Communication services is waste of tax dollars
Commissioner Borden’s recent response to Sun Editor Alan Bauer’s explanation of how no low bid could be lower than zero was as tortured as reasoning gets. A “fraction” of any cost that would be above “nothing” would be a price too high to pay.
While Mr. Borden might mangle whatever prose necessary to inform about “Municipal Matters,” I don’t think it is a task too difficult for the middle or high school journalism classes to tackle. Several years and about $50,000 tax dollars ago (he’ll deny this), the commissioner told me that the Sun was “trying to put David Hunter out of business.”
What concern of that would be his since what is at stake are public monies?
Jack Kirkwood
Surprised by Bulldawg Bulletin editorial
I was surprised by the recent Bulldawg Bulletin editorial, “ObamaCare Shattered by Brown-out,” by my fellow HMHS student Jimmy Fini ’13.
My surprise came not from the opinion presented, but from the editorial’s fallacies and extremely misleading statements and statistics.
Fini describes America’s current health-care system as “the world’s best.” But would the world’s best system leave 10 percent of its citizens without health insurance?
To have 30 million Americans uninsured is absolutely unacceptable, and certainly not the best.
Fini claims, “a majority of Americans oppose this legislation.” No. Laws in this country are not determined by the latest Fox News polls, but by the houses of Congress, both of which have passed a health bill. Republicans speak as if they’re the people’s voice. If that’s so, why have they lost the presidency and both houses of Congress?
Much is made of Scott Brown’s victory. As we have never let a Massachusetts Senate election be the final word on legislation before, I see no reason to start now.
It should also be noted that, as a state senator, Brown voted for a law requiring all Massachusetts residents to have health insurance and providing a state-subsidized plan for those who can’t afford insurance.
Fini decries “paying all this money to insure 30 million uninsured people.” To dismiss such a number — about three and half times as many people as live in New Jersey — denies the huge financial challenges faced by this large portion of our population.
Fini objects to President Obama’s proposal to reduce wasteful spending and fraud in the Medicare program because that “limits care for the elderly and reduces payments to hospitals and doctors.” False. What it does is reduce fraud and wasteful spending. By “fraud” President Obama did not mean “care for the elderly,” and by “wasteful spending” he did not mean “payments to hospitals and doctors.”
Fini says the health-care issue “does not have to do with just money” invoking two Republican scare words: “big government” and “socialism.” But he is right that health care is not just a financial issue.
It’s also a human issue, an ethical issue. There was a time when Americans were more concerned about the health and well being of their fellow citizens than about their own wallets.
Perhaps that time has not passed.
In the end, the question at it purest form is which do we value more: the well being of our fellow citizens, or our bank accounts?
Matt Nussbaum
HMHS Class of 2011
