The Latest Model of Hillary Clinton - Mom v.01

Wouldn't it be wonderful if we all had the support of the rich? I mean, lets face it, personal valet service, tutoring for children, no worries about health care or a mortgage or about such minor things as traffic tickets. Such a splendiferous world to have people at your beck and call at all hours for all things so that you need never worry about actually *living* a life and, instead, can look forward to time in Martha's Vineyard or that ski vacation in the Alps or globetrotting over to some poor, third world Nation to bemoan their plight. Yes, it would be wonderful to be rich... and that is what Hillary Clinton believes in her message of woman running to be First Mom! Instead of hand-picked servants, however, she realizes that We, the People to be Mommied at, deserve something different.

Government servants and service.

Her concept of Health Care was something that covered everyone, and was bought and paid for by the Government... which would have to grow in a huge way, employ tens of thousands of people currently on the private rolls and then offer us Government overhead and guarantees of Government efficiency that is the envy of every third world dictatorship in the world. Because, you know, 'It takes a Village to raise a child'. Yes, and it takes a Government bureaucrat to require you to fill out forms in triplicate, get everything signed and cross-checked, schedule you for treatment, follow-up your treatment, get feedback on your treatment, ensure that just the right drugs in just the right dosage is prescribed to you... and most likely phone you when it is time for you to actually TAKE your medications, too. Because that also 'takes a Village'. To nag you to death.

If you have ever been in line at your State DMV, filling out forms and then waiting in the waiting area with tens of other people, you can start to see where Government *anything* heads: to the anonymization of you as an individual so that everyone gets treated equally. And if THEY happen to get the paperwork wrong and you get scheduled or billed for something that they messed up on, then you get to go BACK in line to start it all over and maybe, just maybe, this time they will get it right. I had that little problem with a hybrid vehicle getting registered, somehow, as a gasoline only vehicle. Driving the vehicle itself up to an individual at the DMV was NOT enough! No, I had to go back through my dealer, to the company which is overseas, to that production plant and get the actual real record that this VIN is, indeed, that of a hybrid vehicle.

Now imagine what you would go through if you got a wrong pacemaker. Or a misfiled surgery type so that you woke up without a swath of your intestines when it was your thyroids that needed to be dealt with. Yes, you would go back in line, fill out forms, go through procedures, probably get some sort of a hearing and then, if you are very lucky, you will get the needed surgery done. Because it 'takes a Village to run a Government Program'.

Outside of the very few things Government is actually necessary for, I have problems citing instances where it runs efficiently, courteously and immediately addresses problems. Love Canal, that wonderful 'Superfund Site' is STILL fenced off and unsafe to live in after being 'treated' to Federal Standards. The US Army Corps of Engineers is asked to build flood protection around sinking land! It is true! That land is the City of New Orleans, and it is sinking and local bureaucrats do not want to address the long term instability of the ground, which nothing that mankind has invented will solve, but, instead, shore up the city and create NEW water projects that make the entire system LESS stable! Yes, that should really 'take a Village' to figure out.

But, apparently, putting Health Care on par with, say, the IRS is good enough for Hillary Clinton. Not that they have ever been noted for their kindly nature, outgoing attitude or customer service. And, if we are lucky, we will get something that puts a pitiful fraction of its budget to actually handling emergencies and then loads up the rest of its budget with all sorts of wonderful programs that will be 'for the good of everyone'. Perhaps that will lead us to where the Dept. of Agriculture has gotten so that Doctors can get paid NOT to go to work and take extra time off! Yes, that would be so very 'progressive' of them and looking out for 'the health care worker'. Perhaps they would all take the month of August off and let thousands of elderly and sick die of the heat. And the Dept. of Agriculture does have a portion of its actual budget to go out to those farmers that have been struck by disaster: it is the smallest and nearly invisible part of its budget as the rest goes to such 'good idea programs' and handouts to Big Agriculture.

To get an idea of what Mrs. Clinton sees as her 'solution' to health care, here is an excerpt from her 2000 debate with Rick Lazio for the NY Senate seat, Tim Russert is moderating:

RUSSERT:

Mrs. Clinton, you have no voting record as such. People, in order to determine how you will behave as a legislator, look to your principle policy initiative: health care. I want to ask you a couple questions about that.

In 1993-94 you proposed a health care bill that was very controversial in this state. The man that you want to replace, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, had this to say and I'll show you on your monitor and I'll show our voters: ``The administration's solution was rationing. Cut the number of doctors by a quarter, specialists by a half.'' And he went on to say ``teaching hospitals would be at risk. The finance committee passed a bill in `94 to provide financing for the medical schools and the teaching hospitals. The Clinton administration rejected the committee bill.''

Why did you propose cutting the number of doctors by 25 percent, the number of specialists by 50 percent?

CLINTON:

Well Tim, let me start by saying that I'm delighted to be here this evening with you and with Bob and Scott and the audience. And I really appreciate this opportunity to talk about the important issues in this race facing New York and our country.

You know, in 1993 and 1994 we did attempt to reform our health care system to provide universal health care coverage. Now as everyone knows, that was not successful. But we learned a lot and I in particular learned a lot about what we can do step by step to try to reach the goal of providing quality, affordable health care.

And here in New York there isn't any more important part of the health care system than the teaching hospitals, which are really the crown jewels of the health care system. We did propose a funding stream that would've provided additional funds to the hospitals. But we still have not done enough six, seven years later. Senator Moynihan is absolutely right to propose a piece of legislation that would guarantee that our teaching hospitals will be funded to perform the functions that they do which can not be performed within the market at a profit, namely, training our doctors and nurses and providing health care for the sickest of the sick and doing the research we all benefit from.

You know, when we made a proposal, Tim, it was to be a starting point, a basis for argument and compromise within the legislative process. But I've always been committed to ensuring that we have the specialty care that's needed and particularly, that we support our teaching hospitals.

RUSSERT:

When the 57 teaching hospitals and the 12 medical schools in the state with the Democratic governor, Democratic Senator say the bill would have been devastating to New York health care when you were not a New Yorker. Will you now change your view that you are a New Yorker?

CLINTON:

Well, I wanted to emphasize that I believed in teaching hospitals then. I did have a piece in the legislation, as I recall, that would have provided funding for the teaching hospitals. And I have supported Senator Moynihan's plan, which is a plan that would provide what's called all payers payments for our teaching hospitals that would guarantee that the places that do the work that all of us rely on for the quality of our health care system will be given the funding that they needed. And I supported that in a different form. But I am fully committed to it now.

RUSSERT:

Mr. Lazio, your response.

LAZIO:

You know, a New Yorker would never have made that proposal. In New York we say you've got to tell it like it is. And the way it is is that Mrs. Clinton has had two opportunities - two opportunities to make policy: One on health care and one on education. And on health care it was an unmitigated disaster. Even the people in her own party ran away from it. And worse still, it would have been a disaster for New York. It would have led to health care rationing. It would have destroyed teaching hospitals. It would have led to all types of unintended consequences, perhaps. But the bottom line is it would have been terrible for New York. But it didn't stop just there. Mrs. Clinton also stood silently by when the president exercised his only line item veto - to hurt Medicaid going to New York. And that's the true picture in this case.

Not only was the system a 'Hillarycare' but it was a Nannystate approach from the top-down, because of the assumption that Government will know best. What one becomes, instead of an empowered Citizen exercising Your Rights is a supplicant to a bureaucratic State. And because Mrs. Clinton likes this idea so much, she wants even more of it! She clearly said as much in the Democratic National Convention on 27 AUG 1996:

But we are all responsible for ensuring that children are raised in a nation that doesn't just talk about family values, but acts in ways that values families. Just think - as Christopher Reeve so eloquently reminded us last night, we are all part of one family - the American family. And each one of us has value. Each child who comes into this world should feel special - every boy and every girl.

....

But today, too many new mothers are asked to get up and get out after 24 hours, and that is just not enough time for many new mothers and babies. That's why the president is right to support a bill that would prohibit the practice of forcing mothers and babies to leave the hospital in less than 48 hours.

That's also why more hospitals ought to install 24-hour hotlines to answer questions once new mothers and fathers get home. That's why home nurses can make such a difference to parents who may not have grandparents or aunts and uncles around to help. We have to do whatever it takes to help parents meet their responsibilities at home and at work. The very first piece of legislation that my husband signed into law had been vetoed twice - the Family and Medical Leave Law.

Ah, yes, the wonderful Socialist idea that since Everyone is Responsible for Society, then Society via its Government must be made Responsible for everything. From that attitude one finds one's Rights going with those Responsibilities, the foremost of which is personal decisions on how to run one's life and oversee and have recourse upon those decisions. We can already see that the idea of *mandating* good ideas suddenly makes them a burden to those that need to carry out such mandates. The 'American Family' apparently has some crotchety elders sliding hands into the pocketbooks of the working youngsters, the youngsters too busy to take care of the grandchildren and they are going to have to be looked after by the bureaucrats of the State to ensure that they get a nice, State mandated upbringing. And then, to help out folks, why lets make sure that *everyone* gets nursing care if they fit some pre-determined set of prerequisites and assume that all problems hit all individuals equally. To help 'parents meet their responsibilities' requires Government oversight and funding for a huge bureaucracy or the impoverishment of those institutions trying to meet unfunded mandates which put overhead on the system.

And all of this will be assured by the omnipresent, every needful health care providers that will just come crawling out of the woodwork or over the border to meet this wonderful new need! Yes, you will always have a personal staff, on call, at all times for your health care needs... and find it as efficient and capable as the IRS and as spendthrift as the Dept. of Agriculture. Perhaps we can put the FBI in charge of database integration! They only failed to do that TWICE across their computer systems and finally gave up and just bought PCs and put off an integrated system until another day. While she does point to the FMLA as a success, it is one of those 'on the fringes' proposals that most workers in good jobs could have gotten time off or adjusted work schedule for in any event. The economic impact has been trivial because it was already being done on a person-to-person basis in businesses, not needing a Government mandate over it.

Now, as Mrs. Clinton sees the Federal Government as the best place for placing responsibility for health care, she also wants to make it the best place for placing the responsibility for education. And in her debate with Mr. Lazio, this is what her education plan is, and in the opening she is asking if any of the members of the NAACP who put up the question are present:

CLINTON:

I'd love to just have them maybe raise a hand so I can see who's asking the question. Thank you.

I have a plan for education that builds on what needs to be done in the public school system. You know, I've now visited schools throughout the state and some of them are among the finest in the world that you could find anywhere. But others are overcrowded, under-resourced, don't have the certified, qualified teaching staff that they need, and we're not doing the job that's required to give our children the kind of education that the 21st century demands. That's why I put forth a plan that I and the Senate would do to try to get the teachers that we need, to recruit and train them and to provide the funds that are required for modernizing our schools, as well as setting high standards, making them safe from violence, doing what is needed to give our children the kind of warm and supportive atmosphere that every young child needs.

Now, I do not support vouchers. And the reason I don't is because I don't think we can afford to siphon dollars away from our underfunded public schools. You know, when we go into a school that I do all the time, that's built for a thousand, as I was in - in Queens not so long ago, where there are twice as many children, that's work for the public school system to be done.

I was at the Black Rock Academy here in Buffalo a few months ago, a wonderful old school but it's so old they can't figure out how to wire it for computers. So those children don't have access to what's needed.

I'd like us to do what we know works: smaller class size, discipline, qualified teachers, high standards. Let's do what we know works and not give up on public education.

RUSSERT:

Mr. Lazio.

LAZIO:

Sure. I unveiled a strong education plan to address the needs of New York. I said that we should begin to test teachers but we should also try to attract and retain the very best, that we should offer scholarships to teachers, to students who finish in the top 10 percent of their class, with a need to go into science and math. I've said that we should help provide more scholarships for our young people because I know how difficult it is to afford to pay to go to college. But I also believe that it's immoral to ask a child to go to a school where they can't learn or where they're not safe. You know, Vice President Al Gore recently said, If I was in one of those failing school districts and I was a poor parent, I'd want to have some help too. I'd want a voucher too. So Al Gore believes it and according to the Hunter College poll that just came out, 80 percent of African-American and Hispanic parents feel that they need it. Why should we trap poor kids in failing schools simply because the teachers unions won't agree with it?

RUSSERT:

Would you take money from public schools in order to do that?

LAZIO:

Absolutely not. As a matter of fact, in my education plan, I create a new funding stream for what I call opportunity scholarships. I reserve the vast amount of money for public schools. I'm a public school graduate. My two little girls are going to second and third grade in New York public schools Our first responsibility is the public school system. But we need to address the over 100 failing schools in New York.

Here again, it is the Nannystate of Hillary Clinton as seen in her conception of things. As schooling is everyone's responsibility, let us make it no one's responsibility and leave it up to the bureaucrats. Even in 2000 the idea of a 'wireless network' was not out of the question for schools too old for traditional wiring and would lead to a somewhat more adaptable, if slower, network overall. And as the wireless nodes can be cheaply upgraded to newer technology, along with low cost receivers for the computers, you suddenly have an upgradeable, adaptable network that can be used in older facilities without the expense of rewiring. But, if Mrs. Clinton put bureaucrats in charge, it would be: one size fits all, but fits none well. Wiring is neither the best nor the cheapest thing to do for all situations and putting in a copper system *today* may require pulling it out in a few years for a fiber optic system. That is not that much of an overhead for newer facilities with wiring conduits and such, but historical older buildings are not amenable to that without tons of forms and procedures to ensure it is done without damaging the building itself or making it unsafe. So, why stick with one concept when multiple different ways that can be decided at the local level can do just as well?

And, while on that, reducing class size is not necessarily a component of the number of teachers, either. If more efficient teaching methods that can reduce in-class time can be found, then by cycling students at a faster rate through classes would effectively reduce class size. But *that* gets thrown out if there is a huge bureaucracy over the school system so as to prevent it from advancing into this wonderful, modern age of electronics. This is a problem that we *already* have in this Nation and putting yet another layer of bureaucracy on top of the others and requiring them all to interact will further stultify any chance at change or modernization.

The main reason that the Agencies in charge of looking after Homeland Security and protecting the Nation have not gotten much of anywhere is that a brand new inter-Agency coordinating bureaucracy for a large portion of it is standing up its brand new bureaucratic empire: the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. All of the problems between the Agencies for passing INTEL to each other now have yet another bureaucratic layer to go through and it must justify its existence by putting in new barriers, new forms, new councils and lots and lots and lots of new meetings for everyone to attend. Lets do THAT to Education, why don't we?

One thing that is to be noted, however, is that while the Clintons did not trust Chelsea to the Public Schools in DC, Mr. Lazio DID trust his children to the Public Schools in New York. That, itself, is an interesting statement on the faith and support that Mrs. Clinton puts into the Public School systems: None. Mind you, Chelsea would *still* have had tutors if she needed them AND Secret Service protection, so worries about her *not* getting supported to her greatest ability was never in doubt. Even with that, the Clintons chose a private school and eschewed the schools in the City that is overseen by Congress. The DC schools should be the showcase of the Congress, and, instead, it is something that gets brushed aside as 'local politics' when it is Congress that has final say over the 'local politics'.

Then again, it is not surprising that Sen. Clinton has such a dim view of public education as her statement on that was incredibly insulting and one of her many controversies that she has self-inflicted. In this one it was before the US Chamber of Commerce (Source: CBS News via AP) where she stated:

After telling an audience that young people today "think work is a four-letter word," Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said she apologized to her daughter.

"I said, 'I'm sorry, I didn't mean to convey the impression that you don't work hard,'" Clinton said Sunday in a commencement address at Long Island University. "I just want to set the bar high, because we are in a competition for the future."

Clinton spoke to more than 2,000 graduates days after she criticized young people at a gathering of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington. In those remarks, she said young people have a sense of entitlement after growing up in a "culture that has a premium on instant gratification."

She then got a tart phone call from her daughter who informed her that young people did, indeed, work very hard to get ahead and achieve things. So, to try and mollify things she decided that, yes, the Federal Government should step in and mandate loan repayment by students:

New York's junior senator, who is up for re-election this year, also told the graduates she plans to introduce a bill that would help college students manage and repay their loans. The proposal would limit loan payments to a certain percentage of their incomes, she said.

So, here is the thing: students can do this thing known as 'renegotiate loans' or bundle a loan into a better loan package or, if they really want to get ahead, pay it off EARLY. Yes, believe it or not, that is something that one can do by just paying more against the principle each month and find that the overall term of the loan decreases. Amazing, isn't it? This little thing known as 'freedom'. And yet Sen. Clinton prefers to mandate set amounts so that those youngsters who really don't know very much will not get that freedom to choose... yes, by 22 they are woefully unprepared for the real world, don't you know? By that point you still are just nor ready to be part of 'the Village' and *still* need to leave decisions up to those running the place.

But then letting Government make choices is what Sen. Clinton is all about, especially in schooling. Here is a bit from 22 FEB 2006 (Newsday.com with h/t to Michelle Malkin and SpunkyHomeSchool)in the Bronx when she talks about school vouchers:

CLINTON: Suppose that you were meeting today to decide who got the vouchers. First parent comes and says 'I want to send my daughter to St. Peter's Roman Catholic School' and you say 'Great, wonderful school, here's your voucher. Next parent who comes says, 'I want to send, you know, my child to the Jewish Day School. Great here's your voucher! Next parent who comes says, "I want to send my child to the private school that I've already dreamed of sending my child to.' Fine. Here's your voucher.

Next parent who comes says, 'I want to send my child to the school of the Church of the White Supremacist.' You say, 'Wait a minute. You can't send...we're not giving a voucher for that.' And the parent says, 'Well, the way that I read Genesis, Cain was marked, therefore I believe in white supremacy. And therefore, you gave it to a Catholic parent, you gave it to a Jewish parent, gave it to a secular private parent. Under the Constitution, you can't discriminate against me.'

Suppose the next parent comes and says 'I want to send my child to the School of...the Jihad.' Wait a minute! We're not going to send a child with taxpayers dollars to the School of Jihad. 'Well, you gave it to the Catholics, gave it to the Jews, gave it to the private secular people. You're gonna tell me I can't? I'm a taxpayer. Under the Constitution.'

Now, tell me how we're going to make those choices.

Hopefully not you or any bureaucrat, Sen. Clinton.

As the ones I came to this by already presented, money is ALREADY going to ideological based schooling, which happens to be leftist, elitist and anti-democratic. And even worse is that in California there is Racist schooling that teaches racial separation that IS being funded by the State, which is getting the ire of a few folks out there, including State Sen. George Runner. Why does Senator Clinton NOT speak up about that? Or are 'some races better than others' when it comes to teaching racial segregation, bias and hatred? Perhaps it also 'takes a Village' to promulgate hatred, bias, and racial division.

Come to think of it, all that money towards education 'reform' and to making a Cabinet Level Office for Education hasn't changed the rate that American children read since that dreaded year of 1958. For all of the billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars sent to 'improve' the system and 'fix' the system, the system remains exactly, squarely where it was for that statistic and many others. Of course one could always just tie payments in proportion to performance, but that, apparently, requires that schools and those who teach actually rework how they teach and find better ways of doing so in search of reward for that. Yes, all those wonderful ideas of making it 'the problem of the Nation' has not *solved the problem*. We have had boatloads of 'experts' that haven't gotten it right for so long that we have long passed the 'Village' quantity and are heading towards 'Good Sized Town'. I am sure Sen. Clinton would love to see a full Metropolis of Experts, figuring out how to chisel more money from Americans and *still* not fix the problem.

So has anyone ever met a Mom like this? One that constantly tells you what you should be doing in life, nagging at you about everything, decrying the lack of initiative the 'younger generation' has, telling others what they should be doing with their lives, and wanting to leave everything up to 'experts' who haven't gotten it right for decades?

One so set in her ways that she cannot conceive of actually letting go of power. Continually ragging on people for their faults, while not admitting to any of her own...

One so dead-set in her tracks that all you ever get from her is biased in an attempt to sway you to 'her way of thinking' which is to say 'the right way of thinking'. And her way is so divorced from the actual world that it has little in the way of ties to it.

I actually have met moms like this, and I do not want one of THOSE to be 'First Mom'.

And I have seen just the kind of Village that this requires: where no one has names, only numbers and are seen as just 'units of society'.

No.6 (addressing the crowd during a campaign rally): “Unlike me, many of you have accepted the situation of your imprisonment, and will die here like rotten cabbages.”

--The Prisoner, Episode: Free For All