In direct response to the irresponsible and profligate spending by both Republicans and Democrats, three Republican politicians have proposed a Spending Limit Amendment. This would serve to rein in and constrain such runaway spending whether it is by the President or Congress.
Given our financially dire present situation and an angry America as evidenced by the ascendancy of the Tea Party, it may just stand a chance.
Tea Party Amendment
Investors Business Daily 03/03/2010
Fiscal Crisis: Tea Partyers have made it clear they don't trust politicians — Democrat or Republican. Their historic uprising may now have a surefire way to stop politicians from spending us into the abyss.
In what promises to be a consequential election year, Republican leaders are eager to get the masses who make up the Tea Party movement on their side. But Tea Partyers remember that the GOP Congress and GOP president themselves spent way too much — even expanding the fiscally doomed Medicare entitlement program. Some Tea Party leaders even accuse Republican spendthrifts of practicing socialism.
GOP Reps. Jeb Hensarling of Texas, Mike Pence of Indiana and John Campbell of California may have just hit on a way of focusing the energy of a movement that's been accused by Democrats such as former Senate aide and Forbes columnist Dan Gerstein of being "incoherent, indiscriminate" and "all over the place" in its complaints.
The three have proposed a Spending Limit Amendment to the Constitution that would restrain the federal government to the average expenditures of the post-World War II era — 20% of the U.S. economy. It would take a declaration of war or a two-thirds vote by Congress to waive the spending constraints.
Tea Partyers will no doubt be impressed by the fact that the idea comes from no less than Thomas Jefferson. In 1798, the Declaration's author wrote: "I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our government."
There really is no credible argument against the idea. In common-sense fashion, the constraint would be suspended during a declared war, and any other real emergency would surely be recognized as such by two-thirds of lawmakers.
Other attempts to save Americans from the drunken sailors they send to Washington have failed. The automatic cuts of the Gramm-Rudman "sequester" of the 1980s worked, but the Supreme Court judged much of the law to be an unconstitutional restriction on presidential powers, and Congress defanged it. Gramm-Rudman's successor, Paygo, didn't use fixed targets, and expired in 2002. The line-item veto was famously ruled unconstitutional by the high court.
The Hensarling-Pence-Campbell Spending Limit Amendment is actually preferable to the line-item veto because it doesn't discriminate between big-spending Congresses and profligate presidents. It snaps the public purse closed on every Washington politician's fingers.
The SLA couldn't come at a more opportune time. The president and Congress want to add to our current $12 trillion in national debt a $2-trillion-plus big government health overhaul. Medicare, in the meantime, is less than a decade from bankruptcy, Social Security less than three decades away. As the plan points out, "if the SLA is not adopted, all of these programs are doomed on their current auto-pilot glide path as these three entitlement programs alone — Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid — are set to consume the entirety of the federal budget by 2036."
Investor's Business Daily on Wednesday asked Hensarling and Pence about the difficulties of getting three-quarters of the states to approve an amendment when so many amendment attempts by both sides of the aisle — from equal rights for women to abortion to flag desecration — have failed in recent decades.
"We're not naive," Hensarling said, noting that of about 5,000 proposed amendments only 27 have been ratified. But both men said that based on attending town halls and other venues, they have never seen the American people so incensed about runaway spending. The SLA "might be one of those simple ideas," Pence said, whose time has finally come.
If the Tea Party movement embraces this simple idea, with Thomas Jefferson as the SLA's avatar, there's no telling how big the political tsunami to strike Washington could end up becoming.
As predictable as the sun rising in the east, Obama will pursue reconciliation in order to facilitate passage of his radical bill which will steal our freedom and rights, fiscally bankrupt our country and destroy the best healthcare system in the world.
We must stop Obama and his radical, elitist minions from this government take over of our healthcare system that a large majority of Americans oppose ... and which Obama and Congress will never have to be subject to.
We urge you to call and email your Senators and Representatives, voicing your vehement opposition to this legislation.
Unreconciled
Investors Business Daily 03/03/2010
Health Reform: As promised, the White House has unveiled the latest tweaks in its plan to take over the U.S. medical care system. Both parties in Congress should beware: You vote for it, you own it.
Survey after survey, including our own IBD/TIPP Poll, shows that Americans firmly oppose more government control over health care. Yet President Obama's new reform plan does just that.
He and other Democratic leaders seem willing to ignore both the voters and the well-founded doubts of opponents to ram a plan down our collective throats — making the grand bet that Republicans, even if they retake Congress in November, will have neither the political clout nor the guts to undo the damage.
Worse, they cynically manipulated us into this situation. Last week, at the much-ballyhooed health care "summit," the president pretended to take ideas from Republican foes to "improve" his wildly unpopular plan. But it was just window dressing.
On Wednesday, the president made clear he'll use the budget reconciliation process to get his radical plan through with as few votes as possible. In short, he'll pass a bill that takes control of 17% of the economy without any GOP support.
So much for bipartisanship.
Worse still, this requires the House to vote up or down on an already-passed Senate bill, with only a vow from the Senate and Obama that they'll go back later and "fix" all that's egregiously wrong with the measure.
So, neither House members nor the citizens they represent will really know what's in the bill until after it's passed. Is this what the White House and Democratic leaders meant last year when they repeatedly promised "transparency" in health reform deliberations?
Still more troubling, no one seems to know the plan's true cost. Obama puts it at $1 trillion over 10 years. But just this week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi vowed a "much smaller" bill, while Majority Leader Steny Hoyer insists there is no "scaled-back" version.
Who's right? We'll just say this: Because of accounting tricks that front-load costs but delay benefits, the real price of ObamaCare is more like $2.5 trillion over a decade. This will require massive tax hikes on the middle class, rationing of care by government bureaucrats and deep cuts in Medicare.
The president also said on Wednesday: "The proposal I've put forward gives Americans more control over their health care by holding insurance companies more accountable." Not true.
Americans will be forced to buy health insurance — something we believe is unconstitutional. By adding 31 million new buyers to the health care market and requiring coverage of pre-existing conditions, private insurance prices will inevitably soar. That will force businesses to drop coverage for millions of workers.
"I don't know how this plays politically, but I know it's right," Obama also said. But he knows darn well his scheme is highly unpopular, and that resorting to reconciliation is the only way he'll get the main item on his presidential agenda passed — even if it ends Democrats' control of Congress.
Surely moderate Democrats and Republicans won't be swayed by talk of joining in a "historic opportunity." Their constituents clearly see the flaws in this government takeover of the best health care system in the world, and a vote in favor of it will likely bring their political careers to a sudden end.
Obama and many Congressional Democrats aim to pass government run healthcare no matter what the cost, financially or politically. They are arrogantly and relentlessly pursuing this despite the vehement opposition of a large majority of Americans. In fact, both they and the fifth column news media have added the contemptuous tactics of calling Americans who oppose it dumb, ignorant, and too stupid to understand the complexities of the bill. Of course, they have made many other derogatory claims.
As we have mentioned numerous times, THIS IS NOT TRULY ABOUT HEALTHCARE. Obamacare is a crucial piece in the puzzle that will further co-opt the individual’s rights and transfer it to an all powerful and controlling central government. It is a confiscation by legislation of an additional 16% of our economy which would mean that nearly 50% of it is directly owned and controlled by the government.
Have you noticed how many czars and other officials selected by Obama ardently support communism? This is not by accident. It is part of the overall plan.
The rhetoric of Obama and select Democrats regarding healthcare reform are complete lies. There is no cost savings with this plan. In fact, their claimed costs probably underestimate the total 10 year costs by well in excess of three to four trillion dollars. Look at estimates of other federal programs and check out how they turned out. Most were off by a factor of three to ten times.
Unbelievable!
The following expose by Thomas Sowell eloquently and cogently examines the relevant issues and information regarding government controlled healthcare, truths, facts and political motivations.
Other Nations' Health Systems Are Overlooked
By Thomas Sowell 03/03/2010
What is most like Alice in Wonderland in medical care reform is the fact that it is being discussed in the abstract, as if there are not already government-run medical care systems in this country and elsewhere.
Yet there seems to be remarkably little interest in examining how government-run medical care actually turns out — medically and financially — whether in Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans Administration hospitals in this country, or in government-run medical systems in other countries.
We are repeatedly being told that we need to have a government-controlled medical care system because other countries have it — as if our policies on something as serious as medical care should be based on the principle of monkey see, monkey do.
By all means look at other countries, but not just to see what to imitate. See how it actually turns out. Yet there seems to be an amazing lack of interest in examining what government-controlled medical care produces.
While our so-called health care "summit" last week was going on, British newspapers were carrying exposes of terrible, and often deadly, conditions in British hospitals under that country's National Health Service. But this has not become part of our debate on what to expect from government-controlled medical care.
Such scandals are an old story under the National Health Service in Britain, one repeatedly producing fresh scandals that their newspapers carry but ours ignore.
In addition to a whole series of National Health Service scandals in Britain over the years, the government-run medical system in Britain has far less high-tech medical equipment than there is in the United States. Neither in Britain and Canada nor in other countries with government-run medical care systems can people get to see doctors, especially surgeons, in as short a time as in the United States.
It is not uncommon for patients in those countries to have to wait for months before getting operations that Americans get within weeks, or even days, after being diagnosed with a condition that requires surgery. You can always "bring down the cost of medical care" by having a lower level of quality or availability.
But again, you may never learn any of this by following most of the American mainstream media. It is not that they don't make comparisons between medical care in different countries. But they tend to feature news that will promote government-controlled care.
One of the statistics they spin endlessly is that life expectancy in some countries with government-controlled medical care is higher than in the United States. What they don't tell you is that, in some of these countries, all the infants that die are not included in infant mortality statistics, as they are in the United States.
More important, both political and media supporters of government-controlled medical care consistently confuse medical care with health care.
Much, if not most, of health care depends on what individuals do in the way they live their own lives — including eating habits, alcohol intake, exercise, narcotics and homicide. A study some years ago found that Mormons live a decade longer than other Americans. But nobody believes that Mormons' doctors are that much better than other doctors. When you don't do a lot of things that shorten your life, you live longer. That is not rocket science.
Americans tend to have higher rates of obesity, narcotics use and homicide than people in some other countries. And there is not much that doctors can do about that.
If those who make international comparisons were serious, instead of clever, they would compare the things that medical science can have a great effect on — cancer survival rates, for example. Americans have some of the highest cancer survival rates in the world, and for some particular cancers, the very highest.
When you can get to see a doctor faster, and get treatments under way without waiting for months while the cancer grows and spreads, you have a better chance of surviving. That, too, is not rocket science.
But it is also something that you are not likely to see featured in most of the media, where people are promoting their own pet notions and agendas, instead of giving you the facts on which you can make up your own mind.
We can better appreciate the attitudes, bellicosity and tactics of the Democratic Party and more specifically, both Chambers of Congress, by understanding the predominant occupation of the Senators and Representatives.
Lawyers.
Their legal training, mind set and approaches foster more government, control, regulations and lawsuits and do much to restrain our freedoms and rights. The following was written almost 2 years ago and is still quite relevant.
The Lawyers' Party
By Bruce Walker
The Democratic Party has become the Lawyers' Party. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are lawyers. Bill Clinton and Michelle Obama are lawyers. John Edwards, the other former Democrat candidate for president, is a lawyer and so is his wife Elizabeth. Every Democrat nominee since 1984 went to law school (although Gore did not graduate.) Every Democrat vice presidential nominee since 1976, except for Lloyd Bentsen, went to law school. Look at the Democrat Party in Congress: the Majority Leader in each house is a lawyer.
The Republican Party is different. President Bush and Vice President Cheney were not lawyers, but businessmen. The leaders of the Republican Revolution were not lawyers. Newt Gingrich was a history professor; Tom Delay was an exterminator; and Dick Armey was an economist. House Minority Leader Boehner was a plastic manufacturer, not a lawyer. The former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is a heart surgeon.
Who was the last Republican president who was a lawyer? Gerald Ford, who left office thirty-one years ago and who barely won the Republican nomination as a sitting president, running against Ronald Reagan in 1976. The Republican Party is made up of real people doing real work. The Democratic Party is made up of lawyers. Democrats mock and scorn men who create wealth, like Bush and Cheney, or who heal the sick like Frist, or who immerse themselves in history like Gingrich.
The Lawyers' Party sees these sorts of people, who provide goods and services that people want, as the enemies of America. And so we have seen the procession of official enemies in the eyes of the Lawyers' Party grow. Against whom do Hillary and Obama rail? Pharmaceutical companies, oil companies, hospitals, manufacturers, fast food restaurant chains, large retail businesses, bankers and anyone producing anything of value in our nation.
This is the natural consequence of viewing everything through the eyes of lawyers. Lawyers solve problems by successfully representing their clients, in this case the American people. Lawyers seek to have new laws passed, they seek to win lawsuits, they press appellate courts to overturn precedent, and lawyers always parse language to favor their side.
Confined to the narrow practice of law, that is fine. But it is an awful way to govern a great nation. When politicians as lawyers begin to view some Americans as clients and other Americans as opposing parties, then the role of the legal system in our life becomes all consuming. Some Americans become "adverse parties" of our very government. We are not all litigants in some vast social class action suit. We are citizens of a republic which promises us a great deal of freedom from laws, from courts, and from lawyers.
Today, we are drowning in laws, we are contorted by judicial decisions, we are driven to distraction by omnipresent lawyers in all parts of our once private lives. America has a place for laws and lawyers, but that place is modest and reasonable, not vast and unchecked. When the most important decision for our next president is whom he will appoint to the Supreme Court, the role of lawyers and the law in America is too big. When lawyers use criminal prosecution as a continuation of politics by other means, as happened in the lynching of Scooter Libby and Tom Delay, then the power of lawyers in America is too great. When House Democrats sue America in order to hamstring our efforts to learn what our enemies are planning to do to use, then the role of litigation in America has become crushing.
We cannot expect the Lawyers' Party to provide real change, real reform or real hope in America. Most Americans know that a republic in which every major government action must be blessed by nine unelected judges is not what Washington intended in 1789. Most Americans grasp that we cannot fight a war when ACLU lawsuits snap at the heels of our defenders. Most Americans intuit that more lawyers and judges will not restore declining moral values or spark the spirit of enterprise in our economy.
Perhaps Americans will understand that change cannot be brought to our nation by those lawyers who already largely dictate American society and business. Perhaps Americans will see that hope does not come from the mouths of lawyers but from personal dreams nourished by hard work. Perhaps Americans will embrace the truth that more lawyers with more power will only make our problems worse.
The feeding frenzy by the Federal government and the news media regarding Toyota illustrates the dangers and threats to rights of “non-preferred” groups and companies that a too powerful, corrupt central government presents. It should serve as a warning for all of us including those who may still support Obamacare and government take-overs of other areas of our economy.
You can be sure if this were a problem with GM or Chrysler vehicles which the government presently owns, we would not be witnessing such a spectacle. In fact, these two companies have had decades of history of woefully inferior and flawed vehicles that have been subject to countless recalls yet Congress rarely besmirched them as they are doing with Toyota right now. During most of this period, Toyota has been the paragon of excellence and a great employer for hundreds of thousands of workers.
This is not to say that Toyota is innocent of charges. They are not. But, the Federal government, now with the Democrats in charge, clearly has a severe conflict of interest and is paying back and going to bat for one of its largest and most powerful constituencies, the labor unions. You see, Toyota has its plants in non-union right to work states, a situation that the labor unions and their leaders abhor.
Congress Puts Toyota On Show Trial
Investors Business Daily 02/23/2010
Commerce: Toyota's leaders are in for nasty star-chamber hearings in Congress, with politicians grandstanding and regulators pointing fingers. It's no way to treat a big employer that contributes so much to our economy.
When Toyota first came to the U.S. in the 1950s and took out TV ads in the 1960s, the Japan-based company was ridiculed. How could its dinky little cars compete with the mighty Big Three automakers for the American market?
But by the 1970s, word got out that Toyota was making a superior energy-efficient product and it won the public over.
That success seems to be why Toyota is being singled out for loud hearings by two congressional panels for its recent recall of nearly 650,000 cars. "While Honda recalled 636,000 models last month and Ford recalled more than 4 million vehicles last year, neither company was subjected to a Congressional Hearing," noted Americans for Tax Reform in a statement.
Small wonder then that a Toyota internal memo declared the current climate in Washington is "not industry friendly."
That's a fact.
The problem is that while beating up Toyota may serve the political aims of some, its real effect will be to kill jobs, corrupt any semblance of impartial regulatory action, discourage foreign investment, and defund cities and towns whose tax bases depend much on Toyota dealers. In short, the show trial will make us all poorer.
For starters, Toyota employs over 200,000 Americans across the spectrum of the auto industry. Parts plants, assembly plants, dealerships and repair shops all owe their existence to Toyota.
Already plants are shutting down and employees are being laid off, beyond all proportion to the recall problem, because of the congressional effort to drag Toyota through the mud.
City governments take in significant revenues from these operations. Don't think they won't feel the impact of these hearings.
Yet there's more than a whiff of Saul Alinsky's community organizing principles in this noisy government campaign against Toyota — "Pick a target, personalize it, freeze it, polarize it."
So now Congressional committees are hauling in Toyota's president Akio Toyoda all the way from Tokyo to testify. It's a sorry spectacle because Toyota has tried to be a good corporate citizen.
Recall that the first complaint against Toyota in the 1970s was that it imported cars to the U.S. instead of built them here.
So, Toyota built plants here, employing some 30,000 U.S. citizens directly. In the process, it also subcontracted to American companies — such as the one that makes the pedals in question now — all to make the "Buy American" crowd happy.
Toyota also bowed down to Jesse Jackson's race-baiting corporate shakedowns, giving him much of the $7.8 billion it set aside for "diversity" to hand out to his favored groups for his programs.
Now with the recent events — including Toyota's president making an unprecedented apology for the recall of 8.5 million vehicles with suspect accelerator pedals, a humiliating loss of face in Asian culture — Toyota officials must be wondering why they even tried.
The effort to take them down continues because of one thing the unions — and the union-friendly Obama administration — can't forgive: Toyota's choice of states for its plants, states with good investment climates and nonunion right-to-work laws.
As U.S. rivals like GM and Chrysler survive on government bailout money and continue to employ inefficient and expensive union labor, and their U.S. government owners try to regain market share for them, what better way than to discredit Toyota out of all proportion to its supposed sins by using Alinsky-style tactics?
Evidence is piling up that this is political.
First, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who has a conflicting dual role as both regulator and owner of rival auto companies, advised Americans not to drive Toyotas.
Now Politico reports that Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., of the House Oversight and Government Reform committee is calling for an investigation of Transportation department officials' e-mails. These may show they improperly conferred with insurance agency officials about congressional testimony to cover up for Transportation Department neglect of its regulatory duties.
In an atmosphere like this, why would Toyota want to invest more, hire more or try to please political powers as a good corporate citizen? Or any other company?
As Congress tries to discredit Toyota and destroy its market share out of all proportion to its transgressions, the ultimate effect will be to hurt America's interests most.
The husband and wife White House party crashers (trespassers) generated a tremendous amount of outrage from Democrats/liberals yet the millions of illegal gate crashers (from Mexico) seem to garner little interest or concern often from both sides of the aisle. The following video recorded in Congress parallels the two situations in a tongue in cheek fashion.
The recession keeps dragging on despite close to a trillion dollars in stimulus money and other focal incentives wasted by the federal government. What is happening?
Small businesses, the real engines of our economy, are extremely worried about present conditions and future prospects including massive government regulations and more than 2 trillion dollars of proposed tax hikes that would destroy thousands of businesses. Consequently, they are being advisably circumspect, prudent and conservative, trying to protect the viability of their businesses rather than take aggressive actions that could jeopardize their survival.
For starters, we would all benefit from a massive across the board decrease in taxes, major reduction in government spending, and abolishing useless and costly regulations...
A Real Cure For What Ails Small Biz
Investors Business Daily 02/09/2010
Jobless Recession: Small business has been a key part of plans to stimulate the economy from the very start of the Obama presidency. So why is this crucial job-creating sector of our economy doing so poorly?
The latest soundings from small business are not reassuring. In its annual poll of 2,114 members, for example, the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) found that "small-business owners entered 2010 the same way they left 2009 — depressed." Meanwhile, the ADP Small Business Report for January shows companies with fewer than 50 workers shed an additional 22,000 jobs.
These are the businesses that account for 48 million jobs, or 44% of all private nonfarm employment — and two-thirds or more of all employment growth in recent years. But despite efforts by government to "fix" their problems, they've only grown worse. The programs were ineffective or never got off the ground.
Last year, amid much hoopla, the White House announced plans to give tax credits to "green" energy companies. As a result, according to reporter Renee Schoof of McClatchy Newspapers, the U.S. installed a record 9,900 megawatts of wind-power generating capacity last year — enough to power 2.4 million homes.
A boon for conservation jobs? Hardly. Indeed, the American Wind Energy Association reports the industry cut 2,000 jobs last year, in part because some of the wind energy equipment is made overseas.
Then there was the program unveiled in March to spend $15 billion to "unlock" lending to small businesses. That grew to a $30 billion program later in the year after TARP funds were added to the mix. But as noted by ABC News reporter and blogger Jake Tapper, this is a "phantom" jobs program.
Even Neil Barofsky, head of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, admitted as much. As of Dec. 31, he wrote recently, "the details of the initiative under this program had not been announced and no funds had been disbursed."
In short, the White House talked about $30 billion in aid to small businesses, but never did anything about it.
Meanwhile, President Obama announced a sweeping small-business aid program in his State of the Union. He knows this is key to the economy's recovery, if only because he hears it all the time from Democrats and Republicans.
Among the president's new proposals for small business are a $5,000 tax credit to hire new workers, elimination of capital gains taxes and new incentives to invest in plants and equipment. Will anything come of it? Based on recent history, we doubt it.
Congress, correctly interpreting its sinking poll numbers, has also jumped on the jobs bandwagon and is eagerly crafting another big-time jobs stimulus — this one rumored to be $80 billion in size.
Some of Obama's ideas aren't bad. But even if passed, they likely wouldn't help much. The problems that small businesses have aren't about small businesses per se; they're about the economy.
Small businesses have the same doubts as the rest of us. Besides all these "jobs programs," they see a failed $862 billion stimulus, a $700 billion TARP program that has turned into a politicized auto and bank bailout fund, Cash for
Clunkers, attempts in Copenhagen to impose massive taxes on America to stave off global warming, a $1 trillion health care overhaul, new "responsibility fees" on banks, and worry for our economy's future.
Worse, the new budget contains $2 trillion in tax hikes over a decade, mostly on multinationals and successful entrepreneurs. These taxes undo all the good the White House and Congress would do with their "incentives" and "credits" and whatnot.
Washington thus has it wrong. Businesses aren't awaiting more "stimulus." As the NFIB suggested, they're clinically depressed, seeing the government's dead weight lying across the economy for years to come in all its spending, taxing and ad hoc rule-making.
What sensible entrepreneur would commit his wealth to a money-making project in such a high-tax, high-regulation environment — one in which those who make profits are routinely demonized?
This is a problem with a solution, and the solution is the same one that's worked in the past: Cut taxes across the board — for business big and small — and look for ways to cut regulations, not add more. At the same time, pull back on the insane surge in government spending.
By unlocking our nation's entrepreneurial spirit and reviving growth across the economy, we can put an end to this nightmare and help all Americans regain prosperity. Then small businesses can get back to doing what they do best: create lots of jobs.
It doesn’t take a genius to soon realize that America would be far better off if Congress and the President would just keep out of the “peoples’” business. Far more often than not, when the Federal government gets involved, it spells trouble so the less they deal with, in general, the better. A vast majority of the laws or legislation that they pass are either not the right solutions, or the most prudent, efficient or cost effective ones.There are many reasons for this too numerous to list but common ones include their own ignorance of the issues and their consequences, rigid ideologies, acquiring political capital, not either having to personally pay the bill to any significant extent, or being exempt from having to adhere to the legislation (Obamacare).
With trenchant insight and skillful description, Thomas Sowell reveals many important and practical examples of this “Alice in Wonderland” attitude of our politicians and the inimical consequences that result. As he states: “…there is no free lunch…”.
Politicians Live In Wonderland: Do Not Disturb
By Thomas Sowell 02/01/2010
There was a recent flap because three different members of the Obama administration, on three different Sunday TV talk shows, gave three widely differing estimates of how many jobs the president has created.
That should not have been surprising, except as a sign of political sloppiness in not getting their stories together beforehand. They were simply doing what Barack Obama himself does — namely, just pulling numbers out of thin air.
However, being more skilled at creating illusions, the president does it with more of an air of certainty, as if he has gone around and counted the new jobs himself.
The big question that seldom — if ever — gets asked in the mainstream media is whether these are a net increase in jobs. Since the only resources that the government has are the resources it takes from the private sector, using those resources to create jobs means reducing the resources available to create jobs in the private sector.
So long as most people do not look beyond superficial appearances, politicians can get away with playing Santa Claus on all sorts of issues while leaving havoc in their wake — such as increasing unemployment, despite all the jobs being "created."
Whatever position people take on a health care overhaul, there seems to be a bipartisan consensus — usually a sign of mushy thinking — that it is a good idea for the government to force insurance companies to insure people whom politicians want them to insure, and to insure them for things that politicians think should be insured.
Contrary to what politicians expect us to do, let's stop and think.
It's Free For Politicians
Why aren't insurance companies already insuring the people and the conditions that they are now going to be forced to cover? Because that means additional costs — and because the insurance companies don't think their customers are willing to pay those particular costs for those particular coverages.
It costs politicians nothing to mandate more insurance coverage for more people. But that doesn't mean the costs vanish into thin air. It simply means that buyers and sellers of insurance are forced to pay costs that neither of them wants to pay.
Because soaring political rhetoric leaves out such grubby things as costs, it sounds like a great deal.
Not just costs are left out. So are consequences in general.
With all the laments in the media about skyrocketing unemployment among young people, and especially minority young people, few media pundits even try to connect the dots to explain why unemployment hits some groups much harder than others.
Yet unusually high unemployment rates among young people is not something new or even something peculiar to the U.S.
Even before the current worldwide recession, unemployment rates were 20% or more among workers under 25 years of age in a number of Western European countries.
Less Demand, Less Money
The young have less experience to offer and are therefore less in demand. Before politicians stepped in, that just meant that younger workers were paid less.
This is not a permanent situation because youth itself is not permanent, and pay rises with experience.
Enter politicians. By mandating a minimum wage that sounds reasonable for most workers, they put a price on inexperienced and unskilled labor that often exceeds what it is worth. Mandated pay rates, like mandated insurance coverage, impose on buyers and sellers alike things that they would not choose to do otherwise.
Workers of course prefer higher wage rates. But the very fact that the government has to impose those wage rates means that workers were unwilling to risk not having a job by refusing to work for less than the wage rate that has been mandated. Now that choice has been taken out of their hands, with the hidden cost in this case being higher unemployment rates.
It is of course no secret that there is no free lunch. It is just an inconvenient distraction that gets left out of political rhetoric.
It actually isn’t a slow news day. However, we wanted to expose to the voters of America another fine example of the all too common type of politician involved in ruling our country… er, representing us and our interests. Imperious. Arrogant. Condescending. Corrupt. Of course, this doesn’t even cover their intellectual deficits such as incompetence, ignorance, ideological perversions, etc.
We have seen all too many of these despicable politicians in action over the past year such as Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Barack Obama, Charles Schumer, Barney Frank, John Murtha, Alan Grayson, Diane Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, Obama’s many czars and Cabinet members – for starters. Many have made it almost a career for life.
We surely don’t want to forget Pete Stark who has a litany of reprehensible tirades, bad behavior and despicable comments and sound bites over his 37 years in the House of Representatives. He is yet another Democrat who champions a Big, Powerful and Regulatory Government that knows what is best for their peon subjects.
Pete Stark Blows Up Over National Debt
And, of course, that classic outburst from the past...
Too many Americans either do not have the perspective to appreciate the freedoms that we have or adhere to a perverted sense of a world utopia (ie. Hollywood liberals) - often after they have benefitted from these very freedoms. Fortunately, as evidenced by the Tea Party movement and the national groundswell of support for recently elected U.S. Senator, Scott Brown, millions of Americans are cognizant of how precious freedom, rights and individuality really are and how ephemeral they can be as evidenced by the proposed and effected changes under the imperious government of the Obama Administration and far left Congressional Democrats.
The following editorial is another prescient editorial written by Svetlana Kunin, a Russian immigrant who persevered under Russian rule and now lives in America.
Perspectives Of A Russian Immigrant (No. 5)
By Svetlana Kunin 01/21/2010
Visitors to national parks are warned not to feed the wildlife because this interferes with the natural survival ability of the animals. Progressives do not make the same connection with human nature.
The image of a country where government takes care of its citizens attracts the liberal mind. This image has two dimensions: fairness and equality.
Many American intellectuals admired the Olympic opening ceremony last summer in Beijing: Hundreds of expressionless men moved and beat their drums in perfect unison, an impressive and symbolic image as, in real life, each man has an allocated and regulated place and function.
Serving Ideology
Hollywood liberals are impressed with Venezuela, where the evil capitalists are kicked out of the country and the government controls the media.
Democratic congressmen admire the idea of the Cuban system. They ignore the fact that the government prohibits its citizens from leaving the country, and foreigners are allowed to see only what the government wants them to see.
Released Soviet archives show how a society can project an image of glory and prosperity, as long as the intended audience is shown only two dimensions. But they also reveal the third dimension: the dimension of cruelty.
In such societies, individuals, science, education, art and sport are subservient to ideology. There are numerous examples.
A whole branch of science — genetics — was eliminated for 20 years when party leaders declared it to be a bourgeois pseudoscience and a "whore of capitalism" because it contradicted the theory of Marxism-Leninism.
Scientists were sent to labor camps or killed. Leading Soviet geneticist Nikolai Vavilov died in prison.
The control of mediocrity over talent is the defining structure of these societies. There are political rules. If you conform, then you are living among equals. If you break the rules, then you suffer. If you are part of the ideological machine, you are a beneficiary of the system. That is why there are former citizens who have fond memories of the USSR.
American Zoo
Such ideological oppression is insidious, and we increasingly find it in America. Already, American parents are forced to send their children to failing schools. Americans will soon find the same to be true of their medical care. Political correctness limits their speech and corrupts their actions, as was on display in the Fort Hood attack.
How can correctness be political? If it is political, then it is an agenda.
In contrast to the progressive vision, the strength of America is built on ideals such as individual liberty and the law of the land. These two dimensions gave life to the third dimension: opportunities.
Americans have the opportunity to make choices free from any centralized control. Free individuals have the opportunity to escape a bad situation, and explore their talents and aptitude. The American Constitution protects individuals from oppressive government.
How do our current political leaders propose to transform America? They ignore the Constitution. They will collect the income of citizens living today and those not yet born. They envision a zoolike country where the citizens are assigned a place to live, to work, the medical care they can get and the food they eat.
Our leaders will be our zookeepers, fairly distributing services and goods. People will rely on zookeepers and forget how to plan their own lives and take care of themselves.
The image of a fair and equal society will be projected, but the third dimension — a bureaucratic cruelty over defenseless individuals — will result. This is not a progressive society; it's an oppressive one. There is no escape from oppressive centralized state control.
Those who support this transformation cannot see beyond the flat two-dimensional image of utopia.
You undoubtedly have learned about the corrupt deal recently consummated between the labor unions, a major constituency of the Democratic party, and the Congressional Democrats in order to shore up their support for Obamacare. This latest outrageous perversion of power will preferentially exclude all members of these labor unions such as of the SEIU from having to pay a hefty 40% punitive tax on health insurance plans whose annual costs exceed a selected annual dollar amount. All other Americans will still be legally coerced to pay this tax PLUS be responsible for the amount the government won’t be collecting from union members!
Further adding insult to injury, it would be egregious enough if this were the only example of such corruption but IT IS NOT! This is the modus operandi of Obama, Reid, Pelosi and the Democrats. Stimulus money going exceedingly disproportionately to the Democrat supporting blue states; blatant disregard for any consideration for tort reform that could save tens of billions of dollars annually from the cost of healthcare – as payback to attorneys who almost monolithically support and contribute to the Democratic party; the Sen. Ben Nelson Nebraska Cornhusker kickback and Sen. Mary Landrieu Louisiana Purchase bribe – using our tax dollars – in order to acquire critical support for the passage of the healthcare legislation; ETC.
THIS CORRUPTION, ARROGANCE AND CONTEMPTUOUSNESS BY DEMOCRATS MUST BE STOPPED!!
We must unite in our cause and vote them out of office as soon as possible!
Another rank deal
By Rich Lowry January 15, 2010
What happens when the irresistible force of the Democratic urge to tax runs up against the immovable object of Democratic loyalty to the labor unions? Another ugly deal in a health-care bill that already was a grotesquerie of payoffs to favored politicians and interests.
The levy in question is a 40 percent excise tax on high-end employer-provided insurance plans that -- typically -- has been sold as a tax on "the rich." It's called the "Cadillac tax," a name redolent of corporate executives cackling in their Escalades over their cushy benefits.
The unions, which make it a point to negotiate generous insurance plans with their employers (to the point of bankrupting them), were chagrined to learn that for purposes of this tax, they're among the rich. They howled in terms that could have been drawn from Henry Hazlitt's free-market classic "Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics."
The excise tax is supposed to be paid by evil insurers and employers. Except in this one case affecting their self-interest directly, the unions see through the fiction and understand that the tax will trickle down onto them. How disorienting to hear unions implicitly recognize that corporations ultimately don't pay taxes, their customers and employees do.
"While the excise tax is slated to be imposed on the insurers on so-called high cost plans, the tax will be passed on to enrollees in the form of higher premiums, co-pays or reduced benefits," a coalition of public-employee unions wrote congressional leaders. "Characterizing this tax proposal as a 'Cadillac tax' is a misnomer. It hits the average blue collar and white collar employee."
The unions also bristled at a fairly typical trick of liberal taxation -- bracket creep. The Cadillac tax affects few people when it begins in 2013. Since it's not indexed to account for the ever-rising expense of health care, though, it will catch more and more people over time.
This is why New York Times columnist Bob Herbert called it "a middle-class tax time bomb," and Nancy Pelosi made an oblique reference to President Obama breaking his promise not to increase taxes for anyone making less than $250,000 a year. Obama's support for the Cadillac tax not only violates that forlorn pledge, but also directly contradicts one of his chief lines of attack against John McCain in the 2008 campaign.
McCain wanted to end the tax exemption for employer-provided insurance coverage and compensate people with a tax credit to buy their own plans -- a systematic approach to controlling costs and increasing choice. Obama's plan will increase costs and reduce choice, but he needs $150 billion in revenue over 10 years to try to make it look deficit-neutral so he's -- as he put it in his unrelenting anti-McCain ads -- "taxing health benefits for the first time in history."
But pressure from the unions has now forced the White House to agree to raise the $23,000-per-household threshold of the tax slightly and -- more importantly -- exempt insurance plans that are the product of collective-bargaining agreements until 2018. This Labor Loophole stands in the finest tradition of the Louisiana Purchase and the Cornhusker Kickback. With no possible public-policy justification, it puts the awesome power to tax and spend at the service of nakedly political ends.
Oliver Wendell Holmes famously said that taxes are the price of civilization. In this case, taxes are the price of not belonging to a group that pours countless millions of dollars into the Democratic coffers. Under the Cadillac tax, there's one set of rules for the Service Employees International Union and another for everyone else.
Obama is currently haranguing the banks so he doesn't get pegged as a "Wall Street Liberal." The more dangerous rubric for him is a "Washington Liberal," a politician knee-deep in the special-interest politics of the Beltway as he pushes an unpopular agenda of rapid government expansion. Obama's style of politics has gone from inspiring to revolting in the space of a year.
The following is an op-ed in the Boston Globe written by Scott Brown, the Republican candidate for the Senate seat in Massachusetts previously held by Ted Kennedy.
A new day is coming: restore faith and balance
By Scott Brown | January 14, 2010
I DIDN’T grow up with all the advantages in life. My mom was on welfare for a time, but I had the support of a loving family and good friends and neighbors. I don’t have all the advantages in this race either, and that’s fine by me. Being the underdog has taught me to work harder, and to appreciate the opportunities of our state and our country.
I’m running because more of our people are unemployed today than ever before. Public debt has reached $12 trillion and counting, and Washington politicians want to borrow trillions more. Terrorists want to strike our country again, and they will do so if we let down our guard. We have fighting forces in two theaters of war, and those men and women need our support.
Like everyone else, I want to see more Americans with good health care coverage. I like what we achieved in Massachusetts. It’s not perfect, but nearly everyone is now covered by a private insurance policy - not a government policy. I hope other states follow our example.
But the healthcare bill under discussion in Washington is not good. It will raise taxes and increase spending. If you are a senior on Medicare, it will lead to a half trillion dollars in cuts to your care. Since we are way ahead of the rest of the country with our own state reforms, we will get nothing in return. My opponent, Martha Coakley, will vote yes on this bill. I will insist we start over.
Failure should be admitted in Washington, and not repeated. With last month’s news that we lost another 85,000 jobs, and with unemployment stuck in the double digits, it’s time to admit that while the $787 billion stimulus had the best of intentions, it failed to create one new job. We shouldn’t pass yet another stimulus that adds to the debt without adding jobs.
My plan for the economy is simple: an across-the-board tax cut - in the tradition of John F. Kennedy - for families and businesses that will increase investment and lead to immediate new job growth. More tax increases will hurt our recovery.
That’s why I have taken a no-new-tax pledge. My opponent will raise taxes.
Amid all our domestic challenges, our nation is still at war with radical Islamic terrorists determined to destroy our way of life. The Christmas bombing attempt on a Northwest Airlines plane is a wake-up call. But instead of being interrogated by military professionals at Guantanamo, the plane bomber has been given taxpayer-funded lawyers in a US courtroom. Because he’s been granted constitutional rights, he’s invoked his privilege to remain silent. Would-be killers should be treated for what they really are: enemies of a country at war, not ordinary criminals.
My opponent would accord such terrorists all the rights our Constitution grants to citizens. I will treat them as enemy combatants who should face military justice.
As this special election draws to a close, the enthusiasm from everyday citizens has been remarkable. To those who have lost faith in their elected leaders, I say: Don’t lose heart. One-party dominance in our state has led to bad decisions and a culture of corruption, but we can restore people’s faith by restoring balance to our political system.
They call me a long shot. But I’m betting that a new day is coming in Massachusetts. I am running in the name of all independent-thinking citizens, whether they are Democrats, Republicans, or unenrolled, to take on one-party rule, and the Beacon Hill bosses, and their machine, and their candidate. With your help, I intend to win.
Scott Brown is a Republican state senator from Wrentham.
As you may know, a special election to fill Ted Kennedy’s open Senate seat is being held this coming Tuesday, January 19th in Massachusetts. Though it is “local” election, for many obvious reasons it is having and will have potentially explosive repercussions and ramifications for the entire country short and long term. The voting and outcome can potentially annihilate Obama’s and Congressional Democrats’ ideological agenda of socialism, wealth redistribution, taxation and other radical legislation. Most immediately, a Republican win would kill the Obamacare bill.
The profound consequences of such a win are impossible to overstate. The Republican candidate for Senator, Scott Brown, would represent the 41st Republican Senator which would finally provide the ability to filibuster Congressional legislation rather than have Pelosi, Reid et al. contemptuously ram anything they want down the throats of unwilling and protesting Americans.
Presently in probably the bluest of blue states, a few polls have Scott Brown in essentially a dead heat with the Democratic challenger, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley. Among her supporters including financially are Moveon.org and the SEIU (Service Employees International Union). We suspect that corrupt and infamous ACORN is also working feverishly to help elect Democratic candidate Coakley
Since we all strongly care about our country, it is imperative that we help Scott Brown get elected. He has received unprecedented grassroots support from both the voters of Massachusetts as well as from Americans all across the country. Many of these voters are Democrats or Independents who are fed up with the arrogance, incompetence, profligacy, and dictatorial attitude that is endemic in Washington.
Who is Scott Brown? He is a presently a Republican Massachusetts State Senator who has represented the Norfolk, Bristol & Middlesex District since 2004. Just previous to this, he served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives for the 9th Norfolk District starting in 1998. He is homegrown, having graduated Wakefield High School (1977), Tufts University (1981), and Boston College Law School (1985). Politically, Brown has been described as a moderate Republican with socially moderate and fiscally conservative views. He is extremely intelligent, articulate, sensible and principled.
The following video exemplifies these traits and his refreshing attitude that he is there to serve the people and not rule over them as the Democrats in Congress have repeatedly demonstrated and verbalized.
With all due respect, it's not the Kennedy's seat, it's not the Democrats' seat, it's the people's seat.
The following are two of his political websites that you can visit to make contributions to his campaign. Even a small amount now can potentially pay dividends for all of us later if he can pull out an earth shattering win.
http://www.brownforussenate.com/
https://www.icontribute.us/scottbrown
The following article posted on www.usnews.com analyzes the present situation:
Scott Brown in Virtual Tie in Massachusetts Race as Dems Deploy
By Robert Schlesinger January 13, 2010
In the first contest of 2010, the question shouldn't be whether Democrats will win but by how much. On Tuesday, Massachusetts voters will select the late Sen. Ted Kennedy's successor. Martha Coakley, the Bay State's attorney general and the Democratic nominee, was until very recently the prohibitive favorite over GOP nominee Scott Brown, a state senator. Not only had Coakley raised $5.2 million to Brown's $1.2 million (his fundraising has increased dramatically with the new national attention), but Massachusetts is about as reliably Democratic as they come.
The race was supposed to be a yawner but has become the focus of the political world as recent polls have shown it to be a nail-biter: Public Policy Polling, a Democratic firm, reported over the weekend that Brown had a 48-47 lead, while a Rasmussen poll released today had Coakley ahead by a mere two points, 49-47--a virtual tie, as it is within the 3 percent margin of error. As recently as last month, political guru Stuart Rothenberg wrote that, "If Brown can crack the 40 percent mark against Coakley, it would be noteworthy," political guru Stu Rothenberg wrote last month. Tuesday Rothenberg moved the Massachusetts senate into the "narrow advantage" for Democrats column on his report.
As I reported last week, the liberal group MoveOn.org started fundraising for Coakley, warning its members that "progressive hero Ted Kennedy's senate seat--and with it any hope for passing majori progressive legislation this year" were in danger. I wrote then that , "a telling sign of serious tightening would be either of the national parties moving late money into the race." Well this week the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee bought more than $500,000 in television ads in a race that under normal circumstances would not require a national Democratic dime. In addition, the Service Employees International Union is pouring $685,000 into the race.
As the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza observes today, the race has become a good preview of the campaign themes the two parties may trot out in other races this fall, with Democrats trying to use the specter of George W. Bush and Sarah Palin to tar their GOP opponents and Republicans harping on change. Cillizza writes:
If Brown manages to win, expect Democrats to quickly dismiss the loss as an outlier due to Coakley's substandard campaign. But, privately, something close to panic may well set in if the alleged ace in the hole--linking Republicans to the Bush administration and/or Palin--doesn't come through in a state as strongly favorable to their party as Massachusetts and in a political environment that is tilting away from them on the issues of the day.
Republicans believe that Brown's candidacy is already a blueprint for how they can be competitive almost anywhere in the country in November and so, regardless of whether Brown wins or loses next Tuesday, you can expect a heavy dose of the sort of independent/status quo shakeup messages that Brown has ridden to something close to a dead heat in Massachusetts.
Given that even a narrow Coakley win will be decried as a loss for Democrats, it's hard to see much good news coming to them next Tuesday.
The following editorial appearing in www.humanevents.com scrutinizes Obamacare from a constitutional perspective. No where in our Constitution is the Federal government given the authority to mandate or control healthcare. Furthermore, there are several inherent issues and requirements that are clearly unconstitutional.
Of course, many Democrats and the far left treat these issues in an arrogant, perfunctory manner. “We want this healthcare reform imposed, Constitutionality be damned” are their attitudes.
Our recommended approach: Kill the bill on the basis of Constitutionality issues which are myriad. Then, vote these corrupt imperious elitists out of office.
Obamacare's Fundamental Flaw
by Gary Bauer 01/01/2010
The Left has always had an erratic relationship with the Constitution. Liberal judges are known for discovering constitutional rights that had eluded judges for centuries. That’s because some of those so-called rights, such as the right to privacy, have no basis in the text of the Constitution but rather somewhere in its “emanations” and “penumbras.”
But the alleged right to privacy has its limits even among liberals. The Left’s judges routinely rule that the right protects abortion on demand, but its legislators have no qualms about extinguishing the right of citizens to make other private healthcare decisions free of government coercion.
While much of the healthcare debate has focused on arguments over policy, a more fundamental debate is taking place over whether the Democrats’ healthcare overhaul is even constitutional.
There is nothing in the Constitution that allows the federal government to be involved in healthcare, and the loud affirmation of this fact may offer conservatives their best chance to pull the plug on Obamacare. It would be ironic if it is in the courts, liberals’ favorite venue for forcing social change, that the rule of law were restored and the personal freedom of the American people affirmed.
The power to regulate each citizen’s health care is not listed in the Constitution among the federal government’s enumerated powers, and the 10th Amendment makes clear that any powers not specifically granted to Congress are reserved to the states.
But among liberals, for whom it is an article of faith that government-run healthcare is a basic human right that no person of goodwill could oppose, any arguments about its constitutionality are irrelevant.
When pressed to address constitutionality, liberals often point to the commerce clause. The Constitution grants Congress the power to regulate “commerce among the several states.” But that does not mean Congress can meddle in anything that affects economic activity. The Supreme Court has rejected the notion that the commerce clause allows Congress to regulate non-economic activities just because, somewhere down the road, they may have an effect on economic activity.
The most egregiously unconstitutional element of the health care legislation concerns the individual mandate, which requires each American to obtain health insurance or pay a penalty of up to $25,000 or one year in prison. The individual mandate is essential to the Left’s plan to impose government-run health care. Without it, because of the left’s insistence on barring insurance companies from denying coverage to people for pre-existing conditions, people would simply obtain insurance only when they have a need for medical care.
The individual mandate is a way to keep costs down, but there is not constitutional authorization for it. As Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) has said, “…here would be the first time where our [federal] government would demand that people buy something that they may or may not want…and…that’s not constitutionally sound.”
Back in 1994, during the Democrats’ last foray into healthcare reform, the Congressional Budget Office stated that compelling individuals to buy insurance would be “an unprecedented form of federal action” because “the government has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the U.S.”
Liberals often liken the health insurance individual mandate to the law requiring all people who own automobiles to have auto insurance. But it’s a flawed argument. Only state governments, not the federal government, can require automobile owners to obtain auto insurance (and two states, Wisconsin and New Hampshire, don’t).
Also, as legal scholars at the Heritage Foundation point out in a recent legal memorandum, “automobile insurance requirements impose a condition on the voluntary activity of driving; a health insurance mandate imposes a condition on life itself.”
The Heritage memo, titled “Why the personal mandate to buy health insurance is unprecedented and unconstitutional,” also notes that states require drivers to maintain auto insurance only to cover injuries to others. “The mandate does not require drivers to insure themselves or their property against injury or damage. Thus the auto insurance requirement covers the dangers and liabilities posed by drivers to third parties only…”
It would be an understatement to say that individual mandate advocates have struggled to defend its inclusion. In a series of interviews conducted by CNSNews.com, Democrat after Democrat failed to give a coherent answer about where the Constitution authorized Congress to mandate that individuals buy health insurance.
Hawaii Senator Daniel Akaka said he was “not aware” of the Constitution giving Congress the authority, while Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) said he’d “have to check the specific sections,” and Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) flatly admitted that he did not know.
Senator Blanche Lincoln should have taken the Nelson route but instead opined, “Well, I Just think the Constitution charges Congress with the health and well-being of the people.” And Senate Judiciary Chairman Pat Leahy (D-VT) dismissed the question, insisting that “nobody” questioned Congress’ authority to require individual mandate.
Senator Roland Burris (D-IL) said Congress authorization to impose an individual mandate could be found in the part of Constitution that authorizes the federal government to “provide for the health, welfare and the defense of the country.” But, as CNSNews.com pointed out, “health” is not mentioned anywhere in the Constitution.
Then there was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who simply responded “Are you serious? Are you serious?” By which she seemed to be saying, “Do you seriously think we progressives would allow constitutionality to get in the way of our half-century old goal of government-run health care?!”
There are other constitutional problems with Obamacare. For instance, if the public option provides for abortion, many Americans will be compelled to subsidize other people’s abortions, which would infringe upon the First Amendment guarantee of religious freedom.
And constitutional concerns exist over exempting some states from Obamacare’s provisions. In Harry Reid’s fire sale for votes, he essentially agreed that some states would bear the brunt of the economic burden of the health care monstrosity but not others. Presently state legal experts are examining whether the constitution can force such a burden upon them.
Other constitutional issues are buried deep in the pages of the bill just now seeing the light of day. For example, in spite of recent Supreme Court decisions raising constitutional questions about racial set asides, Obamacare promises federal financial assistance to medical schools, but only if they have programs that serve “under-represented” groups based on race, sex, religion and sexual orientation.
An unintended consequence of the health care debate may be that legislators on both sides of the isle are dusting off and reading their copies of the U.S. Constitution. Conservative members of Congress should resolve in the New Year to talk more often and more loudly about the constitutional arguments against Obamacare.
If it passes, conservatives should test its constitutionality in the courts. It may well be that the jobs saved or created by the Obama Administration’s health care plan go to lawyers, not doctors.
The following video detailing the perfidy, deception, arrogance, contemptuousness and corruptness of Obama and the Democrats is eminently provocative, both emotionally and intellectually. The dramatic, percussive music redolent of the testosterone suffused "Batman Returns" themes helps deliver a powerful and serious message that should serve to galvanize outraged Americans to take productive actions to depose our imperious Democratic politicians. Maybe some of these same elitists will begin to appreiciate the magnitude of our fury and realize that they are here as our elected representatives to serve us – not rule over us!
The elitist hauteur of liberal politicians, if left unchallenged, will translate into significant loss of many of our remaining rights and freedoms. Several prominent Democratic politicians including Obama have displayed arrogant and wanton disregard for the specifics of the Constitution, perverting its dictates in order to meet their ideological agenda.
One of these involves the current healthcare legislation based on their belief that healthcare is a right that they can fully control, regulate and issue mandates including forcing people to buy health insurance and forcing citizens to subsidize the care of others. Nowhere in the Constitution is the government given such authority.
Health Care Not In Constitution
Investors Business Daily
Self-Evident Truths: Sen. Dianne Feinstein says it comes under the Commerce Clause. Rep. Steny Hoyer says it's mandated by the "general welfare" clause. Despite liberal wishes, health care is not a right.
The "living Constitution" that Democrats and their court appointees have given us may be the death of our freedoms. Their constitution adapts to the times and serves the whims of the elitists. The Constitution is supposed to limit government powers. It does not allow government to do anything it feels like doing.
Cass Sunstein, the head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, is the author of "The Second Bill of Rights: FDR's Unfinished Revolution and Why We Need It More Than Ever."
He writes glowingly of how President Franklin Roosevelt, unsatisfied with the Constitution the Founding Fathers wrote, proposed a Second Bill of Rights in a speech on Jan. 11, 1944.
One of the new "rights" FDR envisioned was "the right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health." If health care were a right under the U.S. Constitution, FDR would not have had to propose it as one to be added.
Yet liberals believe it should be, and some believe it is. Feinstein, the senior senator from California, was asked Tuesday by CNSNews on what constitutional authority the Senate and House bills are authorized. She responded, as others have, "Well, I would assume it would be in the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. That's how Congress legislates all kinds of various programs."
Maybe so, but it's a power that has been grossly abused and distorted beyond all meaning. The Commerce Clause was intended for the regulation of economic activity across state lines that involves the production distribution or consumption of commodities. One does not go to a doctor to engage in commercial activity.
Mandates including the one to buy health insurance go over the line. "Even if the Supreme Court has expanded the commerce power, there has been one constant," noted Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. "Congress was always regulating activities in which people chose to engage." He added that "rather than regulate what people have chosen to do," the mandates "would require them to do something they have not chosen to do at all."
When asked the same question, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer pointed to Article 1, Section 8, which gives the Congress the power to raise taxes in order to "provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States." Does that give Congress the authority to buy things like health insurance?
We and others have made the point that broccoli is good for our general welfare, but can Congress make us eat it and charge us if we don't? Losing a few pounds would help us all and reduce health care costs, but can Congress mandate health club memberships? Hoyer thinks so.
This clause says nothing about the citizens of the United States, only the United States as a whole. The Constitution provides for the raising of armies to defend the country, not for whether or when women should get mammograms and who should pay for them.
Hoyer is wrong, according to constitutional lawyer David B. Rivkin: "The notion that the general welfare language is a basis for a specific legislative exercise is all silly, because if that's true, because general welfare language is inherently limitless, then the federal government can do anything."
Does the "general welfare" allow for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to make backroom deals that tax other states and other citizens to benefit a single state such as Nebraska and its citizens and to literally bribe senators like Ben Nelson for their vote?
Health care is nowhere to be found in the U.S. Constitution. In fact, the only time the word "care" appears is in Article II, Section 3, which says the president of the United States "shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed." That includes our highest law, the U.S. Constitution.
The following article enumerates 10 immensely important issues related to the healthcare legislation in its present iteration. This is not what America needs or wants but instead, what Congressional Democrats and Obama insist on imposing on us. Meanwhile, Obama and Congress will still have their own gold plated healthcare plan with innumerable choices all subsidized at the taxpayers’ expense.
As we have iterated myriad times, this is not about healthcare. This is about increased government power, control and regulation of our lives and restrictions of our rights and freedoms. If we don’t become more vociferous, passionate and actively fight this legislation in a united fashion, the government will relentless continue to further diminish and suppress our rights, freedoms and choices.
We must do whatever it takes to reclaim our country!
10 Lumps Of Coal In The Health Care Bill
By Betsy McCaughey
For most Americans, the health reform bill that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is pushing to pass will be worse than coal in their stockings. Herewith, the Top 10 List of Things You Don't Want From Health Care Reform This Christmas — But Will Get Anyway From Congress.
1. Higher premiums: If you pay for your own insurance, your premiums will cost 10% to 13% more than if the bill didn't pass, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Insurance won't be more affordable. Sixty percent of the newly insured are being enrolled in Medicaid, the public program for the poor.
2. A cost you can't afford and can't avoid: Though moderate-income families will get subsidies, buying insurance is mandatory. A family earning $54,000 will be expected to pay $9,000 (17% of pre-tax income) for the premium, co-pays and deductibles, according to the CBO. If you don't enroll, the IRS will find you and penalize you (Senate bill, p. 345).
3. A one-size-fits-all health plan: Your benefit package will be prescribed by the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Whether you choose basic, silver or gold, and whether you pay for it yourself or qualify for a subsidy, your benefits are the same.
Gold plans simply collect more up front and give you a lower co-pay or deductible. It's unclear how possible it will be to buy supplemental insurance. The goal is to discourage health consumption and differences based on ability to pay.
4. A sin tax on your generous plan at work: This is another equalizer to discourage some people from getting more than others. The Senate bill puts a 40% tax on Cadillac plans (p. 1,980). About one-fifth of employer-provided plans fall into that "luxury" category. The CBO predicts that employers will downgrade your coverage to avoid the tax or reduce your take home pay.
5. Government controls on your doctors' decisions: The Senate bill bars doctors from participating in the private insurance system unless they implement whatever regulations the secretary of health and human services chooses to impose to "improve health care quality" (p. 149). That broad phrase encompasses everything in medicine.
This would be the first time in history that the federal government is given power over how doctors treat privately insured patients
6. Hospitals closed to seniors: The House and Senate bills slash payments to hospitals and other institutions that care for seniors. The chief actuary for Medicare, Richard Foster, warns that cuts in the House bill are so severe that some institutions may face severe losses or end their participation in Medicare (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, 11/13/09 report). Some seniors won't know where to go.
7. Bare-bones hospital care: Patients of all ages (and all incomes) will suffer when hospitals are in financial distress. Hospital budget cuts will mean shortages of nurses, equipment and cleaning staff. The president's chief health advisor, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, argues that hospitals in the U.S. offer more privacy and comfort than hospitals in Europe, and this "abundance of amenities" drives up costs (Journal of the American Medical Association, June 18, 2008).
8. Future Medicare cuts: Look out baby boomers, the Senate bill establishes an Independent Medicare Advisory Commission to make automatic spending reductions in future years while insulating Congress from the political fallout. You won't get as much care as people in Medicare currently get.
9. A new social agenda: Money is allocated for adult preparation activities, including lessons on positive self-esteem and relationship dynamics, friendships, dating (and) romantic involvement (Senate bill, p.612). There are also giveaways to immigrants. The Senate bill hands low-income legal immigrants government subsidies as soon as they get here, instead of waiting the five years Medicaid requires (Senate bill, p. 274).
10. A tell-all relationship with every doctor you see: What happens in your doctor's office must be recorded in an electronic data base that can send the information to insurers and other medical offices (Senate bill, p. 62-66). Every doctor you see will have access to your medical history. See a psychiatrist? Your foot doctor will know about it.
These congressional tidings bring no comfort or joy. We must save ourselves from Congress' power now that it has gone astray.
• McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York state and founder of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths.
In the following expose, Michelle Malkin uncovers and delineates some of the more notable examples of corruption perpetrated by the Senate this past year. Such actions are reprehensible and should not be tolerated by us. These entrenched criminals need to be ousted!
Senate Payoffs Top 2009 Tree Of Corruption
By Michelle Malkin
Democrats are right: Sleazy bribes and pork payoffs didn't start with their government health care takeover bill. They've been doling out taxpayer-funded goodies for votes all year. Harry Reid's latest Cash for Cloture deals are the culmination of a shopping spree at our expense.
Go back to January and February. The multitrillion-dollar stimulus bill was the mother of all legislative Christmas trees. The ruling party used the economic downturn to redistribute wealth from struggling Americans to favored congressional districts, phantom districts and special interests from golf-cart makers to beauty salons.
According to a new study from George Mason University, Democratic districts have raked in nearly twice as much porkulus money as GOP districts — without regard to the actual economic suffering and job loss in those districts. In fact, the researchers found that far more stimulus money went to higher-income areas than to lower-income areas.
That includes Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's backyard — where a $54 million no-bid contract was awarded to a firm with little experience to relocate a luxury Bay Area wine train due to flood concerns.
And it includes Barack Obama's home state of Illinois, which reaped the single biggest earmark — $1 billion for the FutureGen near-zero emissions "clean coal" plant earmark championed by disgraced Democrat and former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin.
And it includes Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's backyard — where he secured billions in high-speed rail stimulus earmarks from which he plans to fund a pie-in-the-sky public transportation line from Los Angeles to Las Vegas.
When taxpayers objected to business as usual masquerading as economic recovery, New York Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer sneered: "You lost." He jibed on the Senate floor while wagging a grabby finger, "And let me say this to all of the chattering class that so much focuses on those little, tiny, yes, porky amendments: The American people really don't care."
The "American people" Schumer was referring to, of course, were the privileged minority of stimulus beneficiaries — not the rest of us "chattering" dissenters stuck with the bill for those billions in "little, tiny, yes, porky amendments."
No legislation has been immune to congressional shakedown.
After the Congressional Black Caucus balked loudly enough, Democratic Rep. Barney Frank — chairman of the House Financial Services Committee — larded up the majority's Wall Street regulatory "reform" bill with $4 billion in payoffs to minority special interests — including former failed Air America radio partner Inner City Broadcasting Corp.
The cash-strapped firm is run by Percy Sutton, a New York City crony of Charlie Rangel's and Al Sharpton's. The money will come out of the ever-morphing TARP bank bailout fund — which went from a toxic assets purchase plan to a capital injection plan, back to a toxic assets purchase plan, then to a life insurance company bailout and on to an auto-supplier bailout.
Leading the charge for the Cash for Cronies of Color drive: California Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters, who had already extracted $12 million in TARP funds for OneUnited, a minority-owned bank that is one of her key campaign donors and a company in which both Waters and her husband own massive amounts of stock.
Which brings us to the wealth redistribution scheme disguised as health reform.
In addition to the infamous $300 million "Louisiana Purchase" for Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu and the (at least) $45 million "Cornhusker Kickback" for sellout Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Reid threw around other, less-publicized gobs of cash for cloture votes to cut off debate and ram the bill through.
He tossed in a Hospital Helper of $100 million to Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., whose re-election bid is in hot water. There are bennies for insurance companies and hospitals in Michigan, and "frontier freebies" for hospitals in Montana, South Dakota, North Dakota and Wyoming.
Combined with Nebraska's tab, the exclusive clique's payoffs will cost taxpayers at least $1.2 billion over 10 years.
There's also an Acorn/community organizer-friendly provision for minority health bureaucracies that was sought by Sen. Roland Burris, D-Ill. And there's a $10 billion socialized medicine sop to Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders for "community health clinics" serving in essence as universal health care satellite offices.
"We are talking about a revolution," Sanders enthused during the Senate's sneaky Sunday session.
No, revolution will come when taxpayers have a chance to kick these reverse Santa Clauses posing as saviors out of office.
The magnitude of corruption, bribery with our tax dollars and complete contempt and disregard for the wishes of the American people that occurred in the process of trying to legislate healthcare reform is essentially unprecedented in national politics. Congress’ responses to questions of Constitutionality of some of the mandates and clauses are dismissive. Obama and these Democrats are telling us: We don’t give a damn about what you want or don’t want and we will do as we please.
As we have been warming for a long time, this has become a dictatorial government that will trample over our rights and freedoms, steal and deal our tax dollars, and impose at will whatever legislation they deem important in order to satisfy their ideological goals.
We must do whatever it takes to reclaim our country!
Forever Gone
Investors Business Daily 12/22/2009
DeMint: Is health care reform even constitutional? AP Photo
Any law can be repealed, but the Democrats' radical health bill contains unprecedented language that could wreck the U.S. health system permanently. It's one of the dirtiest tricks yet.
'Page 1,020" — it may soon be a mantra for one of the most disturbing abuses of legislative power in history. In setting up an Independent Medicare Advisory Board, that page of the Senate health overhaul bill passed in the dead of night early Monday says, "It shall not be in order in the Senate or the House of Representatives to consider any bill, resolution, amendment or conference report that would repeal or otherwise change this subsection."
This enters the realm of "hyperlaw" or "laws on steroids."
As Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., pointed out on the Senate floor, it isn't lawmaking, but rather "creating a Senate rule that makes it out of order to amend or even repeal the law."
DeMint is "not even sure that it's constitutional," since it affects "the fundamental purpose of Senate rules: to prevent a tyrannical majority from trampling the rights of the minority or of future Congresses."
Clearly liberal Democratic leaders will stoop to record depths to expand the federal government's powers.
Public support plummets well down into the 30s? They don't bat an eyelash.
Mandating an individual's purchase of a private service like insurance tramples the Constitution? Just watch them do it.
Bribe Senators Tom, Dick and Ben? Here's the cash.
As John Steele Gordon noted in Commentary, the Medicaid bribe that bought the vote of Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., is so unprecedented it may not withstand constitutional muster.
According to Gordon, "one could argue that Nebraskans will be getting what amounts to a rebate on federal taxes through the backdoor of lower state taxes," which might violate Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution requiring government collections to be "uniform throughout the United States."
As Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid admits, "I don't know that there's a senator that doesn't have something in this bill that isn't important to them," adding that "if they don't have something in it important to them, then it doesn't speak well of them."
That is the arrogance of the mind-set dominating the legislative and executive branches: Your money is really theirs, to be handed out like a Mob-backed union boss toting a bag of cash on the waterfront.
When you put together Medicare and Medicaid recipients, government employees and contractors, and active and former military members and their dependents, over 40% of Americans receive government-subsidized health care. The Democrats' health care revolution would up that to a solid majority of our citizens.
American history shows that once an entitlement is enacted, it's next to impossible to erase. Catastrophic health care for seniors, passed 20 years ago, is the only such program ever repealed; the 1996 welfare reform severely limited that socially destructive entitlement.
The statists may now finally have bitten off more than they will be able to chew politically. If Republicans act like Republicans and convince the populist Tea Party movement not to go the suicidal third-party route, the coming public backlash will see to it that the greatest health care system in the world is not gone for good.
Look for demonstrators to start burning copies of Page 1,020 the way '60s radicals used to burn their draft cards.
The ever increasing magnitude of anger that is being generated by American citizens in response to what we see as an imperious, arrogant, dictatorial government is nothing short of remarkable. We are being treated contemptuously by a Government that disregards the will of the people, seeks to tax us to oblivion and “legally” redistribute the fruits of our labors, and aims to insinuate itself in every activity of our daily lives, restricting our freedoms and rights. Our present political and socioeconomic milieu is far more dire and repressive than what the Colonists contended with under King George just before the American Revolution.
Unfortunately, we are in the midst of a political perfect storm which threatens the whole underpinnings of our culture, rights, freedoms, and economic system. Our government has been hijacked by the extreme far left which has malevolent intentions for America. It has a super-majority that is essentially unstoppable legislatively but is also willing to employ corrupt, heavy handed tactics if warranted. Complicit in this and facilitating the situation is the vast majority of the press whose role in the past had always been to serve as a watchdog to protect the average American and keep the government more honest and in check.
Millions of Americans are not only concerned by our present situation but also by the perceived malignant intentions of our government starting with Obama on down. The rhetoric of these politicians is indisputably incongruous with their legislative actions whether it pertains to healthcare reform, the national debt or even our rights. These Democrats and radicals are actively and aggressively seeking to destroy the free America we knew and instead, transform it into a pseudo-dictatorship with the likes of Obama, Reid, Pelosi, Frank and Schumer at the helm.
It is imperative that we all understand the gravity of our present circumstances and then aggressively and pertinaciously act in whatever manner necessary to oppose and reverse this course. Unfortunately, with the Government’s relentless consolidation of power by means of unfettered legislative actions, a political solution may be difficult if not impossible to obtain.
We must do whatever it takes to reclaim our country!
The following article brilliantly, insightful and thoroughly explains why what we see as illogical actions by Obama and other “representatives of the people” are instead intentional, calculated, rational but malignant moves that can and may destroy America. This is a must read!
Cloward-Piven Government
By James Simpson
It is time to cast aside all remaining doubt. President Obama is not trying to lead America forward to recovery, prosperity and strength. Quite the opposite, in fact.
In September of last year, American Thinker published my article, Barack Obama and the Strategy of Manufactured Crisis. Part of a series, it connected then-presidential candidate Barack Obama to individuals and organizations practicing a malevolent strategy for destroying our economy and our system of government. Since then, the story of that strategy has found its way across the blogosphere, onto the airwaves of radio stations across the country, the Glenn Beck television show, Bill O'Reilly, and now Mark Levin.
The methodology is known as the Cloward-Piven Strategy, and we can all be grateful to David Horowitz and his Discover the Networks for originally exposing and explaining it to us. He describes it as:
The strategy of forcing political change through orchestrated crisis. The "Cloward-Piven Strategy" seeks to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse.
Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven were two lifelong members of Democratic Socialists of America who taught sociology at Columbia University (Piven later went on to City University of New York). In a May 1966 Nation magazine article titled "The Weight of the Poor," they outlined their strategy, proposing to use grassroots radical organizations to push ever more strident demands for public services at all levels of government.
The result, they predicted, would be "a profound financial and political crisis" that would unleash "powerful forces ... for major economic reform at the national level."
They implemented the strategy by creating a succession of radical organizations, most notable among them the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), with the help of veteran organizer Wade Rathke. Their crowning achievement was the "Motor Voter" act, signed into law by Bill Clinton in 1993 with Cloward and Piven standing behind him.
As we now know, ACORN was one of the chief drivers of high-risk mortgage lending that eventually led to the financial crisis. But the Motor Voter law was another component of the strategy. It created vast vulnerabilities in our electoral system, which ACORN then exploited.
ACORN's vote registration scandals throughout the U.S. are predictable fallout.
The Motor Voter law has also been used to open another vulnerability in the system: the registration of vast numbers of illegal aliens, who then reliably vote Democrat. Herein lies the real reason Democrats are so anxious for open borders, security be damned.
It should be clear to anyone with a mind and two eyes that this president and this Congress do not have our interests at heart. They are implementing this strategy on an unprecedented scale by flooding America with a tidal wave of poisonous initiatives, orders, regulations, and laws. As Rahm Emmanuel said, "A crisis is a terrible thing to waste."
The real goal of "health care" legislation, the real goal of "cap-and-trade," and the real goal of the "stimulus" is to rip the guts out of our private economy and transfer wide swaths of it over to the government to control. Do not be deluded by the propaganda. These initiatives are vehicles for change. They are not goals in and of themselves except in their ability to deliver power. They and will make matters much worse, for that is their design.
This time, in addition to overwhelming the government with demands for services, Obama and the Democrats are overwhelming political opposition to their plans with a flood of apocalyptic legislation. Their ultimate goal is to leave us so discouraged, demoralized, and exhausted that we throw our hands up in defeat. As Barney Frank said, "the middle class will be too distracted to fight."
These people are our enemies. They don't use guns, yet, but they are just as dangerous, determined, and duplicitous as the communists we faced in the Cold War, Korea, Vietnam, and bush wars across the globe, and the Nazis we faced in World War II.
It is time we fully internalized and digested this fact, with all its ugly ramifications. These people have violated countless laws and could be prosecuted, had we the political power. Not only are their policies unconstitutional, but deliberately so -- the goal being to make the Constitution irrelevant. Their spending is off the charts and will drive us into hyperinflation, but it could be rescinded, had we the political power. These policies are toxic, but they could be stopped and reversed, had we the political power. Their ideologies are poisonous, but they could be exposed for what they are, with long jail sentences as an object lesson, had we the political power.
Every single citizen who cares about this country should be spending every minute of his or her spare time lobbying, organizing, writing, and planning. Fight every initiative they launch. It is all destructive. If we are to root out this evil, it is critical that in 2010 we elect competent, principled leaders willing to defend our Constitution and our country. Otherwise, the malevolent cabal that occupies the government today will become too entrenched.
After that, all bets are off.
Businessman and Examiner.com columnist Jim Simpson is a former White House staff economist and budget analyst.
While most Americans are being distracted by the healthcare reform power and even Climategate and Copenhagen, the Government is inexorably legislating ways to insinuate itself into all aspects of our lives, further abridging our freedoms and rights. Operating under the radar, the Clean Water Act is being rewritten to encompass virtually every collection of water in this country, from lakes to rivers and streams to even temporary pools of water.
As Investors Business Daily characterized it:
This is not about clean water any more than cap-and-trade is about climate change. It is about increasing government power over every aspect of our lives. Every breath we take, and every drop we drink, they will be regulating us.
Sing Along: 'This Land Is EPA's Land'
Investors Business Daily
Regulations: The Clean Water Act is being rewritten to give a government bureaucracy the power to regulate every body of water from the Mississippi River to a rain-flooded field. The first casualty may be American coal.
With all the concern for the harm that cap-and-trade and regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant might do to the American economy and free markets, the Environmental Protection Agency is doing quite enough damage with an existing law on the books — the Clean Water Act. Congress plans to revise it to make it an even more powerful bludgeon against industry, energy producers and just plain folks.
The 1972 Clean Water Act was originally intended to protect the "navigable waters of the United States" — you know, the kind boats travel down. It was broadly and quickly interpreted to any pool of water in America capable of supporting a bathtub variety boat. The word "navigable" was forgotten and ignored, and even those trying to improve the environment were not immune.
In the name of clean water and wetlands-protection, people were literally being arrested for putting dirt on dirt. In August 1987, Bill Ellen was hired to construct a 103-acre wildlife sanctuary, including 10 duck ponds, on the Eastern Shore of Chesapeake Bay, on land so dusty it had to be watered down to protect construction workers' safety according to federal regulations.
But in September 1989, after three days of torrential downpour, angry government officials descended on his sanctuary looking for wetlands. Having found incriminating puddles, they arrested him for having the previous March dumped two loads of dirt where one federal agency said it was okay. It was also charged that the droppings of the migratory birds drawn to his ponds constituted waterway pollution.
For his crime against humanity, Bill Ellen was sentenced to six months in prison and four months of home detention. Guess he didn't notice the boats.
Such abuses of the law in which every puddle was considered protected eventually led to two Supreme Court decisions,
Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County v. United States in 2001, and Rapanos v. United States in 2006, which partially reined in these excesses.
The Clean Water Restoration Act of 2009 (S. 787), legislation that would challenge these Supreme Court rulings, is now moving through the Senate. Introduced by Sen. Russell Feingold, this legislation seeks to re-establish the nearly unlimited powers of the Clean Water Act.
"Well, this bill removes the word 'navigable,' so for ranchers and farmers who have mud puddles, prairie potholes — anything from snow melting on their land — all that water will now come under the regulation of the Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency," warns Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo.
Aside from striking "navigable," the bill defines U.S. waters as "all waters subject to the ebb and flow of the tide, the territorial seas, and all interstate and intrastate waters, and their tributaries, including lakes, rivers, streams (including intermittent streams)," as well as "mudflats, sand flats, wetlands, sloughs, prairie potholes, wet meadows" etc. Virtually everywhere water is or collects, even on a temporary basis, is covered.
Some 500 more jobs will have to be saved or created to make up for the 500 workers who will be laid off next year in West Virginia by Pittsburgh-based Consol Energy. The coal company blames lawsuits under the current Clean Water Act and other laws for the action.
The EPA is currently suspending 79 such surface mining permits in West Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee. The agency says these permits could violate the Clean Water Act and warrant "enhanced" review.
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson says she's not against coal mining, but wants to see it "done in a way that minimizes impact to water quality."
This is not about clean water any more than cap-and-trade is about climate change. It is about increasing government power over every aspect of our lives. Every breath we take, and every drop we drink, they will be regulating us.
Congressional Democrats have arrogantly and unequivocally indicated in no uncertain terms that they know what’s better for the America than its citizens do and want to pass Obamacare come hell or high water and do it soon. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is seeking an immediate vote on the recently changed legislation despite the fact that no Senators have had the opportunity to read what they will be voting on. This is all in the face of strong and vociferous opposition by the majority of voters who don’t want the government running their healthcare.
The following editorial by Larry Elder clarifies some of the general issues in a straightforward manner.
Is Imbecility Covered Under Obama Plan?
By Larry Elder
Americans overwhelmingly like their health care and insurance. While they reject ObamaCare, the president and Congress insist on driving it through.
Up to 85% of us already have health insurance and are satisfied with it. Lacking health insurance is different from lacking health care — which, by law, emergency rooms must supply. Millions go without health insurance by choice.
Deduct from the number without insurance those who have access to it via entitlement programs, those temporarily without it while between jobs, those here illegally and those who could go on their parents' insurance plans by paying affordable amounts — and you're down to 10 million to 15 million people without insurance for longer than a year. This is 5% of Americans.
To address this, the president and the Democrats are this close to a complete government takeover of health care. And a takeover it is. Assuming some kind of plan reaches the president's desk, it will — at minimum — force all Americans to purchase health insurance or pay fines or worse.
It will force nearly all employers to provide health insurance or pay fines. It will tell health insurers that they must accept applicants with pre-existing illnesses and restrict their ability to "discriminate" based on factors like sex and age.
Incredibly, the president and Congress tell us that our economic recovery hinges on "health care reform" and that they can achieve it — providing millions of people with health insurance estimated to cost a trillion dollars in the first decade — while simultaneously reducing the deficit.
The plan anticipates cutting hundreds of billions from the popular Medicare programs, whose beneficiaries vote in numbers greater than any other age group. Doctors and hospitals already complain that Medicare reimbursements fall short of costs, let alone profits. Good luck with that.
"Health care reform" achieves its deficit-reducing magic by collecting taxes in the early years — building up money — while paying out very little. Only after the first four years does money go out. It also forces states to pick up part of the tab. So, voila, it actually reduces the deficit — at least in the first decade. Then what?
The Congressional Budget Office — in cost estimates full of caveats, conditions and on-the-one-hands — says that it could/might/may reduce the deficit in the second and third decades, too. Again, this assumes continued cuts in doctor and hospital reimbursements.
Despite the White House photo-op of docs in their white frocks, most physicians oppose ObamaCare. They resent further government supervision and control over their practice. An IBD poll found that 65% "oppose" ObamaCare and that 45% would consider taking early retirement or leaving their practice if the bill went through.
Given the broad opposition — most Americans, most doctors and seniors in fear of cuts in Medicare — why do it?
First, the Democrats — now in control of all three branches of government — have convinced themselves that they face a political price if they fail.
ObamaCare supporters, based on bogus assumptions and inflated numbers, argue that many, if not most, bankruptcy filings are due to health care bills. If, as President Obama asserts, "reforming" health care and economic prosperity go hand in hand, how can they abandon it?
Second, while a large majority of Republicans and most independents oppose these "reforms," Democrats overwhelming support them. They consider health care and health insurance a right — never mind the Constitution or the price tag — and think "the rich" should bear the costs.
Congressmen fear an electorate upset at a failure "to deliver" a victory over the evil, money-grubbing insurance companies.
Third, many believe in good faith that this is the "right thing to do."
This ignores the mountain of evidence that government command-and-control health care reduces quality, reduces innovation and inevitably leads to rationing. The president of the Canadian Medical Association says Canada's system — a single-payer kind, favored by President Obama — is "imploding." She calls for more competition.
Critics of our health care system say citizens in other countries enjoy longer life expectancies. But after adjusting for homicides, infant mortality due to teen pregnancies and low birth weights, obesity and other factors, the discrepancy disappears.
Our system produces the world's best results for cancer patients who go into medical care at the same time similarly situated patients enter their countries' care. Our drug companies lead the world in coming up with new life-extending and -enhancing drugs, a record at risk given new controls and taxes under the guise of "reform."
When the ObamaCare bill comes due — when the deficit explodes and the costs are "controlled" through government-directed rationing — supporters, including Obama, will long have departed Washington, leaving others to deal with the mess.
Sen. Harry Reid despicably called those who opposed his healthcare plan on par with slave owners and supportive of slavery. We feel that he has it all backwards. It is Congress that is acting like the slave owner, imposing crushing and intrusive mandates, massive increases of taxes, limitation of choices and rationing of healthcare on the American public.
We have stated many times in previous posts that Obama and the Democrats in Congress want to impose a healthcare system on an unwilling American public that is the polar opposite of what these politicians speciously claim it to be. There will be severe restrictions on choices and availability of care with governmental rationing. Waiting times will be longer while the quality of care will plummet yet the total cost borne by each individual will significantly increase both through more expensive premiums and usurious taxation.
Congressional Democrats and Obama claim that their healthcare legislation establishes a great system for the American people. If it really is so fantastic then why are they refusing to agree to amendments that would force them to use the same healthcare system as they want to impose on us? The answer is because they know this system will be disastrous – limiting choice, rationing and restricting care, creating prolonged waiting times before receiving care and being far more costly for significantly inferior quality. Why should they have to give up their privileged premium care that is subsidized by the American taxpayer and provides them with myriad choices?
This whole healthcare reform is all about government control and nothing more. As Investors Business Daily put it:
“… health reform's purposes were advertised as cost containment and near-universal coverage. But what Democrats are set to enact will spend trillions dramatically increasing insurance premiums, and leave millions still without insurance.
In other words, their push for health reform has been based on lies. The real purpose: to gain control of America's health system.
And on top of the lies is the hypocrisy the American people have come to expect from their politicians: continuation of the nearly 50-year-old loophole providing senators and House members with a wide choice of private health plans.”
We need to continue fighting to stop this legislation as well as vigorously work at ousting these arrogant, imperious members of Congress who are ruling us rather than representing us!
Reform For You, But Not Congress
Investors Business Daily 12/04/2009
Hypocrisy: If the $2-trillion-plus government health care plan that Congress has come up with is so great, why do lawmakers refuse to live under it themselves? Their designs have been based on lies from the start.
The left thinks Sens. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and David Vitter, R-La., have shot themselves in their feet. After unveiling last week their amendment that would force Senate and House members to cover themselves with any government health plan that passes into law, Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, a champion of the public option, proceeded to ask if he could sign on as a co-sponsor. Liberal Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said he might want to, as well.
"Coburn and Vitter weren't counting on that kind of support," gloated Nation magazine Washington correspondent John Nichols. "If they're smart, the rest of the Democratic caucus will follow Brown's lead and sign on for the public option."
Well, when it comes to feathering their own nests, congressional Democrats are smart. And they're not about to subject themselves to anything less than the taxpayer-subsidized, gold-plated array of private coverage choices they've enjoyed for nearly a half century in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.
Coburn and Vitter's idea of politicians living under a government plan "was opposed unanimously by Democrats during interviews on Thursday," the Hill newspaper reports. The paper also noted opposition from senior Republican senators such as National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Cornyn of Texas and Minority Whip Jon Kyl of Arizona, who asked: "Why would I want to put my family in that, let alone anybody else's family?"
Senators and representatives from both sides of the aisle know how good they have it under the FEHBP, the world's largest group health program. The reason Congress' own health care works so well is that it's based on consumer choice and market competition — the opposite of what it's trying to impose on everybody else.
Members of Congress and millions of federal workers may choose from hundreds of private fee-for-service plans, HMOs or preferred provider organizations, with no federal worker living anywhere enjoying fewer than a dozen options.
FEHBP members can easily switch plans if they become dissatisfied; that puts competitive pressure on insurers to provide quality and value. Surveys show that members love their coverage, which is why almost all federal employees join the program.
The FEHBP is shielded from state regulation and Uncle Sam subsidizes premiums by more than 70%. Canadian physician and Manhattan Institute senior fellow Dr. David Gratzer, whose opposition to government-run health care comes from first-hand experience, observes that "the federal government's role in the FEHBP is to pay the bills," unlike the fiscally doomed Medicare program, of which "Washington is the designer of benefits."
Today, instead of the federal takeover Democrats are rushing to enact, lawmakers could give Americans the kind of high-quality health care choices they enjoy. A simple system of vouchers would allow recipients to choose any health plan on the market. The system could be means-tested, with Medicare giving "larger vouchers to poorer and sicker seniors and smaller vouchers to healthy and wealthy seniors, using current health-risk-adjustment mechanisms and Social Security data on lifetime earnings," says Michael F. Cannon, director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute.
Vouchers "would contain Medicare spending, and are the only way to protect seniors from government rationing," according to Cannon.
"The FEHBP is an excellent model for designing a system based on broad personal choice," argues Robert Moffit, the Heritage Foundation's director of health policy studies. "There is no reason," he adds, "why a reform of Medicare could not establish a similar structure for national plan options," including integrating private retiree health insurance into the system.
But instead of such common-sense reform, Americans are staring at thousands of pages of new regulations on their personal medical treatment, including a government-run option that will devastate the private coverage most Americans have and like. The inevitable result, as independent studies warn, is thousands of dollars more to pay in health premiums.
In last year's presidential campaign, health reform's purposes were advertised as cost containment and near-universal coverage. But what Democrats are set to enact will spend trillions dramatically increasing insurance premiums, and leave millions still without insurance.
In other words, their push for health reform has been based on lies. The real purpose: to gain control of America's health system.
And on top of the lies is the hypocrisy the American people have come to expect from their politicians: continuation of the nearly 50-year-old loophole providing senators and House members with a wide choice of private health plans.
On Monday, Dec. 7th, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid repugnantly, contemptuously and irresponsibly compared Republican opponents of the healthcare reform with those individuals who supported slavery in the 1800’s before the Civil War. This racist and destructive vituperation should not be uttered by any member of Congress but having the Senate Majority Leader perpetrating such an offense is intolerable. He should be censured immediately and mandated to make an official retraction.
Unfortunately, the vitriol and intolerance by the Democrats of opposing points of view has become the norm with the most egregious offenders being the “leaders” of the Democratic Party including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, Charles Schumer and, of course, Barack Obama . These individuals have been corrupted by power and seek to acquire absolute power over the American people. They are not legislating as in a benign democracy but rather as in an oppressive totalitarian government.
We must relentlessly work to remove these corrupt politicians from office. Vigorously support the Tea Parties and alternative candidates before we reach the point of no return which we are fast approaching
and IMPEACH OBAMA!
Reid Compares Opponents of Health Care Reform to Supporters of Slavery
FOXNews.com December 07, 2009
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid took his GOP-blasting rhetoric to a new level Monday, comparing Republicans who oppose health care reform to lawmakers who clung to the institution of slavery more than a century ago.
The Nevada Democrat, in a sweeping set of accusations on the Senate floor, also compared health care foes to those who opposed women's suffrage and the civil rights movement -- even though it was Sen. Strom Thurmond, then a Democrat, who unsuccessfully tried to filibuster the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and it was Republicans who led the charge against slavery.
Senate Republicans on Monday called Reid's comments "offensive" and "unbelievable."
But Reid argued that Republicans are using the same stalling tactics employed in the pre-Civil War era.
"Instead of joining us on the right side of history, all the Republicans can come up with is, 'slow down, stop everything, let's start over.' If you think you've heard these same excuses before, you're right," Reid said Monday.
"When this country belatedly recognized the wrongs of slavery, there were those who dug in their heels and said 'slow down, it's too early, things aren't bad enough.'"
He continued: "When women spoke up for the right to speak up, they wanted to vote, some insisted they simply, slow down, there will be a better day to do that, today isn't quite right.
"When this body was on the verge of guaranteeing equal civil rights to everyone regardless of the color of their skin, some senators resorted to the same filibuster threats that we hear today."
That seemed to be a reference to Thurmond's famous 1957 filibuster -- the late senator switched parties several years later.
Reid's office stood by the remarks, with spokesman Jim Manley saying Republicans have "done nothing but obstruct health care" in the Senate.
"Today's feigned outrage is nothing but a ploy to distract from the fact they have no plan to lower the cost of health care, stop insurance company abuses or protect Medicare," Manley said.
But Republicans said they were genuinely appalled. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said Reid's remarks were over the top.
"That is extremely offensive," he told Fox News. "It's language that should never be used, never be used. ... Those days are not here now."
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who on the Senate floor read from this FoxNews.com article and asked that it be placed in the record, called on Reid to return to the floor and, if not apologize, at least explain what he meant.
Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., suggested Reid was starting to "crack" under the pressure of the health care reform debate.
"I think it's beneath the dignity of the majority leader," Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., said. "I personally am insulted."
The great British statesman and philosopher once said that “Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.” A close corollary to it is that “Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it”. Unfortunately, we have this precise situation at many levels with Obama and the Congressional Democrats. In our Dec. 1st post , we compared the parallels of history regarding the British car industry and the government takeover there to our present situation with GM. Obama’s actions are mirroring the failed policies of the 1930’s that painfully prolonged the depression far beyond what would have otherwise occurred. Of course, there are many other examples.
The following describes a hauntingly similar situation to ours that transpired in Argentina and what happened when the government there did exactly what Obama and the Democrats are pursuing. The results: DISASTER!
The following is the third editorial posted here that was written by Svetlana Kunin, a Russian immigrant who lived in the communist Soviet Union. It offers her unique insights into the parallels of life and rhetoric in Russia and what is occurring here in the United States under Obama, Pelosi and Co. We must be vigilant, aggressive, proactive and vocal and do whatever is necessary to thwart these changes or this will be another example of history repeating itself to our severe detriment.
Perspective Of A Russian Immigrant (No. 3)
By Svetlana Kunin
Whenever I speak about my experiences living in the USSR, my American friends respond that such things can never happen in a democracy like the United States.
They don't understand why I am repulsed when I hear the president talk about "sacrificing for the collective good," which sounds so compassionate, as opposed to greedy capitalism.
"Sacrifice for the collective good" is one of the founding principles of socialism, where the collective, not the individual, is the basis of society.
Revolutionaries in Russia did not go around boasting about destruction; they made inspiring speeches about fairness, equality, justice and the greater good. After securing power and their own access to material goods, government officials decided what to give and take from the masses, according to their definition of what is good.
When party leaders talk about the "collective good," what they are really talking about is their right to determine what is good for the collective. Government bureaucrats decide what level of sacrifice is needed and who needs to sacrifice. They replace voluntary charity with the forceful redistribution of other people's private property.
Why do people born into a free society accept a failed 100-year-old ideology? It seems Americans are simply unaware of modern history. They don't know the theory behind slogans such as "fairness and equality" and "sacrifice for the collective good," much less how it works when implemented. They buy into old utopian slogans masquerading as new progressive ideals for "Hope and Change."
In the USA, people move up and down the economic ladder all the time. In Western Europe, a milder form of a socialist-democratic political system resulted in higher unemployment, less innovation and less social mobility compared with the U.S. European youth face a continuing decline in their standard of living, as they are burdened with an unsustainable welfare state.
In the USSR, China, North Korea and Cuba, a much harsher form of socialism led to mass murder and mass misery under the banner of "sacrificing for the collective good," "fairness and equality" and service to the state.
The USSR provides numerous examples of what an oppressive centralized government can lead to:
Millions of talented artists, writers and scientists were sent to prison because they did not conform to government standards. Government control of agriculture led to constant shortages of food in one of the largest and most resource-rich lands in the world.
Americans think they are protected. The Constitution is a uniquely American document that specifically limits the power of the government and protects individual liberties. But if all branches of government will ignore this unique document, and people will allow them to do so, there will be nothing different about America.
Americans are not different from people in Russia, Germany, China, Korea or anywhere else. It is human nature to seek power and control, just as it is human nature to seek profit. Deny profit and you destroy any incentive for people to produce and innovate. Give up enough of your liberty to any centralized power and the result is entirely predictable.
Compare North Korea to South Korea, East Germany to West Germany before the fall of the wall — these are examples of the same people living under two different systems: socialism vs. capitalism.
Laws are necessary in a civil society, and this includes laws that regulate the free market. But a government takeover of the economy will result in the transformation of the land of opportunity into a land of apathy and stagnation, a land in which individuals become cogs moving and turning according to government regulations.
In the USSR, they taught us in school that socialism is good and capitalism is bad. That they now teach the same in American schools I find strange.
If these egregious errors were due to the irresponsibility of your surgeon, he or she would lose their license to practice medicine. In contrast, politicians and lawyers (often the same animal) divorce themselves from any personal responsibility and are not subject to legal actions. Elections are too infrequent to be of immediate consequence.
So the results are ... More of the same incompetence, arrogance, greed, corruption,self-serving legislation and wasting of our money!
According to Thomas Sowell and what many of us have suspected, a politician’s priority is not to serve his or her constituents in a benevolent fashion. As he puts it:
“They are trying to solve their own problems — of which getting elected and re-elected are No. 1 and No. 2. Whatever is No. 3 is far behind.”
Therefore, decisions of politicians which we may interpret as being ridiculous, in fact are usually not. They may not make sense for the voters but they usually are self serving for the representative.
If we assume this to be true, then we can make two very important conclusions:
1. If we are able to implement term limits, our representatives may actually be more inclined to base decisions on what is best for the electorate. Might they also be less inclined to request or approve pork in various legislation? Wouldn’t that be great!
2. If the voters are extremely vociferous and restive rather than invisibly complacent, the politicians might be more inclined to side with their constituents as they may perceive that otherwise, their re-election chances will be jeopardized.
Obama and Congressional Democrats are disingenuously and dishonestly attempting to impose a bill of goods on healthcare that is rotten to the core on myriad fronts. Let’s focus just on the costs here. They claim that Obamacare (Pelosicare) is fiscally responsible and will not “add a dime” to the deficit. Even with the imposition of massive tax increases, unconstitutional mandates that force people to “purchase” health insurance, and front-end loaded receipts, this is an intentional audacious lie.
Using financial legerdemain, Congress and Obama have removed real costs from within the bill and simply applied them elsewhere. They still exist and are real but they don’t appear in the Obamacare bill so the costs ostensibly appear not as large. Of course, there are other tricks as well.
Furthermore, their assessment of patients’ usage of the system far underestimates reality. Add to that the government’s notorious inaccuracies of underestimating program costs by a factor of 3 to a factor of 10. Dealing now with trillions of dollars, we have the recipe for irreversible financial collapse if Obamanocare is implemented.
In a way, the liberal politicians of today can learn quite a lot from the real life experiences of the Pilgrims when they first landed at Plymouth in 1620. The Democratic Congress and radical Obama Administration want to effectively eviscerate capitalism and impose socialism on us which will be disastrous.
We, the American people know that. So did the Pilgrims, but they had to find out the hard way.
The following article effectively outlines this historical perspective in an insightful way that is most applicable to our predicament today.
Thankful For Plenty
Investors Business Daily 11/24/2009
Blessings: Thanksgiving, as we all learned in school, was about Native Americans and Pilgrims feasting together in friendship to give thanks for a bountiful harvest. The truth, as is often the case, is quite different.
We've all heard about how the Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth after a perilous overseas trip — and how they nearly starved until Native Americans, including the English-speaking Squanto and Wampanoag Chief Massasoit, helped them to survive by teaching them about native foods and cultivation.
There's some truth to that. The Indians did help out. But a bigger reason for why they survived to give thanks — and one that gets short shrift today — can be summed up in one word: capitalism.
After reaching land in 1620, the Pilgrims — led by Gov. William Bradford — set about organizing their society along communal lines. Each would give according to his ability, and each would receive according to his needs — a kind of primitive communism.
Profiteering would not be allowed. All land and production would be publicly owned. It was an ugly disaster from the start.
Strong men ceased working hard when it became clear others weren't pulling their weight. Frustrated at being unable to better their own lot in life, some even resorted to theft.
Within months, people were starving. Literally. Nearly half the colony of 106 died in the first awful winter of 1621. The winter of 1622 was little better. Paradise had turned into a death camp.
Gov. Bradford later wrote that the colony was beset by "confusion and discontent." Something had to change. But what?
Desperate, Bradford and the other elders abandoned the colony's cherished communalism, instead allowing settlers to "set corn every man for his own particular, and in that regard trust to themselves. And so assigned to every family a parcel of land."
Basic agrarian capitalism, in short.
As Bradford wrote in his "History of Plymouth Plantation," "This had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been ... . (I)nstead of famine, now God gave them plenty, and the face of things was changed, to the rejoicing of the hearts of many."
By 1623, the bounty produced by the colony's privately owned farm parcels was substantial. Famine no longer stalked the people, and survival was no longer in doubt. That year, the first real Thanksgiving was held.
Today, in an era of bailouts and massive government spending, capitalism has come under sustained and withering criticism. Perhaps some of that criticism is deserved.
Yet we'd do well to remember it's the one system that reliably produces plenty. It lets us realize our true potential and rise above the circumstances of our birth. And it unleashes humankind's awesome creativity, making possible the material blessings we have.
Like the Pilgrims, we should be thankful for all this.
Congress has not demonstrated any evidence that its worsening addiction to spending our tax dollars will be sated. Exacerbating this problem is its constant search for ways to further increase taxes to feed its inimical habit. We the hard-working sacrificing taxpayers are always the losers.
Pelosi and other Democrats in Congress are now considering VAT as a mother lode of more tax receipts. This stealth tax would be severely oppressive and non-transparent to the taxpayer and prone to political and ideological abuse. What VAT is, why it is dangerous and why it must never be implemented here are discussed in the following article.
VAT Would Be One Big Tub Of Trouble
By Wayne Crews and Ryan Young
Ask a man on the street what VAT means. After giving you a strange look, he'll probably give an answer along the lines of "a large tub." In a way, he'd be right: America's on-again, off-again move towards a Value Added Tax (VAT) is a metaphorical large tub, into which huge but nearly untraceable amounts of money will disappear.
A VAT is a tax on each stage of production, calculated according to how much value each producer adds to its products.
In the search for ways to reduce the record $1.4 trillion federal budget deficit, the VAT has occasionally popped up. In May a spokesman for President Barack Obama's budget director, Peter Orszag, expressed openness to the idea. Just last month, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on "Charlie Rose" that a VAT was "on the table."
It should be taken off. The root cause of the deficit is too much spending, not too little taxing. Putting a new tax on top of what we already pay is the wrong approach.
As far as taxes go, the VAT is especially destructive. If Congress is going to increase taxes, installing a VAT is one of the worst options.
For one, it would require roughly doubling the size of the IRS. Fifteen years ago, CBO estimated compliance and administrative costs for a VAT at $8.5 billion annually. That figure can safely be placed at more than $10 billion by now. The IRS' entire budget is currently $11.4 billion.
VATs are also untransparent. When traditional sales taxes are added to the goods we buy, we know the amount simply by looking at our receipts.
But VATs are hidden. Since manufacturers pay them in advance, they are factored into the prices consumers pay. VATs do not show up on receipts.
Knowing how much we are taxed is a fundamental right that preserves our ability to challenge excess government in a constitutional republic. A VAT would take that away.
Americans work more than one-third of the year for federal, state, and local governments before keeping a dime for themselves. We can still know, to the penny, how much we pay by looking at our pay stubs and old 1040 and state income-tax returns.
This transparency is one of the few checks that citizens have against runaway tax increases. Because a VAT is so easily hidden, consumers can shoulder a massive tax burden and not know it. VATs are fundamentally unfair.
They are also needlessly complex. The U.S. tax code is already over 100,000 pages. The last thing taxpayers need is another layer of complexity. They need simplification. International experience with VATs shows that, even if they are simple at first, they quickly grow into Hydra-headed monsters.
Not too long ago, France was roiled with controversy over whether dandruff shampoo constitutes a medicine taxable at 5.5%, or a cosmetic taxable at 18.6%. There are more pressing issues that deserve our attention.
Most countries with VATs have at least three different rates. Politically incorrect products are hit with punitive rates. Danish car buyers, for example, pay the standard 25% VAT, plus a special 105% VAT on the first $11,000 of the car's value, plus a third VAT of 180% on any remaining value.
All in all, Danes pay roughly triple retail price for their cars. An American VAT would make it easier for environmental activists to give U.S. car buyers similar treatment.
VAT rates also tend to go up over time, not down. Twenty-nine OECD countries currently have a VAT; 20 of them have increased their VAT rate over time. The average rate for newly introduced VAT rates in Europe was 5%. Now the average European VAT is more than triple that — 17.7%.
Taxpayers are overburdened as it is. The best way to reduce budget deficits is to cut spending. VATs should be avoided at all costs. They are complex. They are untransparent. They are hidden. They are vulnerable to special-interest tinkering. They are prone to increases. They should be rejected.
Despite inexorable denials by Obama, Pelosi and Congressional Democrats, the basic fiscal tenet of Obamanocare is rationing of healthcare. Plain and simple. Ignore the prevarications about rationing, cost savings, compassionate care, keeping your own doctor who will make the healthcare decisions along with you, etc. These are all part of the nefarious scheming intended to deceive the public about their ultimate goal of government control of healthcare, transfer of wealth and further aggrandizement of government power.
The following editorial from The Wall Street Journal, delineates some of the inimical dictates of the legislation.
The Rationing Commission
Meet the unelected body that will dictate future medical decisions.
As usual, the most dangerous parts of ObamaCare aren't receiving the scrutiny they deserve—and one of the least examined is a new commission to tell Congress how to control health spending. Democrats are quietly attempting to impose a "global budget" on Medicare, with radical implications for U.S. medicine.
Like most of Europe, the various health bills stipulate that Congress will arbitrarily decide how much to spend on health care for seniors every year—and then invest an unelected board with extraordinary powers to dictate what is covered and how it will be paid for. White House budget director Peter Orszag calls this Medicare commission "critical to our fiscal future" and "one of the most potent reforms."
On that last score, he's right. Prominent health economist Alain Enthoven has likened a global budget to "bombing from 35,000 feet, where you don't see the faces of the people you kill."
As envisioned by the Senate Finance Committee, the commission—all 15 members appointed by the President—would have to meet certain budget targets each year. Starting in 2015, Medicare could not grow more rapidly on a per capita basis than by a measure of inflation. After 2019, it could only grow at the same rate as GDP, plus one percentage point.
The theory is to let technocrats set Medicare payments free from political pressure, as with the military base closing commissions. But that process presented recommendations to Congress for an up-or-down vote. Here, the commission's decisions would go into effect automatically if Congress couldn't agree within six months on different cuts that met the same target. The board's decisions would not be subject to ordinary notice-and-comment rule-making, or even judicial review.
Yet if the goal really is political insulation, then the Medicare Commission is off to a bad start. To avoid a senior revolt, Finance Chairman Max Baucus decided to bar his creation from reducing benefits or raising the eligibility age, which meant that it could only cut costs by tightening Medicare price controls on doctors and hospitals. Doctors and hospitals, naturally, were furious.
So the Montana Democrat bowed and carved out exemptions for such providers, along with hospices and suppliers of medical equipment. Until 2019 the commission will thus only be allowed to attack Medicare Advantage, the program that gives 10 million seniors private insurance choices, and to raise premiums for Medicare prescription drug coverage, which is run by private contractors. Notice a political pattern?
But a decade from now, such limits are off—which also happens to be roughly the time when ObamaCare's spending explodes. The hard budget cap means there is only so much money to be divvied up for care, with no account for demographic changes, such as longer life spans, or for the increasing incidence of diabetes, heart disease and other chronic conditions.
Worse, it makes little room for medical innovations. The commission is mandated to go after "sources of excess cost growth," meaning treatments that are too expensive or whose coverage will boost spending. If researchers find a pricey treatment for Alzheimer's in 2020, that might be banned because it would add new costs and bust the global budget. Or it might decide that "Maybe you're better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller," as President Obama put it in June.
In other words, the Medicare commission would come to function much like the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, which rations care in England. Or a similar Washington state board created in 2003 to control costs. Its handiwork isn't pretty.
The Washington commission, called the Health Technology Assessment, is manned by 11 bureaucrats, including a chiropractor and a "naturopath" who focuses on alternative, er, remedies like herbs and massage therapy. They consider the clinical effectiveness but above all the cost of medical procedures and technologies. If they decide something isn't worth the money, then Olympia won't cover it for some 750,000 Medicaid patients, public employees and prisoners.
So far, the commission has banned knee arthroscopy for osteoarthritis, discography for chronic back pain, and implantable infusion pumps for pain not related to cancer. This year, it is targeting such frivolous luxuries as knee replacements, spinal cord stimulation, a specialized autism therapy and MRIs of the abdomen, pelvis or breasts for cancer. It will also rule on routine ultrasounds for pregnancy, which have a "high" efficacy but also a "high" cost.
Currently, the commission is pushing through the most restrictive payment policy in the nation for drug-eluting cardiac stents—simply because bare metal stents are cheaper, even as they result in worse outcomes. If a patient is wheeled into the operating room with chest pains in an emergency, doctors will first have to determine if he's covered by a state plan, then the diameter of his blood vessels and his diabetic condition to decide on the appropriate stent. If they don't, Washington will not reimburse them for "inappropriate care."
If Democrats impose such a commission nationwide, it would constitute a radical change in U.S. health care. The reason that physician discretion—not Washington's cost-minded judgments—is at the core of medicine is that usually there are no "right" answers. The data from large clinical trials produce generic conclusions that rarely apply to individual patients, who have vastly different biologies, response rates to treatments, and often multiple conditions. A breakthrough drug like Herceptin, which is designed for a certain genetic subset of breast-cancer patients, might well be ruled out under such a standardized approach.
It's possible this global budget could become an accounting fiction, like the automatic Medicare cuts Congress currently pretends it will impose on doctors. But health care's fiscal pressures will be even stronger than they are today if ObamaCare passes in anything like its current form. And that is when politicians will want this remote, impersonal and unaccountable central committee to do the inevitable dirty work of denying care.
The only way to take the politics out of health care is to give individuals more power to control medical dollars. And the first step should be not to create even more government spending commitments. The core problem with government-run health care is that it doesn't make decisions in the best interests of patients, but in the best interests of government.
Video: Pelosi Asserts That it's 'Fair' to Jail People Without Health Insurance
The arrogance, haughtiness and condescension displayed by Pelosi and her cronies to the citizens of this country as exemplified in this video are unparalleled. Why? Because they know that they have full and effectively unopposed power in the government and the unwavering near unanimous support of the news media. They can pretty much do whatever they want with little consequence or so they think.
As Thomas Jefferson sagely noted over 200 years ago:
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny
When the government fears the people, there is liberty.
Who is going to stop them?
If we want to save our country from fascism and tyranny and protect our rights and freedoms, we must immediately, persistently, effectively and aggressively oppose these corrupt, power-crazed, contemptuous politicians.
The tea parties were a good start… but Obama, Pelosi, Reid, et.al. need to start fearing us a lot more!
The following is among the most thorough but concise, cogent and eloquent articles detailing Obama’s hatred of America. It leaves no doubt as to his attitude and ideology – as if we really needed any convincing.
Of course, this all begs the question: What are we to do with a President who hates America and is dismantling it to fit the socialist/communist country that he envisions?
Impeachment?
The Man Who Despises America
By Mark Hyman
The very next paragraph is going to make the nut jobs on the far left excitable beyond belief. I am not referring to all Democrats or even a majority of liberals. I am singling out the "they've-lost-all-touch-with-reality" crowd. This includes Media Matters for America led by the admitted hit-and-run, drunk-driving serial liar. The group includes the unshaven, bathrobe-clad unemployed who live in their mother's basement and are devout followers of MoveOn.Org. It is also the bitter, aging spinster working at the New York Times, the morbidly obese documentary film maker, and cable TV news' resident drama queen who hosts MSNBC's Countdown. They are about to simultaneously suffer from brain aneurisms. So without further delay, I'll say it.
Barack Obama despises America.
When people who voted for Obama in 2008 -- including registered Democrats -- start speaking in normal conversational voices at dinner parties, neighborhood gatherings and PTA meetings that the over-inflated ego from Chicago has it "in for America," then it's clear most reasonable people have reached the same conclusion.
The central conviction of Obama's ideology is that America is guilty of limitless moral failures and is the chief architect of the world's ills. Obama has boundless enmity for America, its key institutions, and its longtime allies. Consider these facts.
The 30-years of Obama's post-adolescent life are radical by any measure. First, he grew up listening to the ramblings of committed Communist Frank Marshall Davis. It had such a profound effect on him that he wrote fondly of Davis in his first book. In fact, that book is replete with statement after statement about how the U.S. is deeply flawed. Most Americans believe in American exceptionalism. Not so with Obama.
Patriotic Americans would not have listened to the bigoted, anti-Semitic, hate-America rants of a fringe religious leader for 20 seconds let alone for 20 years. Yet, Obama who admitted he attended services at Trinity United Church at least twice a month for two decades called Jeremiah Wright his mentor and his moral sounding board.
Nor would most Americans cultivate a close friendship with an admitted domestic terrorist and his wife whose most notable life's accomplishments were to set off bombs that killed and maimed innocent people.
Joining Al Sharpton and Jeremiah Wright in organizing attendance at Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan's 1995 march on Washington is beyond imaginable. Especially after Farrakhan demonstrated public support for Colonel Muammar Qaddafi during the Libyan Leader's most bellicose years against the U.S., which included Libyan complicity in numerous terrorist attacks.
Obama's view of America in national security and foreign affairs is profoundly disappointing to say the least.
Americans overwhelmingly view the men and women who saved Europe and the Far East during World War II as comprising the Greatest Generation. By his comments and actions, President Obama obviously thinks otherwise.
Obama did not honor American greatness on the 60th anniversary of the Berlin Airlift while on his first European trip. Instead, he accused "America [of having] shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive" toward its European allies.
He also denigrated the accomplishments of the American G.I. during World War II in the Pacific theater when he offered a thinly veiled apology for the U.S. having dropped the A-bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Those acts brought the war to a swift conclusion, perhaps saving hundreds of thousands of lives when it appeared Japan was prepared to wage an island-by-island battle to the last man.
Obama ordered the release of the so-called CIA "torture memos," seriously damaging delicate intelligence relations with allied nations and placing at grave risk the safety of U.S. intelligence officers working overseas. The impact of his action handcuffs the ability of U.S. intelligence officials to protect the U.S. and American interests from acts of terrorism.
In a matter of weeks last spring, Obama gave deference to a variety of belligerent leaders while stiff-arming longtime American allies. First, he called for closer relations with Cuba while ignoring that nation's long list of continuing human rights abuses. Then he warmly welcomed Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez at an Organization of American States summit.
Next, he failed to respond and set the record straight after Nicaragua's Communist leader Daniel Ortega listed alleged U.S. crimes and atrocities during a nearly one-hour rant at the OAS meeting. It is unsettling that in his own remarks Obama incorrectly claimed the OAS has 36 members rather than the actual 34. Ortega and the hemisphere's other Socialist leaders claim the OAS would include 36 members if Cuba and an independent Puerto Rico were allowed to join. Mere coincidence or Freudian slip?
Immediately following the OAS embarrassments, Obama ignored a request from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to meet. Obama would repeat this snub six months later before agreeing at the last moment to meet Netanyahu after the Israeli leader was en route the U.S.
In his speech before the Muslim world, Obama made the patently absurd claim of equivalency between the status of displaced Palestinians and the slaughter of millions of Jews during the Holocaust. His claim that 7 million Muslims live in the U.S. is a figure inflated by as much as 700%.
In an earlier speech, Obama claimed that the U.S. is not a Christian nation, which is at odds with the fact that 79% of Americans self-identify as Christians and the nation's founders were devout Christians.
In less than six months in office, Obama apologized for Guantanamo Bay; for alleged mistakes committed by the CIA; for U.S. policy in the Americas; for America's history of slavery; for "sacrificing [American] values;" for "hasty decisions" in the war on terror; for "America's standing in the world;" for American errors in foreign policy; and for U.S. relations with the Muslim world.
He pronounced Iran's pursuit of nuclear technology acceptable and he warned Netanyahu against targeting Iran's nuclear facilities. Obama's approach to Iran is eerily similar to that of Jimmy Carter, whose actions contributed to the fall of that nation into the control of Islamic radicals.
This summer, the door to greater individual freedoms in Iran was firmly closed shut when Obama announced the U.S would not meddle in Iran's election and he offered no encouragement to democracy activists who protested the obviously stolen elections. His silence was deafening when regime security agents savagely attacked and killed countless Iranians who took to the streets.
In contrast to his deference to anti-American leaders such as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hugo Chavez, and Daniel Ortega, Obama strong-armed Netanyahu on key Israeli matters. In addition to snubbing the Israeli Prime Minister's requests to meet, Obama demanded an end to Israeli settlements and insisted on the creation of a two-state Palestine solution.
Obama abandoned NATO members Poland and the Czech Republic by canceling the central Europe missile defense plan just as rogue nations North Korea and Iran make advances in nuclear and ballistic missile production. The cancellation was demanded by Moscow authorities who have adopted a more confrontational posture toward the west.
Solidarity with freedom-loving East Germans has been a staple of the American presidency for nearly 50 years. John Kennedy pronounced himself a Berliner. Ronald Reagan demanded Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev "Tear down this wall!" Yet, this bricks and mortar icon of first, Soviet totalitarianism, and then, second, the end of Soviet domination did not make the cut as Obama chose not to attend the 20th anniversary of the fall of the wall. In the summer of 2008, Obama altogether skipped mentioning the role of the U.S. -- or even the West, for that matter -- in bringing down the wall, instead crediting "a world that stands as one."
Obama's disagreement with American values and institutions is evident in domestic issues. He has stocked his administration with wild-eyed radicals who believe foreign law trumps the U.S. Constitution (Harold Koh); include an avowed Marxist and "truther" who believes George Bush was complicit in the 9/11 attack and is also an ardent supporter of cop-killer Mumia Abu Jamal (Van Jones); and include a devoted admirer of Mao Tse-tung who slaughtered as many as 75 million people (Anita Dunn). (In contrast, George W. Bush's Attorney-General nominee John Ashcroft was savaged by the news media for being an Evangelical Christian.)
Three weeks after America's first black president was sworn in, the nation's first black Attorney-General who was hand-picked by Obama, called America "a nation of cowards" for some perceived race relations shortfall. The understood meaning of Eric Holder's comments is that white people are still racists. However, the reality is the people most preoccupied with fomenting the racial divide are those who populate the ranks of the Obama Administration.
Obama's Homeland Secretary designated military veterans as terrorists-in-waiting to be equally as dangerous as other domestic terrorists including pro-lifers and citizens opposed to the flood of illegal aliens.
One of Obama's very few suggestions to cut into his $1.4 trillion budget deficit was to have servicemen and women pay for their own war injuries. He's all for providing free health care to illegal aliens but believes wounded warriors should foot their own hospital bills. In fact, the Defense Department is about the only sector of government in which Obama has proposed slashing spending.
Hours after a belligerent "African-American Studies" Harvard professor engaged in behavior unbefitting anyone let alone a professional man, Obama accused the exceedingly tolerant Cambridge police officers as having "acted stupidly" and then digressed into how people of color have been unfairly treated by white America.
Bush was prolific in quietly and privately visiting the military wounded and family of the fallen. In contrast, Obama attempted to make political capital of his one visit to Dover Air Force Base. Obama's motives were so transparent that families of 17 of the 18 fallen denied permission for Obama to engage in a photo-op alongside the returning caskets.
In May, Obama immediately issued a statement that he was "shocked and outraged by the murder" of a Kansas doctor specializing in partial-birth abortions. He called it a "heinous act of violence." Attorney-General Holder mobilized U.S. Marshals nationwide to provide protection to abortion clinics.
But Obama remained silent the very next day when two U.S. soldiers were gunned down by a Muslim extremist outside a Little Rock recruiting station. After repeated prodding for a presidential comment, the White House faxed an after-hours statement to select media outlets two days later offering a tepid remark that Obama was "saddened" without even mentioning the soldiers were murdered.
Five months later, another Muslim fanatic gunned down nearly four dozen Americans, killing 13, at the Ft. Hood army base. It was an act that demanded the most serious demeanor of the military's Commander-in-Chief. Yet, Obama referenced the massacre in the most insincere fashion just seconds after a jocular shout-out to an audience member during a public speaking engagement. It was the equivalent of attending a funeral in swimwear while en route to the beach.
The odd inadvertent comment or occasional verbal faux pas can be explained away as just that. However, Obama has a lifetime of comments and actions including 10 months as president that belie his real attitude toward the U.S. The difference between Obama and his immediate predecessors such as Ronald Reagan, the George Bushes and Bill Clinton who actually revere and honor the greatness of America and its citizens and institutions cannot be overstated.
The following press release by Jim DeMint unveils his brilliant plan of seeking an Amendment to the United States Constitution which will set term limits for U. S. Senators and U.S. Representatives. In a very lucid and concise fashion he presents a very convincing case for this action.
November 10, 2009 - WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina) introduced an amendment to the United States Constitution that would apply term limits to all members of Congress, limiting U.S. Representatives to three terms and U.S. Senators to two terms in office. The amendment is cosponsored by U.S. Senators Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma), Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), and Sam Brownback (R-Kansas). As an amendment to the Constitution, it would require a two-thirds majority vote approval in the House and Senate and must be ratified by three-fourths of the states.
"Americans know real change in Washington will never happen until we end the era of permanent politicians," said Senator DeMint. "As long as members have the chance to spend their lives in Washington, their interests will always skew toward spending taxpayer dollars to buyoff special interests, covering over corruption in the bureaucracy, fundraising, relationship building among lobbyists, and trading favors for pork – in short, amassing their own power. I have come to realize that if we want to change the policies coming out of Congress, we must change the process itself. Over the last 20 years, Washington politicians have been reelected about 90% of the time because the system is heavily tilted in favor of incumbents. If we really want to put an end to business as usual, we’ve got to have new leaders coming to Washington instead of rearranging the deck chairs as the ship goes down.”
Senator Coburn added, “The best way to ensure we are truly a government of the people, for the people, and by the people, is to replace the career politicians in Washington with citizen legislators who care more about the next generation than their next election. The power of incumbency has created an almost insurmountable advantage for Washington politicians. Incumbency allows politicians to raise millions of dollars in campaign funds in exchange for earmarks. Incumbency gives Congress the power to raise money for itself – Congress just approved itself an increase of nearly $250 million from the U.S. Treasury that members will spend to promote themselves. Finally, with redistricting incumbents can choose their voters rather than voters choosing their representatives. Term limits is the best way to break this cycle.”
“Some say only long-serving, seasoned elites have the skills to lead the people, but that’s exactly what we have today and how do you think it’s working out for us?” said Senator DeMint. “It wasn’t the ‘people’ who gave us a $12 trillion debt, an IRS tax code seven times longer than the Bible, over 1,700 departments of the federal government, trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see, $100 trillion long-term shortfall in Social Security and Medicare, the Wall Street and auto bailouts, and the pending health care takeover.
“This nation can no longer afford these entrenched men and women who enjoy lives of luxury wholly insulated from the consequences of their major policy failures.
“I want to be clear: demanding that reformers adopt self-imposed term limits is a recipe for self-defeat on this issue. We lost the battle for term limits after the 1994 Republican Contract with America because we forced our best advocates for reform to go home, while the big-spending career politicians waited them out. We must have term limits for all or term limits will never succeed. Only when we apply the same rules to all will we be able to enact vital bipartisan reforms.
“Term limits will increase legislative turnover, expand the field of candidates who run for office, and instill transparency and accountability in our public officials. By ratifying this amendment, we can end the tremendous advantage enjoyed by incumbents in Washington, break long-lasting ties to special interests and lobbyists, and transform Congress from the body of career politicians that it has become, to a chamber of true citizen legislators,” said Senator DeMint.
The healthcare reform legislation, AKA Obamanocare or Pelosicare, is disastrous no matter which way it is assessed – cost, quality, delivery, rationing, disorganization, corruption, effects on medical research, etc. The ultimate reality based astronomical price tag will bankrupt our country and obliterate the standard of living for years to come as a consequence. The massive and oppressive tax hikes that Congressional Democrats disingenuously claims will pay for the government takeover of healthcare will not cover the costs but will most assuredly crush and destroy our economy.
“Congress has barely finished blowing the ink dry on its bill, but already its central fiscal premise is being convincingly challenged.
While Democrats have claimed the overhaul will cost $900 billion, the Congressional Budget Office puts the real cost at $1.1 trillion. The Associated Press, citing unnamed Democratic sources, comes up with $1.2 trillion; Republicans say it'll cost $1.3 trillion or more; others say it's more like $1.8 trillion.”
In our recent post, we noted that virtually all of the news media as well as Obama and many in Congress avoided calling the gunman who killed 13 people and wounded 30 at Fort Hood a “terrorist”. That was because he was a Muslim - so we shouldn’t “offend” him. Even with the well chronicled vitriol that he spewed in the presence of others about the righteousness of radical Islam, the virtues of jihad and terrorist attacks and his devoutness to Islam – "let’s not jump to conclusions".
We say: Bull S..t. Tell that to the devastated and forever affected families of the murdered innocent victims who died and to those who were injured.
We refuse to subscribe to a policy of political correctness and don’t think that you should either. Hiding or camouflaging reality and truth and burying your head in the sand may just result in the rest of you being buried too…
The following editorial from IBD discusses “political correctness”, the ubiquitous cancer that is destroying our rights, freedoms and safety.
Suicide By PC
War On Terror: The No. 1 lesson of the Fort Hood massacre is that political correctness kills. But instead of learning this lesson, the Pentagon is repeating the mistake, putting more soldiers at risk.
Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey warns that making the connection between Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan's terrorist act and his Islamic faith could "cause a backlash against some of our Muslim soldiers."
Yet ignoring that connection, despite one red flag after another, is what allowed Hasan allegedly to carry out his own violent backlash against non-Muslim soldiers.
Just a few months ago, Hasan was promoted to major. He passed a security clearance despite evidence he openly engaged in anti-American rants, and even discussed cutting the throats of infidels during a PowerPoint presentation. Now there are reports that U.S. intelligence intercepted contacts between Hasan and al-Qaida.
But shhh! This isn't about Islam. Close your eyes. Look the other way. Do not make the connection.
"It would be an even greater tragedy if our diversity becomes a casualty here," Casey said on Sunday's morning shows.
Really? Tell that to the victims of the Muslim terrorist who shouted "Allahu Akbar!" before pumping fellow soldiers full of bullets at close range. Tell it to their grieving families.
Diversity is a good thing only if Muslims embrace the military's mission. Of course many do, but a growing number object to fighting Muslims abroad. By our count, at least a dozen Muslims in uniform have been charged or convicted of terror or spying since 9/11, including Hasan. That's a sectarian pattern, not a random act by a lone gunman, as the media have portrayed it.
The prize for digging up the most imaginative excuse for Hasan's actions goes to ABC News. The network speculated he may have suffered from "second-hand trauma" — "like second-hand smoke" — from counseling soldiers with post traumatic stress disorder.
You see, Hasan had never actually been deployed, never seen combat, as first assumed. So the initial spin that he suffered PTSD no longer worked. Unless he suffered combat stress by proxy. So now it's "second-hand trauma." Anything but jihad.
But let's be fair. At least ABC reported that Hasan was Muslim. Over at Fox News, host Shephard Smith refused to even mention Hasan's name. And he's still waiting on a motive. "As journalists," the anchor said Monday, "we can't report what the motive was, because at this point, we don't know what his motive was."
Seems Fox has caught the PC virus.
Meanwhile, our commander in chief refuses to call the attack terrorism. And he seemed to take news of the military massacre glibly. Briefed on the shooting before an appearance at a Democrat event, he walked up to the podium grinning. Then, in a bizarre non-sequitur, he gave a "shout out" to a Democrat supporter, infuriating soldiers across the country, and rightfully so.
Surely the Homeland Security secretary would tell it like it is. No such luck. Janet Napolitano issued a warning to Americans from the UAE against any anti-Muslim backlash. She said she'd work with Muslim groups, such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations, to deflect any bigotry. To hear her, Islam was the real victim of the Islam-inspired terrorism.
Democrats aren't the only ones in denial. "It's certainly not about his religion," intoned GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham.
Passing out Qurans the morning of the shooting. Nope, no religion here! Proselytizing fellow soldiers to Islam. Not religion.
Close your eyes. Look the other way.
This PC insanity is literally killing us now. We are committing politically correct suicide. If the military is now too PC to protect its own troops from Islamic fanatics on its own soil, how can we be sure it can protect the rest of us?
The following insightful editorial written by Sen. Tom Coburn (R. – OK) and Representative Paul Ryan (R. – WI.) exposes the fallacies of the Democrats’ rhetoric and numbers as well as the multitude of dangers that the healthcare reform legislation poses to the average American. They write:
“The current reform product does not meet the test of either real reform or fiscal responsibility. Nor does it represent the best of both parties. It represents the frustrated ideological ambitions of one party that believes the way to pull the welfare state back from bankruptcy is by expanding it.”
Addressing just the financial aspects of the bill and the liabilities that it engenders, they note that:
“What is at stake in this process is not merely a lower standard of living for future generations, but a decline of freedom at home and abroad. We are risking our own national economic stability and security if we continue — through excessive borrowing — to hand potential adversaries leverage over our foreign and domestic policy.”
We have mentioned numerous times that while the Democrats aver that the Obamanocare/Pelosicare legislation is just about healthcare reform, it unequivocally isn’t. This is an indisputable unconstitutional theft of Americans’ healthcare rights and choices as well as their hard earned income. It is a government confiscation of another 17% of our GDP as well as a payback for political support of the Democrats to labor unions and trial attorneys in particular.
Buried within an even more bloated 1900 page document is a proviso in Section 2531 which rewards trial attorneys by creating disincentives for states that are attempting or have already implemented laws aimed at reducing extortionist medical-legal settlements.
"A state is not eligible for the incentive payments if that state puts a law on the books that limits attorneys' fees or imposes caps on damages."
Characterizing this, IBD note that “… states that have the “nerve” to rein in frivolous medical malpractice lawsuits — and that's 85% of them, according to a Harvard study — would be punished if they also established medical courts where health care experts, rather than untrained juries, settle injury disputes based on actual medical science.”
Once again, the Democrats are legislating what is in their best interest and not what is best for all Americans.
"The Senate Finance Committee health bill released last week controls doctors by cutting their pay if they give older patients more care than the government deems appropriate. Section 3003(b) (p. 683) punishes doctors who land in the 90th percentile or above on what they provide for seniors on Medicare by withholding 5 percent of their compensation.
This withhold provision forces doctors to choose between treating their patients and avoiding government penalties. HMOs used the same cost-cutting device in the early '90s until it was deemed dangerous to patients and outlawed. Now, lawmakers want to use it against the most vulnerable patients, the elderly. This bill and four others under negotiation also would slash about $500 billion from future Medicare funding."
Do you really want the Government dictating your medical care?
“The latest villain in the politicians' demagogic fantasyland is private health insurance. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has accused private insurers of making "immoral profits." And they're a prime target for taxes to pay for the health care revolution Congress and the White House have planned.
But in fact, as we pointed out recently in these pages, this is an industry that actually lags many others in the U.S. economy. Plenty of other sectors of private industry are doing far better.
And some of the things Washington has planned — in particular a "public option" — would leave private insurers bankrupt.”
The following editorial exposes the fallacy of the belief that insurance companies are reaping exorbitant profits. It also should serve as a warning that no dissenting or politically out of favor individual, group or industry is exempt from the demagoguery and the vicious, punitive and morally corrupt attacks by an ever more powerful neo-fascist government.
The Democrats’ plans for healthcare reform would be disastrous for Americans medically and financially as we have noted many times here before. Realizing that a vast majority of Americans are vehemently against the plans and socialized medicine in general, Pelosi and the Democrats are intent on imposing their ideological misguided legislation on us no matter what. They see it as government knows best and the greater its power and control, the better. We see it as an arrogant and corrupt power grab and abrogation of our rights and freedoms that will be a fiscal and social calamity.
We vehemently oppose the Democrats’ actions on healthcare reform and even more egregiously, their contemptuous and dismissive responses to an angry American public strongly against the legislation. Obama and Congressional Democrats have stated in no uncertain terms that they will impose this healthcare reform on us no matter what.
We have dissected this reform in previous editorials. This bill is ostensibly about healthcare but in actuality IT IS NOT. It will not lower costs, increase quality, or provide universal coverage which is the Democrat’s mantra. Instead, it will result in skyrocketing insurance costs far in excess of what would occur if nothing were done at all as well as massive increases in taxes. It will also lead to rationing, long waits, poorer quality of care, loss of confidentiality or our healthcare records, withholding of care and therapeutic options, increased morbidity and mortality of Americans, etc. Shall we go on?
In its essence, this bill is a naked, corrupt power grab by the Federal government, comprising an additional 17% of our economy under its control for a sum total of 43%. Its covert intentions are to steal additional freedoms and rights from us and make us more subservient and under greater government control. If you have scrutinized what legislation is available for public examination, read fact supported commentary and parsed the Democrats’ ideology, you will realize unequivocally that these conclusions are not paranoid rants. THEY ARE FACT BASED REALITY.
WE MUST RELENTLESS FIGHT AGAINST PASSAGE OF THIS LEGISLATION!!
The following is an extremely important and trenchant editorial posted in the October 19th edition of Investors Business Daily that sums up the current dire situation:
Dems Go Nuclear
Health Care: Democrats seem set to use the "nuclear option" to ram their government health takeover into law. Bipartisanship already looked dead; now it looks extinct.
The health care revolution the Democratic Congress has planned — with its inevitable medical rationing, thousands of dollars in increased insurance premiums, and coverage of illegal aliens — may get placed on the familiar fast track used to spend hundreds and hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars this year.
Instead of the 60 votes needed in the Senate if proper parliamentary rules were followed, passing this reshaping of the medical system as a "budget reconciliation" measure would mean only a simple majority was needed.
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., accused of cheating on his taxes, last week held a hearing to let the House version of the health reform bill be passed this way. As the Washington weekly Human Events reports, Democratic leaders "have apparently invoked the 'nuclear option' to shut out Republicans and ensure the bill is passed before the end of the year."
So all those "town hells" during the summer, where senators and congressmen were given an earful about passing secretly written thousand-page bills without reading them, will be ignored.
In the age of the Internet, Congress refuses to post for computer access the most consequential legislation in history, as far as its effect on human lives (and deaths) is concerned, before voting on it.
The people will have to wait until it's all signed, sealed and delivered before finding out exactly how this government-imposed monster will devour health care as Americans have known it for all their lives.
And why? Because both congressional Democrats and the White House are afraid of the power of the people. Just as they are both afraid to give the opposing party a seat at the negotiating table.
Rangel didn't allow Republicans to offer amendments in committee. Why not? Fear that Democrats might be embarrassed by having to reject a Republican amendment to protect Medicare, for one thing. And fear in general that the people might catch wind of a few bipartisan ideas that sound more sensible than their big government solutions.
The magnitude of what Congress is about to do is staggering. The federal government is about to begin dictating Americans' behavior regarding the most intimate and vital area of life — health.
You play ball with Uncle Sam and pay thousands and thousands of dollars for far more expensive insurance than what you're now used to, or you get slapped with fines. And as yet we don't know how heavy those fines will be — or if noncooperation with the new system will mean more than fines.
Doesn't Congress owe it to us to provide time to mull this over before it takes force?
Shouldn't the exact wording of this radical transformation of our medical system be available on the Internet for weeks before a floor vote takes place?
And shouldn't medical experts, health care providers and legal analysts get the opportunity to read every word of such a bill carefully, then give their well-considered analysis to concerned Americans?
Apparently not, according to those now running Washington.
To them, this is a rare opportunity to take a giant step toward single-payer, European-style socialized medicine. And they have no intention of letting the people stop them.
The following op-ed was written by well respected physician, Elizabeth Lee Vliet, M.D. In it, Dr. Vliet delineates her vehement opposition to the present healthcare reform.
In the 2008 campaign, we heard healthcare in this country is “broken” and must be “reformed.” We heard “healthcare reform” would be the signature piece of an Obama Presidency. We were promised no new taxes on anyone earning less than $250,000 per year. We heard promises of transparency in government. We heard promises of a White House that would listen to all. Now that President Obama and a Democratic majority are in office, what have we gotten?
The healthcare proposals have become a massive power grab to control your money, your health options, your businesses, your liberty, and ultimately your life. It is not about insuring the poor.We already have Medicaid to cover the poor.
What the Democratic majority is doing to healthcare in this country is a crime. Punishment won’t fall on Congress and the President, who are excluded from the healthcare proposals. Punishment falls on the American people, especially the elderly.
Word of a new “stealth” strategy to ram healthcare “reform” through the Senate raises even more cause for alarm and adds to the crime of this massive power grab. The plan appears to be for Senator Majority Leader Reid to merge the two Senate bills that have passed out of committee, and attach them as an amendment to a House TARP bill, already passed by the House but curiously gathering dust in the Senate. Once the Senate votes on this “TARP” bill with the healthcare amendment tucked neatly inside, the healthcare punishment is a “done deal” without further debate. Such an abuse of power and due process would be an unforgiveable crime against the American people, perpetrated by the very people elected to represent us.
Instead of “health insurance for all,” the House and Senate healthcare bills have become punishment for all. Here is the list of Americans who face the healthcare “reform” punishment:
- Punishment for the sick. Those who have medical expenses each year will no longer beable to deduct those expenses on taxes until the expenses reach 10% of adjusted gross income (AGI). The current deduction is set at expenses above 7.5% of AGI, so the Senate plan now ADDS a 2.5% tax on those who are already paying out of pocket for medical expenses. Clearly, if someone is spending more than 7.5% on medical costs,that person is ill. The Senate bill makes the sick even sicker from the stress of having to pay more taxes!
- Punishment for the elderly. Medicare cuts of 404 BILLION is the latest figure released by the Senate; earlier the White House budget office said $500 Billion – more than a full year’s Medicare budget – would have to be cut from Medicare. How can anyone begin to think these cuts will not penalize the elderly by delaying, rationing, or denying treatment?
- Punishment for young people. Young healthy people who do not buy government mandated insurance will be punished with the form of a excise tax – reported amounts have been from $1900 to $3800 per person.
- Punishment for anyone not paying the excise tax. The IRS fine for non-payment of tax can be $25,000 and a year in jail. So those who are punished by the new tax risk being accused of a tax crime if they don’t buy government-mandated insurance and who don’t pay the penalty tax.
- Punishment for insurance companies. Companies providing “generous health insurance plans” will be hit with a 35% tax.
- Punishment for consumers who buy “generous” health insurance policies, as the tax on insurance companies is passed on to purchasers.
- Punishment for those who buy their own health insurance…a new 40% tax. Does it really make sense to punish the responsible people who take care of their own healthcare bills?
- Punishment for low income seniors, Hispanics, and Blacks who will lose their Medicare Advantage program under the new proposals.
- Punishment for those with Health Savings Accounts – HSAs will be extinct.
- Punishment for specialists who serve mainly elderly patients, such as cardiologists and oncologists. Such specialists are slated to have their reimbursements for services slashed by 44% under the Senate bill.
- Punishment for medical device makers in the form of new taxes (a tax that will be passed on to consumers).
- Punishment for all doctors, who are required to purchase expensive new computersystems and software to convert to Electronic Medical Records to meet the 2014 mandates in the Stimulus Bill.
- Punishment for those who value their medical privacy. The Stimulus Bill requires all physicians, beginning in 2014, to send patients’ medical records directly to the federal health czar without further permission from patients.
- Punishment for all 50 State governments. Already running at a deficit with the recession, State governments face catastrophic increases in costs with Medicaid costs being shifted to them by the Federal government under the new proposals.
- Punishment for everyone, due to Speaker Pelosi’s proposal for a National Sales Tax (also called a VAT) to pay for healthcare reform. This new tax would hit everyone hard in a recession, and would be on TOP of existing state and local sales taxes.
- Punishments for all. All, that is, except the exempted elite: members of Congress, the President and his family, trial lawyers, and Unions (SEIU, AFL-CIO, and others). The exempted elite retain their private care while becoming the very ones who force more taxes, penalties, higher costs as punishment on the rest of us.
This reminds me of the Soviet Union when I visited there in 1974 and 1975. The Soviet ruling elite were the only ones with cars, comfortable apartments…and access to the best healthcare.
I understand at a personal and professional level the perils of government-run healthcare. I have patients in my practice who have come many countries with government run healthcare that doesn’t address women’s unique health needs. I live in a state with a large Native American population, whose healthcare under the Indian Health Service, run by the federal government, has been abysmal. I have personally had an emergency hospitalization in England. I am walking today because I had the best spine surgery care in the world at Johns Hopkins. If I had lived in Britain, or Canada, or Europe and had to wait for MRIs and surgery, I would paralyzed from the neck down.
I will never agree that nationalized healthcare anywhere provides better quality of care than we have in the United States. I am not alone. Recent polls by different organizations have found that 80-90% of M.D.’s and D.O.’s oppose government-controlled healthcare.
Don’t be fooled by the American Medical Associations endorsement of Obamacare. Only 17% of practicing physicians actually belong to the AMA. Last week’s “white coat” photo op at the White House was a carefully selected group of 2008 campaign donors “Doctors for Obama.” They were NOT anymore representative of practicing physicians across this country than the AMA.
The American people should be even more alarmed by a recent Investors Business Daily poll: 45% of doctors who responded said they would retire or resign from medicine rather than practice medicine under government control. Who will take care of patients then?
The proposed healthcare plans are the most massive transfer of power to the executive branch of government that has ever occurred or has even been contemplated. This concentration of power in the executive branch violates the Constitutional requirement for balance of power, and for separation of powers among the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of government.
This crime against the American people is far worse than the Stamp Act levied by King George.
That was the final straw that set off the first American Revolution.
Arrogance, condescension and prevarication have become quintessential ingredients of the more powerful Democrats. Harry Reid evinced these key traits in his statements regarding healthcare and malpractice reform. The Democrats disingenuously toss about cost of healthcare reform as being around $800 billion to $1 trillion which we all know extremely underestimates the expense. In what was probably somewhat of an extemporaneous comment that inadvertently revealed more reality, Reid stated definitively the cost of healthcare reform to be more than double what other Democrats have been quoting, that is, $2 trillion dollars.
Two telling facts were exposed by his statement regarding savings with malpractice reform. One, that there is little inclination for the Democrats to address this issue despite its preeminent importance. Secondly, his deeming that the estimated saving of $54 billion per year is an “inconsequential” amount is inexcusably arrogant, disdainful and irresponsible. Since when is a billion dollars, never mind $54 billion trivial? That is our money – nearly $750 for a family of four per year!
This is the same attitude that is used when it comes to inserting pork into legislation such as the thousands of individual pork projects that were placed in the stimulus bill (aka American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 or Porkulus Bill) in February. Five billion dollars here, ten billion dollars there, another fourteen billion dollars for another useless, unrelated project and pretty soon you have billions of REAL dollars REALLY wasted!
The following is the text of Harry Reid's comments as seen in the video:
"He talked about CBO saying that there would be $54 billion saved each year if we put caps on medical malpractice and put some restrictions — tort reform — $54 billion. Sounds like a lot of money, doesn’t it, Mr. President? The answer is yes. But remember, were talking about $2 trillion, $54 billion compared to $2 trillion. You can do the math. We can all do the math. It’s a very small percent."
The America's Health Insurance Plans released a study assessing the costs and impact of the Obamanocare legislation. The findings were that if this bill were passed, increased healthcare costs would shift to privately insured individuals. The amount of increase would be quite substantial and probably still significantly in excess of even this predicted amount. Of course, this doesn’t take into account the concomitant increased tax burden nor does it address access, rationing and quality of care issues.
The White House and the Office Of Health Reform have claimed that this is all unfounded politics without any basis in reality. Ironically, it has been Obama and the Congressional Democrats who have relentlessly and unabashedly lied to the American public claiming that this legislation will provide healthcare for all, allow you to keep your own doctor, not lead to rationing of care, will not result in inferior medical care, and will not add even one more dime to the deficit.
In a recent speech, Energy Secretary Steven Chu exuded the condescending, we know what’s best for you attitude that is endemic in the Obama Administration and within the Democratic Party in Congress. He stated in a speech concerning electricity that “The American public ... just like your teenage kids, aren't acting in a way that they should act" and "The American public has to really understand in their core how important this issue is.” This persistently increasing disdainful attitude in conjunction with greater control, regulations and power over the American people is a recipe for disaster – for our rights and freedoms and must be stopped.
As IBD insightfully stated in the following editorial:
“Sadly, Chu's contempt for average Americans is nothing new in Washington, a town piled high with elitists who think their notions about how the rest should live are so important that they can force them on others.
It's seen in the rush to take over health care, the determination to punish success through taxation, the push to restructure the financial system, the taxpayer dollars plowed into alternative energy, and the chill placed on free speech and dissent. These may seem to be separate issues, but all are part of a campaign to make an independent people dependent on, or subservient to, the government.”
In a political year of previously unimaginable legislation and events, one seemingly more outrageous or unanticipated than the next, comes a shocking new revelation. The Congressional Stimulus Bill which was passed on February 13th, also known as American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, not only was not read by any member of Congress but it also was not authored by any of them or any members of their staffs except for the myriad pork projects. Yes, you read that correctly and are not in a drug induced stupor or other altered state of consciousness! In a move where calling it egregious woefully understates the case, Congress (largely Democrats) passed a $787 billion dollar stimulus bill that would spend our tax dollars without even one member reading or writing the document. The level of arrogance and contempt for the American taxpayer that this abrogation of responsibility represents is unfathomable.
Now for the clincher. If Congress didn’t write this pork laden, profligate monstrosity then who did? An amalgamation of several radical leftist interest groups called the Apollo Alliance authored this bill and did so with the intent of advancing their radical agenda. The mission statement of the Apollo Alliance identifies its goals to be to “tie elements of organized labor with community organizers and environmental groups into an outfit that would restructure American society.”
Among the members of its Board of Directors were:
Van Jones the communist of “green czar” notoriety
Wade Rathke – founder of ACORN
Gerald Hudson – V.P. of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). This is the same union presently doing much of the coercing in trying to have the healthcare reform bill passed and was involved in melees at tea party protests and town hall meetings.
What don’t the Democrats understand about the Tea Party protests? Has their imperial attitude, arrogance and contemptuousness blinded them to their responsibilities and “nominal representation” of their constituents or are their vilifying statements of the public protests their true beliefs? Any way you interpret it, the Democratic responses and commentaries have been reprehensible.
Americans are mad at their government for a multitude of reasons and want to be heard. Although healthcare reform has been a rallying point, the areas of concern are myriad. They are tired of having their tax dollars stolen from them as well as spent in a profligate manner. Exacerbating this situation is a government that considers these tax dollars to be ITS money to spend however it sees fit.
The public is fed up with the government increasingly imposing regulations and restrictions on their activities, choices, rights and freedoms yet act themselves in a hypocritical fashion. They are disgusted with a very large and ever increasing, encompassing, confiscatory, restrictive and essentially oppressive government.
It has been largely Republican members of Congress who have questioned the legality and authority of Obama’s myriad czars. The calls for more scrutiny of these appointees intensified when the radicalism of the “green jobs” czar, Van Jones, came to the fore. A few Democrats have joined the chorus of concern including one of the more liberal members of the Senate, Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), who also is a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He has requested information from the White House regarding the exact roles and responsibilities of the czars as well as the constitutionality of their powers.
With the excessive number of czars in place, many with radical agendas that they ostensibly want to implement, and no defined restraint of power, Obama has essentially created a parallel unelected shadow government that has no accountability to the American people or even to Congress. Left unchecked, this situation has the potential to severely curtail our rights and freedoms and radically and undesirably transform our socioeconomic system.
There is a pervasive “culture of corruption” and lack of ethics within the Democratic Party that is inexcusable, abhorrent and should not be tolerated. Even more egregious is the involvement of many high ranking members. For starters, there is Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) who obtained sweetheart mortgage deals from Countrywide Financial while he was Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. Tim “TurboTax” Geithner became Secretary of the Treasury despite Congress knowing beforehand that he had filed several false tax returns. Then there are the other members of Obama’s Administration that were known tax cheats before their successful confirmations. The fact that Obama nominated these individuals knowing their ethical and legal failings is despicable and confirms his abject ethical “standards”.
Nancy Pelosi has been involved in many shady schemes including modification of legislation that exempted DelMonte Foods StarKist Tuna, which is based in her district, from minimum wage requirements for their workers at the same time her husband owned seventeen millions dollars worth of its stock. This is the quintessential conflict of interest case. A smaller potato in the scheme of things, ex-Representative William Jefferson, Democrat from Louisiana, was convicted in August of 11 of 16 counts of corruption including four on bribery, three counts for money laundering, three for of wire fraud and one for racketeering. As you may remember, he was the politician who was caught hiding $90,000 in his freezer.
The Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) situation is even more perturbing as it involves years of known corruption, ethical violations and tax fraud. Despite this, he remains the Chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee. Pelosi and her ilk can’t find it in themselves to relieve him of his Chairmanship at minimum. The House Ethics Committee (an oxymoron) can’t seem to complete their investigation despite spending over a year’s time. His violations are so numerous and significant that even the New York Times and the Washington Post have called for his resignation. Wow!
It seems that the only priority that Congressional Democrats have regarding ethics and behavior is trying to investigate and censure or expel Representative Joe Wilson (R.- S.C.) for calling Obama (the liar) a liar during his speech on healthcare.
These same immoral, corrupt, power hungry and arrogant politicians expect us to trust them controlling our healthcare system among other issues? Hopefully, it will be a cold day in Hell before that happens!
Most of the news media, ideological adherents of the more liberal Democrats and staunch supporters of healthcare reform, would have you believe that a majority of physicians are in favor of Obamanocare. They use meretricious arguments with deceptive presentations of information and facts which often are knowingly false just to try to convince the public that doctor support the proposals so you should too.
A common tactic is to cite the AMA’s support of the changes while also speciously informing the public that it is “the association that represents American doctors” or that it is the “primary lobbying association for physicians”. This further “confirms” the public’s misconception of the role and importance of the AMA and adds credence to the posture these presentations are taking.
For most American doctors, the AMA is irrelevant and inconsequential. Despite the high level of importance that the media accords the AMA for purposes of their rhetoric, only 18% of American physicians are members and most belong for purposes other than lobbying. The AMA does some lobbying but that is not its primary purpose and furthermore, there is little physician support behind its positions. Many of the small minority of physicians who were members have been so outraged by the AMA’s public position that they are defecting and cancelling their memberships.
A recent IBD/TIPP Poll of 1376 randomly selected physicians revealed that two thirds opposed the present proposals. Even more significant is that 45% of physicians would consider leaving medicine or retiring early if one of these plans is passed. This extremely high percentage illustrates the immense dissatisfaction that physicians have with the present legislation and the grave consequences that the proposals would have on healthcare in general.
Obama’s healthcare speech delivered before Congress and to millions of Americans watching failed at its attempt to increase public support for the healthcare reform bill. It was, in our opinion, an uninspired rehashing of previous deceptions, lies and impossibilities that are not supported by reality and which contradict the provisions of the bill.
As we have fervently stated before, this legislation just boils down to the liberal ideology that the government knows best and should have complete control of the healthcare sector including unfettered access to medical, tax and financial information. It is not about lowering the total cost of healthcare or making it more affordable.
Anyone with even the most elementary knowledge of economics can tell you that as the price of a service facing an individual decreases, the demand increases. Without getting into the complexities of the differences of the price from the real cost of the service, the bottom line is that overall expenditures will increase disproportionately. To this equation add millions of more patients now desiring to use/overuse healthcare services and you end up with massively increased costs, staggering budget deficits, oppressive taxes to help pay the skyrocketing costs, rationing and poor quality healthcare (just to name a few problems).
Unfortunately, there are countless more dangerous provisions contained within the Obamanocare bill. The article below parses Obama’s address and enumerates several areas where he overtly, irrefutably and intentionally lied.
…the charlatan-in-chief, Barack Obama, … speech to a joint session of Congress was both a masterpiece of rhetoric and a shameless fraud.
To tell us, with a straight face, that he can insure millions more people without adding to the already skyrocketing deficit, is world-class chutzpah and an insult to anyone's intelligence.
Europe's ban on the incandescent light bulb began phasing in this month, and the U.S. will soon follow. Is Thomas Edison to blame for global warming? And why are we exporting green jobs?
Single Payer: In Britain, where the public option is about all most patients get, a newborn has died because national guidelines recommend that the baby not be treated. Yet again, government care produces tragedy.
The mother, Sarah Capewell, reportedly begged doctors to save the baby, who was born 21 weeks and five days into her pregnancy. But guidelines used by Britain's National Health Service say that babies born fewer than 22 weeks into a pregnancy should not be treated.
Those Americans who follow more conservative or “balanced” media for their news were well informed of Van Jones, Obama’s “green jobs” czar, including his background and egregious utterances. He wasn’t some low level non-descript player buried within the governmental bureaucracy but rather one of Obama’s handpicked appointees ostensibly to aid in advancing the green movement. Furthermore, he did have some international renown on environmental issues.
We have covered his radical, hateful and racist philosophies in recent postings. He has a long and despicable history of gratuitous racism, vehement black nationalism, and anti-Americanism, is a staunch supporter of communism and is pro-Islamic. His goals also include the spread the wealth philosophy and suppression of individual rights and liberties. The hate mongering that he tries to disseminate is quite similar to that espoused by Reverend Wright.
We find it a total outrage and an abrogation of their responsibilities (though not unexpected) that the broadcast and virtually all of the print media consciously elected to ignore these stories until the last few days. This is a quintessential example of why they are becoming marginalized by a majority of the American public and are in dire financial straits. This includes such purveyors of selective partisan news reporting as CBS, NBC, ABC, the New York Times and the Washington Post.
You can be absolutely sure that if the tables were turned and this was a conservative individual whose only stain was a misinterpreted statement made years ago regarding the KKK, he would have been pilloried in the press from the moment his name became public. The NAACP, ACLU and countless black demagogues would be lining up and issuing disparaging statements and Congressional Democrats would be calling for inquiries.
Since none of these groups, media organizations or politicians could find anything wrong with Van Jones despicable, hateful, racist and anti-American rhetoric, their posture should provide further reasons why they should be marginalized and ignored in the future, not patronized where financial issues are in play, and as for politicians – fight against their re-election.
Elected politicians like Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) who exude and express such an arrogant and contemptuous attitude for many of their constituents should be voted out of office at the first opportunity. They acquit themselves like royalty, behaving as if their position were a birthright rather than a job where the taxpayers are their employers.
This same disdainful attitude is endemic within the Democratic Party perpetrated by names like Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Charles Schumer, Barney Frank, Charles Rangel, Barbara Boxer, and Diane Feinstein. This will continue this behavior until they really start fearing the voters, their resurgence of power and the ultimate effects of their wrath – being voted out of office in large numbers.
The following video was taken during the Town Hall Meeting with U.S. Congressman Brian Baird in Clark County, Washington on August 18th. It captures some of the anger that millions of Americans are expressing in response to dangerous, intrusive, fiscally irresponsible, and restrictive legislation that Congressional Democrats and Obama want to impose. Americans are tired of the disdainful and condescending attitudes of their representatives as well as their insincerity and deceptions.
The following video is of Congressman Mike Rogers (Rep – Michigan) testifying on healthcare reform in the House. Though the numbers may not be entirely accurate, he presents a very compelling argument against the legislation and some of the dangerous provisions that are contained within it but denied by Obama and the Democrats so as to deceive the American public yet again. He also comments on the severely flawed process by which this legislation is being considered.
This is a very informative, easily understandable assessment of this pernicious healthcare bill.
We wonder how many of our Congressional Representatives and Senators have actually read the Healthcare Reform Bill personally rather than having their staff provide them with a synopsis. If consistent with their previous history of presumptuously not reading legislation that they have written and sponsored (Cap and Trade and Porkulus Spending bills, etc.), we surmise that a majority of Democrats have no clue what is contained in the Obamanocare legislation. Fortunately, many Americans have made the prodigious and heroic effort to scrutinize the bloated and arcane 1017 page bill and what they have uncovered has been shocking to say the least. What has been discovered are provisos that often have nothing to do with healthcare delivery or quality but instead with such inimical dictates as wealth redistribution, affirmative action, rationing, and unwarranted government intrusiveness and control. These are dangerous for America and Americans. We have dissected many of these issues here in previous articles.
The following is a letter to Senator Bayh written by Dr. Stephen Fraser, an Anesthesiologist practicing in Indianapolis, who pored through the entire document and enumerated several areas of concern. Many of these issues have been intentionally and dishonestly denied by Obama, Pelosi and the Congressional Democrats. You can check them out for yourself to vouch for their validity.
July 23, 2009
Senator Bayh,
As a practicing physician I have major concerns with the healthcare bill before Congress. I actually have read the bill and am shocked by the brazenness of the government's proposed involvement in the patient physician relationship. The very idea that the government will dictate and ration patient care is dangerous and certainly not helpful in designing a healthcare system that works for all. Every physician I work with agrees that we need to fix our healthcare system, but the proposed bills currently making their way through congress will be a disaster if passed.
I ask you respectfully and as a patriotic American to look at the following troubling lines that I have read in the bill. You cannot possibly believe that these proposals are in the best interests of the country and our fellow citizens.
Page 22 of the HC Bill: Mandates that the Govt will audit books of all employers that self insure!!
Page 30 Sec 123 of HC bill - THERE WILL BE A GOVT COMMITTEE that decides what treatments/benefits you get.
Page 29 lines 4-16 in the HC bill: YOUR HEALTH CARE IS RATIONED!!!
Page 42 of HC Bill:The Health Choices Commissioner will choose your HC Benefits for you. You have no choice!
Page 50 Section 152 in HC bill: HC will be provided to ALL non US citizens, illegal or otherwise
Page 58 HC Bill: Govt will have real-time access to individuals finances & a National ID Healthcard will be issued!
Page 59 HC Bill lines 21-24: Govt will have direct access to you ur banks accounts for elective funds transfer.
Page 65 Sec 164: is a payoff subsidized plan for retirees and their families in Unions & community organizations: (ACORN).
Page 84 Sec 203 HC bill: Govt mandates ALL benefit packages for private HC plans in the Exchange.
Page 85 Line 7 HC Bill: Specifications for of Benefit Levels for Plans = The Govt will ration your Healthcare!
Page 91 Lines 4-7 HC Bill: Govt mandates linguistic appropriate services. Example - Translation: illegal aliens.
Page 95 HC Bill Lines 8-18: The Govt will use groups i.e., ACORN & Americorps to sign up individuals for Govt HC plan.
Page 85 Line 7 HC Bill: Specifications of Benefit Levels for Plans. AARP members - your Health care WILL be rationed.
Page 102 Lines 12-18 HC Bill: Medicaid Eligible Individuals will be automatically enrolled in Medicaid. No choice.
Page 124 lines 24-25 HC: No company can sue GOVT on price fixing. No "judicial review" against Govt Monopoly.
Page 127 Lines 1-16 HC Bill: Doctors/ American Medical Association - The Govt will tell YOU what you can make! (salary)
Page 145 Line 15-17: An Employer MUST auto enroll employees into public option plan. NO CHOICE!
Page 126 Lines 22-25: Employers MUST pay for HC for part time employees AND their families.
Page 149 Lines 16-24: ANY Employer with payroll 401k & above who does not provide public option pays 8% tax on all payroll.
Page 150 Lines 9-13: Business's with payroll btw 251k & 401k who doesn't provide public option pays 2-6% tax on all payroll.
Page 167 Lines 18-23: ANY individual who doesn't have acceptable HC according to Govt will be taxed 2.5% of income.
Page 170 Lines 1-3 HC Bill: Any NONRESIDENT Alien is exempt from individual taxes. (Americans will pay)
Page 195 HC Bill: Officers & employees of HC Admin (GOVT) will have access to ALL Americans finances /personal records.
Page 203 Line 14-15 HC: "The tax imposed under this section shall not be treated as tax" Yes, it says that!
Page 239 Line 14-24 HC Bill: Govt will reduce physician services for Medicaid Seniors, low income and poor are affected.
Page 241 Line 6-8 HC Bill: Doctors, doesn't matter what specialty you have, you'll all be paid the same!
Page 253 Line 10-18: Govt sets value of Doctor's time, proffession, judgment etc. Literally value of humans.
Page 265 Sec 1131: Govt mandates & controls productivity for private HC industries.
Page 268 Sec 1141: Federal Govt regulates rental & purchase of power driven wheelchairs.
Page 272 SEC. 1145: TREATMENT OF CERTAIN CANCER HOSPITALS - Cancer patients - welcome to rationing!
Page 280 Sec 1151: The Govt will penalize hospitals for whatever Govt deems preventable re-admissions.
Page 298 Lines 9-11: Doctors, treat a patient during initial admission that results in a re-admission -Govt will penalize you.
Page 317 L 13-20: PROHIBITION on ownership/investment. Govt tells Doctors what/how much they can own!
Page 317-318 lines 21-25, 1-3: PROHIBITION on expansion- Govt is mandating hospitals cannot expand.
Page 321 2-13: Hospitals have opportunity to apply for exception BUT community input is required. Can u say ACORN?!!
Page 335 L 16-25 Pg 336-339: Govt mandates establishment of outcome based measures. HC the way they want. Rationing.
Page 341 Lines 3-9: Govt has authority to disqualify Medicare Advance Plans, HMOs, etc. Forcing people into Govt plan.
Page 354 Sec 1177: Govt will RESTRICT enrollment of Special needs people! Unbelievable!
Page 379 Sec 1191: Govt creates more bureaucracy - Tele-health Advisory Comittee. Can you say HC by phone?
Page 425 Lines 4-12: Govt mandates Advance Care Planning Consult. Think Senior Citizens end of life patients.
Page 425 Lines 17-19: Govt will instruct & consult regarding living wills, durable powers of attorney. Mandatory!
Page 425 Lines 22-25, 426 Lines 1-3: Govt provides approved list of end of life resources, guiding you in death. (assisted suicide)
Page 427 Lines 15-24: Govt mandates program for orders for end of life. The Govt has a say in how your life ends.
Page 429 Lines 1-9: An "advanced care planning consultant" will be used frequently as patients health deteriorates.
Page 429 Lines 10-12: "advanced care consultation" may include an ORDER for end of life plans. AN ORDER from GOVT!
Page 429 Lines 13-25: The govt will specify which Doctors can write an end of life order.
Page 430 Lines 11-15: The Govt will decide what level of treatment you will have at end of life!
Page 469: Community Based Home Medical Services = Non profit organizations. Hello, ACORN Medical Services here!!?
Page 472 Lines 14-17: PAYMENT TO COMMUNITY-BASED ORIGINATION. 1 monthly payment 2 a community-based organization. Like ACORN?
Page 489 Sec 1308: The Govt will cover Marriage & Family therapy. Which means they will insert Govt into your marriage.
Page 494-498: Govt will cover Mental Health Services including defining, creating, rationing those services.
I guarantee that I personally will do everything possible to inform patients and my fellow physicians about the dangers of the proposed bills you and your colleagues are debating.
Furthermore, if you vote for a bill that enforces socialized medicine on the country and destroys the doctor/patient relationship, I will do everything in my power to make sure you lose your job in the next election.
Respectfully,
Yes, Michelle, you now have another good reason to be proud of your country: it’s paying for your servants so that you can continue to comport yourself like arrogant royalty. Let’s revisit that famous statement you made last year and see how much better the situation is for you today. Most Americans could only dream of being given millions of dollars at taxpayer expense without holding an official job and having every one of your whims catered to without protest. But then again this is not unlike your previous “work” experience back in Chicago.
During an almost two year deep recession with high unemployment, with millions of Americans suffering economically, and trillions of dollars of wealth evaporated, you see no reason why you should sympathize and suffer too. Instead, it seems that you are trying almost single-handedly to significantly reduce the unemployment rate by hiring at least 26 servants at taxpayer expense exceeding two millions dollars per year. The number of attendants that you “require” obliterates numerically and cost wise what any previous First Lady needed. Even Hillary Clinton who was spearheading healthcare reform had a maximum of only 13 people under her. Meanwhile, Bess Truman and Mamie Eisenhower had to shell out the salaries for their personal secretaries out of their own pocketbooks. How times have changed for the better! Isn’t that what you stated, Michelle?
Does your Chief of Staff really need to be paid $172,200? That is on par with what our Senators and Congressional Representatives receive and who may work slightly harder for their $174,000. Of course, maybe “combat” pay is included in your Chief of Staff’s base salary to make working under you a little bit more palatable.
Why do five members of your staff deserve to earn over $100,000 per year? Is that really necessary during a financial crisis? Can’t you show just a little fiscal responsibility and restraint? I wouldn’t look to your husband for advice, though, as he also appears to be clueless, sybaritic and financially reckless. Instead of signing the Porkulus bill in the White House Rose Garden like past Presidents have done for other legislation, Obama had to grandstand and fly to Phoenix and Colorado, costing the American taxpayer probably in excess of $30 million dollars. That amount could have paid for a lot of school supplies for children.
Your irresponsible, arrogant, and profligate spending for your little microcosm in addition to Obama’s for both personal (remember your date in New York?) and public adulation are just more reasons that we, the American people can’t and won’t trust your husband, Obama, with the healthcare and other legislation and with our tax dollars. But there is no need to despair as there is a silver lining. You will still have your own taxpayer financed gold plated healthcare plan that the average American would lust for rather than the restrictive, convoluted, and rationed one that Obama wants to impose on us.
The inordinate, unrestrained and unapologetically irresponsible “budget” of Obama and the effects on the debt are so gargantuan that it may be hard to fathom. Unbelievably, this recklessness barely evokes a yawn from the news media and fellow Democrats. These same people were relentlessly attacking Bush as being fiscally irresponsible yet the increase in debt and spending under his Administration were only a small fraction of Obama’s who has only been in office for seven months.
The following “National Debt Road Trip” illustrates the relative changes over time and puts it all in perspective.
The president elect of the Canadian Medical Association, Dr. Anne Doig, stated that Canada’s health care system is “sick” and “imploding”. She also went on to say that that Canada’s universal health care system is not giving patients optimal care and that “the system that we have right now — if it keeps on going without change — is not sustainable" .
These are not strong words of support by the future leader of the Canadian Medical Association for a healthcare system that Obama and the Democratic Party are using as a model for government controlled healthcare in America. The rationing of care, long waits to be seen by a physician, and markedly increased mortality rates of many diseases compared to here, and unsustainable costs are indisputable.
So why do Obama and the Democrats want to establish a similar system here when they know it is failing everywhere it has been implemented? It is politics, wealth transfer, arrogance and greater government control over the lives of Americans.
Typical of a preponderance of liberal politicians, they want unlimited ability to criticize policies or individuals that are not in concordance with their ideologies but are intolerant and take offense when the tables are turned. They inexorably attacked Bush and Cheney during their administration often with vicious, wanton and even ad hominem rhetoric that frequently exceeded tasteful boundaries. This even included Nazi symbols on images of Bush in Pelosi’s own district.
Now that they have total power, they expect the opposition to be submissive and acquiesce. Obama has told those that disagree with him to step aside and get out of his way since he has the power. They have demeaned those citizens who are vocal, protesting and attending the Tea Parties calling them un-American, manufactured angry mobs, Astroturf, tea baggers and other derogatory terms. Consistent with her arrogance and glib mendacity, Nancy Pelosi contemptuously accused the protesters of carrying swastikas when in fact no one has ever been seen on any of the videos of town hall meetings with them. Furthermore, she condoned their display in her own district when it pertained to Bush a few years ago.
You knew this was going to happen. The rabid environmentalists in this country through legal maneuvers and political influences and liberal politicians have thwarted nearly all efforts to explore the vast energy resources situated off our coasts as well as on the mainland and in Alaska. The result has been our ever escalating dependence on foreign oil and with it, a massive but avoidable outflow of US dollars and gargantuan trade deficits. We have also placed ourselves at the mercy of tyrants and authoritarian governments that control much of the world’s available oil such as Iran, Russia, Venezuela, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, etc. which also wreaks havoc when trying to conduct a prudent foreign policy.
Well, the oil is still out there off our shore and the rest of the world needs it. So guess what? Other countries will be sending their crews over here to start drilling off our shores. That’s right! Congress in its infinite wisdom has prevented American firms from exploring for oil but it can’t prevent foreign countries from doing so.
There is absolutely no defensible reason that the document delineating the Obamanocare legislation is 1018 pages in length. Between this and often inscrutable legalese, how is the average American suppose to read and understand this and make an informed decision? Once again, this lucidly demonstrates the arrogance and dismissive attitude endemic in Congress and why we should demand simplification and limitation of the length of any legislation.
In the following video, Neil Cavuto explores the idea that this mammoth healthcare document could have been written in a much more comprehensible and abbreviated version.
The overall healthcare system in the United States is probably the best in the world though it is not without areas that can be improved. If you just listened to the shrill demagogues of the far left wing of the Democratic Party, one would think that we have a "healthcare crisis" in America. However, closer great scrutiny reveals not only do we have the best healthcare delivery system in the world but we also have premier healthcare technologies, cutting edge surgical procedures, and pharmaceutical innovations. What we have in America is a "health insurance catastrophe" largely caused by Congressional mandates over the years, a malignant unfettered tort system wasting tens of billions of dollars of resources annually, and unreimbursed healthcare due to illegal immigration and related issues.
Approximately 1/6th of our population does not have any medical insurance coverage either because of a lifestyle choice, they are temporarily between jobs, have not applied for federal coverage for which they are eligible, or are not a legal citizen of the United States. All of these people, however, do have access to medical care. If they show up in an emergency room , they must be treated. That is a Federal law. They can not be turned away! The rest of us who have employer provided heath insurance plans or have purchased private insurance on our own are paying for these estimated 47 million uninsured.
Let's repeat this again: EVERYONE in America has access to the healthcare system even if they are unable or unwilling to pay for services rendered and even if they have no insurance.
So what is all the fuss about at Town Hall meetings set up to discuss President Obama's obsession with healthcare reform?
Obama and Congressional Democrats claim that this reform is all about increasing the quality of care, increasing affordability and making healthcare available to all Americans. Unfortunately, these reasons are all fallacious and are pretenses for the real goal: Government run and controlled healthcare with social engineering and wealth transfer. Everything else is an intentional LIE! What, for example, does affirmative action in medical school admissions have to do with quality of health care? There are many more affirmative action provisos like this one in the legislation.
All across the United States innumerable Americans - most of whom have never protested anything in their lives - are doing so also because they do not trust the Federal Government. Period. One only need to look at the abysmal track records of Social Security (going broke), Medicare and Medicaid (grossly underfunded and going broke) and the United States Postal Service (posted a $7 billion loss in 2007 and 2008) to see the typical inefficiencies, incompetence and wretched mismanagement characteristic of the Federal government.In the end, we the TAXPAYERS, will be paying the price and ending up with less and rationed care, higher taxes, fewer choices, inferior quality of care and fewer innovations.
Then we have privacy issues, bureaucratic interference in an individuals' medical care, rationing, etc...
Yesterday we examined the condescending and derogatory attacks perpetrated by Obama, Pelosi and many Congressional Democrats on American citizens who were simply exercising their right of free speech and disagreed specifically with the Obamanocare legislation. We also exhorted all Americans to “relentlessly continue to exercise their rights to dissent and free speech and vociferously voice their concerns otherwise we will lose many more of our Rights and Freedoms.”
Today, we present a scathing and insightful commentary written by Rep. Thomas Price (R. – Georgia) of these vitriolic, arrogant, and unwarranted attacks led by Obama and Pelosi. Rep. Price, who is Chairman of the Republican Study Committee as well as a physician, presents a very incisive, informed firsthand account and assessment of the deceptions, lies, corruption and dishonesty perpetrated by Obama, Pelosi and many Congressional Democrats.
Obama, Pelosi and the Congressional Democrats consistently demonstrate why they are dangerous for America and the rights of the American people. They write legislation like peremptory decrees – impose it on Americans and stifle all discussion. Democracies are based on the free flow of thought and the unimpeded right to dissent and protest. That is not what Obama, Pelosi, et. al have in mind.
During the Bush Administration, Congressional Democrats including Senator Obama, inexorably exercised their rights of free speech and dissent, frequently past the point of proper decorum and often beyond what jeopardized our national security. The media was complicit in this, especially the New York Times. You didn’t hear Bush or Cheney viciously attacking these partisans or worse, the American people.
Obama, Pelosi and several Congressional Democrats are waging blistering, vicious attacks on American citizens simply because they are exercising their Constitutional rights and voicing their concerns and outrage regarding irresponsible legislation, profligate spending, oppressive taxation, unchecked government intrusion in their personal lives, and risks to their rights and freedoms. The Government’s attacks are not just verbal but have also become physical. They are facilitating mob like tactics such as using labor union members (SEIU) as enforcers and protectors of their ideology.
These directives are coming right out of the White House and Congress. The sycophantic news media and the radical anti-American ACLU have not issued condemnations of what is transpiring. As to be expected!
American citizens must relentlessly continue to exercise their rights to dissent and free speech and vociferously voice their concerns otherwise we will lose many more of our Rights and Freedoms.
It is unclear who the specific individuals were that wrote the ponderous Obamanocare legislation but you can be sure that it largely involved lawyers and government bureaucrats. Important as healthcare is in addition to the fact that it constitutes around seventeen percent of the economy, you would hope that in the creation of a prudent, effective and cost saving solution, physicians would have been intimately involved in the discussions as they are the most knowledgeable individuals with regard to healthcare, its delivery, intricacies, issues and nuances. But as we all know, Congress is not about finding truths or the best solutions – it is all about politics, favored constituencies, personal power and wealth.
One physician who has voiced considerable concern about the present healthcare legislation is Congressman Tom Price (R. – Ga.) and he speaks from a wealth of experience. His medical background includes over twenty years was in private practice as an orthopedic surgeon after which he became an Assistant Professor at Emory School of Medicine and then the Medical Director of the Orthopedic Clinic at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta.
In the following testimony during House hearings, Representative Tom Price launches a scathing attack on the present healthcare legislation and how this whole process has been one completely controlled by Pelosi and the far left. There has been essentially no input from Republicans.
As part of Obama’s aggressive plan to pass healthcare legislation, the White House has created a website that will it claims will set the record straight on the real truths. Entitled the "Health Insurance Reform Reality Check", it is essentially more of the same: a politically correct racially balanced website that makes specious, unsupportable and partisan claims with the unequivocal intent of continuing the pattern of trying to dupe the American public.
At the very top of the home page is a quote attributed to Obama:
“Whether or not you have health insurance right now, the reforms we seek will bring stability and security that you don’t have today."
"This isn’t about politics. This is about people’s lives. This is about people’s businesses. This is about our future.”
Get real, Arrogance in Chief! This legislation is all about politics. Did you inconveniently forget to mention the affirmative action mandates stealthly contained within the bill? How about the wealth transfers and class warfare intimations. And if it is about people's lives, businesses and our future, why did you attempt to ram this legislation through Congress before the public and probably all members of Congress had a chance to read this gargantuan over one thousand page legislation? Could it be that if they had time to read it they would realize that it would actually be severely harmful to their health?
Speaker of the House Pelosi and the Democrats in Congress have also played gutter politics with Obamanocare. Instead of allowing for constructive discourse and bipartisan input, Pelosi and the Democrats in Congress have prohibited Republican input and have viciously attacked those who are unhappy with the legislation. Those who disagree are called “un-American”, not patriotic, part of a mob, and even Astroturf.
And if this healthcare legislation were truly about people’s lives and businesses it wouldn’t tax individuals to destitution and businesses to oblivion nor would it allow the healthcare that would eventuate to
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