18 The Manhasset Times, Friday, May 22, 2015
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READERS WRITE
Anti-Obama letter ignores the facts
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n the May 15, 2015 edition of the New Hyde Park Herald Courier, you published Dr. Stephen Morris’ latest streamof-consciousness rant about how much President Obama’s supporters frustrated him. I thought I would point out the most glaring inaccuracies, inconsistencies and errors in said rant. The most glaring error is Dr. Morris’ 24th (yes, 24th) point, in which he makes the bold assertion that every American who files an income tax return must disclose the name of his health insurance carrier on said return. This is proof, Dr. Morris claims, of how invasive and bureaucratic the Affordable Care Act is. I took a long, hard look at all three forms U.S. citizens normally use to file their taxes (forms 1040, 1040A and 1040EZ). On none of those forms does it ask the taxpayer to list the name of his health insurance carrier. In fact, those who have a qualifying health insurance plan can just check a box self-certifying they have health insurance. That doesn’t seem invasive or bureaucratic to me. Those who do not have a qualifying health insurance plan must pay a penalty (unless they qualify for an exemption), which leads me to Dr. Morris’ next faulty point, number five, in which he resents “Obama’s legal team” considering the ACA constitutional “because it
is a tax.” Firstly, in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, the Supreme Court had to decide if the individual mandate of the ACA was constitutional, not the law in its entirety. (It also considered the constitutionality of the law’s Medicaid expansion.) Secondly, it was the conservative-majority Supreme Court that ruled the mandate constitutional because the penalty for not having qualifying coverage was a de facto tax, not “Obama’s legal team.” Dr. Morris can resent the decision the court made, but the court made it, nonetheless, not the Obama administration. By the way, Dr. Morris’ claim that the IRS can garnish your wages if you fail to pay the penalty for not having qualified coverage is also categorically false. The IRS is prevented from doing so by law under the terms of the ACA. In point seven, Dr. Morris claims that restaurant chain Chickfil-A somehow served as proof that the ACA forced business owners to violate their religious beliefs. While it is true there were vocal protests led by members of the public, civil rights activists and even politicians after Chick-fil-A’s thenCOO, Dan T. Cathy, made public statements in opposition of samesex marriage, claiming he was defending the “biblical definition of the family unit,” the controversy
had absolutely nothing to do with the ACA. I guess all roads lead to “Obamacare” if you’re Dr. Morris. Dr. Morris may have been thinking of Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., in which case, he should be delighted, not disgusted. In that case, the Supreme Court ruled that closely held for-profit corporations could claim religious exemptions from the ACA’s contraception mandate. Incidentally, the Congressional Budget Office projects the net cost of the ACA to be approximately $1.2 trillion over the first 10 years, not $2 trillion as Dr. Morris claims in point six, and that figure does not include the $716 billion reduction to Medicare spending as a result of the ACA. In point 16, Dr. Morris claims that if the Keystone XL pipeline were approved, it would create 30,000 full-time jobs. Regardless of whether that exact number is accurate or not, he neglects to mention that the vast majority of jobs created by the pipeline would be temporary construction and manufacturing jobs. Once the pipeline were in place, the number of full-time employees would dwindle to about 35. Additionally, the pipeline would only help Canadian oil producers bring their product to the world market more efficiently; it would not have any impact on the price of fuel here in the United States nor would it infuse any mon-
ey into the U.S. economy after the completion of the pipeline, other than property taxes paid by the pipeline’s owner. You’d think Dr. Morris would oppose the pipeline due to the issues of eminent domain involved. I guess the government confiscating land from private property owners for supposed public good doesn’t bother a proud Tea Partier, like Dr. Morris, after all. In point 22, Dr. Morris portrays President Obama as an unequivocal supporter of late-term abortions. Actually, in a 2008 interview with Fox News, then-candidate Obama said, “…I strongly believe that the state can properly restrict late-term abortions. I have said so repeatedly. All I’ve said is we should have a provision to protect the health of the mother, and many of the bills that came before me didn’t have that.” I was unable to find any quote from the president before or after his election lending unqualified support to late-term abortions. In point 15, Dr. Morris claimed the president circumvented legislative authority by issuing executive orders. Of course, legal scholars overwhelmingly agree that executive orders are not, in and of themselves, unconstitutional. In fact, President Obama has only issued 205 executive orders to date, compared to George W. Bush’s 291 and Ronald Reagan’s 381. I guess, by Dr. Morris’ stan-
dards, President Reagan was a power-hungry, Constitution-shredding tyrant, too. In point 20, Dr. Morris provides an unattributed quote calling for the retraining of New York’s “racist police departments,” which he believes is foolish because a large percentage of officers come from a minority background. I don’t know what this has to do with the president or his administration. In fact, in a speech this past April, President Obama said, “…We don’t run these police forces. I can’t federalize every police force in the country and force them to retrain.” The president did say his administration would issue grants to police forces that wanted to retrain their staff and implement new technology, like body cameras, but that’s a long way from calling the NYPD a wholly racist organization, as Dr. Morris claimed. Of course, Dr. Morris placed all his supposed points in quotes, making it appear as if he was directly quoting the president and others, when, in fact, he was not. At the end of his rant, Dr. Morris asked, “Don’t any of you Democrats feel a bit uncomfortable with all these lies?” I would ask Dr. Morris the same question. Matthew Zeidman New Hyde Park
Weill inspires at Temple Emanuel program
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ave you ever heard of Eric P. Liu? Neither had I until I saw a repeat PBS program of The Open Mind this past Saturday. Listening to him, I was especially struck by his celebration of a “New York brand of patriotism.” I freely confess that I love compliments given to New York City and its surrounding area. Years ago, I was a consultant for the late Bernie Bookbinder and was enormously pleased when he entitled his book, “City of the World.” This past Sunday I had more reinforcement for some of the magic or our connected urban-suburban region when I went to Great Neck’s Temple Emanuel to hear the remarkable Rabbi Robert Widom interview Sanford Weill, the hugely successful financial entrepreneur who grew up in Brooklyn with Polish immigrant parents. Rabbi Widom asked Mr. Weill about his noted philanthropy, in-
cluding his past comment that “shrouds have no pockets.” It behooves us, Mr. Weill has long demonstrated, to use resources here on earth to enhance lives and societies. It was heartening to hear some of the ways that a sprightly 82-year old “Sandy” Weill commits funds in so many ways with the view that one must believe that tomorrow can be better than today and yesterday, and keep striving to raise all lives. May is “Older Americans” month and, as I advance in “Elderhood” myself, I am relishing the opportunities to reflect on American history, particularly as it illuminates our phases of immigration and adaptations to a new nation. I am grateful to New Times Newspapers for allowing me some use of its space to explore issues that are ripe for deliberation and resolution. Can anyone doubt that the long neglected and broken immigration system will continue to
be a major issue as we approach the Presidential election of 2016? Despite significant Republican victories in Congress and in the states during 2014, many leaders of that Party believe they cannot win the presidency unless they do something constructive about immigration. My prediction is that the Republican-controlled Congress will take several actions in advance of the 2016 election to give GOP candidates better odds when they compete for the presidency. In some forthcoming essays, I will discuss my sense of likely measures. We all have a stake in shaping the best ways forward for our nation, regardless of which party is doing the proposing and the legislating. It is in the context of this onthe-horizon political attention to immigration that I want to return to my weekend experiences with Weill, and, especially, with Liu. Eric Liu grew up in New York, the son of Chinese immigrants.
Born in 1968, he graduated from both Yale and Harvard, epitomizing great successes from ethnic origins. Weill is a graduate of Cornell. Most significant, Liu, still in his 40s, serves as Executive Director of the Aspen Institute Citizenship and American Identity Program. Among his several books is A Chinaman’s Chance, one of many components of his life-long commitment to celebrating and achieving the greatness of the “American Dream,” (noted, similarly, in so much of Dr. Martin Luther King’s work). Liu is also the founder of Citizen University which is committed to “promote and teach the art of powerful citizenship.” Keenly cognizant of having lived an ethnic journey, Liu writes: “Society becomes how you behave. This is a time for citizen problem solving.” Long Island Wins and the Hofstra Center for Civic Engagement (building on our February 26 Long Island Immigration Summit), en-
dorse Mr. Liu’s vision of citizen empowerment as a way to shape good directions for our nation. We hope to bring Mr. Liu to Long Island to discuss his “civic collaboratory” – a national network of catalytic leaders. We are confident that leaders and citizens in our urban-suburban nexus can play significant roles in addressing our immigration challenges and finding ways forward that can heal political divisions and place our nation on course to fulfill its noble principles. In responses to some of my writing, as well as in community discussions, Long Islanders are aware that we need to address tough choices that every nation faces: • How many immigrants can the nation accept each year? • Who should those new immigrants be in terms of their countries of origin? • Should there be particular Continued on Page 50