California Congressman: Fix Social Security and Medicare Before Global Warming

Here's a story a climate change obsessed media are sure to ignore: a Congressman from Southern California has actually suggested America spend financial resources to fix the endangered entitlement programs of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid rather than to solve global warming.

I don't imagine Katie, Charlie, and Brian will be doing a segment on this tonight, do you?

Regardless, Rep. John Campbell (R-California) published a must-read op-ed Tuesday entitled "Global Warming Heresy" (emphasis added throughout):

The consensus of scientists around the world is that the earth has warmed about 1 degree in the last 100 years. They also agree that human activity is "very likely" to have "contributed" to this phenomenon. Fine.

We have lots of issues today where we are 100% certain that human activity is the sole cause of the problem. For example, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid will collapse within 30 years if they are not significantly reformed or tax rates are more than doubled. That is a significant problem. There are Islamic radicals around the world who are bent on the death of western civilization or its conversion to Islam "by the sword." That is a significant problem. In an age where we can produce as much food as we want and medicines are available to cure many diseases, people are still starving and dying by the millions from treatable illnesses. These are significant, manmade problems.

Of course, media would only agree that poverty is a significant problem, Congressman, for it is them that prevented Social Security reform in 2005 by convincing Americans that President Bush was exaggerating the dire nature of the situation much as he supposedly did Saddam Hussein being a threat. And, lest we not forget that these same press outlets today are advancing John Edwards' position that the war on terror is just a bumper sticker slogan.

But I digress:

The question is this: How much of our limited financial and political resources should we divert from these critical 100% manmade problems to try and deal with a problem in which our efforts are "very likely" to make some contribution? Put another way: Reducing greenhouse gases is going to be a very expensive proposition. So expensive that many progressive European countries are already scaling back their greenhouse gas reduction plans as the real costs and economic effects become known. If we could take the many trillions of dollars that may be spent on reducing the growth in greenhouse gases, and instead cure AIDS around the world, which would you do? In a heartbeat, I would choose to cure AIDS and be assured of saving many, many millions of lives. That's the kind of decision we as a society face.

Here, Campbell is sounding much like Danish environmentalist Bjorn Lomborg, who has been making the same case for years, one that logic would dictate media get behind given the vast social implications.

Yet, on this issue, the press are demonstrating that they aren't as interested in the poor or the medically infirmed as they pretend, for if they were, there's no question they would agree with folks like Campbell and Lomborg.

Instead, in this instance, the media clearly see an opportunity to tax people and corporations. And this seems to be a much loftier position for the press to take than solving AIDS or poverty.

Imagine that.