Why Have Congress and Obama Intentionally Excluded Themselves From Having To Participate In Obamacare If It Is So Wonderful?

Probably by now, many people are aware of the exclusion from Obamcare that Congress granted itself, staff members, the President and Vice President. As has been stated myriad times, if the legislation was so utterly fantastic for the American people, why is it not good enough for Congress and the President?

We all know that the political rhetoric which was employed for the bill’s passage was not merely disingenuous but overtly and despicably dishonest and criminal. As stated in a previous post, these politicians see themselves as elitists, members of a privileged class much as was extant in Russia in the 1970’s and early 1980’s – the nomeklatura.

As their employers (at least on paper), we must now revoke their privileges, limit their unrestrained actions, mandate that they abide by the same laws as the rest of us, and vote the offenders out of office.

No Obamacare for Obama
THE WASHINGTON TIMES     March 23, 2010

President Obama declared that the new health care law "is going to be affecting every American family." Except his own, of course.

The new health care law exempts the president from having to participate in it. Leadership and committee staffers in the House and Senate who wrote the bill are exempted as well. A weasel-worded definition of "staff" includes only the members' personal staff in the new system; the committee staff that drafted the legislation opted themselves out. Because they were more familiar with the contents of the law than anyone in the country, it says a lot that they carved out their own special loophole. Anyway, the law is intended to affect "ordinary Americans," according to Vice President Joe Biden (who - being a heartbeat away from the presidency - also is not covered), not Washington insiders.

Mr. Obama frequently tossed around the talking point that the new law gave people the same type of coverage as Congress enjoyed. In his March 20 health care pep talk to wavering Democrats on Capitol Hill, the president said one of the advantages of the health care legislation was that "people will have choice and competition just like members of Congress have choice and competition." At yesterday's signing ceremony, Mr. Obama said Americans will be "part of a big pool, just like federal employees are part of a big pool. They'll have the same choice of private health insurance that members of Congress get for themselves." But the American people will have a public pool; the executive branch and congressional staffers kept their country-club pool private.

Last year, Sen. Charles E. Grassley, Iowa Republican, spearheaded efforts to have all Americans included in the plan, but he ran into heavy opposition from unions representing federal workers - the same unions that were pro-Obamacare stalwarts. In September, the Senate approved a scaled-down amendment that covered members of Congress and their staff. When this provision later emerged from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's office, the leadership and committee staff loophole had appeared. A move in December by Mr. Grassley and Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican, to close this loophole and to extend the law to senior members of the executive branch - including the president, vice president and Cabinet members - was blocked by Senate Democratic leaders.

Mr. Grassley has introduced an amendment to the Senate health care reconciliation bill that also will apply the law to the upper tier of the executive branch and all Capitol Hill staffers, but it remains to be seen whether Democrats will let this measure move forward.

The special exemptions slipped into the health care law are another example of how those statists who rule consider themselves a privileged class, imposing burdens on the country that they will not accept themselves. Candidates for office in 2010 should pledge to close these and other loopholes in the law that impose unequal burdens and create exclusive privileged classes in America. Meanwhile, we await Mr. Obama's explanation why if his "historic" health care law is so great for America, it's not good enough for him and his family.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/23/obamacare-for-everyone-but-obama/

Posted in Congress Corruption Democrat Democrat Healthcare Reform Obama Obama ObamaCare with No Comments

More:

Representative Hank Johnson (D. – Georgia 4th District) Needs A Brain … And Needs To Be Replaced

The following unbelievable video or Rep. Hank Johnson (D. – Ga 4th District) is excerpted from a House Armed Services Committee hearing in March. To place the absurdity of his statements and questioning in perspective, Johnson is a member of the House Democratic leadership and was elected by the Democratic caucus to serve as whip for Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida and serves on the House Armed Services and Judiciary committees.

3-25-2010 Representative Hank Johnson (Democrat - Georgia 4th District)

The outrageousness of Johnsons’ inability to concatenate more than a few comprehensible words together is only superseded by the inanity of his absolutely serious concern that an increased population on Guam would place it at great risk to tip over. Shocking, indeed!

Is it possible that any person be such an imbecile? A child of five would never consider entertaining such a thought! His defenders claim his medical condition caused him to act in this fashion but this is unequivocally false. His Hepatitis C (which is in remission) has no bearing on his intellectual void.

To think that he had been a practicing lawyer for 25 years and even more egregiously, was elected to Congress, is incomprehensible. Incredibly, he is an improvement over the previous representative, the racist, criminal and vile psycho Cynthia McKinney (of race-bating Capitol Hill Police Congress confrontation fame, a 9/11 Truther and sponsor of impeachment charges against President Bush, VP Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice).

Is it any wonder now that bills like Obamacare are passed in Congress?

Posted in Congress Democrat Incompetence Videos with No Comments

More:

Orlando Physician Expresses Sentiments Regarding Obama and Obamacare

The story below details an Orlando, Florida area urologist who posted a sign on his office door stating:

“If you voted for Obama … seek urological care elsewhere.”

This physician reaction has created a tempest in many parts, but what did Obama and the Congressional Democrats expect? They have legislated involuntary servitude of America’s physicians with their corruptly passed and ideologically radical healthcare “reform”. They are trying to pay for the Obamacare wealth transfer on the backs of productive citizens and physicians though all healthcare providers including medical device companies will be negatively impacted. They are destroying the physician-patient relationship, quality of care, etc. with the insinuation of federal officials in the mix, determining who can be treated and by what (less expensive) means.

And then there is the reimbursement part that we will put in perspective. Medicare reimbursement rates this year pay doctors below 1995 levels which were low at that time. To make matters worse, as of this April 1st, reimbursement is scheduled to drop another 21.3%. In other words, physicians will be paid almost 22% less than they were 15 years ago. Meanwhile, Congress which incredibly can vote for its own pay raise, will received nearly 95% more than they were 20 years ago!

Many physicians have been losing money for years taking care of Medicare patients at artificially low reimbursement rates that don’t even cover their expenses. Now lower that rate another 22% and add far more government bureaucracy and you have a disastrous situation.

Though it may not judged to be “politically correct” for a physician to react as this sign indicated, it is well within one’s Constitutional rights to do so and does not violate any medical laws nor should it. Despite the fine line that medical societies may need to toe in response to actions of physicians like the above, there is nothing illegal or immoral. Unfortunately, our government has facilitated such actions by their oppressive legislation.

The overwhelming sentiment in the medical community is vehemently against Obamacare for myriad reasons. Therefore, we expect to see additional significant actions in the future that would far surpass this one incident in scope and extent. Reactions to Obamacare are only just beginning...

Doctor tells Obama supporters: Go elsewhere for health care
A Mount Dora doctor posted a sign telling Obama health care supporters to go elsewhere.
By Stephen Hudak, Orlando Sentinel   April 2, 2010

MOUNT DORA — A doctor who considers the national health-care overhaul to be bad medicine for the country posted a sign on his office door telling patients who voted for President Barack Obama to seek care "elsewhere."

"I'm not turning anybody away — that would be unethical," Dr. Jack Cassell, 56, a Mount Dora urologist and a registered Republican opposed to the health plan, told the Orlando Sentinel on Thursday. "But if they read the sign and turn the other way, so be it."

The sign reads: "If you voted for Obama … seek urologic care elsewhere. Changes to your healthcare begin right now, not in four years."

Estella Chatman, 67, of Eustis, whose daughter snapped a photo of the typewritten sign, sent the picture to U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson, the Orlando Democrat who riled Republicans last year when he characterized the GOP's idea of health care as, "If you get sick, America … Die quickly."

Chatman said she heard about the sign from a friend referred to Cassell after his physician recently died. She said her friend did not want to speak to a reporter but was dismayed by Cassell's sign.

"He's going to find another doctor," she said.

Cassell may be walking a thin line between his right to free speech and his professional obligation, said William Allen, professor of bioethics, law and medical professionalism at the University of Florida's College of Medicine.

Allen said doctors cannot refuse patients on the basis of race, gender, religion, sexual orientation or disability, but political preference is not one of the legally protected categories specified in civil-rights law. By insisting he does not quiz his patients about their politics and has not turned away patients based on their vote, the doctor is "trying to hold onto the nub of his ethical obligation," Allen said.

"But this is pushing the limit," he said.

Cassell, who has practiced medicine in GOP-dominated Lake County since 1988, said he doesn't quiz his patients about their politics, but he also won't hide his disdain for the bill Obama signed and the lawmakers who passed it.

In his waiting room, Cassell also has provided his patients with photocopies of a health-care timeline produced by Republican leaders that outlines "major provisions" in the health-care package. The doctor put a sign above the stack of copies that reads: "This is what the morons in Washington have done to your health care. Take one, read it and vote out anyone who voted for it."

Cassell, whose lawyer wife, Leslie Campione, has declared herself a Republican candidate for Lake County commissioner, said three patients have complained, but most have been "overwhelmingly supportive" of his position.

"They know it's not good for them," he said.

Cassell, who previously served as chief of surgery at Florida Hospital Waterman in Tavares, said a patient's politics would not affect his care for them, although he said he would prefer not to treat people who support the president.

"I can at least make a point," he said.

The notice on Cassell's office door could cause some patients to question his judgment or fret about the care they might receive if they don't share his political views, Allen said. He said doctors are wise to avoid public expressions that can affect the physician-patient relationship.

Erin VanSickle, spokeswoman for the Florida Medical Association, would not comment specifically.

But she noted in an e-mail to the Sentinel that "physicians are extended the same rights to free speech as every other citizen in the United States."

The outspoken Grayson described Cassell's sign as "ridiculous."

"I'm disgusted," he said. "Maybe he thinks the Hippocratic Oath says, ‘Do no good.' If this is the face of the right wing in America, it's the face of cruelty. … Why don't they change the name of the Republican Party to the Sore Loser Party?"

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/us_politics/view.bg?&articleid=1244178&format=&page=1&listingType=politics#articleFull

Posted in Congress Constitution Democrat Doctors Doctors Government Control Healthcare Reform Ideology Medicare Medicare Obama ObamaCare Physicians Socialized Medicine with 1 Comment

More:

Congressional Democrats Seek Retribution Against Corporations Revealing The True Costs That They Will Be Facing As A Result of Obamacare

Where were these companies and why weren’t the potential costs widely and vehemently exposed while the legislation was still being “debated”? Inexcusable silence by thousands of companies and millions of citizens engendered the passage of Obamacare with less resistance than should have been the case? This is not to say that Americans were not outraged and didn’t translate this into positive and productive action – they unequivocally did with their letter writing, email and telephone calling campaigns and of course, with the Tea Party movement.

Some corporations might have stayed silent out of fear of government retribution, greed or diaphanous promises by politicians … but now we will all pay the price.

Now that many companies have “elected” to reveal the real devastating financial consequences of Obamacare (driven to a sizable extent by their legal obligations as public companies to release the information), several prominent Democrats are egregiously seeking retribution against them for exposing the gargantuan financial fraud that has been perpetrated with the healthcare legislation.

Our government has abrogated many of our rights and freedoms while aggrandizing their power … and continues to thirst for more. This is the evil addiction and corruption of power which must be vanquished and reversed.

This must not be the new America that we have to live in!

Dems Threaten Congressional Show Trials After US Companies Leak Real Economic Damage of Obamacare
Jim Hoft   March 28, 2010

Late last week several US corporations leaked how the democrat’s health care bill will kill their businesses. The radicals in Congress were not pleased that these corporations would go public with this devastating information. In response, democrats threatened to call for Congressional show trials to publicly humiliate these corporations.

The Wall Street Journal reported:

It’s been a banner week for Democrats: ObamaCare passed Congress in its final form on Thursday night, and the returns are already rolling in. Yesterday AT&T announced that it will be forced to make a $1 billion writedown due solely to the health bill, in what has become a wave of such corporate losses.

This wholesale destruction of wealth and capital came with more than ample warning. Turning over every couch cushion to make their new entitlement look affordable under Beltway accounting rules, Democrats decided to raise taxes on companies that do the public service of offering prescription drug benefits to their retirees instead of dumping them into Medicare. We and others warned this would lead to AT&T-like results, but like so many other ObamaCare objections Democrats waved them off as self-serving or “political.”

…Henry Waxman and House Democrats announced yesterday that they will haul these companies in for an April 21 hearing because their judgment “appears to conflict with independent analyses, which show that the new law will expand coverage and bring down costs.”

In other words, shoot the messenger. Black-letter financial accounting rules require that corporations immediately restate their earnings to reflect the present value of their long-term health liabilities, including a higher tax burden.
Should these companies have played chicken with the Securities and Exchange Commission to avoid this politically inconvenient reality? Democrats don’t like what their bill is doing in the real world, so they now want to intimidate CEOs into keeping quiet.

On top of AT&T’s $1 billion, the writedown wave so far includes Deere & Co., $150 million; Caterpillar, $100 million; AK Steel, $31 million; 3M, $90 million; and Valero Energy, up to $20 million. Verizon has also warned its employees about its new higher health-care costs, and there will be many more in the coming days and weeks.

The last paragraph says it all about the democrat’s trickery:

The Democratic political calculation with ObamaCare is the proverbial boiling frog: Gradually introduce a health-care entitlement by hiding the true costs, hook the middle class on new subsidies until they become unrepealable, but try to delay the adverse consequences and major new tax hikes so voters don’t make the connection between their policy and the economic wreckage. But their bill was such a shoddy, jerry-rigged piece of work that the damage is coming sooner than even some critics expected.

Byron York at The Washington Examiner has more on the show trials.

Waxman is also demanding that the executives give lawmakers internal company documents related to health care finances — a move one committee Republicans describes as “an attempt to intimidate and silence opponents of the Democrats’ flawed health care reform legislation.”

…Waxman has ordered the executives to explain themselves at an April 21 hearing before the Energy and Commerce Committee’s investigative subcommittee. That subcommittee just happens to be chaired by Rep. Bart Stupak, the Michigan Democrat who held out his vote on health care reform until a few hours before final passage on March 21, giving the bill’s opponents the unfounded hope that he might vote against it.

Waxman’s demands came Friday in letters to several executives. “After the president signed the health care reform bill into law, your company announced that provisions in the law could adversely affect your ability to provide health insurance,” Waxman wrote to Randall Stephenson, chairman and CEO of AT&T. A few hours before Waxman sent his letter, AT&T announced it will take a $1 billion charge against earnings because of the tax provision in the new health bill. AT&T also said it will be “evaluating prospective changes” to its health care benefits for all workers…

Waxman’s request could prove particularly troubling for the companies. The executives will undoubtedly view such documents as confidential, but if they fail to give Waxman everything he wants, they run the risk of subpoenas and threats from the chairman. And all as punishment for making a business decision in light of a new tax situation.

These democrats in Washington are nothing but thugs. They’ll try anything to keep the truth from coming out about their disastrous legislation.

http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/2010/03/dems-threaten-congressional-show-trials-after-us-companies-leak-real-economic-damage-of-obamacare/

Posted in Congress Corruption Democrat Freedom of Speech Henry Waxman Taxes Tea Parties with No Comments

More:

Americans Very Angry At Congressional Democrats and Obama Who Arrogantly and Condescendingly Ignored Their Will

Rightful Anger
Investors Business Daily 03/25/2010

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., warned that politicians should “be very careful ... that our rhetoric doesn’t incite to violent...

Health Reform: Should Americans feel ashamed for being angry that those who rule Washington thwarted the popular will? No more than colonial Americans at the trampling of their freedoms.

If the president and the leaders of his party in Congress think the American people are going to roll over and play dead after the biggest government power grab in history, they don't know this country.

And if they think those on the side of economic freedom will be intimidated by their attempts to caricature them as a bloodthirsty mob of Timothy McVeighs, they underestimate the powers of a free people.

A new CBS News poll finds that 62% of Americans want Republicans to keep fighting the Democrats' health legislation even now that it has passed.

Only 16% believe the new law will "mostly help" them.

Democrats are portraying that majority as a violent minority, being inflamed by the speeches of GOP congressmen and Sarah Palin. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., in an appearance on the CBS "Early Show" on Thursday, warned that politicians should "be very careful ... that our rhetoric doesn't incite to violent acts."

Does that include the rhetoric of former House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell, D-Mich., who this week told a Detroit radio show that "it takes a long time to do the necessary administrative steps that have to be taken to put the legislation together to control the people"?

Control the people?

This is a country that went to war over onerous taxation by the mother country. We took up arms and sacrificed our sons "to dissolve the political bands" that attached us to King George, and "to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God" entitled our Colonial forebears.

Dingell has again earned his longtime nickname, the Truck. But it will take more than a couple of hundred congressional eighteen-wheelers to turn the Spirit of '76 into roadkill.

Where were Hoyer and his colleagues, now so concerned about inflammatory rhetoric sparking violence, a couple of years ago?

As Victor Davis Hanson points out, "write a book in which you muse about killing George Bush, and its Knopf imprint proves it is merely sophisticated literary speculation; do a docudrama about killing George Bush, and it will win a Toronto film prize for its artistic value rather than shock from the liberal community about over-the-top discourse."

Knopf's defense was that it was "not the first time a novelist has chosen fiction to express their point of view about American society or politics." Newmarket Films' defense of its computer-rejiggered news footage depicting Bush being assassinated was to call it "quite a compelling political thriller. In many ways it is sympathetic to George Bush."

Nor do you even have to go back years ago.

Washington Post columnist Courtland Milloy on Monday said of the Tea Party protesters: "I want to spit on them, take one of their 'Obama Plan White Slavery' signs and knock every racist and homophobic tooth out of their Cro-Magnon heads."

Politically motivated violence is to be condemned as long as America can peacefully be kept free.

Our bet is that as Americans increasingly feel the impoverishing effects of last Sunday's big step toward socialized medicine, they will indeed repeal it — without firing a single shot.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=528481

http://www.investors.com/image/Web_hoyer0326.jpg.cms

Posted in Arrogance Congress Democrat Healthcare Reform with No Comments

More:

Rep. Dingell and the Democrats’ Ideology: “Control the People

The following outrageous comment by Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) just confirms the mind set of many of the far-left Democrats (Obama, Pelosi, Reid, et. al.) and not just regarding healthcare and why we need to be ever vigilant in protecting and fighting for our rights and freedoms. This is an ideology that will relentlessly seek to abrogate our rights, creating an omnipotent, intrusive, and authoritarian Central Government not unlike the Soviet Union or China.

What can and should we do? Fight back. Resist. Remove these Democrats from office in November. Provide support for organizations, agencies, individuals and even states that are trying to rein in and reduce the ever increasing power of the Federal government.

Rep. Dingell: It's Taken a Long Time to 'Control the People'

From American Thinker: Rep. John Dingell (D-MI), the Dean of the House of Representatives for being the longest serving member of the body (he was first elected in 1955, succeeding his father, Rep. John Dingell, Sr.), made an amazing admission during a live telephone interview with Detroit WJR News/Talk 760 radio talk show host Paul W. Smith on Smith's show Monday morning, March 22, 2010. The night before, Dingell had been a featured speaker at the Democrat Congressional leadership victory press conference after Obamacare passed the House. In response to a question posed by Smith, Dingell said:

Let me remind you this [Americans allegedly dying because of lack of universal health care] has been going on for years. We are bringing it to a halt. The harsh fact of the matter is when you're going to pass legislation that will cover 300 [million] American people in different ways it takes a long time to do the necessary administrative steps that have to be taken to put the legislation together to control the people.

http://www.thefoxnation.com/rep-john-dingell/2010/03/24/rep-dingell-its-taken-long-time-control-people?page=7

Posted in Congress Democrat Freedom Government Control Healthcare Reform Ideology Personal rights Videos with No Comments

More:

Best Immediate Chances of Overturning Obamacare Is Through Legal Challenges

Obama and the Congressional Democrats have corruptly and despicably passed a wealth transferring, fiscally bankrupting socialized medicine bill that legalizes seizure and control of our healthcare and privacy by the Federal Government – all in opposition to the will of the people. Though it is imperative that we continue to fight this abomination through Congress and elections, the best immediate chances that we have of overturning it are through legal challenges.

Kill It In Court
Investors Business Daily   03/22/2010

Constitution: Republicans vow to repeal health care reform. But no social entitlement, once signed into law, has ever been overturned. The way to stop this federal overreach is through the courts.

Fox pundit Bill Kristol predicts that Republicans will repeal the law in 2013. Rep. Jim DeMint and other GOP leaders have already pledged to do so.

But that assumes a lot. Republicans must first regain control of both houses of Congress, which will require sustaining the current level of public outrage for six months after the fact.

That won't be easy. While additional negative details about the 2,074-page bill will come out over the coming months, the worst parts won't go into effect for years. And the White House is already reselling the few positives, such as covering pre-existing conditions, which go into effect right away.

Yes, Republicans won Congress for the first time in 50 years after Clinton tried to socialize medicine. And yes, this bill is arguably worse, with 732 more pages, 109 more bureaucracies and just as many new taxes.

But HillaryCare failed, and was cast as a major Democrat defeat. ObamaCare, on the other hand, will be hailed as a big Democrat win. Even in the off chance that they do take back Congress, Republicans seeking repeal will have to fend off all the lobbyists who will cement around new health care rules, programs and benefits.

Then they'll have to override President Obama's veto.

The nation's best chance to kill this monstrosity before it can ruin the best health care system in the world is to get the courts to declare it unconstitutional.

The "individual mandate" is a violation of the 9th and 14th amendments. The Commerce Clause gives Congress the power to regulate the health care industry on issues of interstate trade. It does not give it the authority to force individuals to buy a service from private industry. This is unheard of. Even in World War II, the feds did not make citizens buy war bonds, for instance.

Already Virginia, Florida and South Carolina are preparing constitutional challenges.

The high court — which thankfully (for now) is led by strict constructionists — will not let stand this violence against the Constitution, which the framers designed to limit federal powers.

If the bench were to uphold mandated universal participation in a federal health system, it would give Congress license to do anything it wants under the Commerce Clause. Nothing would be out of bounds.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=528102

Posted in Congress Democrat Government Control Healthcare Reform Socialized Medicine with No Comments

More:

Obamacare Is A Grand Deception … and Theft

As many people are beginning to realize and what we have been warning about for a long time, Obamacare is not truly about healthcare or healthcare reform. That is the liberal pretense used for its passage. This legislation is all about the transfer of wealth, expropriation of 17% of our economy by the Federal government, and unfettered control and intrusion by the government into our private lives including access to our medical records.

There are no cost savings nor will there be a reduction in our national debt. We don’t think that adding in excess of 170 new federal agencies enumerated within this bill will accomplish this trick. Nor will the planned hiring of 16,500 new IRS agents (we don’t think that they have your interest at heart) to monitor compliance save us money. These actions tell you all you need to know about Obama’s and the Congressional Democrats’ true agenda under the guise of healthcare reform.

We all must vigorously thwart implementation of Obamacare by also providing verbal and financial support to our Senators, Representatives, Tea Party Groups, organizations and States who will be fighting this despicable legislation.

Enacting A Lie
Investors Business Daily 03/22/2010

Health Overhaul: Sunday's vote exposed the ugly truth that ObamaCare is not really about health care at all. It's all about who pays for it and who controls it — in effect a massive wealth-redistribution scheme.

Those who believe this will lead to some medical nirvana will likely be disappointed. Fact is, this poorly designed monstrosity will lead to lower-quality care, higher costs, fewer practicing physicians, higher taxes and fewer jobs.
We've done more than 150 editorials in the past year or so documenting these problems. Democrats surely understand them.
Yet, despite a recent CNN poll showing that 59% of Americans oppose ObamaCare, Congress approved it anyway.

Why? Because it's not really about health care. It's the largest wealth grab in American history, masquerading as health care "reform," another step in the socialization of Americans' income in the name of "fairness" and "spread(ing) the wealth around," as Obama himself has put it.

That's why we call the program a lie.

The idea behind all this, simply put, is control. This is a vast expansion of government that will require as much as $3 trillion in added spending over a decade. All claims of deficit neutrality are a joke.

This is socialization through the tax code. That $3 trillion has to be paid for. As we showed last week, the health care bill levies $569.2 billion in new taxes over the next 10 years alone.

At the same time, as noted by Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former head of the Congressional Budget Office, it will increase U.S. budget deficits by $562 billion.

Who'll pay all these taxes? Those deemed "rich" by Democrats, and businesses. Specifically, the bulk of the money comes from a special 3.8% Medicare tax on 5 million people earning more than $200,000 a year. That tax is imposed on capital gains, dividends, rents, royalties and interest — that is, investment income.

Obama already has proposed boosting these taxes in his budget. So the top tax take on dividends and cap gains will rise to 23.8% from 15%, an increase of nearly 59%, while top rates on interest and rents will soar from 15% to nearly 44%, a 193% jump.

About 50% of this higher-taxed group reports small business or partnership income. So don't be fooled: These aren't taxes on the "rich," but on small businesses and jobs.

In ObamaCare, the taxes will be ruinous. Unlike real insurance, where individuals pay to cover their risks, this program covers everyone — including 32 million uninsured — and pays for it by a "mandate" ( read: "tax" ) and by taking money from other people to subsidize those who can't pay. And this just scratches the surface of the new taxes — we literally don't have room to list them here.

Hmm. Taking money from one group, and giving it to another. That's called welfare — or, perhaps, health-fare. It's not insurance.

Once the new program is finished wrecking what remains of the private health insurance industry — as it ultimately will — we'll be stuck with the government declaring that "the market doesn't work" and forcing all of us into a single-payer government plan.

That's what those Democrats who back "Medicare for all" want — to kill what's left of the private market for health care, which has created the best medical system on earth, and use "reform" to expand an already-bankrupt Medicare system.
The math behind this is ugly. Medicare's long-term liabilities now total $89 trillion, according to the Government Accountability Office. Based on projected deficits, the just-passed health reform will take that to $136 trillion.

It will take a lot more than the "rich," as defined today, to make up such unfathomable tax shortfalls. That's when they'll come for the rest of us — poor, middle-class and rich alike — and we all will be paying vastly higher taxes for vastly inferior medical care.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=528099

Posted in Congress Constitution Democrat Economy Freedom Government Control Healthcare Reform Obama Privacy Socialized Medicine Taxes with No Comments

More:

Obamacare Will Be A Chronic Disease On Businesses

Unfortunately, the degree of adherence to baseless ideology by Obama is only exceeded in magnitude by his ignoble narcissism that passage of healthcare reform will cement a deified legacy. As a consequence and facilitated by other far-left, corrupt, like minded elitist individuals like Pelosi and Reid, America’s economy in addition to its healthcare will suffer irreparably. We will all pay the immense price in freedom, rights, choices and ability to advance from our individual efforts.

We need to fight to overturn or annul this legislation.

Let the second revolution by the American people begin …

Health Overhaul's Assault On Business
Investors Business Daily   03/19/2010

Taxes: If ObamaCare becomes permanent, no one will suffer more than U.S. businesses. They'll face higher taxes, more regulations and a higher cost of capital. But don't take our word for it. Go ask Caterpillar.

The heavy-equipment giant reckons its insurance costs will go up 20%, or $100 million, the first year after the health care system is overhauled, and may go even higher. Multiply that by literally tens of thousands of companies nationwide, large and small, and you can see how costs will soar.

"We can ill-afford cost increases that place us at a disadvantage versus our global competitors," said Greg Folley, a Caterpillar vice president. "We are disappointed that efforts at reform have not addressed the cost concerns we've raised throughout the year."

If you don't care how this affects businesses, you should. Some 15 million people in this country don't have jobs — and another 12 million work part-time but want full-time positions.

If America's major employers are hit with huge, government-mandated cost increases during an economic downturn, do you really think they'll hire more when the economy starts growing on its own again? Of course not.

Despite this, the White House predicts its plan will "cut costs" for businesses. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi even makes the bizarre prediction that passage of health reform will lead to 400,000 new jobs "immediately," and millions more down the road.

Such claims don't hold water because health reform includes $569.2 billion in new taxes, at last count 160 new bureaucracies and regulations, and 16,500 new IRS agents to collect all those taxes. Tax hits on businesses and industries include:

• $52 billion on companies that do not provide what the government deems "acceptable" or "affordable" insurance for workers.

• $60.1 billion on health insurers.

• $27 billion on drugmakers and importers.

• $20 billion on makers and importers of medical devices.

• $2.7 billion on the tanning industry.

And of course the companies themselves don't pay. You do — both as a consumer, through higher prices, and as an employee, through lower wages.

As the Tax Policy Center, a center-liberal think tank, noted recently, "Economists generally believe that the burden of payroll taxes is borne by workers in the form of lower wages, regardless of whether the tax is levied on the employer or employee."

But that's not the end of it.

A new Medicare tax on capital gains, dividends and other investment income has been raised from 2.9% to 3.8%. Supposedly, this is a tax on the "wealthy," those with $200,000 or more in income. It's really a tax on small business, entrepreneurs and investors.

This provision will push the top cap-gains rate from 15% to almost 24%, while the dividend rate will rise from 35% to 43.4%.

This amounts a big new tax on the very people who are most likely to own or start a new business and hire workers. Health reform will tax large numbers of job creators out of business — and no one in the White House seems to know, or even care.

But it will have an enormous impact. As a result of the Obama-Care taxes on successful individuals and companies, investment in new companies will slow, and old companies will face a higher cost of capital. New jobs will be created offshore in places such India and China.

Economist Steve Entin of the Institute for Research on the Economics of Taxation estimated the Medicare tax would reduce GDP by 1.3%, capital formation by 3.4% and after-tax incomes of those who don't pay the tax directly by 1.2%.

And those estimates came when the tax was "only" 2.9% — not the 3.8% it is in the current bill. So the economic losses would in fact be even larger than Entin estimated.

Because of these taxes and other faults in the plan, a group of 130 economists last Thursday sent President Obama a letter imploring him not to sign the bill, saying that it would be a job-killer.

"In our view," the economists wrote, "the health care bill contains a number of provisions that will eliminate jobs, reduce hours and wages, and limit future job creation."

Health reform's taxes and huge new costs will lead to semi-permanent stagnation in the U.S. economy, marked by higher unemployment and lower standards of living.

Is this how Americans see their future? Based on the Tea Party movement and growing anger at the government for seizing control of the economy's high ground, we doubt it.

The only real question is, are the White House and Congress listening?

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=527934

Posted in Arrogance Congress Democrat Economy Freedom Healthcare Reform Ideology Narcissism Obama with No Comments

More:

The Congressional Budget Office’s Preliminary Score For Obamacare Is BOGUS!

The preliminary estimates publicized by the Congressional Budget Office have no basis in reality. Though we don't know exactly how they arrived at their artificially low number, it was unquestionably affected by the incomplete and deceptive information that they were provided with. Of course, this does not account for bald faced fraud perpetrated by the Democrats in attempting to reduce the ostensible costs with maneuvers such as removing the Medicare fix costs from the legislation.

Five Reasons The CBO Figures Are Phony
Ed Carson     3/18/2010

The Congressional Budget Office’s preliminary “score” says the health care overhaul will cost $940 billion over the first 10 years, saving $138 billion over that time. But the CBO must assess legislation as written, rather than whether it will actually be carried out. Or, as the Economist put it, “The CBO is required to pretend to believe many impossible things before breakfast.”

1. Medicare cuts
The Senate health care bill relied heavily on unprecedented cuts in Medicare spending increases. If implemented, this would have a huge impact on seniors’ care. But Congress has always balked at Medicare cuts. (See No. 3).

2. Delayed start
To make the budget math work, Democrats plan on delaying the start of subsidies and other costly provisions for several years. (The bill spends just $17 billion through 2013). The true 10-year cost is far higher.

3. The “doc fix” is excluded
The Sustainable Growth Rate imposes automatic cuts in Medicare payment rates to doctors.
For several years, fearing a revolt by doctors — and seniors — Congress has suspended those cuts. The original draft of the House health care bill included a permanent “doc fix.” But that ballooned deficits, so Democrats dropped it, even though everyone knows Congress isn’t going to slash doctors’ rates. The CBO has estimated a “doc fix” would cost $247 billion over 10 years.

4. Student loans are included
Doctors’ payments are excluded from the health bill, but major student loan program changes are included? Yep. The reconciliation bill will end student loan subsidies to lenders. The CBO says this will save $19.4 billion over the first decade, accounting for virtually all of the $19.8 billion in deficit reduction from the health care reconciliation bill. Reconciliation bills must cut the deficit by at least $1 billion. So, without the non-health care items, the health care reconciliation bill would not pass muster.

5. It’s a CLASS act
In the Senate health bill, a new, voluntary long-term care insurance program called CLASS accounted for some $72 billion of the deficit reduction.  The Community Living Assistance Services and Supports program is supposed to be deficit-neutral long-term. But Democrats are counting the upfront premium surplus in the short term and ignoring the significant operating deficits after 2029. Update: Democrats also are counting on projected additional Social Security revenues from payroll taxes on higher wages in lieu of lower health benefits. Again, those benefits have to be paid out.

But wait, there’s more! Let’s assume that the cost savings materialize as planned. It still makes the long-term fiscal outlook worse. Why? Democrats are using up a lot of tax hikes, spending cuts and upfront payment just to get barely better than deficit-neutral. That leaves future lawmakers less scope to bring the nation’s finances into order.

On a related note, Democrats continue to maintain the health bill would extend Medicare’s solvency by several years. But they plan to use those as-yet-unrealized Medicare cost savings for a huge new entitlement and to reduce the overall deficit.

http://blogs.investors.com/capitalhill/index.php/home/35-politicsinvesting/1524-five-reasons-the-cbo-figures-are-phony

Posted in Arrogance Congress Democrat Healthcare Reform US Debt with No Comments

More:

Pithy, Humorous Insight Into Obamacare

The following pithy, insightful and humorous commentary on Obamacare has been appearing all over the internet:

Let me get this straight......

we're trying to pass a health care plan written by a committee whose chairman says he doesn't understand it,

passed by a Congress that hasn't read it but exempts themselves from it,

to be signed by a President that also hasn't read it and who smokes,

with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn't pay his taxes,

all to be overseen by a Surgeon General who is obese,

and financed by a country that's broke.

What the hell could possibly go wrong?

Fight to the end against passage of Obamacare!

Posted in Congress Healthcare Reform Obama with No Comments

More:

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) Suggests Impeachment of Nancy Pelosi

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) has been a resolute and outspoken critic of Obama and his policies and the actions of the Democrat controlled Congress. Outraged by the immoral, depraved and illegal actions of Nancy Pelosi, she has suggested that her impeachment would be an appropriate action.

We must show Michele Bachmann our support and appreciation for her unwavering dedication and willingness to vigorously stand up for the American people against a hostile Congress and vindictive, scathing press by sending letters and e-mails.

Bachmann Rips Media for Not Covering Deem and Pass; Suggests Pelosi Impeachment Warranted
By Jeff Poor 03/17/2010

The latest maneuvering by congressional Democrats to make their brand of health care reform a reality has a lot of Washington, D.C. insiders scratching their heads and unable to forecast what is around the bend when it comes to this legislation.

But have the media completely dropped the ball and that is allowing those in power to circumvent constitutional process? According to Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., they have. She had some harsh words for the fourth estate on conservative talker Sean Hannity's March 16 radio show.

"Well yeah and the other thing is treason media," Bachmann said. "Where is the mainstream media in all of this not telling this story? This is a compelling story - that the Speaker of the House would even consider having us pass a bill that no one votes on?"

According to Bachmann, this is such an egregious maneuver by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, to force through health care reform using the Slaughter Rule, as known as deem and pass , that it warrants her impeachment from the post.

"That should laugh her out of the House and there should be people that are calling for impeachment off of something like this," Bachmann continued. "That's how bad this is. I mean, trust me - Dennis Hastert could have never gotten away with this. President Bush never could have gotten away with it."

But if anything, Bachmann contended this could be a teachable moment in civics for the country. She explained this is what happens when a one-party dominant rule occurs - an abuse of power and the trampling of the United States Constitution.

"And that's why this is a very useful example to all of us about growing up and being serious and knowing how valuable and important our country is and the value of election," Bachmann said. "That's what we've learned about the value of this last election with one-party dominance and rule. And this is how they view our most precious, sacred document - the Constitution? They're going to ignore it? No."

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/jeff-poor/2010/03/17/bachmann-rips-media-not-covering-deem-and-pass-suggests-pelosi-impeachmen

Posted in Congress Healthcare Reform Impeach Nancy Pelosi Rep. Michele Bachmann Videos with No Comments

More:

Corruptocrats Reach New Low In Attempts To Pass Obamacare Without True Vote

It is difficult if not impossible to find a period of time in our history where our government is as corrupt and hell-bent on abrogating the freedoms and rights of its citizens. This is the anathema of a one party rule without countervailing opposition. What we are witnessing is a revolution by corrupt and unconstitutional legislation perpetrated by “our” government which must be stopped.

The next few days are the most critical for all of us. We urge you to call, e-mail and fax Senators and Representatives across the country and give them a piece of your mind. Then in November, these corruptocrats need to be ousted wholesale.

Not Even A Vote?!
Investors Business Daily   03/16/2010

Health Reform: Using a parliamentary trick ironically known as the "self-executing rule," Democrats plan on passing their massive health bill without voting. In November, they'll learn just how "self-executing" it was.

Just when you thought Washington couldn't get more corrupt, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi this week seems intent on trampling representative government itself. Unable to get the votes to pass their U.S. health care revolution, she and her fellow Democratic leaders have figured out a way to pass it without a vote.

The "self-executing rule" has been "used to adopt concurrent resolutions correcting the enrollment of measures or to make other technical changes to legislation," according to the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress.

It's "a two-for-one procedure," as the CRS describes it, because the House of Representatives always must pass a rule, written by the House Rules Committee (where Democrats hold a 9-to-4 majority), setting the terms of debate on a particular piece of legislation. In this case, it's been rigged so that if the rule passes, the legislation passes too.

The trick has been used before, as cited by the CRS, on obscure measures like the prohibition of smoking on airline flights in 1989, an employee verification program regarding illegal aliens in 1996, the blocking of the use of statistical sampling for the 2000 census until federal courts could determine its constitutionality, and an IRS overhaul in 1997.

But never on anything approaching such landmark legislation.

Amy Ridenour, president of the National Center for Public Policy Research, is among a number of legal scholars who believe this Slaughter Solution, named after House Rules Committee Chairwoman Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., "would stand a very good chance of being tossed out by the U.S. Supreme Court."

In the 1998 Clinton v. City of New York ruling on the line-item veto, liberal Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for a 6-to-3 majority, "laid a likely road map for how the court might rule on a challenge to the constitutionality of the Slaughter Solution," according to Ridenour.

Stevens made note of "three procedural steps" that must be taken before a bill becomes law:  The "exact text" must be "approved by a majority of the members of the House of Representatives"; the Senate must approve "precisely the same text"; and the same text must be "signed into law by the president. The Constitution explicitly requires that each of those three steps be taken before a bill may become a law."

Indeed, Article 1, Section 7 of the Constitution couldn't be clearer: "The votes of both Houses shall be determined by yeas and nays, and the names of the persons voting for and against the bill shall be entered on the Journal of each House respectively."

Michael McConnell, a former federal judge and director of Stanford University's Constitutional Law Center, writing in the Wall Street Journal this week, declared the trick unconstitutional because "this means that no single bill will have passed both houses in the same form." Talk radio host and Landmark Legal Foundation President Mark Levin warned of its use sparking "the greatest constitutional crisis since the Civil War."

The president, the speaker and the rest of those involved in one-party rule in Washington may think they know what's good for the American people better than the people do.

Do they also think they know better than the framers of the Constitution and their naive ideas of one man, one vote?

If anything could swell the ranks of the populist Tea Party movement and make it friendlier to Republican candidates this November, it's executing the "self-executing rule."

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=527493

Posted in Arrogance Congress Corruption Democrat Freedom Healthcare Reform Nancy Pelosi Obama with No Comments

More:

Rep. Steve King (R-IA) Is Encouraging Americans To Disrupt Congress To Thwart Passage of the Obamacare by Illegal Means

We are now seeing some more sensible politicians speaking out against the Federal government's illegal tactics of attempting to impose legislation on Americans and against their will. This is essentially a clarion call to action in order to prevent the government from abrogating our rights and freedoms.

We all must act. Call, write and e-mail your Representatives and Senators again, again and again...

Steve King Calls For Revolution In The Streets Of Washington To Stop Health Care Bill
Eric Kleefeld March 16, 2010

Rep. Steve King (R-IA)

Rep. Steve King (R-IA) is calling for a new procedural solution to stop the health care bill: Have an angry mob of citizens storm Washington and prevent Congress from acting, in imitation of the Velvet Revolution that overthrew communist rule in Czechoslovakia!

The Huffington Post interviewed King after his speech at today's "Code Red" anti-health care bill rally, a speech in which he called upon the crowd to "Storm this city, fill up Washington D.C., jam this capital so they can't move."
Speaking to the Huffington Post shortly after his speech, King declared that a peaceful uprising, a la the successful overthrowing of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia on the streets of Prague in 1989 "would be fine with me."

"Fill this city up, fill this city, jam this place full so that they can't get in, they can't get out and they will have to capitulate to the will of the American people," he said.

"So this is just like Prague under communist rule?" the Huffington Post asked.

"Oh yeah, it is very, very close," King replied. "It is the nationalization of our liberty and the federal government taking our liberty over. So there are a lot of similarities there."

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/03/steve-king-calls-for-revolution-in-the-streets-of-washington-to-stop-health-care-bill.php

Posted in Congress Democrat Freedom Government Control Ideology with 1 Comment

More:

Just A Few Reasons Why Obamacare Should Not The Light of Day

Over the last year, we have expressed our resolute opposition to Government controlled healthcare reform independent of the various iterations that have been promulgated. The present behemoth legislation, in excess of 2700 pages, will destroy the best healthcare system in the world and ultimately bankrupt this country with uncontrollable and unsustainable costs.

There are countless reasons to oppose this legislation, many of which have received little exposure in the press or by analysts (privacy issues). Regardless, this bill must be vehemently fought and opposed by all Americans if we want to preserve the world’s best healthcare as well as our rights and freedoms.

Below, is an abbreviated list assembled by Investors Business Daily of some of the reasons why Obamacare should not be implemented.

Why Health Bill Makes No Sense
Investors Business Daily   03/12/2010

Health Reform: So it's come down to this — desperate Democratic leaders strong-arming members on the worst bill ever before they go home to explain to constituents why they decided to commit political suicide.

We've said just about all we've had to say on this issue — actually dating back to 1993-94, when we wrote nearly 100 editorials in opposition to HillaryCare. Since January of last year, we've weighed in 150 more times against the latest version of socialized medicine.

But to review, here are just 15 reasons why a government takeover of the finest medical system in the world makes no sense at all:

1. The people don't want it! This, we would think, should have some bearing on decision-making. Yet the Democrats forge ahead without consent of the governed. In the latest Rasmussen poll, 53% opposed the Democrats' reform while 42% were in favor. More than four in 10 "strongly" opposed; just two in 10 "strongly" favored. This jibes with other surveys, including our own IBD/TIPP Poll, taken since last year.

2. Doctors don't want it! A survey we took last summer of 1,376 practicing physicians found that 45% would consider leaving their practices or taking early retirements if the Democrats' reform became law. In December, the results were validated by a Medicus poll in which 25% of doctors said they'd retire early if a public option is implemented and another 21% would stop practicing even though they were far from their retirement years. Even if the bill doesn't have a "public option," nearly 30% said they'd quit the profession under the plans being considered.

3. Half the Congress doesn't want it! Not a single Republican backed the health care bill that cleared the Senate on Christmas Eve 60-39. House passage was by a slim 220 to 215, and the lone Republican "aye" has since switched to "no."
Columnist Michael Barone says other changes would put the House vote today at 216-215 in favor, and he has doubts Democrats can even muster 216.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made her job of securing yes votes even more difficult last week when she told a meeting of county officials that "we have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it." Members of Congress aren't waiting: They've already exempted themselves from whatever they inflict on us.

4. People are happy with the health care they've got! Polls show that 84% of Americans have health insurance and that few are displeased with what they've got. Last month, the St. Petersburg Times looked at eight polls and reported that satisfaction rates averaged 87%.

5. It doesn't even cover the people they set out to cover! Supporters of government-run health care say there are as many as 47 million Americans — 9 million to 10 million of them illegal aliens — without medical insurance. The Democrats' plans, however, will put only 31 million of the uninsured under coverage.

6. Costs will go up, not down! Democrats say their plans will cost less than $1 trillion over the first decade. But analyst Michael Cannon at the Cato Institute puts the cost at $2.5 trillion over the first 10 years. Even if we go with the government's lower estimates, the cost is already on the rise. A new estimate by the Congressional Budget Office puts the cost of the Senate bill at $875 billion over 10 years, $4 billion more than its original projection. Imagine how fast costs would soar if one of the bills became public policy.

7. Real cost controls are nowhere to be found! The Democrats are offering no meaningful tort reform that will help push down the high malpractice insurance premiums that are a burden to doctors and their patients. Nor are they considering any other cost-saving provisions, such as allowing the sale of individual health plans across state lines or easing health insurance mandates.

8. Insurance premiums will rise, not fall! One goal of nationalizing health care is to lower costs, to bend the spending curve downward. Yet, as Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin acknowledged Wednesday, that won't be the case.

"Anyone who would stand before you and say, 'Well, if you pass health care reform, next year's health care premiums are going down,' I don't think is telling the truth," he said from the Senate floor. "I think it is likely they would go up."

An analysis completed by the CBO at the request of Sen. Evan Bayh confirms Durbin's suspicions. Insurance coverage in the individual market will "be about 10% to 13% higher in 2016 than the average premium for nongroup coverage in that same year under current law," it concluded.

9. Medicare is already bankrupting us! The Medicare trust fund, which has unfunded obligations of $37.8 trillion, will be insolvent in 2017. How can lawmakers justify another entitlement that will cost trillions when they can't pay for existing liabilities?

10. There aren't enough doctors now! Last month, 26% of physicians responding to a Web poll on Sermo.com, which calls itself "the largest online physician community," said they had been forced to close, or were considering closing, their solo practices. Providing coverage for an additional 31 million Americans when the number of doctors is shrinking won't improve our health care.

11. The doctor-patient relationship will be wrecked! The latest IBD/TIPP Poll, taken just last week, found that Americans, by a wide 48%-26% margin, believe the doctor-patient relationship will decline if the Democrats' plan is passed.

12. Medical care will also deteriorate! IBD/TIPP has also found that 51% of Americans believe care would get worse under government control. Only 10.5% said they felt it would improve. In our doctor poll, 72% disagreed with administration claims that the government could cover 47 million more people with better-quality care at lower cost.

13. Rationing of care is inevitable! Health care is not an unlimited resource and must be rationed, either by the individual, providers or government. In Britain and Canada, where the government does the rationing, medical treatment waiting lists are sometimes deadly and quite often excessively long.

For instance, late cancer diagnoses in an overcrowded public health care system cause up to 10,000 needless deaths a year in Britain. The reasons cited for the late diagnoses include doctor delay, delay in primary care, system delay and delay in secondary care.

14. Private health insurers will be destroyed! Added mandates and price controls will force many insurers to simply get out of the health plan business because it will no longer be profitable.

15. It's probably unconstitutional! One way to help bring down the number of uninsured is to demand that those without coverage buy health plans. But the government has never passed a law requiring Americans to buy any good or service.
Constitutional scholars say any such mandate would likely draw a legal challenge.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=527217

Posted in Congress Constitution Democrat Doctors Government Control Healthcare Reform Ideology Parable Personal rights Rationing Republican Taxes with No Comments

More:

A Spending Limit Amendment to the Constitution: An Idea Whose Time Is Right

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.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=522845

Posted in Congress Constitutional Amendments Democrat Government spending Republican Tea Parties with No Comments

More:

We Must Stop Obama and Democrats in Congress From Passage Of the Healthcare Reform Legislation!

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.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=522847

Posted in Arrogance Congress Freedom Government Control Healthcare Reform Ideology Obama with No Comments

More:

Data, Evidence and Experience Overwhelmingly Refute Benefits and Political Assertions of Government Controlled Healthcare

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.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=522833

Posted in Arrogance Communism Congress Democrat Government Control Healthcare Reform Ideology Obama with No Comments

More:

The Democratic Party Has Become the Lawyers’ Party

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.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/03/the_lawyers_party.html

Posted in Congress Democrat Lawyers Legal rights Republican with No Comments

More:

Congressional Democrats Over The Top Attacks On Toyota Are Politically Motivated And Serve As A Warning Against Too Strong A Central Government

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.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=522007

Posted in Congress Corruption Democrat Labor Unions Media - Far Left with No Comments

More:

Inappropriate Outrage Regarding White House Party Gate Crashers Versus Illegal Immigrants

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.

White House Trespassers

Posted in Congress Security Videos with No Comments

More:

 Print This Post