when those uses also have detrimental externalities. Fees like taxes on vehicles, gas tax, cigarette tax, and toll roads. The financing for health issues is below. The state income tax is right around average IIRC, lower than RI and VT, but higher than NH and CT. NY is both lower and higher as a function of income. In short, I have to punt for the most part.
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I think the following things would help:
1. Making progress on health care. Increase the $295, and figure out how to get more people into single payer via medicare. We could do what Vermont does and cover all pregnant women and kids aged 5 and under. Pay for it by increasing the $295, and then these folks no longer have to be covered by private insurance (alternatively, those costs go way down) which helps to offset the health care costs. If MA can drive down health care costs relative to other states, we’re more likely to get more white collar jobs.
2. Figure out how to get more of the Boston budget off of property tax (meals, etc?) so that the housing prices cool off a bit. In conjunction, modify zoning laws to (a) allow for more dense housing nearer the T stations, and (b) allow for more business and commercial square footage in those same places. Boston seems to be all 3.5 floor buildings or massive skyscrapers downtown. Surely we could split the difference somewhere, and have a bunch of 10 story mixed housing (low income, moderate, and luxury) along with commercial and office space within blocks. It helps increase population, decrease housing costs, and doesn’t result in dramatic increase in vehicular traffic.
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$295 just isn’t enough. It’s just not. How much is? I don’t have any idea.
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I’d like to see Massachusetts follow Howard Dean’s Vermont plan where all pregnant mothers and children under five get health care through the state, not means tested. This both (a) helps make sure kids are ready to learn, a solid long term investment, (b) helps transition into single payer, where I think the long term goal should be, and (c) helps lower the insurance costs for businesses because their insurers don’t have to cover those groups. How will we pay for it? Something similar to the way Vermont did it. If it can be done for 0-5, we can then increase it to 6. Then 8. Expanding the program will gain additional cost savings due to single payer, since the infrastructure will already be in place. This plan would take some serious funding, but the business taxes to pay for it would be (somewhat? partially? wholly? more than 100%?) offset by reduced insurance costs to the businesses who insure. If it can be made into a financially good deal for those businesses which do insure, then MA will be encouraging those businesses to set up shop in MA, and those are exactly the kinds of businesses we want!
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So, there you have it. I took a shot. Some national, some state. For the energy stuff, much of the “national” can also be applied in this state with something like 1/50th of the impact. Obviously, I’ve read more about green energy than green berets, green budgets, or fighting gangrene.
Huge effort. Thanks sT. Food for thought. You mgiht consider breaking out one of those that you want to talk more about and posting it on its own.
Threat: if you don’t post them, I would be happy to. “Stomv’s proposals I: Global Warming”, “Stomv’s proposals II: Iraq”, “Stomv’s proposals III: Massachusetts Economy”.
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The point of making such posts is not necessarily because you have all the right ideas (your track record is pretty good though). The point is provide a bright shiny object that’s more productive than Deval’s drapes or Jacoby’s outrages and that attracts thought and debate.
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Actually, when I wrote this post, I was thinking of your writings and how discussing them requires a sober forum (to play off Steverino).
As utopian social policy, a nice effort.
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But as a political manifesto, I think Stomv’s shopping list is a non-starter. No one could possibly get elected on this platform. Except for like-minded progressives, no independent or R or fiscally conservative D would vote for it.
What should be done about global warming?
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An imprecise question. What Americans would interpret that is what should Americans alone do about global warming? The problem is, not very much. I know the litany about Americans now or in the recent past using x% of the fossil fuels, but the sad fact is that the rapidly-developing developing nations such as China and India (which together have approx. 6 times the US population) will far outpace the US’s use of fossil fuels, so much of anything that the US does in the near term will be nibbling around the edges. And I suspect that, subconsciously, most Americans know that.
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Global warming is, indeed a serious problem as anyone who can read a graph can readily recognize (note the black curve to the right of the graph, which correlates with the period of massive increases in usage of fossil fuels), but it is far from clear what the US alone can do about it.
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What should we do about Iraq? Will withdrawal cause a cataclysm? Can it be defunded constitutionally?
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That’s three questions.
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One, what should we do about Iraq? The short answer is nothing–we should let the Iraqis determine what should be done about Iraq. Iraq was a made-up country out of the vestiges of the Ottoman Empire, and, like what we saw in Yugoslavia, we should let the Iraqis determine what should be done about Iraq. They are doing so, and, as I pointed out elsewhere, it is not going to be pretty. During the Yugoslav wars, not only was Bosnia (essentially, a made-up province of the Ottomans) in turmoil, but the Croats chased thousands of ethnic Serbs out of their country after they broke away. (It is interesting that Slovenia separated from Yugoslavia relatively easily early on, but it was obvious that there were some left over animosities between the Croats and Serbs from WWII that I won’t go into.) The Iraqis are going to have to sort it out for themselves.
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One of the ironies about Iraq is that Yugoslavia was held together by a “strongman” (Tito), and started to fall apart after he died and the Russian hegemony in the area eroded. Similarly, Iraq was held together by a “strongman” Saddam (actually his party) and it is falling apart after he was removed. Maybe these “made up countries” need strongmen to be held together, whether or not we like it. Saddam’s removal left a power vacuum, and now various groups (some 20, in Juan Coles’s estimation) are jockeying for power in various regions of the country. The US is pretty much powerless to stop it.
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Will withdrawal cause a cataclysm? It depends on what you mean by cataclysm. It won’t be pretty, but neither were the wars in Lebanon or the former Yugoslavia.
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Can it be defunded constitutionally? Of course it can be–all the Congress need do is present the pResident with a defense appropriations bill that does not include funding for any operations in Iraq, dare the pResident to sign it, and, if he does not, refuse to pass a defense appropriations bill. That would constitutionally defund the Iraq war. Would the Democrats in Congress do that? Of course not. They know full well that this petulent child of a pResident, the Charley McCarthy to Dick Cheney’s Edgar Bergen, would keep the 140k (or so) American soldiers in Iraq regardless of what Congress does. That means that there are 140K (or so) American hostages in Iraq, and the American sheeple would not stand for defunding of the war in such a way as to (as the Republicans would put it) put them in danger (as if they aren’t already).
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The US congress constitutionally defunded American involvement in Vietnam in 1974-75, but that was only after most if not all American service men and women had been withdrawn.
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What should be done about Massachusetts’ budget deficit? What combination of taxes, cuts, and appropriations would work best?
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One thing that is clear is that the state should not have a stranglehold on the funding sources of cities and towns that it has. Currently, it appears that cities and towns have only one funding source–the property tax–which is ridiculous. In much of the country, cities and towns (and unincorporated areas) have available to them various varieties of local option taxes, including a mix of income and sales taxes (so-called meals taxes are nothing more than sales taxes on particular types of goods) and, coming, as I do, from the midwest, it seemed very strange to me that Massachusetts limits local taxes to the property tax.
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What would rejuvenate the Massachusetts economy?
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I’ll skip that one. I didn’t know that it really needed much rejuvenating.
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What steps need to be taken in healthcare and health insurance?
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A switch to the German form of health care financing would be a nice first start. This piecemeal mix of socialized, government sponsored, employer-based financing in the US is simply preposterous, and only serves to not only raise costs (costs are approx. 50% higher in the US than in Germany, on both a per capita basis and a GDP basis) but also shift costs and deny coverage. The irony is that Germany also has a thriving private health insurance (Krankenversicherung) system. My mother in law is covered “privat” and she got better coverage for less cost that I did when I was covered by Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Massachusetts despite the fact that she is a breast cancer survivor and I had had virtually no claims.