Saint Louise Hospital’s recent patient issues an example of why regulators are needed
Dear Editor,
While Saint Louise Hospital is under fire by a federal oversight board, I am reminded once again why we have a government for the people by the people to protect the people. But this government that protects us is not without cost.
We hear it every day that government is too big, unyielding and strangling. I don’t believe it is too big as much as it has grown in response to big business and often times when big business has been found to be unable to control itself.
I am reminded by a peanut corporation in Alabama that knew there was salmonella in their product but did not report it because the positive test did not require reporting since it was a not a scheduled test. No regulation was broken but common sense wasn’t working either. People died.
After the Wall Street debacle, the first call was for new regulations which are now in place. To enforce the regulations, unfortunately you need new facilities, staff, equipment, etc., to provide oversight and investigate complaints. As much as we complain about the regulations, they are there to protect us all.
Go to www.recalls.gov/recent.html to see a list of recalls that don’t make it to Main Street. I am tired of hearing government is too big and too costly. If it is, it is because big business cannot self-regulate, and when it does, there is documented abuse and even loss of lives.
We have a large national debt, but I find it to be more of a political issue than an economic issue. It’s not because we are over regulated as many would blame. We have two wars that – including the long-term caring for vets and families – could cost us up to $11 trillion, which almost equals the national debt. We have had huge tax cuts that favor the wealthiest and the GOP wants to cut it even more.
We attack public pensions, close libraries and state parks, underfund schools. And while the media blasts rhetoric that government is too big, a huge group of charlatans who have manipulated public opinion to change policy for their own self-interests slithers and giggles all the way to a bank.
I hope Saint Louise corrects the problems and I am thankful for the regulator who found them.
Mark Grzan, Morgan Hill
Middle class beware – new taxes aimed at you, but the rhetoric deflects the truth
Dear Editor,
Taxing the middle class to grow and expand government is the Democrat way; don’t be fooled by their straw man (“the rich”). Obama, like Clinton, will say anything to get re-elected, and then backstab. Remember when Clinton said, “I will not tax the middle class to pay for these programs,” and then revealed that anyone making above $20,000 was “rich”?
If you doubt this, why, beginning this tax year (carefully implemented to take effect after the 2012 election), will our medical insurance value be reported on our W-2’s? (Answer: So they can tax our already-expensive medical insurance plans!) Fortunately, support for Obamacare has reached yet a new low and will likely be thrown out by the most decent Supreme Court in decades.
Statewide and local, look at the tax-hike petitions that are being passed by Gov. Moonbeam’s stooges. Read them – every one contains a tax hike on the middle class! The public employees pension system is in debt, and due to court rulings, funding for those comes off the top. Their propaganda will ramble on about why their jobs are far more important than those of the rest of us, and how we so desperately need them to lord over us for our safety – protecting us from ourselves – and for their twisted lie known as social “justice.”
Much like they did with the lottery and various transportation measures, they can, and will, bait and switch if the people are dumb enough to agree to pay more – to throw more money into the pit known by the former euphemism as “government.” They pass petitions and tell us it’s a tax for education, and while those funds do go to education, they divert the same amount (or more) therefrom to items that would never come close to passing (like pensions for the elite, or the waste known as VTA).
The best thing that could happen is the complete financial collapse – implosion – of the government, both state and federal. It is the only way to force the reform granted some occasional, election-year lip service by the elected elite. And the sooner it happens, the less damaging it will be in the long run. But then again, long-term thinking hasn’t happened at the federal level since 1789.
Alan Viarengo, Gilroy
