Octuplets

On Monday, in Bellflower CA, a woman gave birth to octuplets. It is the second in the history of the United States. Doug said he doesn’t care how many kids that you have, somewhere along the line you have to consider the health of your wife and the babies. You aught to remember all their names, their birthdays and be able to spend some quality time with them. Not only does this woman have 8 newborn babies but--- these are in addition to 6 older children. We are talking about 14 children! All these embryos were implanted and so a doctor planted all 8 in this woman. Normally a doctor would implant 2. This woman is already 32 years old, why 8?

This brings up some real ethical questions here. When you already have 6 healthy children and considering the youngest being twins, but why 8? That is wonderful that they have the dedication to raise a family of 6 but why would you implant 8 embryos! The mother did have the decision to terminate a number of the children and she chose not to and that is admirable. But all these babies are going to be trust fund babies. Who is going to pay for these babies?

A source from CBS news found that the couple declared bankruptcy and abandoned their home a little over a year ago. The marital status is in question as well and to add to that the father is returning to Iraq.

The average family income is about 43,000 dollars a year. It costs 143,000 dollars to raise a child from their birth to 17 years of age. If you factor in 14 children, to raise them until they get through high school will cost just under 2 million dollars.

Caller David is from a family of 13 kids. In their situation the older kids were a tremendous help in raising the younger children. Some of the kids in the middle feel a little cheated but that is normal. In this case with the 8 newborns, the older kids are still way too young to take care of the babies.

Caller Lydia wanted to say that the fact that the doctor implanted 8 embryos is ridiculous. She has a daughter that has had infertility problems and recently paid 20,000 dollars for an artificial insemination. Her daughter and her husband had saved for years to afford that. It infuriates her that such an irrational action would be taken.

Caller Ryan said that we all know that it is the American tax payers that will take care of the cost. Doug said that somewhere you think that common since would kick in.

Outrage of the day: 18 billion in bonuses were given on Wall Street last year! President Obama called this behavior shameful! That is one of the highest numbers in history and it comes last year when everything was crumbling around them.

Utah Legislation is taking suggestions

Things are tough. You have to at least go back to the mid 80’s to find a similar situation. Utah is being swept along with a bigger national and international movement. Speaker of the House Dave Clark did something unique by handing out notebooks in which everyone was supposed to submit their ideas in what to do to solve Utah’s economic problems. Doug has his own and today and is going to be taking calls for suggestions to submit in his notebook to Speaker Clark.

Speaker Clark joined the show. You can email your suggestions at utahmatters@utah.gov. Speaker Clark assured that there is a group of economists and other academic leaders that compose a panel that analyzes the budget and spending. We have some tools but our big challenge is the spending of funds that don’t exist. Doug asked if the bond idea was feasible. The state is planning on using bonding to try and ease the impact of spending our rainy day funds.

Doug really appreciated the headline that legislative was going to scale back. Cutbacks are definitely necessary but where is the question. And God bless those on capital hill that have to make those decisions. We should absolutely be tapping into the rainy day fund but again, how much is the question.

The Utah state constitution does not say that we cannot go into debt, it just needs to be reasonable. The argument on capital hill is whether to put public projects on hold or to continue investing. All this assumes that things are going to work out and there isn’t an economic turn around. This is kind of like one of those Solomon splitting up the baby decision, it is tough. However, let’s not make things worse by over reacting. We have been smart enough to put things away and use those bonds that we have put away.

Doug liked the idea of the government spending being “throttled back”. However, if you throttle back too much, then the engines stall and things become worse. There is nothing wrong with bonding, and with using the rainy day fund. We don’t have to start laying off teachers and shutting down projects in our schools. You have to believe, some of these things are a leap of faith.

Never bet on the end of the world because it only happens once and you won’t be around to collect.

What suggestions do you have for Capital Hill?

1) The state should organize on the internet how civic groups can organize efforts to clean up the highway. If people were to see how trashy the highways have become they will never litter again.

2) Lottery in the State of Utah

3) Eliminate middle management government jobs

4) Wine coolers back in the store

5) Rotating medical savings account that don’t go stale, otherwise referred to as the Cafeteria Plans.

6) Crack down on welfare and Medicare programs.

7) Why not allow the Utah supervisors the ability to spend their own funds and let the funds carry over.

8) Once a quarter have a payoff without pay. It is better to have a quarter without pay than to lose your job altogether. People will make sacrifice.

Why arent we voting?

Doug received a call from Governor Huntsman’s office and was invited to be on a commission with the pupose to engage more Utah citizens in the political system. The official title of the commission is The Governor’s Commission to Strengthen Democracy in Utah. Doug recently made a visit to the Capital building to attend the announcement of the creation of this commission. Doug found it interesting that in the creation of the commission, Governor Huntsman did not give a place where he wanted the commission to end up at. Governor Huntsman went on to mention issues that eventually were going to be faced. Among them was the idea that was ethics reform. It wasn’t given any particular attention but was mentioned. Today an article was published that this commission was in fact an ethics commission. It was very interesting to see the spin that was taken by the press.

The Governor also threw out the idea of open primary elections. Closed primarys need to be don’t away with! As red as we are with areas that are now blue, we still consider ourselves to be independent. Doug resents having to show up and declare a party affiliation. Doug absolutely agrees that this is a big reason that very few are voting.

A real barrier was broken and a new landmark was made at so many levels with the presidential elections this year. In 2004 Utah was 18^th from the bottom of the list in voter turn out rate. In 2008 we were 4^th on the list along side Arkansas! Over the past 50 years Utah has gone from the state with the largest voter turn out to one of the smallest.

Doug had childhood memories of German immigrants that would crowd his grandmother’s house in order to vote. These immigrants wouldn’t dream of not voting, that was a major reason why they came to the United States. So why don’t we vote?

If you could of voted why didn’t you? If you didn’t vote call me and tell me why.

Caller Chris didn’t feel real interested in politics until the government buy out plans. Then he felt that there weren’t enough sources for accurate information to make an educated vote.Doug said that next time Chris didn’t feel prepared to vote, call him and Doug will personally deliver to Chris the sources where he can find this information. Doug said he would personally drive to Chris’s home and give him that information!

Caller Gale presented the idea that there is a lack of confidence in the government over the last couple of years. Doug thought it was interesting that Gale mentioned that because when the Governor was being interviewed and Governor Huntsman proposed a term limit to his own office and not one supported the idea and so he limited himself. This shows how people have been paying lip service. Doug thought that Gale brought up a real valid point of how do we inspire confidence back into the voters?

Caller Darrel gave a complaint that the voter location has been changed so often. He had to even take a GPS to find a voting place. Doug felt that we do have a consistency issue in the voting process. Usually the voting places are published in the paper and are certainly found online. There are organizations that will even drive you to the poll!

Removing the hyphen from African-American

I hope we can open up our hearts in regards to the things that Will Smith has said. Do we have racist people among us? Absolutely. I am not saying we don’t have problems, but we have come a really, really, really long way. Even just in my life time.

Will Smith wrote an editorial for USA Today. In his commentary to what had transpired with the inauguration of President Barack Obama, he said how this event has untied us as a country that is not longer racial. Smith told how racism and prejudice is no longer institutionalized. We can all take pride in where we came from, but Smith said no longer have hyphens in describing out ancestors: African-American, Irish-American, or Asian-American. We are Americans of African decent or Americans of Irish decent or Americans of Asian decent.

When we describe someone, we tend to pick something unique or distinctive whether it is by hair color, face shape, body shape. When it comes to describing ourselves, the American needs to come first.

Are we still an institutionalized nation in regards to racism?

Joe called in to remind us that the Native Americans were technically the first people here. Doug referred back to the indigenous people. Where they came from is debatable. The point that Joe brought up is so valid though, that WE ARE ALL IMMIGRANTS. Even the American Indians came from somewhere that was not the North American continent.

Max called in to comment that there is still racism in the justice system. In terms of capital punishment there are twice as many African Americans sentenced to death than any other nationality. Doug sarcastically offered the solutions to this as the guys with the better lawyer wins, and the person with the deep pockets can afford the good lawyer. Even though we have put out the big fire of racism in the nation, there are still hot spots that are smoldering and the justice system is one of the big ones.

Doug played a clip from The Duke. The hyphen means that we are a divided America. A simple little line is a device as one can get. It can be a bridge and span all the differences of man. If you use the hyphen as a wall it will make your life small.

President Barack Obama's Inaguration

Doug did some commentary about the procession preceding the inauguration of President elect Barrack Obama. Among those in attendance are former presidents Carter and George Bush Sr., Clinton with his wife, soon to be Secretary of State, Hillary.

Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff called in from the celebration. He commented that there was a great spirit there among all the thousands in attendance.

Mayor Ralph Becker joined the show from the national mall. The image most impressionable to him is the “tens of thousands” of people and amongst them, Mayor Becker said, was a feeling of unity and anticipation.