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Separation of Church and State

Can I just say this?

It's fine if someone feels birth control pills and in vitro fertilization (IVF) goes against their personal religious beliefs, but it's not acceptable to try to legislate those beliefs. I am not Mormon. I am not Catholic. While it's fine and dandy for politicians to have their own religious views and belief systems, it should not interfere with their ability to do their job! It's time to stop trying to pass laws that force others to practice their religion.

If birth control pills are against your religious beliefs, then don't use them. They are not against my religion, so stop trying to pass laws to tell me what to do! Freedom of religion doesn't mean you get to try to make everyone follow your religion through laws and legislation. It means you get to follow your beliefs without persecution, and I get to follow mine.

Thank you for letting me vent.  And now, back to my blog about being a mommy...

/end political rant

Healthcare Changes, Dirty Needles, and Me

Within the past month, I received two important letters in the mail.  

The first was a letter from my insurance company.  It stated that the health care law has some new requirements going into affect at the beginning of August.  They will now be covering all costs for birth control, sterilization, well women visits, tests for gestational diabetes, HIV testing, HPV testing, and more.  

Most of that doesn't effect me personally. We're done having kids, and my husband has already had his vasectomy  Still, it made me feel good to know that other people out there will be better off. I felt good reading the letter, knowing people would get the preventative care they want and need.

Then, last week, I got another letter in the mail. It's very personal, and it's very scary. It came from the Colorado Department of Public Health, and it informed me that I might have been exposed to foreign blood from reused needles back when I had my wisdom teeth removed in 2003 (news story here).  It recommends I get tested the viruses Hep B, Hep C, and HIV.  It also remarked that I am responsible for the cost of testing.

Musings

I've decided that people in our country should get a standard three weeks off every year instead of two.  Oh, and part-time people should also accrue vacation.  When I worked at Starbucks, even part-time workers earned vacation.  If you averaged 20 hours per week, you earned two, 20-hour vacation weeks.  Part-time people should be able to take vacations, too!

This would be good for our economy because people spend more money when they're off.  Think about it.  On long weekends like Memorial weekend, people hit the road, pay at the pump, and stay at hotels.  They dine out and take the kids to fun destinations.  I think more paid time off would mean people would spend more, which would help the economy.  Also, time off gives employees a break and keeps them happy and more productive.

Firetruck Santa vs TABOR

My childhood friend, Sam, recently posted a blog entry that filled me with nostalgia. In our hometown of Chicago Ridge, Santa Claus came by every year on a firetruck. He'd honk the impossibly loud firetruck horn and go up and down the streets throughout our town of about 10,000 and hand all of us kids paper bags filled with treats like ice cream candy.

Our town actually did a lot of wonderful things not unlike "Firetruck Santa." Over the Fourth of July every year, they held "Ridge Kid's Day" at the park across the street from my house. It was completely free, and kids got to get their faces painted, sing karaoke, play games for prizes, go to a petting zoo, and even ride animals like horses, llamas, and elephants. As I wrote that, I realized that I actually have a photo of the event saved onto my computer. Here is a photo of my sister and me in the summer of 1992:

At that same park, the annual "Ridge Fest" takes place. It is a traveling carnival that has all sorts of rides (like Tilt-a-Whirl!), carnival food, and carnival games. The whole town gets excited for the event, and it brings in people from all around the Southside. In the summer, the city also blocks off streets for annual summer block parties. Firefighters will even go to people's block parties and open the fire hydrants for kids to play in. Every winter, the park district held an annual "Daddy-Daughter Date Night." My sister and I loved getting dressed up every year to go out for a special night of dinner and dancing. All our school friends would be there with their dads, too.

Anyway, it got me thinking how sad it is that we don't have a lot of that here in the Denver Metro area. I blame a lot of politics. Most communities around here don't want to pay taxes, and with low tax rates come few social benefits. For example, in my parents' neighborhood, they don't even plow. Same with my in-law's neighborhood. I just drove down my parents' street yesterday. It's a giant sheet of ice, and it hasn't snowed since last Thursday.

I remember one time, one of my mom's neighbors wanted to get everyone in the community to contribute to a fund to hire a plow. My mom told me about it, and I responded with, "You mean, like taxes?" But you can't say the T word around here. It just won't fly.

In our state, there's no tax on food at the grocery store. None. Not even on pop or potato chips. Our state sales tax is 2.9%. Every city has its own tax, and they vary immensely. In my mom's city, where they don't plow (read: can't afford to plow), the city tax rate is 2.5%. One kid slipped on the sidewalks to school (the public sidewalks aren't shoveled) and broke his arm two winters ago. In my in-law's city, they don't even charge a sales tax, and they live in a fairly wealthy town! Compare that to where I lived in Chicago which has a sales tax rate of 9.25%. At least they could afford plows!

Our cities and state can't really afford much of anything. Our state colleges and universities are charging outrageous tuition fees (CU-Boulder, a public university, charges up to $14,000 a year for an undergraduate degree for in-state residents, and, no, that does not include the $11,000 room and board students are required to pay for two years). We have state parks and penitentiaries closing. Libraries are closing for one or more days a week, and some are closing their doors permanently. Cities that can afford a budget for plowing only plow major streets, and, even then, they frequently run out of money before the winter is over and have to stop plowing or ask for emergency funds from the federal government.

So, why don't our state representatives and senators do something? They can't. You see, our state has a law in place called TABOR. According to this law, there can be no tax increases unless there is a ballot measure on it and gets approval by voters. So, the people we elect to represent us and do what is best for our cities are unable to.

Our K-12 schools had to take huge cuts this year (hundreds of millions of dollars), and someone proposed a temporary tax increase of 0.1% to help put money into our schools. For those of you who hate math, 0.1% tax rate is the equivalent of one cent on a $10 purchase. One, single penny. It failed miserably.

I think of the little niceties I got to enjoy as a child in the Chicago area (Firetruck Santa!), and I'm sad we don't get anything like that here because people are afraid of the word tax. We can't fund our schools or our libraries or our parks, but at least we don't have to pay an extra few pennies on our cases of soda pop.