Required reading for all especially people looking for Common sense logic
Not Brian recommended this to read: Going Dutch
For the first few months I was haunted by a number: 52. It reverberated in my head; I felt myself a prisoner trying to escape its bars. For it represents the rate at which the income I earn, as a writer and as the director of an institute, is to be taxed. To be plain: more than half of my modest haul, I learned on arrival, was to be swallowed by the Dutch welfare state. Nothing in my time here has made me feel so much like an American as my reaction to this number. I am politically left of center in most ways, but from the time 52 entered my brain, I felt a chorus of voices rise up within my soul, none of which I knew I had internalized, each a ghostly simulacrum of a right-wing, supply-side icon: Ronald Reagan, Jack Kemp, Rush Limbaugh. The grim words this chorus chanted in defense of my hard-earned income I recognized as copied from Charlton Heston’s N.R.A. rallying cry about prying his gun from his cold, dead hands.
And yet as the months rolled along, I found the defiant anger softening by intervals, thanks to a succession of little events and awarenesses. One came not long ago. Logging into my bank account, I noted with fleeting but pleasant confusion the arrival of two mysterious payments of 316 euros (about $410) each. The remarks line said “accommodation schoolbooks.” My confusion was not total. On looking at the payor — the Sociale Verzekeringsbank, or Social Insurance Bank — I nodded with sage if partial understanding. Our paths had crossed several times before. I have two daughters, you see. Every quarter, the SVB quietly drops $665 into my account with the one-word explanation kinderbijslag, or child benefit. As the SVB’s Web site cheerily informed me when I went there in bewilderment after the first deposit: “Babies are expensive. Nappies, clothes, the pram . . . all these things cost money. The Dutch government provides for child benefit to help you with the costs of bringing up your child.” Any parents living in the country receive quarterly payments until their children turn 18. And thanks to a recently passed law, the state now gives parents a hand in paying for school materials.
and here’s a shocker:
And in talking both with American expats and with experts in the Dutch system, I hear the same thing over and over: American perceptions of European-style social welfare are seriously skewed.
There is another historical base to the Dutch social-welfare system, which curiously has been overlooked by American conservatives in their insistence on seeing such a system as a threat to their values. It is rooted in religion. “These were deeply religious people, who had a real commitment to looking after the poor,” Mak said of his ancestors. “They built orphanages and hospitals. The churches had a system of relief, which eventually was taken over by the state. So Americans should get over ‘socialism.’ This system developed not after Karl Marx, but after Martin Luther and Francis of Assisi.”
I can see a wingnut’s head exploding at this point. wHAT??????? The meek shall inherit NOTHING, THOSE LAZY PIECES OF SHIT!!! It’s hard to fathom that those people so deeply seeped into the bible are so opposed to socialism.
I just finished the essay this morning and I had a series of emails back and forth with Not Brian. NB not onlyhas a Masters in the political economy but has also been to Holland 9 times. (I’ll be with him for his 10th trip this fall – along with Von Cracker – after we all try to drink ourselves to death again at the Oktoberfest in Munich!)
Anyway, read the whole essay. It really comes down to how we are raised and what our expectations are. If you buy into the Horatio Alger deal… then the US is for you. If not, perhaps Western Europe is more suitable.
Although there are down sides the western European systems at least this does dispel the “socialism” myth.
Dutch tax rate = US Fed Rate + SS + State Tax.
But one is a commie muthafracker and the other is the lowest it’s been in years!
The essential point of the essay is that for economical viability and growth, all roads start at Health Care….
That’s what I took away from it…
What always amazed me in Europe was that the people actually got something for their taxes – health care, paid maternity leave, ridiculously affordable day care, college, pensions, etc.
Imagine crossing those concerns, and others, off our list. Bet we’d add 10 years to our lifespan overnight.
And I’m with you, VC, all roads start at health care.
…prisons that rehabilitate people. Shocking!!
As we continually tell ourselves we are the greatest nation on earth, we will remain less likely to pick up on success stories from abroad to blend in with and improve our own country.
I agree, health should be a core value, one which we still have not addressed effectively, satisfied that it is OK to have 47 million of our own uninsured.
To a large extent, we have been the protectors of the “free world”, and it has cost us plenty to maintain and expand this our military-industrial complex.
The Europeans (and others) have leaned on us for their protection for over a half a century.
While earning us the mantra of the most powerful nation, which puffs out our chests and makes us feel secure, we have paid a price, adequate healthcare for all Americans being one neglected item.
We must change, because our current priorities on these two items, healthcare and defense, are not unsustainable over the long run. Instead, it is wiser to mend our fences and take care of our needy people.
Perry makes a great point that is not often raised — it doesn’t make much sense to make lots of military defense commitments to other countries ( a number of whom have solid health care schemes), while leaving so many of our own citizens without basic health care.
And I agree that Americans don’t know much about how other countries work, and how their citizens live. Too often you hear the kind of stuff about other countries that you know came from their radio handlers — horror stories that may or may not be true, while ignoring our own horror stories. And don’t get me started on those having on about the “government making your health care decisions for you” — a thing that is pretty damn awful until you remember how your insurance company works.
Correction: …are unsustainable over the long run.
And Cassandra, on health care, Obama’s first step relies on the participation of the same old insurance companies, with some governmental coercion thrown into the mix. Perhaps the Dutch public-private partnership could be looked at for guidance.
Nevertheless, I’m afraid that changing our priorities on defense and healthcare is such a cultural sea change that it may take a decade or more if we decide to start on it now. That said, we have to start the change, with help from our allies in the defense arena, otherwise we will continue to be on track to build more military strength while weakening our other community cultural values, like adequate healthcare, and education.
It is going to take a courageous and capable leader to start such a change. Perhaps a second term Obama can start it with vigor, provided the economy turns around.
I think that getting the insurance companies out of the mix is also a cultural sea change that will take some steps for people to see where the problem is. Besides, multiple industrial nations use insurance to cover everyone — the difference is that the ones participating in the government converge are non-profit and they hare highly regulated to prevent some of the shenanigans we have to live with.