By Bob Gaydos

Trump’s TruthSocial post

Boy, you take a couple days off from the news to do some weeding and cleaning up and it’s almost impossible to know where to start catching up on the craziness.

I guess the logical place to start is with my reading about Trump posting on his official social media page that Joe Biden was actually killed in 2020 and it’s been a robot parading around impersonating him ever since.

I had to go back and read that a couple of times just to be sure. Hard to top this one. Trump even repeated the revelation verbally to other real people later on. I guess the robot must have malfunctioned in that debate with Trump.

Qanon, where the story originated a few years back, must be thrilled, but I am at a loss for words.

I mean, you might as well have told me that the other stable genius and apparent no longer co-president Elon Musk was hooked on drugs and that he ran his whole DOGE scam while in a Ketamine cloud.

No way? Really? The guy who wants to single-handedly repopulate the Earth with as many willing partners as possible? The guy who recruited Steven Miller’s wife away from the White House to be his, umm assistant? The guy who bumped the Treasury Secretary in the hallway of the White House (not that he didn’t deserve it) and showed up for work the next day with a black left eye? That guy?

So Trump actually fired him because he found out Musk had no idea how government works and wasn’t actually saving any money in the budget? Oh, and the drugs story in the New York Times.

Well heck, turns out attention to detail hasn’t actually been a major requirement in this Oval Office. I also learned that Tulsi Gabbard, Director of Intelligence, is contemplating providing Fox News style daily briefings in the Oval Office instead of the normal written reports that every other president has always received. Apparently Trump “doesn’t read.” He’s actually only made 14 daily briefings since he took office. He’s golfed more than that. Shocking.

It’s probably safe to say that those daily reports did  not include mention of Sen.  Joni Ernst, Republican of Iowa, telling a constituent at a Town Hall meeting not to worry about someone dying because their Medicaid had been cut off because, “We are all going to die.” Touching.

The report also probably wouldn’t mention that Bobby Kennedy Junior over at the Health Department issued a report labeled Make America Healthy Again (MAHA, got it? ) that was written entirely by AI because all the researchers and scientists in the department have been fired. Also, it was totally false.

It seems actual scientists and doctors read the report and said none of the studies and reports, etc., listed in MAHA existed. Phony, like Bobby. C’mon, really?

The last surprise was a big one. Ukraine managed to pull off a massive drone attack inside Russia and destroy or disable about 40 strategic bombers as they sat at airfields. One-third of the Russian bomber fleet. No injuries for Ukraine. Huge. A plan a year in the making.

The big surprise? U.S. intelligence agencies knew nothing about it. That’s the kind of thing that’s not supposed to surprise them. Trump‘s response was that it wasn’t fair for Ukraine to attack those planes because they were “just sitting there not bothering anyone.” He said it would have been different if they were attacking someone in combat. “It’s like hitting someone who’s already down,” he said.

Keen sense of warfare there. Also, a strong suggestion of where his sympathies lie. Zelensky had this ace in the hole the whole time, including in his White House visit. Ukraine didn’t trust the U.S. with this big secret. Now the world knows.

It was just a couple of days off. This can’t survive.

By Bob Gaydos

The Mental Health Association Bell.
RJ Photography

A while back I ended a column on what I perceived as the insanity of my daily “news” feed on social media noting that one post had informed me that May was Mental Health Awareness Month. “Sign me up,” I wrote in an attempt to end a column on an unfunny state of affairs with a bit of levity. A writer’s gimmick.

Now I feel a need to clarify. I don’t think mental health is a joking matter and, in fact, I’ve already signed up.

On May 1, I had the honor of reading The History of the Bell at the annual meeting of Mental Health Association in Orange County (N.Y.). The honor was mine as the outgoing president of the board of directors of the private, non-profit agency, a post I was privileged to hold for five years.

I’m including that history here because I believe it deserves a broader audience.

***

The History of the MHA Bell

During the early days of mental health treatment, asylums often restrained persons with mental illnesses with iron chains and shackles around their ankles and wrists. Clifford Beers, the founder of the Mental Health Association movement, experienced and witnessed many of these and other abuses. After his own recovery, he became a leading figure in the movement to reform the treatment of, and attitudes toward, mental illness. With better understanding and treatment, cruel practices eventually stopped.

In the early 1950s, in the lobby of the National Headquarters in New York City, the Mental Health Association collected discarded chains and shackles from asylums across the country. All of these restraints were then shipped to the McShane Bell Foundry in Baltimore, Maryland, where they were dropped into a crucible and cast into a 300-pound bell.

The inscription on the bell reads:

“Cast from shackles which bound them,
this bell shall ring out hope for the mentally ill
and victory over mental illness.”

As we seek the vision of victory over mental illness, we need the participation of all citizens in shaping the future of mental health services. We need to remove the shackles from the wisdom of recipients of mental health services and their families and recognize the value of their experience in shaping future policy. Through full citizen participation,

This bell will ring for hope,
This bell will ring for freedom,
This bell will ring for victory.

***

We’re big in this country on designating special months and days for special causes, but I don’t think mental health awareness should go away on June 1 for another year.

Not in a time when those with the power to return us to the years of chains and shackles are talking about slashing or eliminating financial support for agencies like MHA and thousands of others that were called upon to provide the care and assistance needed by those released when those oppressive asylums were closed down across the country.

Not in a time when persons without proper health training, experience and credentials are in charge of national health policy.

Not in a time when Congress is discussing eliminating Medicaid, which pays for much of that support to thousands of Americans.

Not in a time when thousands of federal employees who provide research and other vital assistance to those suffering with mental illness are being let go.

Not in a time when when federal funding for agencies that address addiction problems is being eliminated.

Not in a time when programs for veterans dealing with mental illness are being eliminated.

Not in a time when politicians are talking about eliminating the national suicide hotline.

Not in a time when anyone who doesn’t fit the powers-that-be’s increasingly narrow profile of “acceptable” is in danger of being snatched off the street and placed in shackles.

May is almost over, but the bell for hope and freedom for the mentally ill needs to keep ringing. Mental health is health. Sign me up.

***

By Bob Gaydos

          The coat.

This has become personal. This waking up daily with a feeling of incredulity, depression, bewilderment, sadness, anxiety, anger, fear, loathing and profound resentment. This thing, this overwhelming syndrome, this … this suck-the-joy-out-of-life condition called the Donald Trump presidency. It’s real, but it’s not normal. And try as I may to act as if it’s not there, to “get on with life” as it were, I inevitably wind up back at the same place, wishing it weren’t.

It used to be, just a couple of years ago in fact, that writing a blog was, for me, a freeing experience. It was just like writing a newspaper column or daily editorial, except you didn’t get paid for it. On the other hand, you had absolute, unlimited choice of topic, from soup to nuts to … well let’s just stay there for a minute.

There was a time, again, not so long ago, that I relished the  opportunity to craft an entire blog (column) around a throwaway cliche like “soup to nuts.” What’s that all about? It was fun and informative for me and I tried to make it the same for readers. After all, life can’t just be the same, old, umm, rat race.

Then came Trump. All Trump, all the time.

All of a sudden, I found myself arguing with myself:

“No one wants to read about the worst new food idea.”

“Sure they do. They need a break from the dotard just like I do.”

“But can you really get a whole column about the fact that the world isn’t ready for — doesn’t really need — chocolate hummus?”

“Yes. It’s a dumb idea. The question is do I have the energy to spend the time and will it seem trivial? I mean, did they have to add all that sugar? What were they thinking? It could be a health column. People like those.”

“Seriously?”

“Maybe not. So maybe I should also forget about writing about what a dumb idea rectangular coffee cups are?”

“Probably.”

“But honestly, did the geniuses try drinking with the cup before manufacturing it? Try wrapping your lips around that rim, folks. And why would a diner, which arguably owes its existence to providing people with coffee to get them through the day, want to make it harder for them — us … well, me — to do so. And could they at least make it a full-size mug for Pete’s sake? Is everyone looking for a quick buck?”

“No one cares.”

‘Well, I care.”

And so, it seems, I’ve come back to the World of Trump. That coat that the mute Melania wore to cheer up the children from Central America whom her husband had ordered locked in cages after taking them away from their parents who were bringing them to America to escape violence in their homelands and to find hope for better lives. What a cruel, evil, ignorant policy. What a cruel, evil, ignorant man.

“I really don’t care, do u?” was the message on Melania’s coat. Trying to figure out her real message, of course, was just another diversion from what was actually going on, but its inappropriateness again highlighted the ineptitude that co-exists with the callousness of this family, this administration.

And what else was going on at the time? Trump, as usual, was blaming Democrats for his lock-the-kids-up policy, while also waging war against immigrants, documented or otherwise, and holding campaign rallies to energize the like-minded, ill-informed, fear-based supporters of his cult, officially known as the Republican Party.

Conservative columnist George Will, having left the party, now urges all Americans to vote for every Democrat they can to save the country,  because Republicans can’t or won’t. A little late, George, but welcome. Republicans, of course, have lost their courage, morals, principles and all sense of what legislating for the common good means. They want to gut Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security and prevent people with pre-existing conditions from getting health insurance because they ballooned the national debt by giving rich people a huge tax break.

Of course, Trumpsters don’t care or don’t care to know about what’s really going on and I’ve written so often about it that, well, Dotard Syndrome. Turn on Fox; turn off brain.

Aside from a trade war with U.S. allies, one other thing was going on while Melania was wearing her stylishly dumb coat — the Trump team, which has been busy shredding laws and regulations that protect Americans from unscrupulous, greedy corporations, was in the process of drawing up a reorganization of the entire government. From soup to nuts, as it were.

I can’t tell you how relieved I am that a man who has “reorganized” three casinos, two casino holding companies, a phony college and the Plaza Hotel into bankruptcy, all while milking them for every penny he could get, is planning on reorganizing the entire federal government to make it more efficient — which is to say, less useful and unconcerned with those whose daddy didn’t give them a million bucks to get a head start in the world. He and his cohorts and enablers, of course, will take their profits where they can.

As Melania might say, “Let them eat chocolate hummus.”

Do I care? Obviously, more than I wish I had to.

(Editor’s note: “Soup to nuts” as defined in Wikipedia: ” ‘Soup to nuts’ is an American English idiom that conveys the meaning of “from beginning to end.” It is derived from the description of a full-course dinner, in which courses progress from soup to a dessert of nuts.” But of course, my readers already knew this.)

rjgaydos@gmail.com

By Bob Gaydos

Trump signs a bill allowing the shooting of Alaskan bear cubs, as they hibernate.

In much the same way that a broken clock is correct twice a day, so did our narcissist-in-chief (NIC) stumble into a truism the other day when he described a “health-care” bill approved by the Republican-dominated House of Representatives as “mean.”

Why did our clueless leader suddenly think a bill he had only recently pushed for and extravagantly celebrated at the White House was “mean”? Surely not because almost everyone who knew anything about it except for Tea Party Republicans thought it was mean. That’s never bothered him before.

I suspect it had more to do with the fact that he needed the Senate, also run by Republicans, to also pass a health-care bill so he could brag about it again and he just happened to be in the room, sitting there like a broken clock, when someone said if there was any hope of getting a bill through the Senate it had to be different from the House bill, which was, as he subsequently repeated, “too mean.”

Those are the kind of simple words the NIC understands. Big. Great. Best. Bad. Fat. Lousy, Mean. He likes to use them. A lot. Mean is not good. It’s bad. People don’t like mean things. How is the bill “mean”? Nuance is another matter.

Well, the bill that was presented to the Senate by a 13-member, all-white, all-male, Republican-only task force was apparently only a tad less mean than the GOP House bill, which means most of the country still thinks it’s awful policy, as do a handful of Senate Republicans. Actually, a lot of Senate Republicans think it’s not mean enough. In fact, not enough Republicans like it for Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to bring it to a vote that would carry, so he put it off to allow for arm-twisting and bribing.

As he apparently demonstrated at a ballyhooed arm-twisting meeting with all the Senate Republicans at the White House, the NIC doesn’t know — or even care — how the bill works. He’s apparently confused about the difference between Medicare and Medicaid, stuff like that. No matter. Mean or not, he just wants a health care bill passed so he can have another Rose Garden celebration and thumb his nose at Barack Obama. That’s pretty much the entire Trump policy.

McConnell, for his part, resorted to his favorite weapon — bribery — to try to get 50 Republicans to buy in to the bill. That comes in the form of billions of dollars in local projects for Republican senators who might face difficult reelection if they vote for the still-mean health care bill.

Tell me that’s not an awfully mean way to conduct public policy. And to no purpose other than to give tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans so they will continue to fund campaigns and vote for Republican candidates who promise to cut taxes even more, to eliminate pesky regulations that force businesses to be accountable for any harm they do, and to remove all those “deadbeats” Rush Limbaugh rails about from the Medicaid, food stamps, unemployment and welfare rolls.

In other words, Republicans have totally lost the concept of governing for the public good. They have been against everything for so long they don’t know how — or seem to even care to try — to work with Democrats on creating useful legislation. I’ve been trying to figure out when “mean” became the Republican go-to word in policy. Maybe it was Ronald Reagan’s phony trickle-down spiel. The middle class and poor are still waiting for the first nourishing drops. A lot of them — many Trump supporters — are those supposed “deadbeats” of Limbaugh’s. Of course, they did have to suffer through a major economic disaster brought on by those rich individuals and corporations, who apparently didn’t have enough stashed away from the tax breaks so they had to simply cheat people out of their money. And they got away with it.

By the way, Republicans just voted to do away with an Obama regulation that required people dealing with other people’s money — brokers — to tell their clients what was in their best financial interests, not the brokers’. Bad idea, according to Republicans. Mean, I say.

Mean is slashing hundreds of millions from Medicaid, which pays for health care for 20 percent of Americans, including seniors in nursing homes, simply to cut taxes for those who don’t need it — the one percent. The very wealthiest Americans. Mean is cutting funding for Meals on Wheels and food stamps. Mean is promising coal workers that their dying industry will be revived while creating no jobs for them, but allowing coal companies to dump their waste into streams from which the workers get their drinking water. Mean is putting the Environmental Protection Agency, which protects Americans from such things as water pollution, under the direction of someone who wants to eliminate the agency.

Mean is looking to do away with hundreds of regulations that protect people from health and safety risks posed by unscrupulous cost-cutting minded corporations looking to improve their standing with shareholders. If Republicans want to take an object lesson about such short-sighted governing, they need only to look at the recent Grenfell Tower fire in London that killed 79 people.

The fire is believed to have been started by a faulty refrigerator and spread rapidly up the high-rise, fueled by a highly flammable exterior wrapping, called cladding, that is banned for use on high-rises in the United States, but which its maker is allowed to sell in places where regulations aren’t as stringent. In the aftermath of the deadly blaze, Arconic — formerly Alcoa — said it would no longer sell the cladding, which has a polyethylene core, for high rise projects anywhere in the world. The company makes a more-expensive, fire-resistant cladding. Grenfell is a public housing project whose residents had complained for years that there were no fire alarms, no sprinklers, no safety tests and only one stairwell.

Public housing. No safety features. Total disregard for safety regulations. Cheaper construction material. Years of complaining with no response from British politicians more concerned with helping businesses save money rather than protecting people’s lives. Mean.

Since Republicans took control of the White House and both houses of Congress, they have eagerly worked to erase safety regulations issued late in the Obama administration, including rules to keep coal companies from dumping waste in streams and denying federal contracts to dangerous companies. And it’s not just people who are the target of Republican callousness. The NIC recently signed a bill to allow the shooting of bears and wolves — including cubs — as they hibernate. Heartless.

This list could go on and on and undoubtedly will so long as Republicans, once the proud party of Lincoln, now seemingly a collection of mean-spirited individuals lacking in compassion and tolerance, have access to power. Trump is not really even a Republican, but party leaders have been cynical enough to try to use him to advance their cruel agenda.

It is an utterly depressing state of affairs that calls for new Republican leadership or a new party entirely. If you’re a Republican and are offended by any of this, that’s your problem. The rest of us are appalled. It’s your party. You are responsible for what is being promulgated and promoted in the seats of power in Washington. Your silence is tacit approval.

Like the clueless one said, “Mean.”

rjgaydos@gmail.com

By Bob Gaydos

Gov. Andrew Cuomo
… wants $15/hr minimum wage

When New York’s Gov. Andrew Cuomo raised the ante on the state’s minimum wage a couple of weeks ago, saying that $15 an hour sounded good to him, he also changed the nature of the political debate about what people get paid.    

For those who decide such things — well-paid politicians, usually — no longer is it a question of how little can we get away with paying people to do boring, tiresome jobs we wouldn’t do ourselves, but rather, what constitutes a minimum amount people can actually support themselves on? What’s a minimum livable wage?

With echoes of his late father’s call to take heed that all are included in the fruits of a prospering society, Cuomo did an about-face on the $15-an-hour wage shortly after signing on to that rate as a minimum for fast-food workers in the state. A panel appointed by Cuomo had recommended the $15 minimum and the state labor board agreed. Cuomo made it official. That rate will be phased in over six years.

But that left the state with the somewhat awkward circumstance of largely part-time, fast-food workers earning more than some people working at other, full time jobs in offices, schools, etc. Challenged on this contradiction, Cuomo was quick to recognize it. If $15 an hour is the minimum that fast-food workers need to live in New York without depending on other assistance, it certainly is a fair minimum wage for all workers in the state, he agreed. He said he would urge the state Legislature to approve the increase.

On cue, Republicans went into mock shock at the thought that every New Yorker should be able to earn, not just a wage, but a livable wage. Alluding to the governor’s own comment of a few months ago that a $15-an-hour minimum wage being sought by fast-food workers was “too high” and that $10.50 an hour was more realistic, State Sen. Jack M. Martins, chairman of the Senate Labor Committee, said, “I really don’t know what happened between $10.50 six months ago and $15 now. What’s the significance of $15? In my mind it’s a political number. The governor has not established $15 as a fair number.”

Well, I can’t read the governor’s mind, but let me answer Martins’ question anyway. What happened between $10.50 an hour and $15 is that the Republican-controlled state Senate flatly rejected Cuomo’s request for $10.50 and agreed instead to phase in a raise in the state minimum wage from $8.75 an hour to $9 an hour next year. Apparently, Republicans senators — who are paid a base salary of $79,500 a year and receive a $172 per diem allowance — consider a quarter-an-hour raise to be a major beneficence.

So maybe Cuomo did some calculations, mathematical and, yes, political, and decided it made no sense any more piddling around with proposals for small, incremental increases when the math added up otherwise. At $15 an hour, for a 40-hour week, someone would earn about $31,200 a year. That’s a barely livable wage for someone with a small family, but it’s a lot better than the $21,840 that a $10.50-an-hour salary adds up to.

In fact, that $21,840 is barely above the $20,090 federal poverty level for a family of three, according to government figures used to qualify people for a variety of assistance programs, including Medicaid. The $9-an-hour rate New York legislators generously approved comes to $18,720 for a full time, 40-hour work week. Of course, fast-food franchises typically don’t hire anyone for a 40-hour-week, thereby saving on overtime, insurance, sick pay, vacation and other benefits. The $15-an-hour rate would at least help workers make up for some of those exclusions.

The idea didn’t originate in New York. The cities of Los Angeles, Seattle, San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley have plans in motion to raise their minimum wage to $15 an hour. New York would be the first state to do so.

But is it, as Martins questioned, a fair number? Apparently New Yorkers think so. Two recent surveys showed a solid majority of residents in favor of the $15 minimum wage. A Quinnipiac University poll found that 62 percent approved of $15 an hour, with Democrats and Independents favoring it and Republicans opposing. A more recent survey conducted by Siena College found that 59 percent of respondents support an across-the-board $15 minimum wage, while 38 percent oppose it. Again, Republicans were against the rate, Democrats in favor. That speaks volumes about what the two parties stand for.

The business community in New York has, not surprisingly, joined with the restaurant industry in arguing against the $15-an-hour wage. Senator Martins even said many fast-food franchise owners were “scared” of the proposal and worried about their ability to stay open. Cuomo couldn’t say anything about that prospect for political reasons, but I can’t help but think that a few less fast-food establishments would be a major boon for the entire country, reducing obesity and other health problems and lowering health costs along the way, including Medicaid and Medicare expenses.

Business associations have also raised the usual argument that raising the state’s minimum wage would force some employers to cut payrolls. That’s just an argument to keep wages stagnant while profits rise. It also never seems to come up when top executives get huge raises.

In reality, when the wages of the lowest-paid workers are increased, they spend more money on goods and services and depend less on taxpayer-funded government subsidies. The money doesn’t go into offshore accounts. As opposed to the Reaganesque trickle-down GOP fantasy of giving the wealthy tax cuts so that they will invest more in the economy and thereby raise workers’ salaries — never happened, never will — a higher minimum wage actually trickles up through the economy, benefitting everyone.

And for all the doom-and-gloomers accusing Cuomo of playing to the populist mood of the country, there’s also the political reality that Cuomo is not about to casually alienate the state’s business owners. He says the new wage would be phased in over a period of years, allowing businesses to plan. He also says he’d propose tax cuts for businesses (they love that) and look to reduce other burdens (regulations), so that the increase would be affordable.

It sounds fair to me. In fact, it sounds like something I could live with.

By Michael Kaufman

I had hoped the annoying email from the AARP would stop after I didn’t renew my membership a while back. I should live so long. They are relentless. And just in case I don’t look at my email, they make sure to send regular reminders via the U.S. Postal Service. Those I don’t mind quite as much. I want Crystal, our letter carrier, to keep her job, along with all the postal workers around the country whose jobs are being threatened by the austerity hawks in Congress.

Really, I don’t need an AARP card to show that I qualify for the senior discounts. And lately I’m finding their emails at least as annoying as the letters I get from Publishers Clearing House announcing in big, bold type that I could be the next winner of their Grand Prize. Look closely and there is small type saying “no purchase necessary,” and “odds of winning Grand Prize: 300,000,000 to one.” At least the AARP gave better odds in their email last month when they wrote, “Michael, We’re Giving Away $25,000 in the Brain Health Sweepstakes – Enter for Your Chance to Win.” I didn’t read any further: Brain health isn’t my forte.

Then there was one that said, “Michael, Intimacy After 50: What’s Normal?” I have to admit I was tempted to read that one just to see what they had to say on the subject. I imagine they don’t think highly of whips and chains and such. That reminds me of my favorite line from Eating Raoul where Paul Bartel as Paul Bland says, “I’m into S&M and she’s into B&D and we met at the A&P.” I like that movie.

There was one in January: “Michael, For a Limited Time Save 40% on the AARP Driver Safety course.” And in February: “Michael, For a Limited Time Save 20% on the AARP Driver Safety course.” That would have really bugged me if I were going to take a driver safety course and I’d missed out on that 40% off deal. There was another in March: “Michael, For a Limited Time Save 30% on the AARP Driver Safety course.” Now I’m waiting for that 40% off to come around again. When it does I’m going to jump on it. (I told you brain health isn’t my forte.) I figure you can never learn too much about safe driving.

The one on March 29 was kind of spooky: “Michael, Why Do Couples Split after 25 Years or More?” I didn’t look at that one either but I suppose they split for the same reasons couples split after fewer than 25 years. But the thing that was spooky about it is that Eva-Lynne and I would soon be celebrating our 25th anniversary. Was AARP trying to tell us something?

And then there was one that resembled a headline in the National Enquirer: “Michael, You Can Prevent Arthritis with These 7 Tips.” I have no idea what the tips are but it is way too late for me to prevent arthritis. I’ll tell you this though: If AARP can come up with some tips that will cure arthritis, I might consider renewing my membership. But for now I’ll pass.

At a time when issues of vital concern to seniors, when Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are on the chopping block, AARP sent, “Michael, These Inns Are So Fancy You May Never Want to Leave Your Room.” The accompanying text describes “Quaint inns for the astute and deep-pocketed traveler.” Of one, AARP wrote, “Countless repeat guests don’t blink at the $1,260-and-up nightly tab, which includes three sumptuous, made-to-order gourmet meals each day; plentiful outdoor activities, from snowshoeing to flyfishing; and personalized service that extends to round-trip transfers from distant airports.”

I replied to that one April 27: “Shame on you, AARP.” So far they haven’t answered.

Michael can be reached at michael@zestoforange.com.

By Michael Kaufman

I am always amazed when I hear some millionaire or billionaire (or their spokespeople in Congress or Fox News or talk radio) proclaim, “We’re broke!” According to them, our government no longer has the means to continue safety net programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

They themselves are not broke, of course. They’re doing just fine. And if you ask them, everyone in this country is pretty well off too, so we don’t really need the safety net anymore. They’re just symptoms of the “nanny state” anyway and that’s what’s wrong with this country by golly: all those people looking for handouts (you know, like retirees, veterans and disabled folks). You’ve probably heard statements of this sort (either on Fox News or on The Daily Show when Jon Stewart shows clips of the dumb things they say on Fox News):  “Poor people never had it so good as they have it now in the U.S. They have refrigerators, air conditioners and television sets. How bad off can they be?”

The Wall Street Journal published an article recently that even tried to make the case that the “middle class” in this country has not been harmed by the fact that real wages (adjusted for cost of living changes) have not gone up in decades as wealth has ballooned for a small percentage of people at the top of the economic ladder. According to the writer, wages aren’t a good measure anymore because of all the advances that have taken place that make life better for us all, as in healthcare, for example. (I’m not making this up.)

Another article in the WSJ a while back suggested that income disparity is good for everybody. The writer used Michael Jordan as an example. See, when Jordan was leading the Chicago Bulls to championships, his mediocre teammates got paid better, the arena was packed, which meant more people were hired to prepare and serve food and show people to their seats. Talk about a win-win. But a two-hour drive from Chicago would have taken the author to Freeport, Ill., and the shut down Sensata plant. Sensata, which manufactures sensor parts for the auto industry, is owned by Bain Capital, the private equity company founded by Mitt Romney. Despite a profitable 2011 Sensata laid off all the workers in Freeport last year and moved manufacturing to China—but not before forcing the American workers to train their replacements. Ironically, the plant was shut down the day before Election Day.

As described by Dave Johnson of the Campaign for America’s Future, “Bain’s business model is to purchase companies using ‘leveraged buyouts’ that borrow huge sums using the purchased company’s own assets as collateral, uses the borrowed money to immediately pay itself, then cuts costs by doing things like sending jobs to China, cutting wages and manipulating tax rules to cut taxes owed, along with standard big-business practices like consolidating business units, taking advantage of economies of scale not available to smaller competitors, squeezing distribution channels for price cuts, and other practices that bring competitive advantages.”

Bain is “entitled” to do this under the current laws of the United State of America. I think it’s about time we had some entitlement reform to stop this kind of thing from happening. If a U.S.-based company making good profits in this country wants to move to China, it should be allowed to do so only after providing extended health benefits and severance packages to each and every person who will lose a job as a reult of the move–or not be permitted to move at all.

Another entitlement in need of reform is the one that permits the underachieving or none-too-bright sons and daughters of wealthy people to attend great colleges and universities simply because a relative went there before. These “legacy students” are taking up space that might otherwise be given to hard-working students who have earned admission but whose families cannot afford the steep cost of sending them to a place like Yale or Harvard, for example. A worthy reform might be to require those who can readily afford it to pay for the education of one of those deserving people in addition to that of their own family member. The deserving individual would be selected at random from a pool of worthy candidates regardless of their race, creed or color. All they would have in common is that their families can’t afford to send them to the school. This would avoid the usual complaints about “reverse discrimination” that accompany affirmative action measures, while still advancing the goals because a disproportionate percentage of minority community members will be represented.

Why is someone who inherits a large piece of land “entitled” to sell it to developers for commercial use? Why is the concept of “private property” more important than preservation of the earth and the health of its inhabitants? Now there is some fertile ground for entitlement reform. Feel free to add your own. And for goodness sakes, let’s not allow them to take away the safety net:  Hands off Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid!

Michael can be reached at michael@zestoforange.com.