06.07.2011 • TUESDAY ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH • A9 OTHER VIEWS

MORE “The liberal mind-set vis-a-vis the economy is truly unbelievable,”writes Al Dorn of O’Fallon, Ill. “They simply can’t contain Read and talk about this LETTERS their class envy with their non-stop whining about making the rich pay their share.” letter and more letters online ONLINE at STLtoday.com/letters

PAUL KRUGMAN More than a name Medicare • Maintain a system that provides all older Americans with guaranteed essential health care.

What’s in a name? A lot, the Na- just quote the blogger Duncan analysis found that to get cover- ers I know would have greatly sential health care. tional Republican Congressional Black, who summarizes this as age equivalent to what they have preferred simply expanding Consider Canada, which has Committee obviously believes. saying that “when we replace the now, older Americans would Medicare to cover all Americans. a national health insurance pro- Last week, the committee sent a Marines with a pizza, we’ll call have to pay vastly more out of Second, the Affordable Care Act gram, actually called Medicare, letter demanding that a TV sta- the pizza the Marines.”The point pocket under the Paul Ryan plan is all about making health care, that is similar to the program tion stop running an ad declaring is that you can name the new than they would if Medicare as well, affordable, offering sub- we have for the elderly, but less that the House Republican bud- program Medicare, but it’s an en- we know it was preserved. Based sidies whose size is determined open-ended and more cost-con- get plan would “end Medicare.” tirely different program — call it on the budget office estimates, by the need to limit the share of scious. In 1970, Canada and the This, the letter insisted, was a Vouchercare — that would offer the typical senior would end up their income that families spend both spent about false claim: the plan would sim- nothing like the coverage that the paying around $6,000 more out on medical costs. Vouchercare, 7 percent of their GDP on health ply install a “new, sustainable elderly now receive. (Republicans of pocket in the plan’s first year by contrast, would simply hand care. Since then, as U.S. health version of Medicare.” get huffy when you call their plan of operation. out vouchers of a fixed size, spending has soared to 16 per- But Comcast, the station’s a voucher scheme, but that’s ex- By the way, defenders of the regardless of the actual cost of cent of GDP, Canadian spending owner, rejected the demand — actly what it is.) GOP plan often assert that it insurance. And these vouchers has risen much more modestly, and rightly so. For Republicans Medicare is a government-run resembles other, less unpopu- would be grossly inadequate. to only 10.5 percent of GDP. And are indeed seeking to dismantle insurance system that directly lar programs. For a while they But what about the claim that while Canadian health care isn’t Medicare as we know it, replacing pays health-care providers. claimed, falsely, that Voucher- none of this matters, because perfect, it’s not bad. it with a much worse program. Vouchercare would cut checks care would be just like the cover- Medicare as we know it is unsus- Canadian Medicare, then, I’m seeing many attempts to to insurance companies instead. age federal employees get. More tainable? Nonsense. looks sustainable; why can’t we shout down anyone making this Specifically, the program would recently, I’ve been seeing claims Yes, Medicare has to get seri- do the same thing here? Well, obvious point, and not just from pay a fixed amount toward pri- that Vouchercare would be just ous about cost control; it has to you know the answer in the case Republican politicians. For some vate health insurance — higher like the system created for Amer- start saying no to expensive pro- of the Republicans: They don’t reason, many commentators for the poor, lower for the rich, icans under 65 by last year’s cedures with little or no medical want to make Medicare sustain- seem to believe that accurately but not varying at all with the health care reform — a fairly benefits, it has to change the way able, they want to destroy it un- describing what the GOP is actual level of premiums. If you remarkable defense from a party it pays doctors and hospitals, and der the guise of saving it. actually proposing amounts to couldn’t afford a policy adequate that has denounced that reform so on. And a number of reforms So in voting for the House demagoguery. But there’s noth- for your needs, even with the as evil incarnate. of that kind are, in fact, included budget plan, Republicans voted ing demagogic about telling the voucher, that would be your So let me make two points. in the Affordable Care Act. But to end Medicare. Saying that truth. problem. First, Obamacare was very much with these changes it should be isn’t demagoguery, it’s just Start with the claim that the And most seniors wouldn’t be a second-best plan, conditioned entirely possible to maintain a pointing out the truth. GOP plan simply reforms Medi- able to afford adequate coverage. by perceived political realities. system that provides all older Copyright The New York Times St. Louis Post-Dispatch care06/07/2011 rather than ending it. I’ll ACopy Congressional Reduced Budget to Office 67% fromMost original of the health to care fit reform-letter pageAmericans with guaranteed es-

KATHLEEN PARKER • [email protected] Twitter hatched a monster Society • Technology that enables our animal appetites has outpaced our capacity to control those appetites. MSNBC’s Lawrence is of him. O’Donnell says he’d own up In fairness, let’s stipulate if it were his. Jon Stewart that the photograph in ques- says he doesn’t remember tion could be of someone his old friend being quite all else and that a person other that! than the congressman could And Anthony Weiner, have sent the photo from the in-your-face New York his account as a prank. Any congressman whose alleged judgment is at this point waist-down photograph is speculation, aka gossip, The looming has become the talk of the though the congressman’s political parlor, shrank from evasiveness isn’t helping his questions about how said case. photo happened to be sent Leaving his problems from his Twitter account to aside, we might take the failure of 2011 a 21-year-old college stu- opportunity to consider OFFICE OF TOURISM dent in Seattle. our own. How many such The in Montana. With unprecedented flooding in the upper Midwest this spring, some people are To think, the long hot photos, or worse, are in concerned about the dam’s stability. summer has just begun. cellphones at this moment? For those who have Thousands? Millions? Flooding • An upstream dam failure along the missed the tawdry travails “Sexting” apparently is still of poor Weiner, whose name popular among the young would wreak chaos, including in St. Louis. will never be quite the same, and firm, whereby one sends welcome to the planet. If a sexually explicit message BY BERNARD SHANKS you’re an adult, you may be or photo by mobile phone. wondering how we arrived (And by the way, kids, no There is very real threat of a flood that will leave at this point in our civic one cares about your tongue. St. Louis in chest-high water. The reason: Six old, discourse, not that men’s Please put it back in your huge, faulty that normally have reserve space underwear is new to Wash- mouth.) for spring snow melt are nearly full now — before ington’s conversation. But Like everyone else, I have the spring floods start. Floodgates that haven’t been tweeting is new-ish — and no idea what happened with opened in 50 years have begun to open. Flooding has dangerous as a loaded pistol Weiner’s Twitter account begun. And the human and economic toll could be at a brawl. Our ability to or whose schnitzel is caus- ghastly. snap a picture and flash it to ing O’Donnell to ponder Why another flood disaster? Six dams from Fort the world in a nanosecond envy and Stewart to wax Peck in Montana to Gavins Point in South Dakota, has taken instant gratifica- nostalgic about those hal- authorized by the Act of 1944, are in tion to new, unimagined cyon days he shared with the process of failing at flood control. With spring levels and enabled the twin Weiner in the Atlantic surf. water levels low, they can hold back more than three temptations of exhibition- I do know that this is not a years of average Missouri River flow — enough to stop ism and voyeurism, first random problem. Such em- the worst floods and protect 750 miles of the Mis- cousins to narcissism. barrassing public exposures souri River valley and heartland cities. This year, that Familiarity hasn’t created could happen to anyone is not the case. only contempt; it has cre- who snaps, tweets or texts, Let me give you a sense of scale. These reservoirs LARRY MAYER • AP ated a monster. And Narcis- especially to young people are massive. Four of the nation’s 10 largest reservoirs The floods homes and farms near sus was a punk. who have grown up in this are along the Missouri River — Fort Peck, Fort Ran- Martinsdale, Mont., late last month. As tempting as it is to not share-all world of Facebook, dall, Garrison and Oahe. Three of these had less than “go there,”the fact of a con- for whom “friend” is a verb five feet of total storage space behind the floodgates at other downstream earthen dams would have to catch gressman’s involvement in and relationships are often the end of May. With a combined height of 700 feet, and hold a massive amount of water, an area covering a possible hacking incident anonymous and virtual. these three dams are nearly full. Melting snow surely nearly 250 square miles 100 feet deep. But earthen (never mind the inappro- Weiner will have to sort will complete the task. dams, when overtopped with floodwater, do not priateness of sending lewd out his problems, but the With cities from Wolf Point, Mont., to St. Louis stand. They break and erode away, usually within an photos to a young woman, as more compelling issue of facing record levels of water, hundreds of thousands hour. All are full. suggested) makes it unavoid- how to balance our animal of people are threatened by the unprecedented open- There is a possibility a failure of Fort Peck Dam able. The trick is to keep a urgency with the human de- ing of floodgates. The greatest fear is the massive Fort could lead to a domino-like collapse of all five down- straight face and dodge the cency required by civilization Peck Dam, a hydraulic-fill dam that is the largest of stream dams. It probably would wreck every bridge, obvious puns. As Weiner remains. The technology that its kind. highway, pipeline and power line and split the heart- himself said,“The jokes kind enables our animal appetites The Fort Peck Dam is built with a flawed design land of the nation, leaving a gap 1,500 miles wide. of write themselves.” has far outpaced our hu- that has suffered a well-known fate for this type of Countless sewage treatment plants, toxic waste sites Perhaps one remedy is man capacity or willingness dam — liquefaction — in which saturated soil loses its and even Superfund sites would be flushed down- to create a new word to re- to control those appetites. stability. Hydraulic-fill dams are prone to almost in- stream. The death toll and blow to our economy place, among other things, It is simply too easy to do in stant collapse from stress or earthquakes. California would be ghastly. Weinergate, as the event private that which feeds our required all hydraulic-fill dams be torn out or rebuilt Years after Katrina and the New Orleans levee has been dubbed. Must we natural exhibitionist/voy- — and no other large dams have been built this way breaks, professional engineers and a federal court “gate” every political scan- euristic curiosity — and far since. judge ruled theCorps of Engineers was to blame. dal? The free-associative too easy for that private mo- At three miles wide, Fort Peck Dam last opened its Are we once again at the brink of a massive corps mind produces many unat- ment to go public. floodgates 36 years ago. By the end of the first week failure? The corps is infamous for management er- tractive alternatives, but one If I may be preachy for in June, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will be rors, caving to commercial pressure and losing sight that seems both decent and a moment, addressing the releasing a record spill of water. The corps recently of its primary mission. This pending threat is so huge broadly applicable is “schnit- young and foolish — a re- answered the question of possible failure with a that it is gambling with the nation’s security. zel.”A fine word that can be dundancy we’ve all enjoyed statement the dam is “absolutely safe.”It may be the The corps is placing the nation at risk, and if the used to substitute for any — don’t touch that send but- largest at-risk dam in the nation. dams fail, Leon Panetta, who will become secretary of other one wishes to avoid. ton. Instead, consider hitting Downstream, never has had to use Defense later this month, will have the great Missouri As in: “I don’t give a “minimize” until morning. its floodgates since the dam was constructed 50 years Flood Disaster on his desk. And the entire nation will schnitzel.”Or,“What the None of this is to excuse ago. By mid-June, the corps plans to dump water demand answers as to why the U.S. Army Corps of schnitzel!” Or,“Weiner the congressman’s behavior, equal to a good-sized river. The same is true for Oahe Engineers did not avert disaster with more economi- has twisted himself into should the gossip prove to Dam, the next one downstream. Since the reservoirs cally and ecologically sound methods of flood pre- a schnitzel” by deflecting be true. For everyone’s sake, are nearly full, the corps has no choice. vention. probing questions such as I hope it isn’t. But we’d do Effective flood control from six large dams isno this one from CNN’s Wolf well to hit the pause but- longer an option. As a corps representative said, “It Blitzer: “You would know if ton on schadenfreude and now moves us into uncharted territory.” Bernard Shanks, an adviser to the Resource Renewal Institute, has studied this is your underpants?” consider the larger message the six main-stem Missouri River dams for more than four decades. He We must all pose a question of national signifi- has worked for the U.S. Geological Survey and served as director of the Apparently not. Weiner of this media frenzy: Delete, cance to the corps: What if Fort Peck Dam should Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. He has written three books said there are photos “out delete, delete. fail? on public land policy and is completing a book on the hazards of the there.”He can’t say “with Here is a likely scenario: Garrison, Oahe and three Missouri River dams. certitude” whether this one Copyright The Washington Post

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