The Federal Tax Code...time for GLBT Civil Disobedience

For as long as there has been a federal income tax (only since 1917), the federal government has asked taxpayers to indicate their marital status. Taxpayers need not prove their status, they need only swear that all the information contained on the form is true.

And so, come April 15, I, along with other gay and lesbian couples in New Hampshire and other states permitting same-sex marriage, will have a choice: we can check off "married" on page 1 of our 1040, and sign the bottom of page 2 in good conscience that our return is truthful, or we can call ourselves 'single,' and sign that statement, knowing that calling ourselves 'single' would be a patent lie under state law.

The choice, of course, has both legal and financial consequences: two people filing as married pay far less in federal income tax than those same two people filing as single, especially if there is a large income disparity between them.

And so, for the first time in decades, I will actually engage in an act of civil disobedience under federal law, because I am choosing to answer honestly under state law. (One has to wonder, of course, just how the Feds will choose to pursue this: nowhere on the federal income tax form do they request 'gender'.) And if and when they do uncover it, and charge me with increased taxes and penalties and late fees, I will challenge it in federal court as long and as far as I am able.

And if even a small part of the 600,000+ gay couples in this country do the same, it will be a federal court logjam the likes of which we have never seen.

The problem, of course, stems from "DOMA," the so-called "Defense of Marriage Act," a 1996 law that contains two provisions. The first guarantees each state the right not to recognize a same-gender union performed in another state (mere political pandering, as the courts had already long-ruled that states had that right.) The second provision states that the federal government would define marriage as only between a man and a woman.

The problem with that approach, of course, is that it is not the federal government's jurisdiction to define marriage. There is no federal Constitutional provision permitting a federal law in this arena.

In fact, marriage laws are very specifically creatures of state jurisdiction. Nebraska law requires that couples be 19 if they don't have parental consent, while 17 year olds can marry with parental consent; in Hawaii those as young as 15 can marry with parental consent. Alabama and Kansas permit common-law marriage; most states no longer do. In Idaho, females must be tested for Rubella, and In New York, tests for sickle cell anemia may be required before marriage. In Rhode Island, first cousins can marry; In Illinois they can as long as they can not bear children; in Oregon they can if one was adopted; while in New Hampshire and Pennsylvania there is no first-cousin marriage permitted at all.

The rules for who can and who can not get married are state-specific, and the federal government has always accepted the definitions of the states, even though they differed from state to state. By imposing DOMA, the federal government has involved itself in a sphere that is clearly not within it's own jurisdiction, but, under the 10th Amendment, "reserved to the states or to the people."

So, on April 15, I will be checking "married," and I will be signing a sworn oath that I have told the truth.

Let the feds argue in court that I was wrong for so doing. And while I will do it alone if necessary, I invite other couples in our situation to join us.

President Obama: Refuse the Nobel Peace Prize

I have to say I was as shocked as anyone to hear the President Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize, a mere nine months after taking office.

In the past, this award has gone to people such as Mother Teresa, Dr. Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela. Jimmy Carter (A well-intentioned but gerenally inept President) was certainly deserving, as he brought together Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Menachem Begin of Israel for the very first Arab-Israeli Peace Agreements. And this year, doctors and volunteers working with rape victims in the Congo (where rape as a weapon of war is standard) had been nominated. But Obama won.

This is curious. War continues in Afghanistan (in fact, casualties have worsened). Iraq is unchanged. Tamil Tigers continue their guerilla war in Sri Lanka. Iran denies the holocaust and builds nuclear weapons capable of reaching Israel and beyond. The Guantanamo Bay Detention Center remains open. Just what has Obama accomplished?

Nothing.

Not that anyone should have expected him to. I don't fault him for not solving these problems, and this award is not his 'fault.' However, he really doesn't deserve it. This is more of the Nobel Prize honchos making the political statement "We didn't like Bush, and we're glad Obama won" than anything else, and it has completely cheapened the value of the Nobel Prize.

Obama scores no points with me for winning this. But there's one thing he can do that actually would impress me:

He can refuse it.

By refusing it, and acknowledging the great accomplishments of those who have won it before, he can blunt some of the criticism he receives for his youthful hubris.

But somehow, I doubt that His-Messiah-Ship will have the courage to do that.

Massachusetts Democrats are Brazen Hypocrites

In 2004, The democrats were hoping against all odds that John Kerry would win the Presidency. Of course, that would mean that Kerry would have had to resign from the Senate...and Republican Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney would have had the authority to replace him with an appointment.

With all the appropriate breast-beating, impassioned speeches, and rhetorical flourishes, Democrats in Boston claimed that no Governor should have the 'right' to impose a Senator on the citizens, and they changed the law, insisting that any Senate vacancy be filled by a special election by The People.

Fast Forward five years. Sen Ted kennedy has died, and under the very law that the Democrats imposed, a special election should be held to fill the vacancy.

But hell hath no fury as a vested interest parading as a moral principle.

With another public display of breast-beating, impassioned speeches, and rhetorical flourishes, these same Boston Democrats now claim that the citizens should not be deprived of their right to be fully represented in the Senate..and have changed the law to permit the Governor the appoint Kennedy's replacement.

Of course, this time, the Governor, Deval Patrick, is Democrat.

I think i prefer the stench of roadkill skunk to this hypocrisy.

Never Surrender...Never Forget

The Whole Foods Alternative to Obamacare: A Guest Blogpost

[With credit to the Wall Street Journal....you'll notice Mr Mackey is echoing some of the proposals we've suggested in this blog before]

By JOHN MACKEY
“The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out
of other people’s money.”

—Margaret Thatcher


With a projected $1.8 trillion deficit for 2009, several trillions more in deficits projected over the next decade, and with both Medicare and Social Security entitlement spending about to ratchet up several notches over the next 15 years as Baby Boomers become eligible for both, we are rapidly running out of other people’s money. These deficits are simply not sustainable. They are either going to result in unprecedented new taxes and inflation, or they will bankrupt us.

While we clearly need health-care reform, the last thing our country needs is a massive new health-care entitlement that will create hundreds of billions of dollars of new unfunded deficits and move us much closer to a government takeover of our health-care system. Instead, we should be trying to achieve reforms by moving in the opposite direction—toward less government control and more individual empowerment. Here are eight reforms that would greatly lower the cost of health care for everyone:

• Remove the legal obstacles that slow the creation of high-deductible health insurance plans and health savings accounts (HSAs). The combination of high-deductible health insurance and HSAs is one solution that could solve many of our health-care problems. For example, Whole Foods Market pays 100% of the premiums for all our team members who work 30 hours or more per week (about 89% of all team members) for our high-deductible health-insurance plan. We also provide up to $1,800 per year in additional health-care dollars through deposits into employees’ Personal Wellness Accounts to spend as they choose on their own health and wellness.

Money not spent in one year rolls over to the next and grows over time. Our team members therefore spend their own health-care dollars until the annual deductible is covered (about $2,500) and the insurance plan kicks in. This creates incentives to spend the first $2,500 more carefully. Our plan’s costs are much lower than typical health insurance, while providing a very high degree of worker satisfaction.

• Equalize the tax laws so that that employer-provided health insurance and individually owned health insurance have the same tax benefits. Now employer health insurance benefits are fully tax deductible, but individual health insurance is not. This is unfair.

• Repeal all state laws which prevent insurance companies from competing across state lines. We should all have the legal right to purchase health insurance from any insurance company in any state and we should be able use that insurance wherever we live. Health insurance should be portable.

• Repeal government mandates regarding what insurance companies must cover. These mandates have increased the cost of health insurance by billions of dollars. What is insured and what is not insured should be determined by individual customer preferences and not through special-interest lobbying.

• Enact tort reform to end the ruinous lawsuits that force doctors to pay insurance costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. These costs are passed back to us through much higher prices for health care.

• Make costs transparent so that consumers understand what health-care treatments cost. How many people know the total cost of their last doctor’s visit and how that total breaks down? What other goods or services do we buy without knowing how much they will cost us?

• Enact Medicare reform. We need to face up to the actuarial fact that Medicare is heading towards bankruptcy and enact reforms that create greater patient empowerment, choice and responsibility.

• Finally, revise tax forms to make it easier for individuals to make a voluntary, tax-deductible donation to help the millions of people who have no insurance and aren’t covered by Medicare, Medicaid or the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.

Many promoters of health-care reform believe that people have an intrinsic ethical right to health care—to equal access to doctors, medicines and hospitals. While all of us empathize with those who are sick, how can we say that all people have more of an intrinsic right to health care than they have to food or shelter?

Health care is a service that we all need, but just like food and shelter it is best provided through voluntary and mutually beneficial market exchanges. A careful reading of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution will not reveal any intrinsic right to health care, food or shelter. That’s because there isn’t any. This “right” has never existed in America

Even in countries like Canada and the U.K., there is no intrinsic right to health care. Rather, citizens in these countries are told by government bureaucrats what health-care treatments they are eligible to receive and when they can receive them. All countries with socialized medicine ration health care by forcing their citizens to wait in lines to receive scarce treatments.

Although Canada has a population smaller than California, 830,000 Canadians are currently waiting to be admitted to a hospital or to get treatment, according to a report last month in Investor’s Business Daily. In England, the waiting list is 1.8 million.

At Whole Foods we allow our team members to vote on what benefits they most want the company to fund. Our Canadian and British employees express their benefit preferences very clearly—they want supplemental health-care dollars that they can control and spend themselves without permission from their governments. Why would they want such additional health-care benefit dollars if they already have an “intrinsic right to health care”? The answer is clear—no such right truly exists in either Canada or the U.K.—or in any other country.

Rather than increase government spending and control, we need to address the root causes of poor health. This begins with the realization that every American adult is responsible for his or her own health.

Unfortunately many of our health-care problems are self-inflicted: two-thirds of Americans are now overweight and one-third are obese. Most of the diseases that kill us and account for about 70% of all health-care spending—heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes and obesity—are mostly preventable through proper diet, exercise, not smoking, minimal alcohol consumption and other healthy lifestyle choices.


Recent scientific and medical evidence shows that a diet consisting of foods that are plant-based, nutrient dense and low-fat will help prevent and often reverse most degenerative diseases that kill us and are expensive to treat. We should be able to live largely disease-free lives until we are well into our 90s and even past 100 years of age.

Health-care reform is very important. Whatever reforms are enacted it is essential that they be financially responsible, and that we have the freedom to choose doctors and the health-care services that best suit our own unique set of lifestyle choices. We are all responsible for our own lives and our own health. We should take that responsibility very seriously and use our freedom to make wise lifestyle choices that will protect our health. Doing so will enrich our lives and will help create a vibrant and sustainable American society.

—Mr. Mackey is co-founder and CEO of Whole Foods Market Inc.

Obama Health Care: Watching Democrats Implode

God Knows, we *do* need health care reform in this country. Access to insurance, coverage of pre-existing conditions in financially sustainable insurance pools, a re-direction towards doctor-patient decision making, and tort reform should all be on the table.

Quite frankly, it's hard to tell what is on the table right now. The 1,000+ page bill is full of contradictions and embarassing terms, and President Obama seems hell-bent on pushing it through (whatever "it" is) come hell or high water.

I used to post on a popular progressive website (www.bluehampshire.com) devoted to New Hampshire happenings. It claims not to be a Democratic Party site, but, given the characters, it's darn close. In numerous posts I have asked that Obama deal directly and definitively with the provisions of his bill. I have asked him to address concerns that Americans will end up with a Netherlands-like approach to health care which rations treatment based on a cost-benefit analysis of the patient. I never called for defeat of his program: just a direct explanation of various provisions.

I explained my own medical issues, in intimate and heart-on-sleeve details, and wanted assurance that my health care would not suffer.

The response?

I have been called a "Troll." "Privileged." "Blind." It has been inferred that I am a racist (odd, as my family is racially mixed. But then, they did not know that, so they assumed I am a neonazi of some sort). They denied I had health issues. They ripped me up one side and down the other, in non-stop ad hominem arguments.

The Left's devotion to HealthCare Reform (even if they dont know what's in the bill, and especially if they are economically ignorant), surpasses the frenzy and delusion of the God-Hates-Fags Phelps Theocrats.

In fact, that is an apt comparison: the devotion of Obama's apostles on the left to his incoherent Health Care bill approaches religious fanaticism. Zealous devotion regardless of facts. Those who question the doctrine are immediately purged as "impure." When the citizens organize to protest at these Town-Meetings-cum-Theater events the President is hosting, they are derided as nazis, mobs, angry-white-males, neanderthals, Fox-News Idiots, etc.

The apparent formula that the left perceives is this:

Crowds + Organization + passion + grassroots + Obama = Good! Hope! Change!

But,

Crowds + Organization + passion + grassroots + Questioning Obama = EVIL!

The stridency of the left will prove to be its own worst enemy. I asked objective, honest questions, and was ripped to shreds. If this is how the Democrats are going to treat the average American with questions, they deserve the same drubbing that the theocrats on the right have taken.

Unemployment Figures: The Economy has NOT turned around

Some have heralded the "good news" that the Unemployment rate has dropped from a horrific 9.5% all the way down to 9.4% (tongue planted firmly in cheek). This, according to the Obamanauts, shows us that things are turning around.

Bullshit. All those loveley orange signs heralding the "American Reinvestment and Recovery Act" Projects seem to be posted over strangely silent activities.

In fact, the economy *LOST* an additional 247,000 jobs. So why has the Unemployment rate has dropped?

Two reasons:


1) The Unemployment rate is the percent of Americans who are out of work AND ACTIVELY SEEKING work. After 18 months of recession, many Americans have given up for the time being. They have adjusted to life at home, or life off the books, or a single-income in a formerly two-wage earner home. Accordingly, they are no longer considered in the work force, and no longer counted in the Unemployment figures. So, if there are 100 people in the 'labor force,' and 10 are out of work, that's a 10% Unemployment rate. If 5 of those people out of work give up looking, the Unemployment rate is calculated to be 5 unemployed out of 95 in the labor force, which is only a 5.2% rate. Voila! A lowered rate - even though the same number of people are out of work. Similarly, the homeless - which have grown under the foreclosure spate in the last 18 months - are *NOT* considered "Unemployed" because they are no longer considered in the Labor Force. When they lost their job, they were unemployed. When they lost their home and began life in their cars or on the street, they were magically removed from the Unemployment figures.

2) In order to be counted as "Unemployed," an individual must have *no job at all.* That means that when a middle-aged, middle-level manager making $50,000/year loses his job, he is unemployed. 8 months later, when the bank is threatening foreclosure, and the credit card companies are hounding him with dinnertime phone calls, and the kids' tuition is due, and the electric company is threatening to turn off the lights, he takes *anything* he can get...so he takes a part-time job, 20 hours a week at $8.50/hour, cleaning fast food restaurants after they close at night.

Guess what? According to Unemployment calculations, he is no longer Unemployed! He has a Job, even if its part-time! Voila! The rate goes down.

In other words, the longer the recession, the worse things get, the more desperate people become...the better the rate will look.

And that is what is happening under Obama's "Recovery."

5 Steps to Better Health Care

President Obama has launched his Class Warfare Health Policy Initiative. Economists, many Caregivers, and non-Socialists are understandably aghast at the proposal to spend over a trillion dollars, tax the "rich" at 45%, and let loose a system of bureaucracy-controlled health care services. But we need to do more than yell "NO!" We need to acknowledge the problems that do exist; propose solutions that address the problem; and do so within a context that has broad political support from the ideological 'middle' of the country.

With that in mind, I suggest the following parameters:

1) First, we must acknowledge that there *is* a problem in terms of affordable access to health care for many Americans. With 10% of the Labor Force out of work (and youth, stay-at-home parents, part-time workers, the disabled, many immigrants and the homeless are NOT included in the figure), estimates range from 30 to 50 million Americans living without health insurance. That means somewhere between 10% and 15% of Americans.

2) It has been demonstrated that those with a lack of access to health care delay treatment until their conditions require critical (and far more costly) attention. This adds to the expenses Providers incur (and often absorb) and the strain on existing government programs (and thus, increase cost to taxpayers).

3) We must agree that compassion and the political climate both dictate that a, "hell, tough on them!" approach is not an acceptable response.

4) Having said that, the solutions must address the problem. At my office (an Academic institution), one often hears people singing the praises of a Single Payer System. They frame the problem as the 'lack of a single payer system.' However, this response falls apart when weighed rationally. If 85% of Americans had affordable access to supermarket food, and 15% were lacking basic nutrition, we would never suggest that all 100% of the country have access to free food at the supermarket, with the bill sent to The Government. We all know intuitively that the result would be a run on food, a shortage of goods in the supermarket, wasted resources, and a broke country. And yet, that is precisely what the Single Payer Cheerleaders want for health care. If the problem is access for 15% of Americans, than the solution is a way to find access for 15% of Americans.

5) Insurance is both a blessing and a curse: it allows people to access health care (the blessing), but also permits non-emergency situations to crowd hospitals and ER rooms with unncessary service, as consumers receive thousands of dollars worth of treatment for a small copay of $10, $25, or $50. True Health Care Reform must acknowledge objective, observable economic realities and not be bases on some hand-holding kumbaya approach to human nature.

6) The provision of care must be centered on the Doctor-Patient relationship, NOT on insurers' profits or government bureaucracies "one-sized-fits-all" approach of form and process and procedure and approval.

7) We must acknowldge that the American health care system is the best in the world, bar none. Those who point to Canada forget that there is not a single modern machine in Canada capable of removing kidney stones. Those who trumpet Britain forget that Britain has closed 40% of her hospital beds since the 1940 NHS was enacted. Those who point to Scandinavia forget that it is the American doctors who win the Noebel prizes, the American researchers who have made all the modern major medical breakthroughs in the last century, and it is America that attracts doctors from all over the world.

So..in a nutshell: we need a system that helps those without affordable access to gain that access, in a way that protects and enhances the doctor-patient relationship, lowers costs to consumers and providers, and continues to support a profitable - and successful - health industry.

With all of those as 'context,' here are my 5 Proposals:

1) Permit community groups to form for the purpose of buying health insurance. Sounds simple, isn't it? But it's illegal. Individuals can *not,* under existing law, form 'groups' whose primary purpose is purchasing insurance. (Groups may form for business or fraternalh purposes, and then choose to buy insurance as an incidental benefit, but they can not form for no other reason than to buy insurance). End this prohibition, let the market dictate rates, let competition ensue, and there will be no need for a Federal Government-related Insurance Bureaucracy. Take it one step further: end State Monopolies on insurers. The Federal Government (not States) has the authority to regulate Interstate Commerce, and since people may have an accident *anywhere* and request their insurer to cover it, this is clearly federal jurisdiction. Blow open the lid on Insurer Competition.

2) Enact Tort and Medical Malpractice Reform NOW. It was reported 5 years ago that an OB-GYN doctor in Massachusetts has to deliver EIGHTY-FIVE babies just to cover his malpractice insurance premiums for a year. Worse, 5% of doctors are responsible for 95% of malpractice claims, raising all doctor's and hopistal's premiums. Limit Malpractice Awards, raise the negligence standards (so hospitals dont need to run unnecessary tests), and relieve the 95% of decent doctors from paying the premiums of the 5% convicted of malpractice.

3) Eliminate the FDA's requirements that drugs be safe AND EFFICACIOUS. Currently, the FDA requires that pharmaceutical companies prove that their drugs meet two tests: they must prove safe, and they must be 'efficacious,' that is, they must be proven to cure the condition they claim to address in virtually 100% of patients. This is a costly and unnecessary test: Many people react differntly to different substances. The Peanut Butter that fed me through high school will kill someone with an allergy. Let *Doctors* decide what to prescribe, with the understanding that the idiosyncracies of individuals means that results WILL be different with different drugs. A drug that doesnt work, will not be prescribed. On the other hand, if a doctor determines that medical marajuana is more efficacious and cost-effective than morphine, so be it. Eliminate tiered coverage that allows Insurers to cease to cover necessary, but expensive, pharmaceuticals.

4) Engage in Multi-national agreements with other nations to accept their pharmaceuticals. The refusal of the US FDA to permit the importation of Canadian pharmaceuticals is insane. An individual can come to the US from France, or Britain, or Mali, or India, and providing only a driver's license from their own nation, get behind the wheel of a 6,000 pound rental car and take off minutes after landing - even if they don't speak English or have never driven on the right side of the road. And yet, if a pharmaceutical company goes through hundreds of thousands of tests in Germany, or Britain, or Canada, the results are not considered 'valid' in the US. Now, realistically, which is more dangerous: the driver, or a drug produced in Canada?

5) Permit every American to have a Medical Savings Account. Currently, Government workers and some self-employed people can utilize a Medical Savings Account which permits them to cover medical costs using a credit-card-like card. These citizens have a certain amount of money deducted from their paychecks, and go into an account for medical expenses: prescription drugs, eyeglasses, dental work, and even over the counter remedies. These deductions are pre-tax, meaning it lowers the person's gross income, lowering their tax and even possibly dropping them into a lower tax bracket. Better yet, these workers can 'borrow' against future deductions if they incur expenses early in the year at no interest expense. If government workers are allowed these accounts, why not ALL Americans?

These proposals will not solve all of our problems, but they will go a long way to providing access for those who do not have it, lowering costs for everybody, and enhancing the doctor-patient relationship.

Medical Marijuana: Gov. Lynch continues his shuffle of cowardice and shame

I'm sorry, but it's a sad day when a life-long Republican such as myself continues to be more Progressive than the Democratic Governor.

That we should be discussing decriminalization or legalization of ALL marajuana use is a given: the cost of incarceration to taxpayers; the repurcussions to kids smoking a substance that has clearly been established to be less dangerous than either alchohol or tobacco; the irrefutable evidence of the failure of Prohibition and the hardened crime it causes; and the personal experience of the majority of citizens and voters born after 1950, all suggest this is a no-brainer.

But to veto a compassionate bill (and yes, my father experienced the pain of esophagal cancer as he died, and the only relief was morphine, which took his lucidity away far more than marajuana would have), that the Governor himself helped craft (pulling the same psycho-drama as he did during the Marriage Equality process) is absolutely intolerable, inexplicable, and inexcusable.

Shame on you, Lynch!

New Hampshire approves Marriage Equality, 198-176

What a LOOOONG day! Rally at the Capital Building Plaza at 9 am, and then a LOOONG wait all day in the visitors gallery in 90 degree-plus heat,until the House took up HB 73....after 3:45 pm!

The victory of 22 votes was larger than any of the previous margins. Steve Vaillancourt, a Republican who opposed the current version because of Gov. Lynch's needless dramatics, came around and supported it, as did Rep. Tony DiFruscia (Republican) from Windham. Several other Dems (including a clearly choked-up Rep. Roberts, from Keene) who previously opposed the bill changed their minds. Our Bishop, the Rev. V. Gene Robinson, was also in the gallery. Loud Cheers went up from the gallery when the vote was posted, in spite of the Speaker's efforts to tell us to keep quiet.

Immediately after the vote, supporters moved to Reconsider the bill, which they then defeated: a parliamentary tactic to avoid having the bill reconsidered 'by surprise' later this session.

Outside, on the Capitol Building steps, on this historic day for New Hampshire, I proposed to my partner Scott. And (after saying, "Are you serious?!"), he said yes :-)

Upholding Prop 8 in California: a proper decision

The California Court upheld Prop 8 today. While I don't have to like the result, I have to say that from a Legal perspective, it was proper.

This same Court once ruled that gays and lesbians could not be discriminated against in the criteria for issuing marriage licenses. They held that the California State Constitution prohibited unequal protection.

When the citizens dont like laws resulting from Constitutional interpretation, their recourse is to amend the Constitution. That is what California citizens did when they passed Proposition 8.

Opponents of Prop 8 took that vote to court. One must be clear here that the issue was NOT should gays have the right to marry: the issue was, narrowly defined, whether or not the process used in amending the California Constitution was appropriate. The Court that initally granted Marriage Equality was forced - by a 6-1 vote - to also rule that the Citizens of California were within their legal right to overturn that decision, and that they did so according to California Law.

Of course, this battle is not over..

.