The Threat of a Government Shutdown

The U.S. Congress sees the risk of a government shutdown. It could come next week. The Democratic controlled Senate voted on Wednesday to take up debate on a bill. That bill would fund the government through November 15 of this year. The Republican controlled House of Representatives have tied any funding of the federal government for the new fiscal year. That new fiscal year will begin in October 1 to the defunding of the Obama administration's health care overhaul. That was a condition the Democrats' say they will not accept. There is a version of the funding bill that has languages which removes funding from the Affordable Care Act or the ACA. It was passed last week in the House of Representatives. The Senate is expected to strip out that language before sending the bill back to the House. If funding for the start of the next fiscal year is no approved by Monday night, portions of the federal government are expected to shut down Tuesday. The House Republican leaders are threatening to tie any increase in the federal government's debt limit to a provision that would delay implementation of the ACA for one year. That is why Treasury Secretary Jack Lew sent a letter to members of Congress Wednesday informing them that the government would lose its ability to raise additional funds, no later than October 17” if Congress did not act to raise the government’s borrowing limit. “If we have insufficient cash on hand,” Lew wrote, “it would be impossible for the United States of America to meet all of its obligations for the first time in our history.” The Wednesday's Senate vote followed a 21 hour speech by Republican Senator Ted Cruz denouncing the ACA. Cruz's political stunt served only to delay Senate action on the funding bill. His action caused public opposition from a section of Senate Republicans who oppose the tactic of shutting down government operations as likely to backfire on the Republican Party. Still, many Republican lawmakers (like those in the House linked to the Tea Party) will use this gesture as a means to cause the Republican Party to capitalize anger against the ACA (and against the policies of the White House). They want anger to be used to express their reactionary agenda. As the Affordable Care Act moves closer to implementation, it is clear that the law can increase the risk of reduction in health care benefits for millions of working people including the poor. For example, there is a growing list of major companies like the grocery chain Trader Joe's wanting to end health care coverage for coverage. That company will dump them into health care exchanges, including those set up under the ACA. The city of Detroit, which is seeking bankruptcy protection, is proposing to do the same to its active employees. That means that workers would be forced to buy insurance on an individual basis from private companies. They use cash payments from their employers or government subsidies under the ACA for low income individuals. The net effect will be a voucher system as advanced by Republican opponents of health insurance for working human beings. That is why some want to cut resources from the federal health insurance for retirees called Medicare, which has been very successful for decades since the 1960's. The ACA still requires the uninsured to purchase coverage on the insurance company dominated exchanges, imposed fines on those who fail to do so. This creates a massive new market and source of revenue for the insurance and health industry corporations. Critics of the ACA believe that the plan will cut hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicare funding. The GOP is showing criticism from their point of view, but the end result of this is broadly unpopular spending cuts. This happened in the previous manufactured crisis like the  2011 debt ceiling crisis that led to over $2 trillion in spending cuts and the 2012 “fiscal cliff” that preceded the imposition of “sequester” across-the board budget cuts beginning last March. The sequester cuts total over $85 billion this year and $1.1 trillion over the next eight years. So, the political establishment used a crisis as a means to cut social services. These cuts from sequester continue to harm the economy. They are slashing extended unemployment benefits, housing assistance, education funding, the preschool Head Start program, public defenders and other vital services. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers have been forced to take unpaid furloughs, in some cases cutting their income by 15 percent. The White House originally proposed it back in 2011. The White House wants more cuts in Social Security and Medicare, or the 2 bedrock programs still remaining from the New Deal and the Great Society. On economic and some social policy, the GOP and the Democrats are in ideological unison. Some Republicans and even some Democrats in the Senate voted to cut food stamps. The difference is that the Senate wants 4.5 billion dollars in cuts over 10 years while the House wants nearly 40 billion in cuts. This is extremism since we have an economic recession now. We have high poverty and hunger. 47 million Americans rely on food stamps for survival basically. Folks will starve and die if these benefits are cut. The 2009 stimulus act will expire in November. The Republicans advance extremism and the Democrats just compromise as a means to suit the status quo. The Federal Reserve continues to pump $85 billion a month into the financial markets, fueling the stock market boom that is adding to the fortunes of the American financial elite. So, these attacks on health care, pensions, and other social needs are calculated by the political establishment. We need revolutionary solutions to benefit all of the people indeed.



One interesting point in the world is that we should not turn schools into prisons. We have seen the evils of school shootings over the course of a few years. Sandy Hook Elementary School killings and other massacres are evil. They may spurn more solutions, but we do not need schools to be transformed into prisons though. It is wrong for any seriously mentally ill human being to purchase an AR-15 that can cause massacres. We do not need seven year olds being handcuffed and sent to local police precincts. Ironically, the National Rifle Association or the NRA and establishment Democrats like Senator Barbara Boxer believe that we need more law enforcement inside our schools. Some police use handcuffs on students and sent them to the precinct. When three nine year old girls and an eight year old boy got into a fight at a Baltimore elementary school, they got arrested by the real police. Salecia Johnson, age six, cuffed and arrested for throwing a tantrum at her elementary school in  Milledgeville, Georgia.  Or Wilson Reyes, a seven-year-old at a Bronx,  New York, elementary school who last December 4th was cuffed, hauled  away, and interrogated under suspicion of taking $5 from a classmate.  (Another kid later confessed). So, this is a police state and this is fascism point blank period including exclamation point. The deal is that simple young misbehavior like a 12 year old doodling on a desk is treated increasingly as a serious crime. This has resulted in arrest. In December of 2012, the CEO and executive vice president of the NRA, called for armed guards in all schools. This was strange to say the least. Weeks later, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) proposed $50 million in federal grants to install more metal detectors, surveillance cameras, and National Guard troops in schools, but made her pitch in the caring cadences of a Marin County Democrat.  And when President Obama ordered more police in schools (point 18 in his 23-point Executive Order responding to the Sandy Hook tragedy), it was all over. When more police are in schools, more students get arrested even for minor infractions. We do not need a school to prison pipeline. Even Annette Fuentes' book called, "Lockdown High" exposes this sick culture of the militarization of schools. We even have metal detectors in schools nationwide. Even in some parts of Mississippi, felony assault charges came against those throwing peanuts on a school bus. Zero tolerance has failed our students and our morality. We know that over policing has not worked. That is why schools need order and students learning self-discipline including adults. There are plenty of high schools that do fine without police or scanners. There is one report that was created with advocates from the New York Civil Liberties Union and the Annenberg Institute for School Reform found that schools without police or metal detectors actually get significantly better educational results (higher graduation rates, lower truancy) than their heavily policed counterparts. There is a steady 15 year nationwide drop of crime. When the state cracks down on working class Black and Latino youth, then it only grows not decreases the prison industrial complex. Judge Steve Teske used common sense as a means to bring down referrals to juvenile court by 70% in Clayton County, Georgia. He forced schools to handle minor disciplinary infractions without handcuffs or police arrests.  (In the same period in that county, serious weapons charges, like bringing guns and knives to school, have fallen by 80% — further evidence that restraining a police presence actually makes schools safer). That is why even Columbine High school did not use a phalanx of armed guards. They did improve communications with the student body as a means to grow mutual trust and respect. We do not need a militarization of schools as the NRA advocates. In real life, after 9/11, we see the growth of the militarization of society. The only way to solve violence in schools and in real life deals with goodwill, tolerance, growing communities, fighting poverty, and assisting those that need help at the end of the day.



Some believe that U.S. health exchanges will impose high out of pocket costs and limit choices. The unveiled premiums and plan choices for health insurance markets in 36 states is where the federal government will run the exchange. They are set under the 2010 Affordable Care Act. Many state governments will administer exchanges in the remaining states. The President attempted to justify the new health care law by saying that the plans on exchanges will cost much less than they do now. The reason is that insurance companies will be competing for business. The reality is that many uninsured human begin to shop for health care coverage on the exchanges will be for a rude shock. So, much of the coverage will be made of cut rate plans that leave the insured responsible for a considerable proportion of the costs. Premiums will vary from state to state. Some states will have lower premiums, but it can limit the choice of doctors and hospitals. There are some exceptions, but individuals including families that do not receive insurance via an employer or a government program like Medicare or Medicaid will be required to get insurance or pay a fine. There are a group of confusing plans included in the exchanges. Profit interests are part of the private insurance companies' M.O. So, these exchanges want a high number of young, healthy human beings to join these exchanges as a means to offset costs associated with requirements that sicker human beings (or those with pre-existing conditions not be charged higher premiums or turned away. If adequate numbers of young and relatively healthy people do not sign up, premiums are sure to rise). According to figures provided by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), premiums for a mid-range “silver” plan will average $328 a month nationally, before any tax credit subsidies are applied. But silver plan costs will vary greatly, ranging from a low of $172 in Minnesota to a high of $516 in Wyoming. The same plan will cost $373 in California, $328 in Florida, and $305 in Texas.
HHS officials point out that subsidies will bring these costs down, and that a 27-year-old making $25,000 a year will see premiums for the silver plan drop to $145 a month in nearly every state. Monthly premium costs will be reduced if this same young adult purchases the lowest-tier “bronze” plan—dropping to $74 in Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas; $102 in Orlando, Florida; and $119 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Yet, the bronze plans will have the highest out of pocket costs via annual deductibles and cost sharing. The bronze plans cover only 60 of the costs, mid-range plans cover 70 percent of the costs, and 90 percent of the costs are covered by the platinum plans. While the Obama administration has made much of the ACA’s cap on annual out-of-pocket expenses, they are actually set quite high—$6,350 for individuals, $12,700 for families. For the hypothetical 27-year-old earning $25,000 annually, the maximum out-of-pocket costs would be more than a quarter of his or her income. Similarly, a family of four making $50,000 a year could be hit with $12,700 in out-of-pocket costs. Many select insurance companies will be involved in exchanges. Narrow networks can lead into higher out of pocket expenses.


When human beings wake up, then views will make more sense. Now, we know that 1 Corinthians 22 refer to Paul's well known disagreement of Gnostic cults and other fertility cults in that time period (not to place females as inferior inheritably to males at all).  Careful exegetes also claim that the word for “head” (kephale) is better interpreted as “source”, rather than leader. And there is NO Old Testament law that prohibits a woman from speaking, leading, or teaching—otherwise Deborah, Miriam, Huldah and many others would be in big trouble. Paul is not allowing a woman to teach others to dominate men, to teach the domination of men, nor to dominate a man themselves, but to be peaceable (heshucias). This verse has nothing to do at all with mature, trained Christian women exercising their spiritual gifts and serving the body through teaching, preaching, or leading. Some the women according to Paul were led astray by false teaching, whom Paul is correcting in these verses and who must start at the beginning with full submission to the gospel and sound teaching. It becomes overwhelming clear from the  well-documented culture of Ephesus coupled with the original word meanings used in 1 Timothy 2:11-12 (which was about correcting church error not banning women from teaching at all circumstances), that this mandate is not a prohibition against all women teaching/preaching/leading in the church. It’s simply absurd to keep gifted and qualified women from teaching the truth of the gospel, leading church bodies in the ways of Jesus, or simply contributing their gifts by vocally participating in the gatherings of the entire body because of a verse that was originally a disciplinary action against some women at Ephesus, who were lead astray by false teaching. We know that the apostle Paul called Junia an apostle in Romans 16:7. Junia therefore was a female apostle. The Latin/Roman-female-name “Junia” is found in ancient literature of Paul’s time and found nearly 250 times in ancient Roman inscriptions. The fact that Junia was imprisoned with Paul should tell us that this woman was a public figure who was considered a leader in the church.  There is not a single scripture in the NT that forbids a woman from being an apostle at all. So, women have every right to teach, to preach, and to be a living witness of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Males and females have many differences, but differences doesn't negate the fact of gender equality among both genders. So, as males and females, we need to embrace and appreciate our God ordained sex, but we should not believe in stereotypes about males or females that place them into one box or category. Males are diverse and females are diverse too. We have to reject gender stereotypes and see each other as equal members of the entire human race. For faith and life in general are communal and social not just individual. Learning this aspect of humanity can empower young human beings and others to appreciate their total being and their humanity in general. There is mutuality between males and females in the Universe. We should have discussions and learn about each other, so equality can flourish more readily in the world.



The prison industrial complex has been a disgrace. The corporate exploitation in the prison system has been disgraceful as well. We imprison more humans than any other nation in the Earth when we are not the most populous nation in the world. Tons of the innocent are in prison and prisoners' rights have been violated as documented by numerous organizations and activists. This doesn't mean that real criminals ought not to be punished or evil ought to be condoned. It does mean that those who paid their debt to society should have true human rights and the right to vote. It does mean that we should address unfair sentencing practices and the racist nature of the criminal justice system (that conservatives, liberals, libertarians, independents, etc. are talking about now. We are in the majority on this issue).It does mean that men and women in prisons nationwide ought to be treated succinctly as men and women not less than human. We should address minimum sentences and target the school to prison pipeline that has ravished our communities. We have a responsibility too to help our communities, to educate the young, to continue to love our BLACKNESS, to inspire minds, and to live out the truth that almsgiving not bigotry is the way to go. We also have the right to address our grievances publicly and to stand up for righteousness. When we have police brutality, we have to condemn that. When we have human suffering and those being mistreated, we have to oppose that. That is why we have our duty to defend the oppressed and to defend males including females (since both males and females have excellent value in the Universe. Black Women are always glorious). Also, we should not hate another human being because of their color, background, or gender. We should fight for moral improvement and human justice. Altruism, justice, and truth are all legitimate themes to live by. We are in the right side of this issue. Like always, we should always put ourselves in the shoes of the poor and the underprivileged and figure out about some of the plight that they go through. We have to empathize with their pain and devise solutions. All of us know that the prison industrial complex targets young black males. Many young black males in the system ruin their lives forever without a means to return to live a normal life in society. Nonviolent drug offenders are never equivalent to murderers or rapists at all, but many of them serve longer sentences than murderers and rapists for real. So, that is patently unjust by any stretch of the imagination. The reality of mass incarceration is definitely an institutional evil that harms black progress as numerous human beings have eloquently mentioned. The truth is readily known about this issue. As Dr. King said, silence is betrayal. We can't be silent. We are not talking about that folks should be acting as fools (or humans should eliminate individual responsibility from the equation), but we are just saying that much of the system is indeed filled with foolishness, it is corrupt, and it is unjust. We have the right to speak up and advocate changes as a means to build up our community.

By Timothy