The One About The Next Time You Think State Government Is Automatically Superior To Federal Government Look At The Income Tax Forms.

[Toriach]

(This article originally appeared at The One About...)

Before I begin this article I'd like to congratulate myself for the longest title in The One About...'s short but self-important history. And now moving right along...

Serendipity is a funny thing. Sometimes it amazes me how something that I will say or be thinking will have an echo in the press be it the mainstream media, or opinion journalism.

For example, last week I finally filled out and sent in my and The Love Of My Life's Federal Income Tax returns. I knew we were owed refunds and I had tried to send them electronically but that hit a snag and I hadn't gotten around to mailing them in, what with the move and all. So finally I did. And then I tried to do the state ones. We had, in the course of the previous year moved, so there were returns for both our former state, and the one we had moved to during the interim period before our move to Texas.

The Federal forms did not take terribly long at all. It was that old standby the 1040 EZ. I had all the data entered and the completed returns printed out in a bit over an hour, and I was not pushing the pace at all.

And then I went to do the state forms. They were a mess. Pennsylvania's form is not that complicated, but they seem to have discovered a magical formula whereby to insure that no one who has not hired three lawyers, two accountants, and a Sherpa will be getting more than a pennies refund. West Virginia's form is this long elaborate collection of gibberish that I feel quite certain is only understandable with a PhD in babble. I finally gave up in disgust, put the Federal returns in envelopes and sent them on their merry way. After I had done all that I looked at TLOML and said, “I'll tell you something, the next person who starts carrying on about how wonderfully state government runs things and how horribly the Federal government does, can just come on over as I've got a couple of spare state income tax forms to insert rectally. Sideways.”

Then just days after saying this I find yet another person proclaiming that healthcare reform would probably be alright. So long as it's not run by the Federal government, but rather controlled by the states.

Should the States Run Public Insurance Instead?

A few ideas dribbling out of the Senate last week set off another flurry of debate over health care: Maybe it should be state-based! The principle appeals to Republicans because it keeps the federal government about as far as possible from running a public insurance plan.

Now the article in question is very well written and the author concludes that while giving the states broad powers it would be essential that firm guidelines be set forth from the Federal level, and that there be enough flex between states that you would not automatically lose your coverage just because you move from one state to another, especially if the move is a relatively short one, like from say the Texas side of the Texas/New Mexico border to the New Mexico side.

The problem is that I am fairly good at guessing what the Republicants will do. They will work swiftly and steadily to make any kind of Federal guidelines nearly meaningless, and what will be left will be a contradictory mish-mash that will be confusing, and will result in people thinking they are covered, who have moved, and then finding out when they need it the most that Whoopsie!, they were wrong.

But then again, what do you expect when Newt Gingrich, one of the loudest

Image via Wikipedia

voices in the Republican party, has declared that any “bad” healthcare reform legislation can be repealed in 2012. “Bad” of course being code for any legislation that does not favor the Corporate Masters to whom they are beholden, or endorse their world view wherein health care is a privilege not a right.
Keep The Faith My Brothers And Sisters!