Wednesday, April 21, 2004
TIME TO GET SERIOUS ABOUT THE SNOOZER STUFF
Health-Care and Campaign-Finance Reform
Two public policy issues guaranteed to cause me to leave the room or at least to let my eyes glaze over -- out of boredom, not hostility -- are health-care and campaign-finance reform.
As boring as both topics appear on the surface, or at least have appeared to me, I’m starting to think I’ve been mistaken.
On health-care reform: See Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, which devotes dozens of fascinating pages to the subject, including the lead article, “Now Can We Talk About Health Care?” by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.). For me, however, the scariest article was “Singled Out,” by Jody Miller and Matt Miller, two entrepreneurial, energetic, independent-minded members of the intelligentsia, not unlike me and similar, though older, in age to me, who were totally screwed by what passes these days for our nation’s health insurance fraudulent, criminal enterprise, unregulated and rampant conspiratorial monopoly system.
And no less scary because Mr. and Mrs. Miller are almost unbearably more healthy than I.
As for campaign-finance reform . . . Well, if you think financing for federal offices is a mess, take a look sometime at Pennsylvania.
Today’s Philadelphia Inquirer reports, in “Big Gift to Castor Ruffles Pa. GOP,” by Jeff Shields, that Drew Lewis (R), secretary of transportation during the Reagan administration, has donated, within just the past several weeks, $602,500 to the campaign of Bruce L. Castor Jr. (R), a candidate in Tuesday’s Republican primary for Pennsylvania attorney general. (The Pennsylvania Republican party establishment is supporting Castor’s opponent, former Pittsburgh U.S. Attorney Tom Corbett.)
Lewis’s donations constitute a full 79 percent of the funds raised by Castor in the two-month period ended April 12.
Lewis, by the way, despite an apparently severe problem with alcohol and the law, one the Inquirer notes, with justification, has been, uh, enabled by Castor, has settled into a rather wonderful place in life these days.
As the Inquirer quotes Lewis: “You can’t stop the flow of money. So I just keep giving it away.”
Makes me wonder.
If I simply switch my party registration to Republican, will my life go as swimmingly for me as it has for Mr. Lewis and his friends?
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JAMES MARTIN CAPOZZOLA
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James Martin (Jim) Capozzola launched The Rittenhouse Review in April 2002, TRR: The Lighter Side of Rittenhouse, HorowitzWatch, and Smarter Andrew Sullivan in July 2002, and Bulldogs for Kerry-Edwards in October 2004. He is also a contributing member of President Boxer.
He received the 2002 Koufax Award for Best Post> for "Al Gore and the Alpha Girls" (published November 25, 2002). Capozzola's record in the Koufax Awards includes two additional nominations for 2002 (Best Blog and Best Writing), three nominations for 2003 (Best Blog, Best Series, and Best Writing), and two finalist nominations in 2004 (Best Blog and Best Writing).
Capozzola’s experience beyond the blogosphere includes a lengthy career in financial journalism, securities analysis, and investment research, and in freelance writing, editing, ghost-writing, and writing instruction.
He earned his bachelor's degree in political science from the University at Albany and a master's in foreign affairs from the University of Virginia.
Capozzola lives in Philadelphia with his bulldog, Mildred.
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