Category Archives: All Politics Is Local

Discouraged About Our Politics? Try Baby Step Involvement

Recently, Washington State legislators passed and sent to the governor a bill exempting many of their records from public view, despite the state’s Public Records Act.

Public protest over the bill began after newspapers pointed out how they used the Public Records Act to investigate political corruption,.

The legislature had passed the exemption bill without the usual public debate and scrutiny. A large number of representatives and senators approved the bill, supposedly rendering it veto proof.

The governor, though expressing himself against the measure, was considering letting it pass without any action, since, it seemed, the legislature would simply vote to override his veto.

Thousands of emails poured into offices of the legislators. Thousands of citizens phoned. Some even sent letters. Reaction overwhelmingly condemned the bill.

The governor vetoed the bill, and the legislators agreed not to pass it over his signature. They will, they said, work on another bill that follows more accepted procedures and allows for compromise.

In a time when our national government appears polarized and paralyzed, citizens can exert a great deal of influence at the state and local levels. Perhaps responsible state governments will prod our national politicians out of their dysfunction.

A long time ago, I heard someone suggest that involvement, even in small ways, works to overcome the despair of powerlessness.

I was one of those who emailed my state legislators. It was a small act, but, strangely, it did give me a bit of optimism about our democracy.

Domestic Terrorism

On February 5, I quoted from a blog by Jim Wallis, editor-in-chief of Sojourners (written November 17, 2017, after a church shooting in Texas). Today, I’d like to quote further from that blog. Wallis begins by defining terrorism.

“Terrorism: the purposeful violence against civilians, non-combatants, with the intent to create and foster social fear. One gun violence massacre after another has certainly created the fear that our families and children are not safe in their schools, our theatres, our concerts, and even in our churches.”

But we can react in different ways to this fear, Wallis points out. Our fear can be stoked toward buying even more guns. In that case, more guns are available for disturbed young men like the shooter in Parkland, Florida, as well as for use in domestic disturbances or in suicides.

Or we can follow other examples. “Australia came to this conclusion after 35 people were killed in a mass shooting. Conservative Prime Minister John Howard and his party banned semiautomatic and automatic guns and implemented a buyback program, slashing the country’s arsenal by 20 percent and dramatically reducing gun deaths.”

Wallis also discusses ill-conceived interpretations of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

“The Second Amendment to the Constitution provides Americans with the right to own guns, ostensibly to protect ourselves from a potentially tyrannous government. But it is absolutely ridiculous to extend that to any weapon that is available, any military weapon a government has. Should every American have the right to own a bazooka, a tank, a rocket launcher, a weaponized drone — how about a nuke?”

Finally, he quoted Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy, affected greatly by the Newtown massacre of children in his state: “My heart sunk to the pit of my stomach, once again, when I heard of today’s shooting in Texas. My heart dropped further when I thought about the growing macabre club of families in Las Vegas and Orlando and Charleston and Newtown, who have to relive their own day of horror every time another mass killing occurs.”

Now add families and friends of those killed at a high school in Parkland, Florida.

“You Lie” vs Not Clapping

Joe Wilson, a U.S. congressman from South Carolina, showed his disagreement with a speech by President Obama in 2009 by yelling “you lie” in the middle of it. He was not tried for treason. So far as I know, although some disliked his interruption (for which he later apologized), no one even suggested treason.

According to the United States Constitution (Article 3, Section 3), “Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.”

How does a refusal to clap for President Trump’s State of the Union speech fit with the Constitution’s definition of treason?

Trump apparently didn’t come right out and say non clappers were treasonous, but he implied it. He used his “somebody” shield, as he often does. “Somebody” suggested treason, Trump said. He answered his alter somebody: “Why not?”

Some nations appear to have a low bar for treason. I’m not sure about North Korean law, but it probably doesn’t matter, since the leader, Kim Jong-un, appears to be the law. One certainly might expect death, with or without a trial, if they openly withheld clapping during one of his speeches.

President Trump appears to admire Kim, saying, “I can tell you this, a lot of people don’t like when I say it, but he was a young man of 26 or 27 when he took over from his father, when his father died. He is dealing with obviously very tough people, in particular the generals and others. And at a very young age he was able to assume power. A lot of people I am sure tried to take that power away. Whether it was his uncle or anybody else and he was able to do it, so obviously he is a pretty smart cookie.”

North Korea—are we there yet?

A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety by Jimmy Carter

Jimmy Carter was an anomaly. An unwavering born-again Christian from the Bible Belt, he forged a presidency along liberal paths.

His administration produced a national healthcare plan, which he described in his book. “Our plan protected all Americans from catastrophic illness costs; extended comprehensive health coverage to all low-income citizens; gave total coverage to all mothers and babies for prenatal, delivery, postnatal, and infant care; promoted competition and cost containment and provided a clear framework for phasing in a universal, comprehensive national health plan.”

Senator Ted Kennedy opposed it, wanting another plan of his own approved. As Carter says, thirty years would pass before another plan was approved with “just partial implementation.”

If Carter had been from any part of the country except the deep South, would his presidency have been more successful? He writes: “Some of the most influential analysts never anticipated my election, and others could not accept having a governor from the Deep South in office.”

Particularly amazing (and tragic) is comparison of the political campaigning of that era with the present one.

Carter and his Republican opponent in the presidential campaign, Gerald Ford (whom Carter highly praises), chose not to raise campaign funds from corporate or private donors. Both used funds collected from the income tax form allowing $1 dollar to be donated to campaigns (now $3). According to Carter (writing in 2016), this fund has not been used since 2004.

It’s hard to imagine the differences from the political campaigns of today, which have become contests mostly between wealthy American donors.

As president, Carter was a serious reader as was his family. He commented,“All of us are avid readers, and it was during the weekends that I had a chance to catch up on back reading .”

Carter also exercised every afternoon by running from five to seven miles.

He mentions the efforts he put in to prepare for summit meetings, studying briefing books on political and economic matters and about the leaders he would be meeting.

Easy to note the contrasts between Carter and the current occupant of the Oval Office.

Why Solutions Begin Locally, Not at the Top

“The Firs” is the name of a close community of trailer home families in a Seattle neighborhood. They rent the land for the trailer homes that they own. Their modest homes answer a need for working class housing in a city of soaring rents and home prices.

However, this land offers more material value as a site for a hotel and apartment complex. The owner of the land wishes to profit from such a proposed new development and so has told the residents of the trailer park to leave.

He says, “They want to stay there forever . . . why should I solve the problem? I already gave them a lot of notice.” He offered to give $2,000 to each owner after they leave. (“A Mobile-Home Community Fights Development,” The Seattle Times, January 28, 2018, Erika Schultz and Christine Willmsen)

It’s doubtful if residents of The Firs can find communities as affordable as their present one. Some of the trailers are too old to be moved without destroying them. Plus, their close knit neighborliness would be lost.

Yet costs of homelessness are not usually factored in when affordable neighborhoods are swapped for condos for the more well off. Nor are the emotional costs of those who barely hold on in a constant fight to balance housing with food and medical care.

Capitalism is a wonderful servant but a terrible master. It is the soul of efficiency: the best use of resources—farms, mines, land—for making money for owners. This best use for owners, however, may conflict with the best use of less powerful citizens.

Yet, for both capitalism and democracy to survive, ordinary citizens must reap their benefits, not just owners and the wealthy. Capitalism must be made to serve, not treated as a god.

“Power is directed at the top. . . . Actual work can start only at the bottom, at home and underfoot, where the causes and the effects actually reside.” (Wendell Berry, The Art of Loading Brush)

John McCain’s Failed Cause Was the Nation’s Loss, Big Time

Almost two decades ago (March 1, 2000) Senator John McCain wrote an editorial for USA Today: “Campaign Finance Reform Must Not be Ignored.”

Unfortunately, his pleas for reform were indeed ignored.

Recently, Charles and David Koch, heirs of an industrial family invested in fossil fuels, announced a donation of twenty million dollars to promote President Trump’s recently passed tax plan.

Both major political parties benefit from donations large enough to make the heads spin of ordinary folks. In 2017, the median household income, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, was $59, 039, not quite .003 percent of what the Koch brothers gave this one time. (They’ve given much more over many years.)

Should we not be uneasy with the thought that if politicians want to be elected, they must support policies favored by big donors?

Campaign finance reform became harder when a Supreme Court decision in 2010 struck down the limits on corporate giving.

Reform, if it is to happen now, may be up to the states. One movement encourages a sufficient number of states to seek an amendment to the U.S. Constitution overturning the 2010 decision. Other states are trying various ways to publically finance local elections.

Success depends on the support of ordinary citizens—or they can ignore the efforts at reform, as they did before, and continue with a government influenced and operated overwhelmingly by the wealthy.

U.S. Ambassador to Panama Announces Resignation, and Politics Becomes Personal for Me

The U.S. ambassador to Panama, John Feeley, announced his resignation. He says he no longer can serve under President Donald Trump.

In his announcement, Feeley said, “As a junior foreign service officer, I signed an oath to serve faithfully the president and his administration in an apolitical fashion, even when I might not agree with certain policies. My instructors made clear that if I believed I could not do that, I would be honor bound to resign. That time has come.”

Feeley swore his oath on July 20, 1990, along with forty-four other members of the 52nd junior officer orientation class, including me.

For nine weeks, we had studied together the rudiments of what a Foreign Service Officer does—from leading staff to dealing with foreign governments, from writing to speaking.

We had gone on retreats together and been advised by our seasoned Foreign Service elders. We had met after classes for happy hours and sometimes played ball on the grassy slope below the Washington Monument.

We knew as we took that oath that we would never again all be in the same place together. On flag day, we had received our assignments to our first posts.

Though some would receive more specialized training, we would soon scatter to South America and Asia and points in between. The typical officer spends two-thirds of his or her career in foreign assignments.

John Feeley, a former Marine Corps helicopter pilot, was more experienced than most of us. Married and a father, he was the kind of person you would want on your side in a crisis, somebody you would trust to lead. We were not surprised as Feeley advanced through the ranks, finally becoming a career ambassador.

Now all that expertise is lost.

No Consideration for Disruption to Lives, Families, Employers, Communities . . .

No consideration was given “to the disruption . . . on the lives of Daca recipients, let alone their families, employers and employees, schools and communities . . . ”

The quote is from a ruling by a federal judge staying Trump’s order to end the DACA program until the courts complete a proper review of the order.

DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) permitted the “Dreamers” to remain in this country to study and work. Dreamers are young people brought to the United States as children, who have grown up in this country.

The judge’s ruling highlights the upheaval caused by other sudden orders to deport thousands of people established for years in the United States.

These include certain Nicaraguans and Haitians. These groups were allowed to remain in this country for humanitarian reasons when natural disasters devastated their homelands.

Despite the hardship caused by Trump’s orders to the people involved (as well as the countries they would return to) many who voted for Trump support him.

I understand the broken immigration system this country has had for decades. Assigned to U.S. embassies and consulates overseas, I saw its shortcomings in the lives of the people we met every day in our work.

However, the harming of law abiding, productive members of American communities is a horrible start to immigration reform.

Judges: Just Another Political Game?

“The prospect of more ideological and active conservative judges is not intrinsically bad. The federal courts look stronger for including a range of legal philosophies. The problem is that conservatives are not striving for balance, but conquest.”

      –The Economist, (September 25, 2017), commenting on what it considers the politicizing of judicial nominees.

Federal judges in the United States are appointed by the president for life, subject to the approval of the Senate. The goal is for judges to be impervious to political pressure, judging impartially without worrying about the next election,

Nevertheless, the appointment of federal judges has become more politically motivated than ever in the last few years.

Refusing to approve presidential choices for federal judges in the last year of Obama’s presidency reached record highs. This practice is not new, but the number of times it was done is unprecedented.

President Trump, now enabled to appoint a large number of vacant judgeships, has shown less regard for experienced judges than any recent president. The process has come to resemble the questionable practice of appointing ambassadors for campaign contributions.

Political ambassadors, however, only serve until the next president takes office, not for life.

Since his political party controls the Senate, the issue of partisanship in the appointment of federal judges is theirs to support or to end. If they choose to act for party and not for country, we will suffer the consequences for decades.

Politics and the Spiritual Journey

“The Republican Party’s political sellout to Donald Trump—and the Democrats’ lack of a clear moral alternative many people of faith are excited to support—leave many of us feeling politically homeless.” (Jim Wallis, “Politically Homeless,” Sojo.net, 4 January 2018)

The growth in independent voters who reject any political party is parallel to the growth of the “nones” in religious affiliation.

Sexual misconduct has toppled both political and religious figures. Corruption has touched politicians as well as spiritual leaders.

But power politics tempts the voter and the religious follower as well as their leaders. Especially in a democracy, one is tempted to believe that the election of a political party will bring us the perfect society we desire.

From protection of unborn babies to protection of natural resources, one is tempted to believe that a particular party will make it happen.

Yet individual choices determine a society’s level of compassion and justice and discipline. The care, or lack of, we exhibit toward our families and friends and neighbors influences more than leadership.

Certainly we stand in awe of our democratic institutions. Refusal to carry out our civic privileges is both foolish and irresponsible.

However, the individual spiritual journey each of us makes—and how well we encourage this journey in others—determines the direction of our society.

Our New Science: “Science in consideration with community standards and wishes.”

Observers have noted the removal of the term “climate change” from certain government websites. According to reports on CNN (December 8, 2017), even a story about progress made by the Environmental Protection Agency in their use of renewable energy has been scrubbed.

Are we to conclude that the use of renewable energy is some kind of harmful practice?

Apparently, many terms are joining “renewable energy” as forbidden words.

At the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “evidence based” or “science based” are also verboten. (Lena H. Sun, Juliet Eilperin, The Washington Post, reported in The Seattle Times, December 17, 2017)

Findings of the CDC now aren’t “evidence-based” or “science-based.” Its recommendations are based “on science in consideration with community standards and wishes.”

Does that mean even if scientific studies point to a certain practice being harmful, they are not going to be reported if they offend a community? Whether something offends “a community” is now going to be our standard?

And which communities will be considered?

If reports citing harm caused by the burning of fossil fuels offend the community of oil and gas companies, are those reports not supposed to be published?

Might we suspect that communities of the biggest political donors will be the ones considered?

How Many Pieces of the Economic Pie Do You Get?

Among rich nations of the world, “The top 1 percent in the U.S. own a much larger share of the country’s wealth than the 1 percent elsewhere.”

Christopher Ingraham quoted that statistic in a Washington Post article. (“Wealth gap widens between rich, everyone else,” reprinted in The Seattle Times, 10 Dec 2017.)

To aid our understanding, Ingraham proposed an illustration: Represent all the citizens of the United States as 100 people, divvying up an economic pie that is cut into 100 equal pieces.

Most Americans do not want a society in which everyone receives exactly the same amount—each receiving one piece of the pie. Most want more rewards going to those who work harder, for example.

Ingraham quoted a survey to find out how people thought such a pie should be divided. The survey asked respondents to divide the population into five groups by descending order of income. Then they divided the 100-piece pie among the five groups according to what they thought was fair.

Results: The wealthiest 20 percent of society would get nearly one-third of the pie; the next group about a fifth of the pie; the third group also would receive about a fifth; the next group would get 13 percent of the pie; the bottom group would get 11 percent.

In other words, “. . . the most productive quintile of society would amass roughly three times the wealth of the least productive.”

In fact, Ingraham writes, the top 20 percent of Americans own 90 percent of the pie, not 33 percent, as suggested by survey respondents as ideal.

The next 20 percent divide eight slices among all their members.

The middle 20 percent split the last two pieces of the pie.

The next group gets no pie.

The last group owes pie—they are pie debtors.

Do our tax policies favor or discourage a fairer division of the pie?

Taxes: It’s Complicated

My economic training is limited to one basic economics course I took in college. I think it was part of the core curriculum, like Algebra I and World Lit.

I, like many Americans, struggle to understand our economic system. How do we collect the taxes we need for supporting our military, and protecting us from harmful drugs, and running air traffic control systems, and guarding cyber security and social security, and a thousand other programs needed by a developed society?

I turn to studies and articles by economists who’ve studied our taxing systems. A number express concern, even alarm, at the steadily widening differences between the income of a wealthy few and everyone else. (Thomas Piketty, Wealth in the Twenty-First Century, among others.)

Tax plans now before Congress call for tax cuts. But, according to a former official of the Reagan administration: “There’s no evidence that a tax cut now would spur growth.” (Bruce Bartlett, “Reagan Adviser: Tax cuts, set the stage for an all-out attack on welfare state,” The Washington Post, 19 November 2017).

Other economists, such as Paul Krugman, agree. They warn against the tremendous deficits the currently proposed plans would cause.

Bartlett questions why those politicians so concerned in the past about deficits now seem unconcerned with prospects of massive deficits. Those deficits seem likely if one of the current plans passes, calling for cuts to many taxes paid by the wealthy.

Exactly because of those deficits, Bartlett says, the plan will create “a deficit so large, something must be done about it.” With deficits growing, politicians then can insist on cuts to the government programs they despise, including Social Security and Medicare.

It’s a back door way to eliminate programs popular with the American people. The wealthy, of course, don’t need those programs.

Convinced Against Our Will

“A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.”

–old saying, used by Dale Carnegie in How to Win Friends and Influence People

The newspaper columnist Leonard Pitts explored a few fake news items of the recent past (“Truth, sadly, is not something we all value,” The Seattle Times, Oct 8, 2017).

One fake story led to a shooting in an innocent pizza parlor by an individual who believed ridiculous stories about the business, repeated on propaganda sites.

The fact that Barrack Obama has a legal birth certificate from Hawaii or that his birth was reported in a verifiable news item does not stop birther stories that he wasn’t born in the United States.

Pitts lists reputable groups (newspapers, schools of journalism, fact checking sites) all attempting to bring discernment to our decisions on what we read and believe.

He’s a pessimist, pointing to research suggesting that people tend to “double down on the false belief” when facts prove them wrong.

Our worth seems tied to what we believe. We find it difficult to think that we can be imperfect, that we can be duped. We seek, not truth, but validation of our perfection.

We are in need of listeners. We need to listen, not just to what our neighbors say they believe, waiting impatiently to argue our side. We need to understand why our neighbors believe as they do, to be touched by the needs they express. If we understand each other, we may be able to move closer to finding truth.

Removing “Servant” from Public Servant

“ . . . the federal workforce has the same number of employees in 2017 as it did during the Kennedy administration, despite the creation of the Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security and various agencies, as well as a roughly 40 percent increase in the total U.S. population during that interval.

“And yet one popular narrative is that the federal workforce has become too large, and must be pruned. But the work still has to be done by someone.” (Paul Verkuil, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, quoted by David Thornton, Federal News Radio, October 20, 2017, “Federal Workforce in Jeopardy”)

The work that must be done, Thornton goes on to say, is often picked up by contractors. Verkuil points out two differences between government workers and contractors:

“‘For me, the first reason is the oath of office. You may not think about it, it may be just a symbolic act, but … it means something,’ he said. ‘It differentiates you, it separates you. It should; you took an oath to uphold the constitution. It’s meaningful. … If you don’t take the oath, you’re not in the same club, if you will. It’s an important club.’

“And that speaks to another difference Verkuil pointed out: motivation. Federal workers overwhelmingly point to the mission of public service as one of their primary motivations for what they do. Contractors don’t.”

After swearing the oath to protect the Constitution and defend my country when I joined the U.S. Foreign Service, I was assigned to a U.S. consulate in the Middle East. Contractors came in for a few weeks to set up a new computer system. As far as I know, the contractors did a good job, and certainly fulfilled a vital need for expertise not available at our post.

They left at five o’clock in the afternoon. I stayed to finish my work, which seldom could be done in an eight-hour day. I was available for any American citizen who suddenly ended up in a foreign jail. If danger threatened from terrorism, I came in no matter the hour and sent off a warning to our American wardens to pass to all American citizens in the district for which we had records.

The contractors, as skilled they may have been, were there for the money. For them and their companies, it was the bottom line. I and the other officers had been assigned there to serve.

War on Coal; War on the Planet

Until I moved to the Pacific Northwest, most of the salmon I ate came from cans. I was not fond of it. Then one day I ate fresh salmon and became a salmon lover. An added plus is salmon’s contribution to a healthy diet, one of those foods you can enjoy that is good for you.

Salmon fishing also provides jobs. One of the greatest habitats for wild salmon is Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay. Salmon harvesting provides jobs for 14,000 Alaskans, according to Timothy Egan, columnist for The New York Times. It’s a clean and sustainable industry.

However, the Trump administration has recently reversed protection for the bay, favoring a mining conglomerate’s proposed plan to mine copper and gold there. Previous findings indicated the mine could send tons of toxic waste into the bay, harming the salmon habitat.

Scott Pruitt, head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, met with leaders of the mining company before the reversal of protection,

In addition, Pruitt has termed President Trump’s intention to end the regulations curbing greenhouse gas emissions as the end of the “war on coal.”

Some thought of those regulations as the war on polluted air.

Egan refers to Trump’s reversal of many formal environmental protections as “the war on the planet.”

Business and Politics: A Match Made in Hell?

We have sometimes elected business people to legislative bodies, but not generally to the U.S. presidency. For that job, we have tended to go for politicians already holding elective office at the state or U.S. congressional level or else military leaders.

Donald Trump is the first president I can think of, at least since the twentieth century, of one elected to the office directly from a business career. Some of his supporters reasoned that a business person practices efficiency in order to make profit. Thus, Trump could drain the inefficient swamps of the U.S. government.

The problem is that a business leader is more like a dictator. Business experience does not necessarily prepare a person for heading a representative government.

As he took office, Trump appeared to think that members of the U.S. congress were his board of directors, beholden to him to carry out his wishes. In fact, they are not beholden to him; they owe their jobs to the people back home who elect them.

As a business leader, Trump could fire any underling who disagreed with him, free to make absolute loyalty to him a primary requirement. This appears to be his style as president.

Like the French king, Louis XIV, he has assumed the role of Sun King. He takes criticism personally, spewing unverifiable insults on anyone, even a supporter, who dares intimate that he isn’t the greatest president who ever held office.

Sad.

Vote When You’re Not Angry

During my childhood, my parents volunteered to man our neighborhood voting station during elections. It was located in the multipurpose room of the elementary school I attended.

My parents did what election workers did and still do all over the country. They verified voters as they entered. They recorded names of each participant. They also visited with friends and neighbors and caught up with their lives. It resembled a neighborhood block party.

They were not allowed, of course, to influence a person’s vote in any way. I don’t remember if our small neighborhood precinct had watchers from political parties, but I don’t think any allegation of voter fraud ever touched our district.

Perhaps my parents’ involvement in the voting process is one reason I have, as far as I can remember, voted in every election of my adult life for which I was eligible. That includes a fair number of absentee votes when I was out of the country.

I’m always amazed at the number of eligible voters—sometimes more than half—who fail to darken the doors of their voting halls for an election. Or, as in my current voting district, fail to cast their ballots by mail.

Some people vote only when they are angry. They might vote more intelligently if they voted when they weren’t so angry, examining issues with a clearer mind.

A government run for the people isn’t a given. What we don’t use, we may lose.

The politicians voted in by a minority may  pass laws only for a few powerful interests, since the majority don’t seem to care about what their government is doing.

Of course, having lived in countries without elections and citizen participation, I’m less likely to take voting for granted.

Why the Healthy Should Buy Health Insurance

I’m the daughter and sister of insurance agents. I understand that an insurance program is an agreement to provide buyers of insurance with funds to overcome some kind of misfortune. Examples include automobile accidents, house fires, and illnesses, to name a few.

For the insurance provider not to go broke, payments into the insurance program must be enough to accumulate funds needed to pay out for the misfortunes.

A provider of automobile accident insurance would soon go broke if the provider allowed people to begin the insurance after having an accident. Likewise, so would a company providing house insurance if people were allowed to begin fire insurance after having a fire and expecting to receive funds.

In a sense, insurance programs are community programs. Some are profit driven. Others, like social security for the elderly, are not. Even with social security, however, workers are required pay into social security whether they know they will live to old age or not.

Popular sections of the Affordable Care Act (ACA, or Obamacare) include the provisions covering preexisting conditions and those guaranteeing people’s continued coverage even if they get sick.

Highly unpopular, however, is the mandate that all must purchase health insurance or pay a penalty.

Unfortunately, adopting a plan with the first two requirements is most likely impossible unless all people are required to have a policy or pay a penalty. Health insurance, no more than car or house insurance, needs regular payments over a long period of time to balance the outgoing.

Otherwise, it becomes too expensive. The cost of caring for sick people is too expensive unless a large group of people pay for coverage.

Of course, people with health insurance are more likely to enjoy good health than people without it.

If their insurance covers doctor visits, they are more likely to have regular checkups. They are more likely to visit a doctor when they first have symptoms of an illness rather than later when the illness may require longer and more expensive treatment.

The term”health” insurance is instructive. The primary goal is better health, rather than paying to correct ill health. It’s also less expensive in the long run.

Deep State: What Is It, and Do We Have One?

A “conspiracy of powerful, unelected bureaucrats secretly pursing their own agenda” is one definition of a deep state, according to Jon D. Michaels in Foreign Affairs. ( “Trump and the Deep State,” September/October 2017).

This type of nation does exist, says Michaels. As examples, he includes Egypt, Pakistan, and Turkey, “where shadowy elites in the military and government ministries have been known to countermand or simply defy democratic directives.”

The United States, Michaels points out, is operated much more transparently than the countries mentioned above.

That is why President Trump complains so much about the established news media. Freedom of the press is not some slogan spouted by politicians. It’s been ingrained in our national fabric since before the American Revolution.

When I applied for and eventually was accepted into the U.S. Foreign Service, I had to pass both written and oral exams. Nothing on the exams concerned my political persuasions or my voting record.

My class of Foreign Service officers included various ages and educational levels and previous occupational experience. The dedication, especially of the younger members, impressed me. None of us came in because of who we knew. None of us were political appointees.

The U.S. government is run by and large by mid-level bureaucrats, more of whom live outside Washington than in. These mid-level workers are not appointed by some presidential cabal or political party. They are hired over the years based on professional merit. They run the government and remain through various administrations.

Writes Michaels: “U.S. administrative fragmentation makes it hard for things to get done—but it also makes the notion of a coordinated, secret conspiracy by multiple state actors laughable.”