Plight

With all the political drama going on concerning Medicare from both parties, it baffles me that President Barack Obama has ignored his legal responsibilities regarding the "Medicare trigger. " That trigger (covered under Section 1105 of Title 31 of the U.S. Code) is a forecast from the Medicare trustees that general revenues will be required for 45 percent or more of the program's outlays within a seven-year period, which signals that Medicare is financially unsustainable. The president is required to respond to Congress, but though the Medicare trustees issued a warning in 2009, 2010, 2011, and again this spring, President Obama has ignored the law each year and failed to submit the required budgetary legislation to Congress.

Give some credit to the Republican National Committee for at least recognizing that the Grand Old Party has a bit too much "old" and not enough "grand. " Its recently released 100-page, post-election analysis, put together by veteran party advisers, points out quite correctly that Republicans are stuck in a rigid, 30-year-old ideology. Some of the findings seem pretty obvious. Focus groups called Republicans "stuffy old men," "narrow-minded" and "out of touch. " Well, duh. Any late-night talk show monologue could have revealed those gems (and likely has, repeatedly)

As Baltimore struggles with an unprecedented 6 feet or more of snow this winter, it's reassuring to know that our fellow citizens in the rest of the country sympathize wholeheartedly with our plight. They would never, ever, ever taunt us when we are down. "Our roads are clear and dry. How are yours?" asks Peter O'Connor, commissioner of public works for the city of Syracuse, N.Y., which so far this year has had more than 74 inches of snow. Matt Smith, a spokesman for Chicago's Department of Streets and Sanitation, expressed a praiseworthy willingness to lend a hand.

March is Women's History Month, but the headlines give us little to celebrate. Women who dare to attend protests in Egypt are routinely beaten and subjected to brutal "virginity tests. " Girls in Afghanistan are beaten or disfigured for attending school. Infant girls are poisoned or abandoned to die in India and China because they are a burden to the family. Honor killings, the forced marriage of young girls to older men, the rape of virgins in Africa because they do not carry the AIDS virus - the list of horrors goes on and on. Indeed, as much of the developing world is shaken awake by democratic movements or plain old capitalism, the lives of women, made so clear to those of us in the West because of the globalization of news, seem to be trapped in amber.

During much of the ongoing Washington wrangle-a-thon over our debt ceiling, Republican officials have repeatedly reminded us that our poor, overworked millionaires aggregate tax payments account for 26-27 percent of the government's tax revenue, while the bottom 50 percent of earners pay "virtually" no taxes at all. It's a scandal, but the representatives want us to be scandalized about the wrong thing. The fact that 50 percent of our country's earners don't make enough money to be taxed is an overwhelming scandal - imagine this half of our workforce living near, at or below the poverty level!

Among the zillion or so media words that have been lavished on Cal Ripken's consecutive-games streak, some of my favorites came from WJZ-TV news anchor Denise Koch."

WHEN VICE President Dan Quayle came here to DePauw University, his alma mater, last fall for a speech, he was greeted ++ enthusiastically by an impressed student body. Most undergrads cheered as he defended the Persian Gulf troop deployment of his boss, President Bush.But in late February, the college newspaper asked 100 randomly selected students: "If something happened to President Bush, are you confident that Vice President Quayle could lead the nation in the war with Iraq?" Some 53 percent said no, to 47 percent who said yes.Compared to similar polls of general public opinion, that was a considerable improvement in terms of confidence in Quayle.

Consider the pitful plight Of America's paranoid right: No longer do reds # Hide under our beds And somehow we got through the night

FOR THOSE who think Sidney Ponson has (in four good months) morphed into the second coming of Mike Mussina, let's remember: Things could be worse in terms of contractual conundrums. The Orioles could have the fleet-footed, home run-robbing Carlos Beltran playing center field for them and not be able to sign him to a long-term contract, just like the American League Central-leading Kansas City Royals can't do. At least Ponson is not represented by baseball super-agent Scott Boras, whose main client, Alex Rodriguez, is currently in town.

Secy Baker has seen the Kurdish plight up close, so we don't have to worry about that any more.Justice Souter turns out as a jurisprudential twin of Justice O'Connor. The same wisp of a smile, the same inscrutable mystery about which way he'll jump.Nostalgia for the '80s! Her biographer says that Nancy was more interesting than you thought.Cheer up. The umpires are working.

We're officially into Christmas buying season -- when American consumers determine the fate of American retailers and, indirectly, the American economy. What's often forgotten is that consumers are also workers, and if their pay doesn't keep up, they can't keep the economy going. A half-century ago, America's largest private-sector employer was General Motors, whose full-time workers earned an average hourly wage of around $50, in today's dollars, including health and pension benefits.

Maryland-born author Carol Peacock describes living conditions in the poorest Chinese orphanages with a dispassionate eye. Her new novel, "Red Thread Sisters," describes playgrounds strewn with old tires and a caste system that divides children perceived to be adoptable from those judged by orphanage officials as less appealing. The novel depicts children so eager for their own clothes that they wear multiple gift outfits at once. In the book, young children routinely perform such adult chores as feeding babies and scrubbing kitchen floors.

With all the political drama going on concerning Medicare from both parties, it baffles me that President Barack Obama has ignored his legal responsibilities regarding the "Medicare trigger. " That trigger (covered under Section 1105 of Title 31 of the U.S. Code) is a forecast from the Medicare trustees that general revenues will be required for 45 percent or more of the program's outlays within a seven-year period, which signals that Medicare is financially unsustainable. The president is required to respond to Congress, but though the Medicare trustees issued a warning in 2009, 2010, 2011, and again this spring, President Obama has ignored the law each year and failed to submit the required budgetary legislation to Congress.

As I read the recent editorial addressing President Barack Obama's order that will add at least 1.7 million children of illegal immigrants to the already-bleak job market ("Growing up American," Aug. 19), I was certain The Sun would comment on the calamitous effect this election-year tactic will have on American black youth, U.S. citizens all, whose unemployment rate rose from 14.4 percent in June to 15 percent in July, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Silly me. Despite the nearly 50 percent unemployment rate among black teenagers (16-19)

It's amazing that in a city, state and nation where families have been massively uprooted by the economic downturn, your paper puts the "plight" of Filipino children on the front page below the fold ("Limbo for children of Filipino teachers," May 8). Where was your concern when we had to uproot and separate our family by half a continent for the sake of employment? You ask what "legal explanation can justify the disruption of a [foreign] child's life," yet express little concern for the disruptions experienced by tax-paying citizens.

Homelessness among children is a serious issue in today's society. Over 2 million children are suffering from lack of food and shelter. Children are commonly born into this situation and have no control over their living arrangements. Most of these children go through life living on the streets or in homeless shelters. Health care is very limited or even nonexistent for these children. Physical, psychological, and emotional damage is very frequent in homeless cases. Also, it is common for a child to leave their home because of abuse and violence.

It's amazing that in a city, state and nation where families have been massively uprooted by the economic downturn, your paper puts the "plight" of Filipino children on the front page below the fold ("Limbo for children of Filipino teachers," May 8). Where was your concern when we had to uproot and separate our family by half a continent for the sake of employment? You ask what "legal explanation can justify the disruption of a [foreign] child's life," yet express little concern for the disruptions experienced by tax-paying citizens.

The Maryland Senate gave final approval last night to a bill that would require public schools to teach children about the Irish potato famine.The bill passed 26-20 with no debate and goes to the House of Delegates, where its prospects are uncertain.The legislation sponsored by Sen. Perry Sfikas, a Baltimore Democrat, would require public elementary and secondary schools to teach children about a tragedy that killed 1 million of Ireland's 8 million people and set off a historic wave of immigration to the United States.

Native Londoner Kimberly Marie Freeman lives and works 200 miles north of Baltimore, but she's enthusiastically joining the effort to save one of the city's cultural treasures. Shutting the Edgar Allan Poe House, she says with a hint of exasperation, would be a shabby way to treat such an internationally renowned figure. "There would be outrage in England if anyone ever considered shutting down Shakespeare's home," said Freeman, artistic director for New York-based Bedlam Ensemble, a performance group putting on several shows in Manhattan this month and next to raise money for the beleaguered museum.

During much of the ongoing Washington wrangle-a-thon over our debt ceiling, Republican officials have repeatedly reminded us that our poor, overworked millionaires aggregate tax payments account for 26-27 percent of the government's tax revenue, while the bottom 50 percent of earners pay "virtually" no taxes at all. It's a scandal, but the representatives want us to be scandalized about the wrong thing. The fact that 50 percent of our country's earners don't make enough money to be taxed is an overwhelming scandal - imagine this half of our workforce living near, at or below the poverty level!