The president’s recent disappointing oval office speech elicited a chorus of criticism from across the political spectrum.  For some reason the speech seems to have put a spotlight on the president as a leader, whereas other misjudgments in which he was directly involved in making policy had not.  The oil spill, which was certainly no fault of Mr. Obama, seems to have finally caused the public and many of his cheerleaders among the pundits to focus on the president’s substance and not his style.  That has been the unspoken, elephant-in- the-room, concern throughout his presidency, his aptitude for leadership.  We are reminded of the lead-in lyrics to the signature song Ethel Merman belts out in Gypsy… “Curtain up…light the lights…you either got it…or you ain’t.”

President Obama seems to have the curtain up, light the lights part down pat.  The dramatic campaign and convention stage sets, his world photo-op tours, his big oval-office backdrop to his little oval-office speech, and his ever-masterful use of the teleprompter have all produced a “strike-up-the-band” expectation whenever and wherever he appears. It’s the “you either got it, or you ain’t” part that seems finally to have focused the public on the president’s aptitude for leadership.

The befouling glob that threatens hundreds of miles of coast or, as Peggy Noonan put it recently so aptly in the Wall Street Journal, “the monster from under the sea,” seems to be a metaphor for the president’s inability to shape the world as he wants it to be.  Speeches are not a substitute for coherent policy.  The president, with the entire world watching his prime time speech, essentially punted.  He pulled from the presidential duck-and-cover arsenal the time-tested, yawn producer of presidents bereft of solutions to all manner of problems…the formation of a new blue-ribbon commission.  This was the cornerstone of his “battle plan” to face down the “siege” of big oil’s attack on our Gulf coast.

There is nothing more to be said about the quality of Mr. Obama’s oval-office speech debut.  It seems as if all the commentators from Chris Mathews, Keith Olberman and Jon Stewart on the left, to Mark Steyn, Charles Krauthammer and Karl Rove on the right have already done that.  Besides, there is something much more revealing that is apparent here.  It isn’t about the delivery by the man who gave the speech; it is, rather, about the man who delivered the speech.  The disappointing oval-office moment was more than just a lack of writing skill by some wordsmith presidential speechwriter; it focused the attention of the American people on the man himself and on what they hoped just wasn’t so; an apparent lack of the leadership aptitude which a president must possess if he or she is to succeed.

The evidence of weak leadership skills was there before but it became shrouded in the president’s rock star image. The fact is that there was very little about Barack Obama’s pre-presidential career that suggested any real aptitude for leadership.  There was always plenty of “curtain up, light the lights” but the demonstration of leadership part was always a bit like a clock striking thirteen. That is to say, not quite reassuring.

His career as a legislator in Illinois, while always well hyped, was less than impressive.  His biggest legislative achievement in Illinois seems to be the nearly 130 times he chose to vote “present” rather than “yea” or “nay” on major bills.  And yes, we’ve heard or read the standard excuse for this apparent ambivalence.  “It’s the way things are often done in the Illinois Senate,” we’re told.  But since when has doing things the way they are done in Illinois met the definition of leadership anywhere outside of that state.

Besides, some of the “present” votes then state-Senator Obama chose to cast while in the Illinois legislature are quite revealing, if not troubling.  For example, in 1999 he was faced with a difficult vote, to support a bill that would let some juveniles be tried as adults. Understandably, many African-Americans were opposed to the bill.  On the other hand, Mr. Obama was trying to hone an image of a tough-on crime candidate. It was a difficult political call for him; so, he voted “present.”

According to the New York Times, on at least 36 occasions state-Senator Obama was either the only state senator to vote “present” or was part of a group of six or fewer to vote that way.  Politically, the option to vote “present” provides a certain amount of cover. It is a way for the faint of heart, in effect, to say, “I don’t particularly like this bill, but I don’t want to take the political risk of taking a stand.”

The juvenile crime bill was to allow offenders as young as 15 to be prosecuted as adults if charged with committing a crime with a firearm on, or near, schools. Both houses passed the measure handily. State-Senator Obama justified his “present” vote by opining there was no proof that increasing penalties for young offenders reduced crime. Mr. Obama’s aides said he was more concerned about whether the bill would be effective rather than with its political consequences.  They did not explain, however, why he did not just vote “no”.

There were other “present” votes, in which part-time law-lecturer Obama, according to the New York Times, said he had concerns about the constitutionality or effectiveness of some provisions. Among those, Mr. Obama did not vote “yea” or “nay” on a bill that would allow certain victims of sex crimes to petition judges to seal court records relating to their cases. He also voted “present” on a bill to impose stricter standards for evidence a judge is permitted to consider in imposing a criminal sentence.

On the sex crime bill, Mr. Obama cast the lone “present” vote in a 58-to-0 vote.  When it appeared that this vote might become an issue in the presidential race Mr. Obama’s campaign said he believed that the bill violated the First Amendment. The bill had passed 112-0-0 in the Illinois House and 58-0-1 in the state Senate.  Again, why didn’t he just vote, “no”?

In 2000, Mr. Obama was one of two senators who voted present on a bill on whether facts not presented to a jury could later be the basis for increasing an offender’s sentence beyond the ordinary maximum. The bill sailed through both chambers. Out of 174 votes cast in the House and Senate, two were against and two were “present”, including Mr. Obama’s.  Mr. Obama’s campaign said he voted present to register his dissatisfaction with how the bill was put together. He believed (hold on to your hat) the bill was rushed to the floor and that lawmakers were deprived of time to consider it.  Oddly, this hasn’t been a problem for the president with bills passed in the House and Senate of the United States.

The Times also reported that Mr. Obama was the sole “present” vote on a bill that easily passed the Illinois Senate that would require teaching respect for others in schools. He also voted “present” on a measure to prohibit sex-related shops from opening near schools or places of worship, which ultimately did not pass the Illinois Senate.  In both of those cases, his campaign said (hold on to your hat again) he was trying to avoid mandates on local authorities.  This from, now, President Obama, who has gone on, arguably, to impose the greatest funded and unfunded mandates on local authorities in the nation’s history.

But enough of ancient history.  Fast forward to the centerpiece of his first year in office, health-care reform.  Many on the left, and even some on the right, suggest that this massive legislative “achievement” is proof that President Obama is a formidable leader. We beg to differ.  It may, indeed, prove that Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority leader Harry Reid can effectively lead their party’s foot soldiers over any cliff they choose, but it really doesn’t say much about President Obama’s leadership aptitude.  Quite the opposite.   Apparently misreading the lessons of President Clinton’s terribly misdirected attempt at health-care reform, President Obama delegated the entire effort to Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid.  He sat by as they cobbled together (in his name) the horrific 2700-page health-care reform legislation that a substantial majority of the people consistently said they did not want and consistently continue to say they now want repealed and which a third of the states are now fighting to stop in federal court. Real leadership of the type he promised, but apparently cannot deliver, would have brought both sides together instead of putting the nation through some of the worst acrimony we can ever remember.

The curtains up…light the lights first-day-in-office announcement that the prison housing terrorists at Guantanamo Bay would be closed within a year, was an early lesson that Ruffles and Flourishes without leadership aptitude is, well, just music.  The world apology tour for American foreign policy under the Bush Administration, the Cairo speech, the presidential outstretched hand to our adversaries and the long-lapsed ultimatum for a reciprocal handshake in return, the puzzling back of the hand treatment to Britain, our closest friend since the end of World War II, the insulting treatment of our friends such as South Korea, Columbia, Honduras, and Israel, and the skyrocketing spending and the attendant ever-mounting deficits all call into question the aptitude for leadership that prevails (or is absent) at the White House.

Les Gelb wrote of Obama, “He is so self-confident that he believes he can make decisions on the most complicated of issues after only hours of discussion.  Strategic decisions go well beyond being smart, which Obama certainly is.  They must be based on experience that discerns what works, what doesn’t — and why.  This requires experienced staffing, which Obama and his top appointees simply do not seem to have.”  Mr. Obama is beginning to look to more and more of the people who were dazzled by his meteoric rise and who were looking for the political equivalent of a messiah, as a growing disappointment.  It turns out that Mr. Obama cannot by his charm, his gift-of-gab, his oratorical skills and his considerable intelligence will into reality policies that the people won’t accept and that many across the political spectrum here and abroad seriously question.  

Which brings us full circle back to where we began… the growing fiasco that continues to assault the gulf coast.  “What could the President have done to avoid the blowout at the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform?” the Administration’s defenders indignantly ask.  Nothing.  But that is the wrong question.  The more telling question would be “what could the President have done to mitigate the damage?”  And the answer to that seems to be, “plenty.”

He had the authority to waive the ridiculous and long-outdated, protectionist Jones Act that would have allowed significant expertise and siphoning capacity to be on location in the Gulf weeks ago mitigating the damage that now seems unstoppable.  But, so as not to offend labor unions or domestic shipping interests, he turned down the offers.  He could have immediately authorized Governor Bobby Jindal to begin deploying barriers parallel to the gulf coast as the governor was begging for permission to do (and for which he was still begging last week).  He could, and should, have immediately designated the most operationally competent person he could find to take charge of containment operations and to report progress to him on a daily basis.

Instead, seven weeks into this debacle, when discussing why safety precautions were not in place, Mr. Obama assured the American people “that he wants to know why.”  Of course, the answer he will soon provide is quite predictable since we have heard it many times before.  The problem, we will be told, rests with the previous Administration.  Blaming Bush, or industry or political opposition seems to be his answer for every problem.  “I inherited this mess,” he often tells us. In short, the President is not providing the leadership one would expect from a chief executive running the country.  Instead, he has responded as one would expect from a chief executive running a think tank.

Enough curtain up…light the lights.  The curtain has been up and the lights have been lighted since January 20^th, 2009.  Show us you got it, Mr. President. Not that you ain’t.

By Hal Gershowitz and Stephen Porter

Aside from breaking her word to the AMA and physicians across the country, Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has effectively demolished doctor reimbursements for most of the healthcare industry.  The 21.2% Medicare fee schedule cut has taken effect, but what most do not realize is that the Medicare fee schedule is the gold standard for provider reimbursement fee schedules across the nation.

Essentially, where Medicare goes, insurers follow for the guidelines in covered services and baseline physician fee schedules for private payers as well as worker’s compensation and automobile insurance companies in most states, as well as Medicaid and Medicare itself.

What Pelosi has effectively done is saved the insurance companies who use the Medicare fee schedule millions of dollars of payouts to physicians on their claims–regardless if the patient is a Medicare patient.  I’m not seeing the insurance lobby out there right now, are you?  However, on the provider side, the doctor’s lobby groups are outraged at Pelosi’s failure and the damage this inaction will cause physicians–especially private–and force them to layoff employees to make up for the loss in reimbursements to cover their enormous monthly overhead costs.

Pelosi is completely ignorant of the doctor’s fee schedules and how their reimbursements are calculated.  In a multilayered approach and working with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the AMA Resource-Based Relative Value Scale (RBRVS) is used and the AMA/Specialty Society Relative Value Scale Update Committee (RUC) makes annual recommendations regarding new and revised physician services to CMS and performs broad reviews of the RBRVS every five years.  These values have not been adjusted since the 21% fee schedule reduction took effect and for Pelosi to ignore the fact that the doc fix will actually cost doctors to see their patients because their fees will be reduced, but the cost of providing the services and the supplies needed have not gone down and in some cases, continue to rise.  Additionally, student loan payments have not been decreased by 21% for doctors, have they?

The only business segment to ultimately win is the insurance industry.

Real-world exit questions:  If you own a company and your revenue just got nicked by 21%, but your supplies and cost of services has remained the same, how long before you will have to layoff employees to cover your monthly costs?

Do people understand that private practice physicians take most, if not all, of their salaries on assignment?  Physicians must do this because of provider contracts and other variables, but their fees are not a guarantee of payment; claims can be denied in part or in full.  (Some lawyers take their fees on assignment, but it is their choice.)  And now, doctors are being used as political pawns by the Democrats.

Is it possible that the Democrats are attempting to push doctors into the union, say the SEIU?  Only those doctors who are in private practices, not employed by hospitals cannot unionize, so what’s next for them?

Nothing like having a bunch of bureaucrats who have no idea about healthcare, costs of providing services,  running a business, covering overhead, etc. in charge of your salary, covered services, and future.

Finally, this is clearly a Democrat problem, after all, “You won.”  And by that, Americans now understand that to mean that the Democrats are clearly the party of cry-babies, finger-pointers, and blame-shifters.  And job killers, because if your more than $800 billion stimulus and jobs bills actually provided jobs, we wouldn’t need unemployment extenders in current legislation.  Americans would actually be back to work, wouldn’t they, Nan?

You knew this was coming. From the Associated Press:

The White House announcement comes as administration officials meet privately with state insurance commissioners, and CEOs of major insurance companies, amid concerns over continued premium hikes. Obama was expected to attend at least part of the session, and is scheduled to make a speech later.

Consumers who buy their policies directly faced increases averaging 20 percent this year, according to a survey released Monday by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Although most Americans are covered on the job, about 14 million purchase insurance on the individual market and have the least bargaining power when it comes to costs.

It’s still unclear how insurance companies will price the new guaranteed coverage for children. If premiums are too high, families may still be unable to get health insurance.

Entire article here.

___

Like a relentlessly advancing cancer, the news about the US fiscal deficit and the accumulated debt, which is its result, keeps getting worse.  Every week the press discloses some supposedly “new” information about either the federal budget, economic failure, projections of economic growth, the effects of the so-called “doc fix” (about which we have written several times), the sorry fiscal condition of state and municipal finances, or some further jobs stimulus proposal, all of which pile more costs on this nation that, if it were a private business, would be considered broke.

Before looking at the most recent spate of deficit and debt related news, let us start with the CBO’s updated March 2010 report which estimated that the cumulative effects of the Administration’s budget proposals would add $9.7 trillion to our current deficit of $14 trillion (an amount equal to approximately ninety percent of our annual GDP and clearly approaching the danger zone).  This amount does not include any spending for enacting climate legislation or the effect of rising interest rates to service our debt or spending for contingencies from unplanned events which will inevitably occur.

Moreover, it projects economic growth every year at four percent when we have had only two quarters of growth at four percent or higher in the past five years and, at least since 1982, have never had four consecutive years of growth as high as four percent per annum.  That overly optimistic CBO assumption if not realized will raise the deficit and the accumulated debt, perhaps by trillions of dollars.

In recent days we see once again the fantasy of the most recent budget the president presented.  After just a few months it is outdated.  Mr. Obama has just asked Congress for an additional $50 billion in aid to state governments.  It is uncontested that state and local governments are in terrible fiscal condition and, of course, they can’t print money to inflate away their accumulated debts.  Cumulative state shortfalls in 2009 and 2010 alone are approximately $310 billion and projections for 2011 and 2012 combined are for an additional $300 billion.

State governments have in the past few years either borrowed with abandon or resorted to accounting gimmickry to approach balancing their budgets.  They have consistently looked for new sources of tax revenue or raised taxes on existing sources, making a reality of Ronald Reagan’s statement about government: “if it moves, tax it.”

The figures are appalling.  California alone projects a $9 billion shortfall in 2011 but when the unsolved 2010 budget gap is added in, the total shortfall would be $19.1 billion (22.6 percent of the one year budget).  This hall of shame also includes Illinois where the shortfall projected for 2011 is a whopping 30.1 percent of the budget, New Jersey at 37.4 percent, Maine at 32.1 percent, Michigan at 26.4 percent, Vermont at 31.1 percent and Wisconsin at 25.3 percent.

How did we get to this state (no pun intended) where services now need to be drastically cut, employees laid off, contracts cancelled and previously negotiated benefit packages renegotiated?  Simple.  Politicians love to promise and spend and at the state and local level, unions have organized state employees and have demanded pay and benefit packages way beyond what is paid for like work in the private sector.  With union representatives sitting on pension boards or having its employee members negotiating on behalf of government, the unions are, in effect, on both sides of the table.  These devastating numbers are even more stark and depressing when we consider that over the past two years the federal government has provided $140 billion in state budgetary assistance…approximately thirty to forty percent of state shortfalls.  The effect of this assistance seems only to have postponed the day of reckoning and allowed states to increase hiring and avoid necessary fiscal discipline.  Since 2007 public payrolls have increased while the private sector went through the worst downturn since the Great Depression with unemployment, even with a nascent and fragile economic recovery underway, still hovering just below ten percent.

After that depressing digression, let us return to the president’s proposal for a new $50 billion aid package for the states.  The president has written Congressional leaders to say that the package is essential to avoid “massive layoffs of teachers, police and firefighters.”  As reported in the Washington Post the president calls this a request for “targeted investments.”  The president also wants to extend unemployment benefits which raises the cost of his package to $80 billion.  And while no one wants to be heartless to the jobless who are in great economic distress, these benefits have been extended several times already and cannot (nor should not) be extended indefinitely.

Wasn’t this all known in the White House when the president first sent his budget to Congress?  Why did this request dribble out later packaged as it always is in a wrapper of being necessary to avoid layoffs affecting our children or the public’s safety.  What about the swollen bureaucracies of other state agencies?  Why doesn’t the president mention the incredible cradle to grave benefit packages that allow some workers to retire at age 50 at high percentages of their final year’s salary, with health benefits for the rest of their lives.  Doesn’t this answer become more and more apparent with every additional request for money?  It is because that is the kind of America Mr. Obama wants…. an America that takes more and more resources out of the productive growth producing private sector and pays it over to the non-productive public sector.  Even France, the poster child for excessive public spending, seems to be getting the message that this kind of model doesn’t work but Mr. Obama is imposing, in step by step increments, France’s failed statist approach on the unwitting taxpayers of the United States.

We might also note, as we did in some detail in earlier essays, that the functions the federal government has been funding to defray these state costs have been, since the founding of our republic, the responsibility of the several states.  This raises the obvious question of why the citizens of those states who have lived within their means should have their federal tax dollars used to pay for the unbridled profligacy to which the spendthrift states listed above have obligated their own taxpayers.

The other bit of recent bad budget news which the president recently announced was the so-called doc fix to reverse the 21 percent pay cut scheduled to take place for doctors who treat Medicare patients.  Surprise, surprise.  This fix, as Mr. Obama noted, has passed Congress every year since 2003.  However, he is now complaining that Republicans are using budget austerity (demanding commensurate cuts in spending elsewhere in the bloated federal budget)  as an excuse to prevent a long-term solution to this problem.  How he dissembles.

Just a few short months ago the doc fix was part of the president’s healthcare reform legislation but Congressional leaders removed it from the bill so the CBO could certify that the legislation was revenue neutral and did not “add one dime to the deficit” as the president intoned daily.  So in a most disingenuous piece of fiscal trickery Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid separated the doc fix from the overall healthcare reform legislation and put it in a separate bill, claiming it was a totally separate issue.  Voila; the CBO could now certify the ten-year cost of the healthcare legislation as not increasing the deficit but the very same costs are now to be incurred in a separate law.

So there we have it; the costs of the annual fix which, if included in the healthcare reform bill, might have prevented its passage, is later acknowledged to cause an increase in the deficit by the same amount. This Pelosi-Reid grand-scale shell game, to which the President acquiesced, fooled no one except, seemingly, the CBO, which actually did know under which shell “the fix” was in. Yes, of course, the CBO knew, the White House knew, the Congressional Democrats knew, the compliant main-stream press knew, we knew (and loudly complained at the time), and now everyone knows.  How stupid do these politicians think the American people are?

Make no mistake about it; all of this is not an accident.  Every incremental piece of legislation involving further federal spending is designed to disguise the further centralization of power in Washington.  The inescapable conclusion is that the strategy of Mr. Obama and the Democratic left which holds majority power in Congress is to irreversibly and fundamentally change America by putting in place policies, programs and funding mechanisms that will be difficult, if not impossible, to reverse without devastating costs to the ties that bind us as a nation, and which raise the possibility of terrible social upheaval.

“Health overhaul to force changes in employer plans.” “Draft health rules set hurdles.” “Employer health care costs to jump 9% in 2011.” With headlines like these splashed across the nation’s newspapers, it’s no wonder the American public remains steadfastly opposed to the government takeover of health care signed into law by President Obama in March. Just this week, the Obama administration released bureaucratic new health care regulations that could change or eliminate more than half of all employer-provided health care plans, affecting tens of millions of Americans. Apparently, “If you like it, you can keep it” was an Obama promise too good to be true – one of many, as it is turning out.

Indeed, ObamaCare’s broken promises are piling up for America’s families, seniors, and job-creators and stifling the economic recovery we all hope to achieve. Bureaucratic mandates, higher taxes, and record deficit spending are proven job killers – yet these very principles lay at the heart of the Democrats’ government takeover of health care.

During the Blair House summit, Speaker Pelosi decreed the Democrats’ health care plan would “create four million jobs — 400,000 jobs almost immediately.” With a national unemployment rate stuck near 10 percent, and with 15 million Americans searching for work, Republicans and the American people continue to ask: Where are the jobs?

One of the lasting lessons of the health care debate is this: The American people will no longer accept a federal government that is tone-deaf to their concerns. Men and women who never before have spoken out about politics are now standing up and demanding to be heard. And Republicans are using every resource and seizing every opportunity to bring their voices to Washington D.C.

A central part of our effort is America Speaking Out, a bold new initiative designed to give the American people a voice in shaping a new governing agenda for Congress and the nation. Through AmericaSpeakingOut.com, Americans can post policy suggestions and vote or offer comments on the ideas shared by lawmakers and fellow citizens. It is truly an unprecedented dialogue between the people and their elected leaders.

In the weeks since it launched, ASO has been a powerful force on the internet and in town hall meetings in congressional districts from coast to coast. Tomorrow, the ingenuity of ASO comes to the halls of Congress thanks to the House GOP Health Care Solutions Group. For more than a year, House Republicans have studied the nation’s health care challenges and offered commonsense solutions to lower health care costs and protect jobs without growing the size of government.

Tomorrow’s forum will be the second in a series of meetings intended to shine a brighter light on the consequences of ObamaCare for America’s families and job creators. We have invited experts and individuals with real-world experience to discuss the chilling effect a government takeover of health care is having on job creators across the country. Already we know ObamaCare will penalize small businesses for raising wages or creating new jobs, and we know it will hit businesses – both large and small – with an estimated $87 billion in new penalties for failing to provide government-approved health care. The American people deserve to have these facts examined and they deserve an opportunity to chart a different course, one they support.

At America Speaking Out, citizens have a national platform to offer their ideas for reigning in government spending and advancing American prosperity. Chief to achieving those goals is the desire to repeal ObamaCare and replace it with reform the country can afford. Tomorrow’s health care forum will allow members of Congress and outside experts to discuss ideas posted to America Speaking Out, as well as suggest new ideas for the public to consider.

In his farewell from the Oval Office, President Reagan noted that while as a great nation our challenges seem complex, “as long as we remember our first principles and believe in ourselves, the future will always be ours.” Limited government, personal responsibility, and economic freedom will once again lead this nation to opportunity and prosperity. Democrats disregarded these basic principles in their pursuit of government-run health care. The consequences have proven devastating.

The American people realize the path to renewing our economic prosperity comes through courage and sacrifice, and they are demanding a renewed commitment to our oldest and most basic principles. The American people are speaking out, and Republicans are listening.

SEIU’s New Lavender Lady Labor Boss

Politico’s Ben Smith was first to publish that Service Employee International Union (SEIU) Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger would not be the Purple Union’s  new union boss, he created a shock heard round the world; well at least, at SEIU’s Dupont Circle Headquarters. The breaking news was that Executive Vice President (EVP) Mary Kay Henry (MKH) would become the abruptly resigned Andy Stern’s replacement. Some claimed that this indicated an SEIU shake-up; actually it is merely an SEIU insiders’ game of musical chairs that will result in little change.

Don’t let the cheery atmosphere surrounding her anointment ease concerns about her nor the SEIU and its agenda; because for her, ObamaCare and its potential for 21.1 million forced unionism conscripts are just the beginning steps for SEIU’s steady march towards domination of U.S. labor markets.

Mary Kay Henry’s intentions to further radicalize the labor movement and the American economy are clearer than Stern’s vision.  With the hundreds of millions of union dues and fees flowing into SEIU’s treasury, she has the financial fuel needed to fund her ambitious desires.

SEIU’s Growth by Forced Unionism Fiats

Under Stern direction, SEIU had focused on the takeover of the healthcare industry through forced unionism obtained primarily through government fiats or from intimidated and cowed employers signing away worker freedoms to keep “labor peace.”  SEIU’s purple machine is unlikely to change their top-down intimidation operation with  Henry running the show.

Mary Kay Henry the Queen of ‘SEIU Grassroots’

Despite the New York Times headline: “Grass-Roots Choice Leads Race for Top Union Post;” SEIU is not a grassroots friendly organization. Its growth cannot be attributed to grassroots.

Mary Kay Henry has been credited with most of SEIU’s membership growth for more than a decade; however, that growth did not come from the grassroots; it was top down.

From 1996-2007, SEIU claimed 900,000 “new members” and Mary Kay Henry’s healthcare division provided almost all its growth.. Perhaps, this earned her the recent press accolades referring to her as a “grassroots” organizer, etc…

But, looking at the underlying sources of SEIU “membership” growth provides an excellent picture of how SEIU organizes – and more proof that SEIU and MKH are in reality antithetical to the customary meaning of grassroots:

• Nearly 200,000 of SEIU’s 900,000 new members came through a 1998 merger with an existing union’s membership, an old New York hospital union Local 1199
• Another 200,000 SEIU counted as new recruits are not members, but were actually federally forced agency fee payers to SEIU
• SEIU included 35,000 “members” who were actually retirees
• Almost 500,000 of these “new members” are home care, home childcare and similar quasi-public workers previously treated as independent contractors.[ii]

FYI, This homecare worker forced-unionism scheme was the brain child of ACORN Founder Wade Rathke and others who worked closely with SEIU lawyer, now National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) board member, Craig Becker.

SEIU’s primary method of membership growth is being challenged by several homecare worker victims and their attorneys from The National Right To Work Legal Defense Foundation.  Hundreds of thousands of non-state employees who were forced into labor unions by gubernatorial and legislative fiats may soon regain their freedom if Foundation attorneys prevail.

Continued Centralized Power and Control

In 2006, Mary Kay Henry laid her plan on the table:

More central power is needed, said Henry. “We believe the American labor movement needs to move beyond voluntarism [joining voluntarily?] … SEIU aims to increase the union rate of health care workers from its current 20 percent to 50 percent.[iii]

SEIU’s game plan is simple and reminiscent of the 1950s: create the allusion that it has the power to subjugate employers by region and couple it with SEIU’s willingness to ignore election rules to intimidate and control almost every elected and appointed Democrat in the United States.  If the plan works, SEIU organizations gain control of workers in an entire region of the country.

After creating mega-locals, SEIU begins to sign-up smaller workplaces and move these units into the appropriate mega-local conflating contracts into its master contract for the region.

In the end, SEIU’s mega-local contract spans across numerous states and worksites making it virtually impossible for individual workers to mount a successful decertification or deauthorization NLRB election.

Political $$$ Translates into Forced Unionism and SEIU Growth

SEIU political campaign expenditures on behalf of politicians and its willingness to use political intimidation are largely responsible for those 500,000 new SEIU forced dues paying clients in the home health care field.

After creating subservient elected officials from the state houses to the White House, SEIU follows up with to-do lists like the illegitimate forcing of a half-a-million homecare workers to pay fees to SEIU with the stroke of a pen in some cases.

Former Illinois State Senator and now-President Barack Obama is one such politician that is obligated to SEIU.  In his book, The Audacity, Obama proudly boasts of his SEIU obligation. Read Obama’s own words:

“The Leaders of several of the largest service workers unions the Illinois Federation of Teachers, SEIU, AFSCME, UNITE-HERE chose to endorse me [for U.S. Senate] over Hines … so I owe those unions. When their leaders call, I do my best to call them back right away. I don’t consider this corrupting in anyway.  I don’t mind feeling obligated toward a bunch of home healthcare workers’ [union bosses].”

Mary Kay Henry Andrew Stern

As SEIU President, Mary Kay Henry will no doubt enjoy the same political access afforded the old boss Andy Stern.  Mary Kay Henry has been playing the political game of forced unionism for decades, and she will continue to use SEIU’s political incentives and disincentives. Stern referred to this as the “power of persuasion” and the “persuasion of power.”

Don’t let the new shade of lavender and laces fool you; Henry is as tough as any other Big Labor boss.  She has played major roles in expanding forced unionization and she will continue, unless politicians, taxpayers, and the very workers that Henry claims to represent continue to pushback against SEIU’s extreme agenda against individual workers and their rights.

[iii] Feuerherd, Joe. “Split poses dilemma for labor’s allies.” National Catholic Reporter. 12 Aug. 2005: 11. eLibrary. Web. 04 May. 2010.

A must read in today’s New York Times: (it happens)

With the Senate’s passage of financial regulation, Congress and the White House have completed 16 months of activity that rival any other since the New Deal in scope or ambition. Like the Reagan Revolution or Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, the new progressive period has the makings of a generational shift in how Washington operates.

First came a stimulus bill that, while aimed mainly at ending a deep recession, also set out to remake the nation’s educational system and vastly expand scientific research. Then President Obama signed a health care bill that was the biggest expansion of the safety net in 40 years. And now Congress is in the final stages of a bill that would tighten Wall Street’s rules and probably shrink its profit margins.

If there is a theme to all this, it has been to try to lift economic growth while also reducing income inequality. Growth in the decade that just ended was the slowest in the post-World War II era, while inequality has been rising for most of the last 35 years.

It is far too early to know if these efforts will work. Their success depends enormously on execution and, in the case of financial regulation, specifically on the Federal Reserve, which did not distinguish itself during the housing bubble.

Already, though, one downside to the legislative spurt does seem clear. By focusing on long-term problems, Mr. Obama and the Democrats have given less than their full attention to the economy’s current weakness and turned off a good number of voters.

After months of discussion, and with the unemployment rate hovering near a 27-year high, Democratic leaders said Thursday they had finally reached agreement on a bill that would send aid to states and take other steps to increase job growth. Congress plans to vote on the bill next week. But some of the money will not be spent for months and may not be enough to affect voters’ attitudes before November’s midterm elections.

Still, the turnabout since Jan. 20 — the first anniversary of Mr. Obama’s inauguration and the day after Scott Brown, a Republican, won a Senate seat in liberal Massachusetts — has been remarkable. Then, commentators pronounced the Obama presidency nearly dead. Today, he looks more like a liberal answer to Ronald Reagan.

“If you’d asked me about this administration after Scott Brown was elected, I’d have told you it was going to fizzle into virtually nothing,” said Theda Skocpol, the Harvard political scientist. “Now it could easily be one of the pivotal periods in domestic policy.” But, Ms. Skocpol added, “It will depend on what happens in the next two elections.”

Continue reading here. Ms. Skocpol is right; the next two elections will be decisive. You can’t say you weren’t warned.

Ways and Means Ranking Republican Dave Camp (R-MI) and Health Subcommittee Ranking Member Wally Herger (R-CA) today released a new road map that shows America’s small businesses and their employees how to calculate the so-called small business health care tax credit.

Small_business_tax_credit_path_flow

As the navigation tool shows, employers face a dizzying array of questions and formulas before determining if they are eligible for some, all or none of this credit.

“The health care law is going to drive up premiums even further and, as this road map shows, it provides virtually no help to small businesses,” said Camp.  “No wonder the nation’s leading small business organization is suing to overturn the law.  We need to repeal this law and replace it with health care reforms that lower costs for small businesses, families and taxpayers.”

Herger added, “Ronald Reagan once said that the most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’  It’s no surprise that the Democrats’ big-government health care law offers no real help for small businesses struggling with high health care costs.  In fact, at a time when our top priority should be to create jobs and get our economy back on track, this new law instead kills jobs and tells small business owners that it isn’t in their best interest to grow and prosper.  It’s time for Congress to get to work on repealing this destructive health overhaul and providing real tax relief and health care savings for America’s small businesses.”

The Ways and Means Republican document reaffirms concerns expressed by small business owners in an Associated Press article, FACT CHECK: Tax cut math doesn’t add up for some,  out this morning.

Below are just some of the reports excerpts:

• But when he ran the numbers, [Zach] Hoffman discovered that his office furniture company wouldn’t get any assistance with the $79,200 it pays annually in premiums for its 24 employees. “It leaves you with this feeling of a bait-and-switch,” he said.
• Lost in the fine print: The credit drops off sharply once a company gets above 10 workers and $25,000 average annual wages.
• To get the most out of the new federal credit, Hoffman said he’d have to cut his work force to 10 employees and slash their wages.  “That seems like a strange outcome, given we’ve got 10 percent unemployment,” he said.

The lack of assistance to small businesses and their workers should come as no surprise.  During the health care debate, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that 88 percent of those who get health insurance from a small employer work for a business that will not receive tax credits under the Democrats’ legislation.

As the National Federation of Independent Businesses said, “the small business tax credit will do little to nothing to make purchasing insurance affordable for more small firms.”

President Obama is coming to Youngstown today to tout his administration’s recovery efforts, but its policies are only making matters worse in the Mahoning Valley.

While it’s encouraging that the factory in Youngstown that the president will visit on Tuesday has recently expanded, the city’s painfully high 15.1 percent unemployment rate is a harsh reminder that the “stimulus” has not created jobs “immediately,” or held our national unemployment rate (9.9 percent) below eight percent as the president promised.

Worse yet, the policies of the Obama Administration could quickly put jobs at the factory, which manufactures steel pipes for oil and gas drilling, on the chopping block as it continues to push a “cap-and-trade” national energy tax that will raise energy prices, drive thousands of American jobs overseas to countries with less-stringent environmental regulations, and devastate our domestic oil and gas industries.

Last December the administration unilaterally acted to pave the way for this bureaucratic nightmare, and it’s not looking back. In fact, last week the EPA finalized new rules for manufacturers and power plants scheduled to go into effect in January of next year, regulations that American Iron and Steel Institute President and CEO Thomas Gibson warns “will impose significant new costs on manufacturing industries at the worst possible time… [and] arbitrarily picks winners and losers.”

This disturbing trend of harmful government overreach is only increasing as the administration uses taxpayer bailouts and a bevy of new powers to aid special-interest allies and inject politics into every corner of America.

Just look at the government role in the unequal treatment of thousands of Ohio retirees of the now bankrupt auto parts manufacturer Delphi Corporation.  More than 20,000 Delphi salaried retirees, many of whom live in the Youngstown and Dayton areas, face the loss of health care coverage and up to 70 percent of their monthly pension checks, while obligations to the former company’s union retirees are being covered in full by government-owned General Motors.

Americans across the country are watching this, and they’re saying ‘enough is enough.’

They’re tired of the payoffs, kickbacks and sweetheart deals for Washington’s special-interests.

They are scared as they watch government spend like there is no tomorrow, piling more and more debt on the backs of our children and grandchildren.

And they don’t want the president’s new health care law, which will punish small businesses and states with new mandates, cut Medicare benefits for seniors, and actually increase health care costs, according to a recent report from analysts at the administration’s Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Already, 20 states have filed suit in court to block the law’s costly mandates.  On Friday, the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), which represent the nation’s small businesses, announced it will join these efforts to overturn the president’s health care overhaul due to concern it will hurt our economy and prevent the creation of American jobs.

Republicans are listening to these concerns, and we’re offering better solutions to help middle-class families and small businesses tackle the challenges they are facing every day.

We want to repeal the president’s jobs-killing health care law, and replace it with real reform to lower costs.  We want to put an end to taxpayer bailouts, and get the government out of the business of picking winners and losers in the private sector.

And we are offering an “all of the above” energy strategy to create jobs, lower energy costs, and establish a cleaner more reliable energy future, solutions to curb government spending, and a jobs plan to help small businesses create jobs.

President Obama has billed his ‘Main Street’ tour as a ‘listening tour.’  As Ohioans continue to ask “Where are the jobs?” it’s time for the president to scrap his job-killing agenda, and work with Republicans on these types of better solutions to help create new jobs and get our economy moving again.

In a recent interview, President Obama told ‘TODAY’ Show host Matt Lauer, ‘when you actually look at the (health care) bill itself, it incorporates all sorts of Republican ideas…” Like it or not, Obama was correct, too many Republicans were pushing for big government health care takeovers.

And I’m not just talking about Mitt Romney’s failed experiment in Massachusetts, though that is the most prominent example. Across the nation, too many “nanny state” Republicans embraced the notion that government could — and should — impose individual mandates on its citizens (for our own good, of course).

Case in point, Kansas state senator Jim Barnett (R) — who currently has a slight lead in the race for the open Congressional seat in Kansas-1 — pushed for an “Obamacare-esque” bill in Kansas less than three years ago. Now, Barnett wants to go to Washington to, presumably, help grow government as a Republican.

SB 309, aka. “The Kansas Health Care Connector Act” or “BarnettCare” would have included an individual health care insurance mandate for all Kansans. It would also have imposed much harsher penalties for non-compliance than Obamacare, giving the state the power to withhold tax refunds and garnish wages up to $10,000 for those who failed to purchase insurance through the government exchange. BarnettCare would have also imposed massive new employer mandates. Barnett’s bill didn’t make it out of committee, a point which is both good and bad (the fact that it never came to a full floor vote has allowed him to pretend as if he never proposed it).

Open seats are rare, and thus, the Kansas-1 primary race includes numerous candidates. But it is essentially a two-person bid, with Barnett holding a slight lead over conservative favorite Tim Huelskamp in the polls (though Huelskamp leads in the money race). Huelskamp is essentially a conservative rock star who has earned the support of disparate groups and individuals such as The Club for Growth, Ron Paul, and Ken Blackwell — just to name a few.

Under normal conditions, Huelskamp would win easily. But while Barnett is the sole liberal in this GOP primary campaign, Huelskamp has to fend off several lesser-known conservative candidates — who entered the race merely because they saw a golden opportunity to win an open Congressional seat in a good Republican year. It is unsettling to think that these candidacies may siphon off just enough votes to cost Huelskamp the election, and to guarantee liberal Jim Barnett wins this safe Republican seat.

With conservatives hoping to make big gains in 2010, it would be truly sad to see more big government Republicans coming to Washington — especially when we have a chance to elect a real small government pro-liberty Republican like Huelskamp. Help me help him.

In 2008 Patrick Swayze was treated with an advanced medical tool called a “CyberKnife.” It helped add months to his life as he tried to beat the cancer that was consuming him. But, Swayze wasn’t the only American with the good fortune to have this highly advanced medical technology available to him. In fact, there are 100 such machines across the United States. From California, to Minnesota, to Illinois and Washington D.C. Americans currently have the luxury of these wonderful new devices.

Sadly, Britons are not so lucky. There are two CyberKnife machines in the Britain, but they aren’t going to do anyone in the country’s socialist healthcare system any good because despite how successful these machines are British authorities won’t allow them to be used on patients.

Despite that the Mount Vernon cancer hospital in London is part of the National Health Services, despite that they spent £3m to purchase the machine, and quite despite the praise the machines receive in the U.S. and throughout the world, British NHS authorities won’t let NHS doctors use the machine on their patients.

Sadly, these heartless, uncaring socialist healthcare officials are uninterested in helping the estimated 10,000 British patients a year that could benefit from use of the CyberKnife. And why is this? Why, it’s because the treatments are expensive, of course.

You see money is far, far more important to Britain’s socialist healthcare system then patients.

As I said above, the U.S. is lucky to have many of these machines on our shores. In fact we have 100 of the 150 machines world-wide, all available for anyone that needs them. But this happy situation will not survive the implementation of America’s own socialist healthcare system when it institutes its rationing rules as the English have done. Sooner rather than later advanced tools like the CyberKnife will be eschewed as too expensive by Obamacre bean counters and such advanced technology will dwindle and wither away despite the lives it could save.

This is what is meant when it is said that Obamacare features death panels. After all, a socialist healthcare system that won’t pay for advanced technology because it’s just too darn expensive — just as is happening right now in England — is a defacto death panel.

And don’t imagine that this is just hyperbole. The same situation exists in nearly every country that has the kind of socialist healthcare that Barack Obama wants to force on the U.S.A. That’s why so many foreigners come to the U.S. for their advanced treatments. After all, one has to understand that there is a reason that America has 100 of the 150 machines that exist in the world today.

It is true that Obamacare does not provide for death panels in its legislation. But it doesn’t have to when its price control measures and rationing will eliminate the sort of life saving tools that technology will bring us, technology that Obamacare will destroy.

In the novel, the hero Galt and his followers retreat to a hideaway where they wait for society to collapse. But in America, regular citizens have organised in masses against Obama’s vision of socialized medicine, and they’ve embraced their own John Galt – a Texan scholar-activist named John Goodman. Known to many as the inventor of Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) and a key figure in defeating Hillarycare in the 90’s, Goodman has become the intellectual heavyweight of Obamacare’s opponents and his arguments are increasingly embraced by the new “Repeal and Replace” movement.

According to Goodman, the real problems with the bill are only just starting to emerge. As soon it was set to pass, Caterpillar announced the bill would cost them $100 million in its first year alone. And Verizon told its employees their costs would go up almost immediately because of the 40% excise tax the bill puts on the kind of high-end plans the telco giant provides. But looking ahead it’s clear to Goodman that the legislation’s inverted incentives would result in much more than changes to the healthcare system and the company costs but that the impact on the economy would be disastrous: labor dislocation, hiring freezes, economic assaults on lower paid workers, and spikes in unemployment.

In a “the health alerts” email Goodman listed last week the troubles ahead for the economy and for Obamacare advocates:

1.       People will be required to buy a product whose price will be rising at twice the rate of growth of their incomes and they will be barred from doing many of the things needed to control these costs.

2.      A bizarre system of subsidies will profoundly disrupt the labor market, leading to massive layoffs, contracting and outsourcing.

3.      A health insurance exchange will give health plans incentives to attract the healthy and avoid the sick; and after enrolment, to over-provide to the healthy and under-provide to the sick.

4.      A weakly enforced individual mandate will give people incentives to game the system – remaining uninsured while healthy and obtaining insurance only after they get sick; choosing limited-benefit plans while healthy and scaling up to richer plans after they get sick.

TAKING IT TO THE CROWDS

As opposition to Obamacare intensifies in anticipation of the mid-term elections, and the movement to “Repeal and Replace” grows, Goodman will continue to deploy the tactics that brought him to the forefront of the legislative struggle.  When opposition began to build with the tea party demonstrations last summer, Goodman gave the movement intellectual heft and a media high point. Teaming up his think tank — The National Centre for Policy Analysis (NCPA) located in Dallas Texas with Salem Radio in September 2009 — he got live media coverage and 1.3 million signatures in a petition against the bill that crystallized the opposition.

“Combining new media with talk radio- it’s never been done before” says Goodman, “it was the largest online petition ever delivered to Congress”. According to Lee Habeeb, Salem Radio’s network director and a leading talk radio producer, “What John is great at is taking big ideas and making them understood”, and it’s making the public understand the bill that was his goal from the start. Habeeb explained that they had seen the healthcare bill coming early on – “I knew Barack Obama was serious. John Goodman knew he was serious… we knew what they were going to do and we knew who ‘they’ were. We knew what the agenda would be.” So they took it to the airwaves: “we really worked to deconstruct the numbers before they hit us so that people would be armed for when the swing came”.

As the fight reached the breaking point, the NCPA and Salem radio also launched their “million email” campaign, getting over 1 million citizens from all 50 states to send emails against the bill to their Congressmen. To Habeeb, the bill was “a catalyst… healthcare was an over-reach, this is a call to arms” — and Goodman provided the arms.

One of the reasons Goodman has been so effective at rallying people to oppose the healthcare bill is that aside from being an academic armed with facts and numbers, he’s also engaged the public in media-savvy ways. His blog on the NCPA website went from 48th to 8th as the debate heated up. After Paul Krugman took a joking comment on his blog seriously and attacked him in the New York Times, Goodman installed a “satire button” for Krugman and any other sombre critics. He wanted readers to make it clear when they were mocking the situation, underscoring how much of a minefield the healthcare debate has become.

Dr. John Goodman, "Father of the HSAs"

GOING TO CORE AGRUMENTS

But although he embraces a media culture that many academics avoid, Goodman doesn’t just go for the quick hit: he takes the time to go to the opposition’s core arguments. He took on Michael Moore’s Sicko movie in 2007 with rigor, breaking it down piece by piece, dispelling typical healthcare myths by offering facts on foreign government’s healthcare that Moore had ignored. Myths like the notion that people abroad are able to obtain better healthcare because their country calls healthcare a “right”: but talking about healthcare as a fundamental “right” in theory doesn’t translate into results in practice – waiting times abroad are staggeringly long. In Britain, about 1 million are waiting to be admitted to hospitals at any one time. And as for Cuba, Goodman dryly pointed out that Marxist abstraction about a “right to care” doesn’t come with a “right to an MRI or heart surgery.”

Then, there’s the myth that nationalized healthcare is better, because people in some countries with state-run systems are healthier. Advocates of a government takeover of medicine often argue that life expectancy is higher and infant mortality lower where healthcare is state-run and that therefore national systems are better. Such comparisons, Goodman says, are misleading for three reasons. First, comparing European countries that are homogeneous and the US that is a heterogeneous nation with high and lows in incomes and social conditions — is to compare unlike things. Compare a European country with parts of the US that are similar, however, Sweden to Minnesota, and the numbers are similar. Second, life expectancy and infant mortality are affected by lifestyle choices like diet, exercise, and alcohol far more than health care delivery, so whether healthcare is state-run or private is a secondary issue. Third, any comparison of survival rates for diseases where health care assistance can make the difference like cancer, diabetes and hypertension shows the US system simply walking away with the honors.

He also challenged the notion of more “fairness” in nationalized systems, pointing out that in state-run systems healthcare costs are redirected away from those who need it most because of political incentives. People often say that foreign healthcare is more “fair” because healthcare costs are spread more evenly abroad – but healthcare costs should be allocated disproportionately: by going to the sick, who need it most. In America, only 4% of people consume half of health care costs, which is actually the way it should be: the truly sick get the attention, that’s what health care systems are for. In state run systems, however, politicians have an electoral incentive to spread money across their voters – and away from the very sick, who are a minority, and who often cannot vote. In making the point that government run-systems are politicized and that the money goes where the votes are, he notes that the real victims in state run systems are the very people politicians claim they are trying to help – the poor, the elderly and those who live in rural areas.

NUMBERS, WORDS AND ACTION

But even when opposing people like Moore, Goodman stays away from the kind of firebrand rhetoric that often surrounds healthcare– which may be why he’s gone under the radar of major media outlets. According to former Delaware governor Pete Dupont, “Dr. Goodman doesn’t enrage people […] They might not agree, but they listen. When he’s done, people with either say, ‘That’s right’ or ‘That’s interesting, and I’ll think about it.’” He attracts both libertarian and traditional conservatives, but he approaches people of all political folds, doing Congressional briefings for everyone willing to listen. He does this based on arguments grounded in research and numbers, including some that have not yet been really picked up by the opposition. .

So “Who is John Goodman?” A telegenic Texan academic, he started his career defending market-based economics at Columbia. He went on to teach as a fellow at Sarah Lawrence, Dartmouth and Stanford, and after investigating the British health care system wrote Patient Power in 1992. Published by the CATO institute, the book laid out how to reform America’s healthcare and sold over 300,000 copies; a bestseller for a policy book. A few years later, he took his ideas to the political table: along with Bill Kristol and then Texas Senator Phil Gramm, Goodman led the fight against Hillarycare. Together, they took on Clinton’s proposal to force all employers to provide health insurance controlled by a gatekeeper- the HMOs. They succeeded.

Goodman then became what the Wall Street Journal calls “the father of HSAs.” Working from his think tank Goodman developed Health Savings Accounts in the early 2000s. Today, almost 9 million Americans benefit from HSA’s: they’re accounts in which taxpayers can accumulate money free of federal taxes to pay for expenses not covered by their insurance. Until Goodman developed HSAs, deposits to these kind of savings accounts by employers or employees were taxed just like wage income.

But getting HSA’s implemented wasn’t easy: at first, Congress found them so controversial that Senator Ted Kennedy fought to repeal them. But now, 70% of users want HSAs to expand. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed this March, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels showed the game-changing potential of HSAs when he wrote how the accounts kept patients satisfied and helped both the people enrolled and the state save money. Among Indiana state workers, 70% chose to enroll in HSA’s introduced by Daniels and only 3% switched back. By the end of 2010, those enrolled will have saved more than $8 million compared to their peers belonging to regular PPOs, and the state’s costs will go down 11% due to HSAs alone.

But it’s not because patients are forgoing necessary treatment or preventative care: a review by independent healthcare experts at Mercer Consulting found no evidence of this- rather, patients were now making smarter choices like choosing generic drugs over brand-named ones and eliminating unnecessary expenditures. Thanks to Goodman’s idea, people were making better healthcare choices because they felt they were spending their own money.

BREAKING IT DOWN

The reasons for Goodman’s belief that the fallout over Obamacare is just beginning lie in his breakdown of his recent “health alert.”  According to Goodman, the most potent arguments against the bill for the public is the dramatic impact on peoples’ wallets. “The bill that’s passed will require all non-elderly people to buy insurance plans with costs that will grow at twice the rate of their income” he explains. And above all, there’s the impact on jobs. One of the strangest effects of the bill is the irresistible pressure it creates for employers to avoid providing health insurance, despite the penalties it puts in place. Goodman explains that for $30,000 a year employees who receive employer health insurance, the federal government ends up providing a subsidy of around $2,300. But employees who are not receiving health insurance from their employers and are required to obtain it on the new health insurance exchange created by the bill, the government ends up providing a federal subsidy of  up to $19,400 – what Goodman calls “an enormous federal government gift to the employer and the employee”. For employers who do not provide insurance, the penalty is lower than this “gift”, so they have an incentive to avoid giving insurance. And since the state is footing the bill for the insurance, these employers can raise their employees’ wages by the amount they would have spent on insurance (minus whatever penalties they pay). What then happens to employer health insurance? It disappears for $30,000 a year employees, who all have an incentive to migrate to the exchange. Who pays this soaring bill? The taxpayer.

But there’s more: take an employer of many uninsured $30,000 a year employees. He now has to either offer all his employees insurance, or else have them all go to the exchange and pay the fine for not providing insurance: in both cases, his labor costs either rise dramatically – which means he has to fire workers to cover these costs, or else, he must absorb these costs by cutting wages. They can also just outsource the jobs. However you look at it, the bill will end up causing serious unemployment and huge shifts in the labor market.

To be clear: Goodman does not support the previous status quo either. The system before the bill discriminated against individuals by giving major tax breaks to businesses providing health insurance, without providing equivalent tax breaks to people saving their own funds. This model is designed for a different age — a time when most employees spent their working lifetimes with one company. But Goodman points out that today, one-third of workers are outside the workplace and would do better if they could manage their own healthcare expenditures in a competitive market. Instead, not only are they taxed, but they’re unable to take or buy their insurance across state lines.  Yet the current bill is worse: “The cost will go up compared to what it was and the quality will decrease compared to what it was” he says, “even though we insure an additional 23 million, access to care may not improve at all. There’s not a single dollar in this bill that’s allocated to new doctors or to build hospitals. There’s nothing to increase the supply of care to meet the needs of the 23 million newly insured”.  It will be just like Massachusetts, he says: “they cut in half the number of uninsured… but they had a huge problem finding doctors. In Boston you have to wait twice as long, and just as many people go to the ERs as before”. More insurance doesn’t mean more care, unless there are also more doctors and hospitals.

WHAT’S NEXT?

So what can regular citizens do? First, Goodman says citizens should act through the ballot box: “if you have someone representing you and they totally ignore what you think” he says, talking about how Pelosi forced Democrats to vote for the bill, “I hope they punish the people who voted for this”.

But then, there will be real reforms needed to create a good healthcare reform bill: in an op-ed with Newt Gingrich in the Wall Street Journal last month, Goodman explained just a few of the ten key reforms that would make what he considers a very good bill. They include making sure people can buy insurance across state lines, allowing providers to create special insurance packages to meet the needs of the chronically ill, and provisions to help individuals save for when their health status changes and they need to switch plans. “If Republicans want to govern, they can’t be a party of ‘No’” he says, “they’ll have to change the bill in fundamental ways.” Lee Habeeb agrees: “they won” he says of the House vote – “it’s time to stop protesting about the process take back Congress and reunite on the legislation.” Healthcare’s John Galt isn’t about to retreat.

DEMOCRATS HID DAMNING HEALTH CARE REPORT FROM PUBLIC UNTIL A MONTH AFTER VOTE

More hope and change–

A damning health care report generated by actuaries at the Health and Human Services (HHS) Department was given to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius more than a week before the health care vote. She hid the report from the public until a month after democrats rammed their nationalized health care bill through Congress.

The results from the report were troubling. The report released by Medicare and Medicaid actuaries shows that medical costs will skyrocket rising $389 billion 10 years. 14 million will lose their employer-based coverage. Millions of Americans will be left without insurance. And, millions more may be dumped into the already overwhelmed Medicaid system. 4 million American families will be hit with tax penalties under this new law.

Of course, these were ALL things that President Obama and Democratic leaders assured us would not happen.

Via Special Report:

The American Spectator reported, via FOX Nation:

The economic report released last week by Health and Human Services, which indicated that President Barack Obama’s health care “reform” law would actually increase the cost of health care and impose higher costs on consumers, had been submitted to the office of HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius more than a week before the Congressional votes on the bill, according to career HHS sources, who added that Sebelius’s staff refused to review the document before the vote was taken.

“The reason we were given was that they did not want to influence the vote,” says an HHS source. “Which is actually the point of having a review like this, you would think.”

The analysis, performed by Medicare’s Office of the Actuary, which in the past has been identified as a “nonpolitical” office, set off alarm bells when submitted. “We know a copy was sent to the White House via their legislative affairs staff,” says the HHS staffer, “and there were a number of meetings here almost right after the analysis was submitted to the secretary’s office. Everyone went into lockdown, and people here were too scared to go public with the report.”

In the end, the report was released several weeks after the vote.

When Nancy Pelosi told America, “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,” she forgot to mention that democrats already knew what was in it. They just didn’t want the rest of the country to find out.

If we had a responsible media this would make headlines for about the next year and a half.

From the Associated Press:

Nearly 4 million Americans will have to pay a penalty if they fail to get health insurance when that element of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul law kicks in, according to congressional projections released Thursday.

The penalties will average a little more than $1,000 apiece in 2016, the Congressional Budget Office said in a report.

The vast majority of people paying the fine will be middle class, which would violate Obama’s 2008 campaign pledge not to raise taxes on individuals making less than $200,000 a year and couples making less than $250,000.

Republicans have criticized the penalties, even though the idea for a mandate was originally proposed by Republicans in the 1990s and is part of the Massachusetts health care plan signed into law by then Gov. Mitt Romney, a Republican, in 2006. Attorneys general in more than a dozen states are working to challenge the mandate in federal court as unconstitutional.

Democrats argue the mandate and the penalties are a necessary part of a massive overhaul designed to expand coverage to millions who now lack it. They point out that getting young, healthy Americans in the insurance pool will reduce costs for others.

Americans who don’t get qualified health insurance will be required to pay penalties starting in 2014, unless they are exempt because of low income, religious beliefs, or because they are members of American Indian tribes. The penalties will be fully phased in by 2016.

Continue reading here.

So much is being written in the mainstream media about who the tea partiers are, but very little is being recorded about what these folks are actually saying.

We know that this is a decentralized grassroots movement, with many different voices hailing from many different towns across the country. But the tea-party message comes together in the “Contract from America,” the product of an online vote orchestrated by Ryan Hecker, aHouston tea-party activist and national coordinator for the Tea Party Patriots.

With nearly 500,000 votes recorded in less than two months, this Contract forms a blueprint of tea-party policy goals and beliefs.

Of the top-ten planks in the Contract, the number-one issue is protect the Constitution. That’s followed by reject cap-and-trade, demand a balanced budget, and enact fundamental tax reform. And then comes number five: Restore fiscal responsibility and constitutionally limited government in Washington.

Note that two of the top-five priorities of the tea partiers mention the Constitution.

Filling out the Contract, the bottom-five planks are end runaway government spending; defund, repeal, and replace government-run health care; pass an all-of-the-above energy policy; stop the pork; and stop the tax hikes.

What’s so significant to me about this tea-party Contract from America is the strong emphasis on constitutional limits and restraints on legislation, spending, taxing, and government control of the economy. Undoubtedly, the emphasis is there because no one trusts Washington.

As I read this Contract, tea partiers are reminding all of us of the need for the Constitution to protect our freedoms. They’re calling for a renewal of constitutional values, including — first and foremost — a return to constitutional limits on government. The tea partiers who responded to this poll are demanding a rebirth of the consent of the governed. The government works for us, we don’t work for it.

All this makes me think of President Reagan, who never quite succeeded in gaining a constitutional amendment for a balanced budget, or for limits on spending, or for a two-thirds congressional majority for any new tax hikes. But throughout his presidency, and for many years before, the Gipper argued for constitutional limits on government, especially government spending.

And now this message is being echoed perfectly in the tea-party Contract from America. In effect, it picks up where Reagan left off.

The tea partiers, whom I call free-market populists, desire a return to Reaganism. In particular, their demands for a balanced budget (third plank), for restoring fiscal responsibility (5th plank), for ending massive government spending (6th plank), and for stopping the pork (9th plank) all underscore the populist revolt against runaway government spending, and therefore runaway government power.

There are mentions in the Contract of tax reform and stopping tax hikes. But it is pretty clear to everyone nowadays that the massive run-up in spending of recent years will inevitably result in an equally massive tax-hike movement — that is, unless the spending is strictly curbed and reduced.

Yet the tea partiers don’t trust Congress to do this, so they want to bring in constitutional restraint.

A recent survey by the Brookings Institution spells out this spend-and-tax problem with great clarity. Under current spending trends, tax-the-rich efforts to bring the deficit to just 3 percent of GDP — not balance, mind you, but 3 percent deficit — would require a nearly 80 percent marginal tax rate on the most successful earners. And if taxes are raised across-the-board, the marginal rate would rise to nearly 50 percent for the top earners, with state and local tax burdens bringing it up to 60 percent. Otherwise, a European-style value-added tax (VAT) would become necessary.

The tea partiers know this and they don’t like it one bit. And so, at bottom, they have formed a constitutionalist movement to revolt against big government and big taxes — and oh, by the way, to stand against big-government control of large chunks of the economy, such as energy and health care.

Harking back to the Founders’ principles of constitutional limits to government is a very powerful message. It’s a message of freedom, especially economic freedom. The tea partiers have delivered an extremely accurate diagnostic of what ails America right now: Government is growing too fast, too much, too expensively, and in too many places — and in the process it is crowding out our cherished economic freedom.

It’s as though the tea partiers are saying this great country will never fulfill its long-run potential to prosper, create jobs, and lead the world unless constitutional limits to government are restored.

Now, as the tea partiers rally across the country, the big question is only this: Will the political class get it?

On Sunday morning, March 21^st, I sent an e-mail to a handful of individuals, including Mike Flynn of Big Government.com, who have been very supportive of my efforts in informing people, family and businesses on Prevention, cost containment and health care reform. The topic was the impending passage of Obama Care and the stripping of Freedom and Liberty from every American which will be the end result.

One of the people I contacted was, Dennis Gartman. One of the nation’s and world’s leading financial analysts, investors and financial public educators through his work in the media.  Dennis is the founder of The Gartman Letter….a daily financial road map for corporations, individuals, investment funds and governments. Dennis asked if he could include my e-mail in The Gartman Letter. Below is Dennis’s article concerning my e-mail.

* * * * * *

GENERAL COMMENTS ON THE CAPITAL MARKETS ON ONE WELL KNOWN DOCTOR’S PERSPECTIVE ON HEALTH CARE:

Our friend, Dr. David Janda, is a nationally well known orthopaedic surgeon in Ann Arbor, Michigan, involved in delivering health care for 29 years.

David’s a clinical researcher in Prevention and Health care cost containment and he founded The Institute For Preventative Sports Medicine which is the only health care cost containment organization of its kind in North America. According to the Federal government, one of his studies has lead to the prevention of 1.7 million people from being injured every year in the U.S. and saved $2 billion in health care costs per year.

David also wrote a bestselling book….The Awakening of a Surgeon…… featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show and it’s been referred to as a “Weapon of Mass Instruction” as it tells people and families how to take control of their health care and to free themselves from the insurance companies, from the HMO industry and most importantly from federal bureaucrats.

That being said, David wrote to us last evening as the health care legislation was making its way to the House floor. He’s told us in the past about the ills involved in this legislation, but now it has passed and it has come to this. We believe David’s thoughts, as a physician of some renown to be worthy of our clients’ collective attention, He wrote:

It is Sunday and it looks like Obama, Pelosi and Reid have succeeded in passing their health care plan which will destroy every person, family and business in Our country. In the process they have shredded The Constitution and Our democratic republic.

Thank you for all that you have done in informing the public and allowing my voice and my information to be heard. I believe my perspective as a “grunt” on the front line of health care delivery and 29 years experience in doing so matters. By networking my information, you allowed me to share my insight with the American public. The democrats and progressives believe the war has been won…..wrong….they might have won the battle but the War has just begun.

In the next several weeks I will be sending out an e-mail announcing that I will be leaving the medical delivery profession. My wife and daughters support my decision. The legislation authored by Obama, Pelosi and Reid is a violation of The Hippocratic Oath I took 29 years ago…..”Do No Harm”. The core of their legislation is to deny and ration care…..the most inhumane and unethical means of cutting costs. I have dedicated my life….day and night to my patients for the past 29 years…..I have attempted to add to the oath through my research and published studies which have focused on prevention…. “Preventing Harm”.

Their legislation puts me in the position of harming the very people I have been helping for the past 29 years.

In 1920, the federal government instituted legislation that took my great grandfather’s business away from him.  He owned a brewery in Chicago. He died a broken and destroyed man within a month of that event. Ninety years later, the federal government has passed] a law that will take away my beloved profession of health care delivery. I will continue to fight and will not meet the same fate as my great grandfather. If I can be further service to you please call on me.

Warm Regards,

When good men like David leave medicine we know that we are in very serious trouble. Mark our words; a year from now the state of medicine and health care here in the US will be demonstrably worse than it is now; it shall also be demonstrably more expensive and it will be even more demonstrably less available to anyone and everyone. Last night’s legislation was what the Left has been aiming for many, many years. They’ve succeeded in nationalizing health care, and they’ve succeeded in sending men such as David to the sidelines. We are all the worse for it…. demonstrably so.

* * * * * *

I appreciate Dennis’s friendship and kind words. I do plan on continuing to fight to repeal and replace this prohibitive legislation on behalf of America, my fellow citizens and my patients.  The medical “oversight” component will occur on January 1, 2013.  I will continue at my post on the front line until December 31, 2012 then I will continue the fight from another front. The battle might have been lost for Health Care Freedom on March 21^st but the War is far from over in bringing health care freedom to every American.

Back in 2008, the SEIU took out a $90-plus million loan to fund its campaign activities, most notably, to elect Barack Obama president of the United States.

Since that time, the union has been incurring huge interest fees.  Consider these, just from 2009:

A couple weeks ago, I explained that SEIU is preparing a major offensive against Bank of America, its largest creditor.  The likely reason is to either pressure the bank into forgiving some of the huge principle on the loan or to negotiate a more favorable interest rate.

When the union spends nearly $4 million in interest payments alone, it’s no wonder it’s doing whatever it can to get out from under that burden.

With the exception of ObamaCare, the union has little to show for its investment in electing the current government.  Only if it can pass immigration reform and card check will the union have more access to new lines of revenue (read: more unionized workers).

Obamacare has become a TEA Party issue, and that’s a good thing for the TEA Partiers, and all freedom-loving Americans.

At the April 15 TEA Party gathering here in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, speakers will include a hopeful candidate for Congress, a pastor, and even a law enforcement official.  What really caught my eye, though, was the announcement beforehand that “a local orthopedic surgeon will address the recently passed health care  legislation.”  This is hardly an isolated incident.

Think about it — the TEA Party is all about protesting massive, out of control government spending, and the excessive taxation that is necessary to support it.  Obamacare has been largely debated as healthcare reform.  Why should TEA Partiers care about healthcare reform?  You may think that the TEA Party is branching out into more areas than the core issue that has made it such a huge and ever-growing success.  You may find this risky and perhaps alarming.  Let me disabuse you of that notion, and assure you that Obamacare was destined to be a core TEA Party issue from the very beginning.

Liberty, Taxes and ObamaCare

Rassmussen Reports recently published an article that began:  “The number of people who say they’re part of the Tea Party Movement nationally has grown to 24%. That’s up from 16% a month ago, but the movement still defies easy description.”

The TEA Party is all about excessive taxes and our huge national debt, to be sure, but the increase in TEA Partiers grew by well over one-third in one month.  How can this be?  According to “new data” from Rasmussen Reports, among those who are part of the movement, 89% disapprove of the way that Barack Obama is handling his job as president. That figure includes 82% who Strongly Disapprove.  One cannot possibly think that this has nothing to do with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the “Obamacare” statute, that was passed in the waning days of March, concomitant with the surge in TEA Party numbers.  As Rasmussen puts it:

The rise in Tea party support is perhaps not surprising at a time when more voters than ever (58%) favor repeal of the national health care plan just passed by Democrats in Congress and signed into law by President Obama. Most voters remain convinced that the health care plan will require an increase in taxes on the middle class as a time when 66% of voters believe America is already overtaxed.

TEA: It's about the LIBERTY, folks!

I posit the theory that Obamacare has become a TEA Party issue — in fact, not just “an” issue, but perhaps the most pressing one.  Rassmussen Reports has found that ninety-six percent (96%) of those in the Tea Party movement believe America is overtaxed, not a surprising result for a movement whose acronym, TEA, is widely considered to mean “Taxed Enough Already,” and which harkens back to a tax protest that changed world history — the Boston Tea Party.  These folks know that there is no such thing as a free lunch — somebody has to pay for that hoagie.  When the hoagie is government mandated/controlled/subsidized health insurance, the people paying for it are taxpayers.

Liberal/Progressive types constantly berate those voters who “remain convinced that the health care plan will require an increase in taxes on the middle class” a just blithering idiots who cannot hope to understand the brilliance of Obamacare.  They constantly snipe that the CBO report shows that our gargantuan budget deficit will actually be reduced by their new “healthcare” law (and if you believe that, I have some prime snow-skiing property here in Mississippi that I would like to sell you).  TEA Partiers, though, are a pretty common-sense bunch.  When they see something that costs money, they know that the money must come from somewhere.  Since the only source of income for the federal government is taxes, every non-Liberal instantly recognizes that taxes will have to be raised if the new spending is to be “budget neutral.”

Indeed, the list of “new and improved” taxes in the Obamacare law is staggering.  According to an April 13th op-ed for the Washington Examiner by Grace-Marie Turner at the Galen Institute, “The health overhaul plan just enacted represents the largest tax hike in U.S. history – $569 billion over 10 years through a dizzying array of taxes and fees that promise to frustrate taxpayers at every turn.  ObamaCare will make every day feel like April 15th.  And despite President Obama’s campaign promise that no one making $250,000 or less would see a tax increase, Congress’ Joint Committee on Taxation confirms that these tax hikes will hit millions of middle- and working-class families who are struggling to make ends meet.”  (Emphasis added).  According to well-documented research by Americans for Tax Reform in Washington DC, besides the penalty tax for lawbreakers who fail to carry health insurance (which the CBO says will cost taxpayers $39 billion from 2010-2019), there is the  Medicine Cabinet Tax,   the HSA Withdrawal Tax Hike, Flexible Spending Account Cap – aka “Special Needs Kids Tax”  Tax on Medical Device Manufacturers, a tax on Indoor Tanning Services, a Blue Cross/Blue Shield tax , an excise tax on charitable hospitals,  a tax on Innovator Drug Companies,   a tax on health insurers,  the elimination of a tax deduction for employer-provided retirement prescription drug coverage in coordination with Medicare Part D, and other draconian tax-related measures, such as the Marxist $500,000 annual executive compensation limit for health insurance executives,  and red tape like employer reporting of insurance on W-2 and Corporate 1099-MISC Information Reporting, which creates enormous compliance burdens for small businesses and makes additional penalties likely.

I for one have concluded that Obamacare is not truly about healthcare.  I take Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) at his word — it’s about controlling the people.  Is there any issue nearer and dearer to the hearts of TEA Partiers than governmental control over their lives?  Out of control spending and excessive taxation can only be rationally explained as a power grab by a tiny faction who control our federal government, and want to further control us.

Like the generation that fought the Revolutionary War and gave us the Constitution, the TEA Party movement recognizes that excessive taxation is a form of tyranny in and of itself.  Obamacare is tyrannical in the way it mandates penalties, forces you to purchase insurance and commandeers state employees, to be sure, but it also constitutes a massive increase in taxation.  TEA Partiers know this, and they don’t like it.  Since 48% of voters now say the average Tea Party member is closer to their views than President Obama and 58% want Obamacare repealed, I conclude that opposition to Obamacare is not only a major issue for the Tea Party movement, it is a winning issue.

Obamacare has become a TEA Party issue, and that’s a good thing for the TEA Partiers, and all freedom-loving Americans.

At the April 15 TEA Party gathering here in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, speakers will include a hopeful candidate for Congress, a pastor, and even a law enforcement official.  What really caught my eye, though, was the announcement beforehand that “a local orthopedic surgeon will address the recently passed health care  legislation.”  This is hardly an isolated incident.

Think about it — the TEA Party is all about protesting massive, out of control government spending, and the excessive taxation that is necessary to support it.  Obamacare has been largely debated as healthcare reform.  Why should TEA Partiers care about healthcare reform?  You may think that the TEA Party is branching out into more areas than the core issue that has made it such a huge and ever-growing success.  You may find this risky and perhaps alarming.  Let me disabuse you of that notion, and assure you that Obamacare was destined to be a core TEA Party issue from the very beginning.

Liberty, Taxes and ObamaCare

Rassmussen Reports recently published an article that began:  “The number of people who say they’re part of the Tea Party Movement nationally has grown to 24%. That’s up from 16% a month ago, but the movement still defies easy description.”

The TEA Party is all about excessive taxes and our huge national debt, to be sure, but the increase in TEA Partiers grew by well over one-third in one month.  How can this be?  According to “new data” from Rasmussen Reports, among those who are part of the movement, 89% disapprove of the way that Barack Obama is handling his job as president. That figure includes 82% who Strongly Disapprove.  One cannot possibly think that this has nothing to do with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the “Obamacare” statute, that was passed in the waning days of March, concomitant with the surge in TEA Party numbers.  As Rasmussen puts it:

The rise in Tea party support is perhaps not surprising at a time when more voters than ever (58%) favor repeal of the national health care plan just passed by Democrats in Congress and signed into law by President Obama. Most voters remain convinced that the health care plan will require an increase in taxes on the middle class as a time when 66% of voters believe America is already overtaxed.

TEA: It's about the LIBERTY, folks!

I posit the theory that Obamacare has become a TEA Party issue — in fact, not just “an” issue, but perhaps the most pressing one.  Rassmussen Reports has found that ninety-six percent (96%) of those in the Tea Party movement believe America is overtaxed, not a surprising result for a movement whose acronym, TEA, is widely considered to mean “Taxed Enough Already,” and which harkens back to a tax protest that changed world history — the Boston Tea Party.  These folks know that there is no such thing as a free lunch — somebody has to pay for that hoagie.  When the hoagie is government mandated/controlled/subsidized health insurance, the people paying for it are taxpayers.

Liberal/Progressive types constantly berate those voters who “remain convinced that the health care plan will require an increase in taxes on the middle class” a just blithering idiots who cannot hope to understand the brilliance of Obamacare.  They constantly snipe that the CBO report shows that our gargantuan budget deficit will actually be reduced by their new “healthcare” law (and if you believe that, I have some prime snow-skiing property here in Mississippi that I would like to sell you).  TEA Partiers, though, are a pretty common-sense bunch.  When they see something that costs money, they know that the money must come from somewhere.  Since the only source of income for the federal government is taxes, every non-Liberal instantly recognizes that taxes will have to be raised if the new spending is to be “budget neutral.”

Indeed, the list of “new and improved” taxes in the Obamacare law is staggering.  According to an April 13th op-ed for the Washington Examiner by Grace-Marie Turner at the Galen Institute, “The health overhaul plan just enacted represents the largest tax hike in U.S. history – $569 billion over 10 years through a dizzying array of taxes and fees that promise to frustrate taxpayers at every turn.  ObamaCare will make every day feel like April 15th.  And despite President Obama’s campaign promise that no one making $250,000 or less would see a tax increase, Congress’ Joint Committee on Taxation confirms that these tax hikes will hit millions of middle- and working-class families who are struggling to make ends meet.”  (Emphasis added).  According to well-documented research by Americans for Tax Reform in Washington DC, besides the penalty tax for lawbreakers who fail to carry health insurance (which the CBO says will cost taxpayers $39 billion from 2010-2019), there is the  Medicine Cabinet Tax,   the HSA Withdrawal Tax Hike, Flexible Spending Account Cap – aka “Special Needs Kids Tax”  Tax on Medical Device Manufacturers, a tax on Indoor Tanning Services, a Blue Cross/Blue Shield tax , an excise tax on charitable hospitals,  a tax on Innovator Drug Companies,   a tax on health insurers,  the elimination of a tax deduction for employer-provided retirement prescription drug coverage in coordination with Medicare Part D, and other draconian tax-related measures, such as the Marxist $500,000 annual executive compensation limit for health insurance executives,  and red tape like employer reporting of insurance on W-2 and Corporate 1099-MISC Information Reporting, which creates enormous compliance burdens for small businesses and makes additional penalties likely.

I for one have concluded that Obamacare is not truly about healthcare.  I take Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) at his word — it’s about controlling the people.  Is there any issue nearer and dearer to the hearts of TEA Partiers than governmental control over their lives?  Out of control spending and excessive taxation can only be rationally explained as a power grab by a tiny faction who control our federal government, and want to further control us.

Like the generation that fought the Revolutionary War and gave us the Constitution, the TEA Party movement recognizes that excessive taxation is a form of tyranny in and of itself.  Obamacare is tyrannical in the way it mandates penalties, forces you to purchase insurance and commandeers state employees, to be sure, but it also constitutes a massive increase in taxation.  TEA Partiers know this, and they don’t like it.  Since 48% of voters now say the average Tea Party member is closer to their views than President Obama and 58% want Obamacare repealed, I conclude that opposition to Obamacare is not only a major issue for the Tea Party movement, it is a winning issue.

Hopefully by now you are aware that Senator Chris McDaniel and I have filed a citizens class action lawsuit against the PPACA, the liberty-robbing “Obamacare” statute, in the federal court for the Southern District of Mississippi.  Please see our prior article on this subject here. The response from liberty-loving Americans has been overwhelming — from Big Media, not so much.  I understand their disinterest, though, because really important things like the travails of a billionaire golfer takes up so much of their time.

That’s quite alright, because I would rather come directly to you to make important announcements like this:  Lt. Governor Phil Bryant has entered our class action lawsuit against the PPACA as an individual, private citizen.  He is serving as a Petitioner, and is the class representative for a uniquely important class:  employees of the State of Mississippi.

Lt. Governor Phil Bryant addresses crowd in Jackson, Mississippi

Why this new class is important.

Congress is now dictating what must be — and must not be — in your health insurance plan.  In other words, they are controlling the health insurance that your employer is offering you.  Socialism is defined as “government ownership or control of all the means of production (farms, factories, mines, and natural resources) and all the means of distribution (transportation, communications, and the instruments of commerce).”  Realize, “socialized medicine” is here, right now.  Even worse, by controlling what health insurance plans must be offered, Congress and the Executive branch are controlling your employer, and thus your employment.

Your liberty depends on the survival of your republic.  The PPACA is a direct attack on the republican form of government.

Every kid who’s ever put hand over heart and recited the Pledge of Allegiance knows that we live in a republic:  “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

Kids pledging allegiance to the flag, and "to the republic for which it stands"

In fact, we have been blessed with what James Madison called “the compound republic of America,” having been guaranteed that each state is a sovereign republic in itself, not just the national government.  In this unique and hugely successful system of government, federal control over the states is an anathema:

This separation of the two spheres is one of the Constitution’s structural protections of liberty. “Just as the separation and independence of the coordinate branches of the Federal Government serve to prevent the accumulation of excessive power in any one branch, a healthy balance of power between the States and the Federal Government will reduce the risk of tyranny and abuse from either front.”

Printz v. U.S., 521 U.S. 898 (1997) (Scalia, J).  We’ve spent so much time focusing on the separation of powers amongst the three branches of government that we’ve forgotten about the very vital separation of powers between the States and Congress.  If the federal government dictates what the States can do, our republic is destroyed, and liberty-robbing tyranny is all that can result.

Congress has chosen to commandeer our state employees, even our elected officials, with the PPACA.  Lest you think that “commandeer” is too strong of a word to use, consider that the federal government now controls the terms and conditions of employment for all state workers everywhere.  States now must offer health insurance plans dictated only by the federal government; we all recognize that a health insurance plan is one of the most important aspects of the employer-employee relationship.  In fact, since it is nothing more than a form of compensation, it really is the most important aspect.

In the Printz v. US case I cited above, Justice Scalia said:  “When we were at last confronted squarely with a federal statute that unambiguously required the States to enact or administer a federal regulatory program, our decision should have come as no surprise.”  I think you can guess that the Court’s response was rather chilly toward the federal government’s overreaching.  In FERC v. Mississipi, the Supreme Court said that “this Court never has sanctioned explicitly a federal command to the States to promulgate and enforce laws and regulations.” FERC v. Mississippi, 456 U.S. 742, 761-62 (1982).  Congress may not commandeer state officials, or any state employees, in order to implement federal law.  In substance, this is exactly what Congress has done with the PPACA.  This is a clear violation of state sovereignty, and utterly destructive of the Constitution’s guarantee of a compound republic.

This class, that of state employees, is uniquely important.  Do you really want Congress to dictate the terms of employment between your state government and your state officials and civil servants?  Realize, this is 180 degrees out of phase with the intentions of the Framers, and with the clear statements implementing their vision found in the Constitution that they wrote.

Why is it important that Lt. Governor Bryant is a petitioner?

Lt. Governor Bryant is showing that any elected official can do this.  Actually, any state employee can do this, but we all recognize how important it is for us to get our elected leaders to take point, and lead.

Lt. Governor Bryant has a long history of fighting for conservative beliefs and traditional values.  His persistence in promoting conservative public policy stems from his belief that people, not the government, know best how to take care of themselves.  The way I see it, he has been fighting for liberty — freedom — for years.  I cannot think of a better person in this great State to represent the new class we have added.

He’s also a candidate for Governor.  Think about this — why shouldn’t our candidates, whether currently in office of not, be petitioners?  Why shouldn’t we go to town hall meetings, campaign rallies, and press conferences in order to push them into action, not just into making statements?

Here in Mississippi, as in other states, most people want for our state to enter into the lawsuit filed in Florida by fifteen other states.  Governor Haley Barbour (the very effective chairman of the Republican Governors Association and a former RNC chairman) has been pushing our Attorney General — a Democrat — to get into the lawsuit, but to no avail.  Governor Barbour is quite resourceful, and we hope that he will find a way to work around this obstacle.  Regardless, Lt. Governor Bryant isn’t waiting for anyone — he’s taking action now.

Put up or shut up.

Here in Mississippi, I’m proud to say that we’re up to two prominent elected officials (Senator Chris McDaniel and Lt. Governor Phil Bryant) who are taking positive, substantive action to save our healthcare system from the clutches of socialism, and our republican form of government from Congress.  How many does your state have?  None?  Well then, maybe it’s time that you made them earn their pay.

Write a letter, fax or email to the elected officials in your own state and tell them it’s time to stop posturing.  Are any of them hiding behind their Attorney General, saying “gee whiz, I want the state to get involved, but we can’t force the AG to do it, sorry guys”?  Tell them it’s time to put up, or shut up.  It takes courage for an elected state official to do what Lt. Governor Bryant is doing, but that is precisely what we demand of our elected officials — courage to do what is right.

So, what are you waiting for?  Get busy.

When I read Monica Crowley’s piece on Big Government, I must admit to being thoroughly disgusted.

Not because she posted racial-slur laden voicemails sent to Dr. Christopher Metzler, Associate Dean of Continuing Studies at Georgetown University because of his opposition to ObamaCare. No, I am disgusted because for years the mainstream media has invited black conservatives on their radio and television programs to be an opposing voice to the black liberals who are often sought as the voice of black America. We’ve told them (off the record) of the response we normally get after our appearances.

We know what the headlines would read if something were said to annoy Al Sharpton. But it took racist phonecalls to a dean to invoke outrage.

I know many other black conservatives have endured the racial slurs from the left for decades, and the media has never had our backs.

Where is the outrage for the insults Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas deals with to this day? When syndicated columnist Julianne Malveaux said that she hoped Justice Thomas’ wife serves him “lots of eggs and butter and he dies early like many black men do, of heart disease. Well, that’s how I feel.“, where was the media then?

I guess that didn’t count because they didn’t “expose” it.

When Justice Janice Rogers Brown and Dr. Condoleeza Rice were the subject of racist caricatures by cartoonists working for major metropolitan newspapers, where was the media then?

I guess that didn’t count because they didn’t “expose” it.

When I appeared on CNN after Hurricane Katrina and criticized the media’s coverage of/and black people looting (when the world was coming together offering financial assistance), and received 200 emails an hour for the next three days containing vile racist slurs (many of which I published), where was the media then?

I guess that didn’t count because they didn’t “expose” it.

When Colin Powell was racially slurred (Uncle Tom Powell Stumps for Massah Bush) instead of celebrated as the first black Secretary of State, where was the media outrage?

I guess that didn’t count because they didn’t “expose” it.

When Ken Blackwell and Michael Steele respectively ran for statewide office and had Oreo cookies thrown at them, where was the media coverage and condemnation?

I guess that didn’t count because they didn’t “expose” it.

When California Regent Ward Connerly was racially slurred for wanting minorities to be held to the same college admission standard as everyone else (because he, as I, believe we are capable), where was the mainstream media then?

I guess that didn’t count because they didn’t “expose” it.

I can only speak for myself but when I receive racial attacks from the left, it’s because what I’m doing is effective. I remember first hearing the words of Shelby Steele on the radio while driving home from work in Los Angeles in the early 90s and being disgusted by the response of some of the liberal callers.

But I also knew that I believe in the uncelebrated work fellow black conservatives do to this day (and endure) as racism is only allowed in our society when it’s aimed at us, and instead of turning tail and running, we keep on. I think we’ve shown more guts than any ratings-driven media pundits anyday.

If the mainstream media really feels they’ve “exposed” the racism from the left, let’s hope this doesn’t become an “If it bleeds, it leads” situation that’ll be forgotten once the story outlives it’s usefulness.

I know I shouldn’t write in anger, but the point I’m trying to make is that the media has never addressed the racism that comes daily from the left. We only hear about intolerance when a girls basketball team is insulted or a race huckster wants to make headlines. Racism is alive and well in America and it’s publicly displayed, and unfortunately it’s taken this long for someone in the mainstream media to take notice.

Note — This is not personal against Monica. When she hosted a segment of The O’Reilly Factor I was on during the whole Professor Gates drama, she was very nice as we were both on the same page.

More than 100 staff members appointed by three Minnesota congressmen who serve as chairman or ranking member on powerful House committees appear to be exempt from a key requirement in the controversial health care reform bill recently passed by Congress and signed into law.

• Cong. James Oberstar (D), Chairman, House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee–59 Democrat committee staff.
• Cong. Collin Peterson (D), Chairman, House Agriculture Committee–33 Democrat committee staff.
• Cong. John Kline (R), Ranking Member, House Education and Labor Committee–23 Republican committee staff.

Stanley Greenberg and James Carville claim that the Republican Party has peaked too soon. Incredibly, Greenberg says that “when we look back on this, we’re going to say Massachusetts is when 1994 happened.” Stan’s only claim to expertise in the 1994 elections, of course, is that he’s the guy who blew it for the Democrats. Right after that, President Clinton fired both of the flawed consultants and never brought them back again.

Their latest pitch is that the highpoint of the GOP advance was the Scott Brown election and that, from here on, things will “improve slightly” for the Democrats.

Once again, Carville and Greenberg are totally misreading the public mood. Each time the Republican activists battle, they become stronger. Their cyber and grass roots grow deeper. The negatives that attach to so-called “moderate” Democratic incumbents increase. And each time Obama, Reid and Pelosi defy public opinion and use their majorities to ram through unpopular legislation, frustration and anger rise.

Were Obama’s ambitions to slacken, perhaps a cooling-off might eventuate. But soon the socialist financial takeover bill will come on the agenda, followed by amnesty for illegal immigrants, cap-and-trade and card-check unionization. Each bill will trigger its own mobilization of public opposition and add to the swelling coalition of opposition to Obama and his radical agenda.

And, all the while, the deficit will increase, interest rates will rise and unemployment will remain high.

Meanwhile, the political process will generate more and more strong Republican challengers. We have yet to see if former Gov. Tommy Thompson of Wisconsin or Dino Rossi of Washington state will emerge to challenge Sens. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.). Better House candidates will decide to capitalize on the momentum and will jump into the race and Republican donors will come out of hiding, their efforts catalyzed by the growing optimism about GOP chances.

Presaging the looming Republican sweep is the shift in the party ratings on various issues. Rasmussen has the Republicans ahead by 49-37 on the economy and 53-37 on healthcare. His likely-voter poll shows GOP leads on every major issue area: national security (49-37), Iraq (47-39), education (43-30), immigration (47-34), Social Security (48-36) and taxes (52-34).

When Republicans are winning issues like education, healthcare and Social Security — normally solidly Democratic issues — a sweep of unimaginable proportions is in the offing.

Will the rise in economic growth and job creation — if they continue — offset the Republican gains? Not very likely. Remember Bill Clinton’s 1994 experience. Even though the recession had officially ended in the quarter before he took office and he proudly pointed to the 5 million new jobs that had been created during the first two years of his presidency, Clinton got no bounce from the jobs issue or the economy. Even in the election of 1996, the economy was only marginally a source of strength for the Democratic president. It wasn’t until impeachment that the job growth that had been ongoing since he took office began to work heavily in his favor with the public. The hangover from a recession, and certainly from one as violent as this, lasts a long time. A very long time.

And all this assumes that things will, indeed, improve. Worries about inflation loom large and concerns that higher taxes and interest rates will trigger a new downturn also abound. As long as the deficit is as high as it is, there is no solid foundation for a sustained period of economic growth.

Finally, Obama is now responsible for healthcare in America. When premiums rise, it will be his fault. When coverage is denied, it will be on his watch.

When Medicare cuts kick in, it will be Obama who gets the blame.

Carville’s last book touted “40 more years of Democrats.” Now he dreams of a loss of “only” 25 seats in the House and “six or seven” senators. But these are pipe dreams. Republicans will gain more than 50 House seats and at least 10 in the Senate, enough to take control in both chambers. That’s reality.

This article originally appeared in The Hill.

Just prior to Barack Obama announcing self-imposed conditions on if and when America would use nuclear weapons, he made a North Carolina audience wilt under a 17-minute response to a fairly simple question.

According to a rather humorous blog by the Washington Post’s Anne E. Kornblut, Obama meandered for 17 minutes and 2,500 words in response to a woman wondering if  it was a “wise decision to add more taxes to us with the health care” reform.  “We are over-taxed as it is,” she stated.

His best answer, from his perspective, would have simply been to have said, “Yes.”  But he knows that’s not a popular answer.  Instead, he kept  talking,  on and on, to the point where listeners no longer cared about what he was saying or why. They just want him to shut up.

His discursive answer – more than 2,500 words long — wandered from topic to topic, including commentary on the deficit, pay-as-you-go rules passed by Congress, Congressional Budget Office reports on Medicare waste, COBRA coverage, the Recovery Act and Federal Medical Assistance Percentages (he referred to this last item by its inside-the-Beltway name, “F-Map”). He talked about the notion of eliminating foreign aid (not worth it, he said). He invoked Warren Buffett, earmarks and the payroll tax that funds Medicare (referring to it, in fluent Washington lingo, as “FICA”).

Always fond of lists, Obama ticked off his approach to health care — twice. “Number one is that we are the only — we have been, up until last week, the only advanced country that allows 50 million of its citizens to not have any health insurance,” he said.

A few minutes later he got to the next point, which seemed awfully similar to the first. “Number two, you don’t know who might end up being in that situation,” he said, then carried on explaining even further.

“Point number three is that the way insurance companies have been operating, even if you’ve got health insurance you don’t always know what you got, because what has been increasingly the practice is that if you’re not lucky enough to work for a big company that is a big pool, that essentially is almost a self-insurer, then what’s happening is, is you’re going out on the marketplace, you may be buying insurance, you think you’re covered, but then when you get sick they decide to drop the insurance right when you need it,” Obama continued, winding on with the answer.

Halfway through, an audience member on the riser behind Obama yawned.

Oy.  This really gets to the heart of America’s frustrations with Washington and politicians.  Just give us a direct answer.  We understand these are complex issues, but that doesn’t mean there can’t be simple, direct answers.

Even Obama seemed to recognize that he had gone on too long. He apologized — in keeping with the spirit of the moment, not once, but twice. “Boy, that was a long answer. I’m sorry,” he said, drawing nervous laughter that sounded somewhat like relief as he wrapped up.

But, he said: “I hope I answered your question.”

I don’t think you did, Mr. President.  The taxpayers of America don’t appreciate filibustering and bloviating from politicians.  That’s Beltway stuff – not middle America.  They appreciate straight talk.  Give it to us because we can tell when you don’t want to.  If your agenda is what America really wants, you should have no qualms about giving us the dirty truth – unless, of course, the dirty truth about your agenda is worse than simply raising taxes.

As far as white people go, you couldn’t get much whiter than Teddy Kennedy. He was utterly luminescent. Running around in his boxer shorts, chasing the college girls his nephew William brought home that night, he must have appeared almost ghost-like. Yet when he proposed Nationalized Healthcare, we soundly rejected it.

I can’t think of a bigger white cracker redneck than William Jefferson Clinton. He grew up in a trailer, and had a pick-up truck lined with Astroturf. While he was fooling around in the Oval Office, his wife tried to get Nationalized Health Care passed. America hated that idea so much, that we turned over the House and Senate to the Republicans for the first time in 40 years.

But now that Barack Obama has managed to shove a deplorable piece of questionably constitutional legislation through the corrupt purchasable legislature, we are tarred as racists for criticizing his actions.

We weren’t even allowed to hope he failed. That remark caused a lot of ruckus over the past year. For some reason if you don’t want the President’s agenda to pass, you are rooting against the Nation. Yet for eight years our opponents were allowed to get away with the remark: “I support the troops but I don’t support the mission.”

It always sounded kind of dumb to me, like “I support the Cubs, I just don’t want them to win the World Series” (and in my lifetime, they’ve yet to disappoint). Now when we on the Right say that we support the President, but not his policies, we are ignorant bigots. Which brings us around to the most common rationale you hear on the Left. “They’re only opposed to Barack Obama’s health bill, because they don’t want a black guy in the White House.”

I beg to differ.

The only reason why we might support Barack Obama, is because he is black. His presidency is proof that there is one less barrier standing in the way of racial equality. Now we have evidence that anyone in America can rise to the White House, regardless of race or religion. (Well almost. The American Electorate is still a little hinckey about Jews and Mormons.)

We are not opposed to a black guy in the White House; we just don’t want THAT black guy. I would be delighted to see Clarence Thomas run for office, although I wouldn’t want to see what was left of the Constitution, after he resigned his seat for as long as it would take to get elected.

I don’t like Obama’s ideas about Health Care, or Climate Change, or the Economy or pretty much everything else He has proposed. I didn’t like it from Al Gore, John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid either. The things he has already passed have done enough damage to this Nation, I don’t want to see any more of his nightmares legislated in to reality. We have been quite specific about the substantial list of things we’re opposed to.

I think the entire Administration is a bunch of power-hungry Communists, that still want revenge on the United States for embarrassing the Soviet Union’s great social experiment. From that remark, you can clearly see that I oppose power-hungry communists.

Opposition is equal and opposite to support. So if the only reason that people on the Left can see for our opposition to Obama, is his color, then apparently they voted for him because he is a black guy. “Yes We Can” was the slogan of the campaign; I guess the full sentence was, “Yes We can elect a black guy President.”

According to Tavris Wade, introductory textbook “Psychology,” projection: “…is always seen as a defense mechanism that occurs when a person’s own unacceptable or threatening feelings are repressed and then attributed to someone else.”

Projection is exactly what happens when Democrats accuse Conservatives of racism. Republicans fight for the individual rights, so they see every American as a unique individual. Democrats fight for group rights, so your average Democrat only sees groups, differentiated by gender, race, and sexual preference.

Their power structure is based on granting privileges to special distinct groups. In this way they have assembled coalitions of minorities, LGBTs, Africa-Americans, Hispanics (which is actually a group of many different cultural identities, lumped together only because they talk the same.)  This political strategy has worked its way into the thinking of every Democrat. So naturally they assume that Republicans have the same bias.

It explains a lot. Because it was obvious to anyone paying attention, that Barack Obama didn’t have the qualifications for the Presidency. Here is a community organizer with very little on his resume. He voted present numerous times during his tenure as a State lawmaker, and his Presidential run was the first election cycle he actually had to campaign.

It puzzled those of us on the right why he had such support. He had less administrative experience than Sarah Palin, and it would appear a little less intelligence. The people, who are criticizing Sarah for a few crib notes in the palm of her hand, have known for two years that our President reads every thought off of a teleprompter word for word.(even the typos.)

So why did they vote for him? Perhaps, he won for the same reason he was given a Nobel Prize: because he is there. His very presence is worthy of awards.(Apparently his votes of “Present’ in the Legislature were far more substantial than I imagined.)

He wasn’t elected for his vision. His health care plan, wasn’t substantially different from the one Hillary proposed, or the one Teddy Kennedy proposed. His contribution to the debate was his ability to silence the opposition with political correctness. Their talking points were scripted long before the November election even happened. The prejudices that Republicans hoped were lapsing, Democrats were waiting to exploit.

It could be that I’m an old fashioned guy, who remembers back when soccer games were scored, but I think that being given an unearned award is a little demeaning. It’s almost as if he’s being treated like a contestant in the Special Olympics, where everyone gets a medal just for competing.

The President himself once compared his bowling to the Special Olympics; turns out, his entire Presidency is like his bowling (his approval rating isn’t far from his bowling score).

Perhaps instead of the White House, we should have just given him a bowling trophy.

In the vernacular of financial commentary, “PIGS” is the term recently coined by the financial markets to refer to sovereign countries whose economies are virtually bankrupt and whose bonds are virtually worthless. These are the basket cases of the international economic system — Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain.  Recent evidence suggests that the fiscally irresponsible PIGS may soon have a new applicant for membership in their club.  Membership in this particular club is somewhat reminiscent of Groucho Marx’s famous remark that “I wouldn’t belong to any club that would have me for a member.” The new expanded club’s acronym is shaping up to be (you guessed it) USPIGS.  No, the United States is not about to go bankrupt.  Not yet, anyway. We are, however, pursuing the very same types of vast spending policies that brought the PIGS of Europe face to face with that real possibility.

What have we done recently to be considered for membership in this club of dubious distinction?  Last week, government budget personnel revised their estimate of when Social Security would begin running in the red from 2017 to, essentially, “right away.”  Yes, Social Security is broke…right now!  So much for government estimates.

The announcement of this distressing news was, it appears, kept well under wraps until Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid along with a shamelessly compliant Democratic Congress safely ramrodded Obamacare, with its astonishing price tag, into law. The entitlement sinkhole just got an order of magnitude bigger.  “But,” one might ask,  “haven’t we been accumulating all the excess funds paid into Social Security all these years in a special trust fund.”  Well, not exactly.  In fact, not even almost exactly.  You see, the government has been vacuuming out the excess cash as soon as it comes in and spending the money (the money we all paid in) to pay the government’s current bills.  The trust-fund cash has been replaced all this time with IOU’s (that’s internal Treasury debt), which are now being called to meet current payment obligations.  These IOU’s are being replaced, of course, with even more IOU’s but this time there is no more cash to divert from payroll taxes to fund government operations. We have to borrow more.

The timing just couldn’t have been worse, with the multi-trillion-dollar Obamacare entitlement enacted into law by the Democrats, and Moody’s having just announced that our AAA credit rating could be in jeopardy if we don’t meet our economic growth projections. Those are the very same growth projections being compromised by our ever-spiraling deficits, our ever-growing national debt and by the federal and state tax collectors about to go on a government-mandated, national pick-pocketing binge.

We have, in a number of previous essays, cited the spending plans of the current Administration as irresponsible.  Not that there is anything inherently irresponsible with borrowing against future receipts to accomplish needed and worthwhile objectives so long as there is a credible repayment plan.  But when anyone, especially the government, spends borrowed money based on future expectations, then the principles upon which those expectations of future revenue are based have to be realistic and grounded in sound economic theory.  Sadly, the chickens have come home to roost on the past projections upon which Congress and the Administration have relied. And just as we have previously claimed they were doing (“cooking the books” with unrealistic forecasts to justify passage of the Obamacare legislation), the evidence is in that Congress has justified its profligate spending habits by basing expenditure decisions upon demonstrably unrealistic optimistic projections of economic growth while also understating the future costs of the laws they enact.

Entitlement costs, like those for greatly expanded health care, get baked into the annual budget (referred to in budget speak as non discretionary spending), even though the revenue going forward is quite variable.  As proof of that, the fact that Social Security is in the red seven years earlier than the government projections anticipated, is largely the result of the economic downturn.  The benefits are fixed while the economy, which produces the receipts from payroll taxes, is, extremely variable.  Picture a graph with two lines, moving from left to right, one to illustrate benefits (costs) and the other to illustrate income (social-security tax receipts). Obviously you would want the lines to move in tandem, ideally with the income line running ahead (above) the cost line.  When they run counter to one another, that is, when the cost line turns up and the income line turns down you have what we’ll call an insolvency gap.  Our current social-security insolvency gap is more than very troublesome. It has put us on the road to a fiscal train wreck. This is the type of wide-yawning gap that has driven Greece to its knees and threatens the other “PIGS” countries as well.

To be sure, this mess has been building for a long time and we can’t blame past irresponsibility on President Obama.  He, as the junior senator from Illinois, was still trying to find the way to his Senate office when the current crisis began to build during the Bush years. But now he is president and it is his responsibility to provide the leadership to resolve the mess, not to make it worse. Unfortunately, the president and his ill-timed redistributive policies are exacerbating, not alleviating our economic problems by rushing headlong to squeeze money out of the private sector and into the hands of a wide array of government programs essentially designed to redistribute private wealth. With fewer resources in the private sector it is almost axiomatic that government tax revenues from private economic activity will be constrained. Of course, at the same time  the government continues to spend at an accelerated rate, Congress and the Administration project steady economic growth with no further downturns. We have seen how reliable those projections have been in the past.  Our national priority should be to do everything we can to foster economic growth.  Instead, we are doing just the opposite.

Further complicating the matter is that Obamacare imposes very substantial new costs on the states, nearly all of which are struggling mightily with their own budgets.  As we write this essay, The Sunday New York Times reports on its front page how states are now seeking to tax services, “…From Head To Toe.”  The federal government and the state governments are embarking on a colossal revenue chase to squeeze more and more taxes from the nation’s taxpayers.

It has been demonstrated that when public debt reaches 90% of GDP economic growth begins to deteriorate.  Add non-public debt (when we borrow from our own “lock boxes or trust funds”) such as what we owe to Social Security and our other totally unfunded liabilities, and the picture really starts to become very troublesome.  CBO now estimates that our deficits over the next ten years will be $1.2 trillion more than the Obama administration projected (why do these type of corrections always seem to come out right after we legislate massive new entitlement commitments?); and that we will have reached that 90% public debt to GDP ratio within the next ten years.

This is not simply academic or esoteric chatter.  It matters and it matters a lot to every American family.   That $1.2 trillion miscalculation by the Obama Administration represents an additional debt of $10,000 per household above and beyond the federal debt each household is already carrying according to Heritage Foundation budget analyst Brian Riedl.  Keep in mind the federal public debt was a gaping $6.3 trillion or $56,000 per household when President Bush left office. Today, it stands at $8.2 trillion or $72,000 per household and, according to the CBO estimates, in less than ten years it looks like it could reach $20.3 trillion.  That would be $170,000 per household!  When we talk about the Administration or Congress passing debt onto our children that’s exactly what we are talking about.  Ultimately, our kids and their kids will pay to service that debt with additional taxes the government extracts from them or through vastly decreased value of their currency. Either way, their standard of living and their quality of life is certain to suffer.

James R Horney, a federal-budget analyst with the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities acknowledges that lower tax revenue resulting from economic performance that is lower than government projections accounts for the biggest part of the deficit gap between the Administration’s estimates and the CBO’s. “The administration assumes GDP and incomes will be higher, and that translates into higher revenues than CBO expects. Relatively small differences in economic assumptions can add up to big differences over 10 years,” says Horney.

Budget analysts Riedl and Horney, one conservative and one liberal, both offer very worthwhile observations.  Their comments are also very instructive.  They illustrate how minor errors or miscalculations in projections can, over time, compound into major problems.  They also suggest the ease with which government staff can game the system to influence the score the CBO comes up with on any piece of legislation.  When constructing the assumptions that accompany a bill to the CBO for scoring, a little tinkering here and there can pretty much produce the score one wants.  The Administration’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) can play the same game. Plug in a half percent more growth and more tax revenue here and there and PRESTO you can make a projected budget deficit neutral or even reduce a shortfall.

We, of course, don’t know if such chicanery was at work in the case of the healthcare bill.  We do, however, find it disheartening that the CBO didn’t discover, until two days after President Obama signed the healthcare bill into law, the disparity between the growth projections the Administration made and those that CBO considers to be realistic.  And as stated earlier in this essay, that turned out to be a $1.2 trillion late discovery.

The bad news is that in a little less than ten years our public debt will reach 90% of estimated GDP (sort of like the PIGS of Europe).  At the time Mr. Obama was elected President our public debt stood at 40% of GDP.  The good news is (well not exactly good news) we have time to do something about it.  The government can rethink the statist, redistributive course we are on and begin focusing on policies designed to grow the economy…to encourage private investment and sound risk taking…to leave as much wealth in the hands of the people as possible.

Based on his actions since he took office, President Obama is not of a mind to view the sudden insolvency of Social Security or the Administration’s $1.2 trillion miscalculation of the nation’s deficit over the next decade with alarm and rethink the course he is plotting. Rather, he and the Democratic Congress seem to be of a mind, instead, to think damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead. Their rhetoric and actions suggest that, given the current control they exercise, they see this as a once in a lifetime chance to vastly increase the role of government and to let the debt problem slide further down the road. It is far more satisfying to engage in expensive social engineering than in the hard choices necessary to cut spending.

We suspect, however, we do know what the mind of the voting public will be once the hard reality sinks in of where we are, where we are headed and the consequences to the nation of being a fiscal basket case where debt backed by the “full faith and credit” of the United States (our Treasury bonds), long viewed as the refuge of investor’s seeking safety, could be salable only if America paid much higher rates of interest.

What has happened to Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain is not hard to fathom.  It is a mystery to no one who understands basic economics, unencumbered by partisan political philosophy.  The PIGS have borrowed to spend (and are committed to spend) more than they can ever hope to repay.  It’s that simple. In the case of Greece, they need some form of a bailout. The other three nations are not far behind unless they treat their current crisis as a wakeup call and quickly take painful remedial measures. It appears to us when we look at what Congress has just legislated and the president has signed into law, together with what the president’s other priorities seem to be, that we are about to follow the path well traveled by the basket cases of Europe.  Why in the world would we do that?

Hal Gershowitz and Stephen Porter

“I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States…”

Rep. Phil Hare, January 3, 2007, Washington D.C.

“I don’t worry about the Constitution…”

Rep. Phil Hare, April 1, 2010, Quincy IL

Three years after my opponent Rep. Phil Hare took his first oath to defend and uphold the Constitution, he voted in lockstep with Nancy Pelosi and other left coast liberals to take away individual freedom from every citizen in the United States.

When he was recently asked at a town hall meeting in Quincy, Ill. why he so stridently supported the Pelosi-Reid Obamacare bill, even though it unconstitutionally forces every U.S. Citizen to buy government approved health insurance or face a state imposed penalty, he stated that he didn’t worry about the constitution.

His decision to knowingly disregard his oath to defend the constitution so that he could support the now infamous Obamacare bill and the Chicago-style, strong-arm tactics that made it’s passage possible reveals a troubling and radical belief that our rights as Americans are not God given but are based on his power as our congressman.

This elitist, out of touch mentality that representative Hare has espoused and which has taken hold in our nation’s capital, I believe, must be forcefully rejected.  I am running to replace Representative Hare in Congress in order to get rid of Obamacare, the elitist ideology that it represents and to restore the trust of the people of western Illinois

My name is Bobby Schilling. I am the father of 10 beautiful children, a small business owner and I care about the constitution.

Here in western Illinois, we are like most Americans.  We work hard, look out for our neighbors and are willing to fight to preserve our families and communities. We are proud of the men and women who have made our country great.

But for the past three years we have been represented by an elitist politician who has been more concerned with his own advancement than the rights of his constituents in here in western Illinois

He has broken the promise that he made to us to protect our most fundamental rights as Americans enshrined in the constitution.

Representative Phil Hare swore to us before God that he would defend the constitution and by his own recent admission, he knowingly broke that promise.

We need a congressman who will represent western Illinois, not the power brokers and lobbyists in Washington.

Please join my campaign in the fight to restore Constitution.

Contribute to my campaign here.

Join my campaign here.

Of course there were no news accounts of this, so we missed it. On March 31st, Rep. Paul Ryan delivered a keynote address to the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, one of the better state-based free market think tanks. It is a magisterial distillation of where we are…and where we need to go. Full text of the address below:

Last week, on March 21st, Congress enacted a new Intolerable Act. Congress passed the Health Care bill – or I should say, one political party passed it – over a swelling revolt by the American people. The reform is an atrocity. It mandates that every American must buy health insurance, under IRS scrutiny. It sets up an army of federal bureaucrats who ultimately decide for you how you should receive Health Care, what kind, and how much…or whether you don’t qualify at all. Never has our government claimed the power to decide when each of us has lived well enough or long enough to be refused life-saving medical assistance.

This presumptuous reform has put this nation … once dedicated to the life and freedom of every person … on a long decline toward the same mediocrity that the social welfare states of Europe have become.

Americans are preparing to fight another American Revolution, this time, a peaceful one with election ballots…but the “causes” of both are the same:

• Should unchecked centralized government be allowed to grow and grow in power … or should its powers be limited and returned to the people?
• Should irresponsible leaders in a distant capital be encouraged to run up scandalous debts without limit that crush jobs and stall prosperity … or should the reckless be turned out of office and a new government elected to live within its means?
• Should America bid farewell to exceptional freedom and follow the retreat to European social welfare paternalism … or should we make a new start, in the faith that boundless opportunities belong to the workers, the builders, the industrious, and the free?

We are at the beginning of an election campaign like you’ve never seen before!

We are challenged to answer again the momentous questions our Founders raised when they launched mankind’s noblest experiment in human freedom. They made a fundamental choice and changed history for the better. Now it’s our high calling to make that choice: between managed scarcity, or solid growth … between living in dependency on government handouts, or taking responsibility for our lives … between confiscating the earnings of some and spreading them around, or securing everyone’s right to the rewards of their work … between bureaucratic central government, or self-government … between the European social welfare state or the American idea of free market democracy.

What kind of nation do we wish to be? What kind of society will we hand down to our children and future generations? In the coming watershed election, the nature of this unique and exceptional land is at stake. We will choose one of two different paths. And once we make that choice, there’s no going back.

This is not the kind of election I would prefer. But it was forced on us by the leaders of our government.

These leaders are walking America down a new path … creating entitlements and promising benefits that model the United States after the European Union: a welfare state society where most people pay little or no taxes but become dependent on government benefits … where tax reduction is impossible because more people have a stake in the welfare state than in free enterprise … where high unemployment is accepted as a way of life, and the spirit of risk-taking is smothered by a tangle of red tape from an all-providing centralized government.

True, the United States has been moving slowly toward this path a long time. And Democrats and Republicans share the blame. Now we are approaching a “tipping point.” Once we pass it, we will become a different people. Before the “tipping point,” Americans remain independent and take responsibility for their own well-being. Once we have gone beyond the “tipping point,” that self-sufficient outlook will be gradually transformed into a soft despotism a lot like Europe’s social welfare states. Soft despotism isn’t cruel or mean, it’s kindly and sympathetic. It doesn’t help anyone take charge of life, but it does keep everyone in a happy state of childhood. A growing centralized bureaucracy will provide for everyone’s needs, care for everyone’s heath, direct everyone’s career, arrange everyone’s important private affairs, and work for everyone’s pleasure.

The only hitch is, government must be the sole supplier of everyone’s happiness … the shepherd over this flock of sheep.

Am I exaggerating? Are we really reaching this “tipping point”? Exact and precise measures cannot be made, but an eye-opening study by the Tax Foundation, a reliable and non-partisan research group, tells us that in 2004, 20 percent of US households were getting about 75 percent of their income from the federal government. In other words, one out of five families in America is already government dependent. Another 20 percent were receiving almost 40 percent of their income from federal programs, so another one in five has become government reliant for their livelihood.

All told, 60 percent – three out of five households in America – were receiving more government benefits and services (in dollar value) than they were paying back in taxes. The Tax Foundation estimates that President Obama’s budget last year will raise this “net government inflow” from 60 to 70 percent. Look at it this way: three out of ten American families are supporting themselves plus – through government – supplying or supplementing the incomes of seven other households. As a permanent arrangement, this is individually unfair, politically inequitable, and economically dangerous.

It raises a subtle but real threat to self-government when the few are paying more and more of the bill for government services and subsidies to the majority: “He who pays the piper calls the tune.” The next chapter is the rule of “crony capitalism,” where those who pay most taxes get the privileges, and government by and for the people is replaced by government by and for the few. The end of this story is soft despotism.

We already see enough of “crony capitalism.” When government sends bailout money to Wall Street firms they label “too big to fail,” that’s “crony capitalism.” When government buys shares in General Motors, names their management, and dictates their salaries, that’s “crony capitalism.” When big health insurance companies, instead of competing for market, team up with Congressional Health Care writers to order every individual to buy their products, that’s “crony capitalism.” When thousands of small businesses have to meet bottom lines with no government bailout, well, you’re too small to succeed…good luck!

The Democratic leaders of Congress and in the White House hold a view they call “Progressivism.” Progressivism began in Wisconsin, where I come from. It came into our schools from European universities under the spell of intellectuals such as Hegel and Weber, and the German leader Bismarck. The best known Wisconsin Progressive was actually a Republican, Robert LaFollette.

Progressivism was a powerful strain in both political parties for many years. Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican, and Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat, both brought the Progressive movement to Washington.

Early Progressives wanted to empower and engage the people. They fought for populist reforms like initiative and referendum, recalls, judicial elections, the breakup of monopoly corporations, and the elimination of vote buying and urban patronage. But Progressivism turned away from popular control toward central government planning. It lost most Americans and consumed itself in paternalism, arrogance, and snobbish condescension. “Fighting Bob” LaFollette, Teddy Roosevelt, and Woodrow Wilson would have scorned the self-proclaimed “Progressives” of our day for handing out bailout checks to giant corporations, corrupting the Congress to purchase votes for government controlled health care, and funneling billions in Jobs Stimulus money to local politicians to pay for make-work patronage. That’s not “Progressivism,” that’s what real Progressives fought against!

Since America began, the timid have feared the Founding Fathers’ ideas of individual freedom, so they yearn for Old World class models. Our Progressivists are the latest iteration of that same fear of the people. In unprecedented numbers, Americans are speaking out against the intolerable Health Care bill and irresponsible debt-ridden spending.

Does anyone recall Norman Rockwell’s famous “Freedom of Speech” painting of an average working Joe standing and speaking his mind at a town hall meeting? Today’s Progressivists ridicule average Americans speaking out at tea parties across the nation and denounce their criticisms as “un-American.” Millions of average Americans reject their big government solutions, and that scares them.

Last January President Obama said: “There are simply philosophical differences that will always cause us to part ways. These disagreements, about the role of government in our lives, about our national priorities and our national security, have been taking place for over two hundred years.”

He was right. So let’s examine these “philosophical differences” of government. Progressivists say there are no enduring ideas of right or wrong. Everything is “relative” to history, so our ideas need to change. Progressivists say the Founders’ Constitution including its amendments, with its principles of equal natural rights, limited government, and popular consent is outdated. We should have a “living constitution” that keeps up with the times. Progressivists invent new rights and enforce them with a more powerful central government and more federal agencies to direct society through the changes of history. And don’t worry, they say. Bureaucrats can be controlled by Congressional oversight.

Would you like an example of how successful Congressional oversight is? Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Government-Sponsored Enterprises (or GSEs), underwrote trillions of dollars in junk mortgages. Year after year their officials and others from HUD, Treasury, and other agencies who supervise them marched up to Congress for hearings. Red flags were raised. The oversight committees had other priorities and dismissed them out of hand. With the housing market already tanking, Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank said: “This ability to provide stability to the market is what, in my mind, makes the GSEs a congressional success story.” Less than 18 months later, the ‘market-stabilizing’ GSEs went belly-up due to their shoddy business practices, collapsing the mortgage credit industry and sparking the worldwide financial meltdown. No one knows the ultimate cost to the taxpayers but it will be gigantic.

If Congress can’t control what a few mortgage finance bureaucrats do with your dollars, why would anyone trust Congress to control what tens of thousands of bureaucrats will do with your health?

The Progressivist ideology embraced by today’s leaders is very different from everything rank-and-file Democrats, independents, and Republicans stand for. America stands for nothing if not for the fixed truth that unalienable rights were granted to every human being not by government but by “nature and nature’s God.” The truths of the American founding can’t become obsolete because they are not timebound. They are eternal. The practical consequence of these truths is free market democracy, the American idea of free labor and free enterprise under government by popular consent. The deepest case for free market democracy is moral, rooted in human equality and the natural right to be free.

A government that expands beyond its high but limited mission of securing our natural rights is not progressive, it’s regressive. It privileges the powerful at the expense of the people. It establishes the rule of class over class. The American Revolution and the Constitution replaced class rule with a better idea: equal opportunity for all. The promise of keeping the earnings of your work is central to justice, freedom, and the hope to improve your life.

In their hearts Americans know this, but people were alarmed in 2008 by rising unemployment, falling home values, a credit crunch, and a financial meltdown.

They voted for a change of parties in the White House, and elected the largest Democratic Congressional majority in more than three decades. So overwhelming was their majority that the opposition is unable to do anything to stop them from running roughshod over our foundations. Harry Reid had a supermajority in the Senate that could not be filibustered. Still, the people’s mandate for Congress and the new President was clear, simple, and unmistakable: get employment back on track … get our economy growing again.

Americans have lost jobs nearly every month since these leaders took over the federal government in January 2009, more than 4 million at last count. The official unemployment rate hovers near 10 percent, but if we add in folks who have stopped looking for work due to lack of job prospects, the rate is a lot higher.

They began by passing the first Stimulus, a taxpayer giveaway to their favorite special interests. The price tag was $862 billion. They pushed through a second stimulus bill that cost you another $18 billion. Let’s see: since 4 million Americans have been unemployed since they passed these “stimuli,” that averages $220,000 per job lost. Think about that. Democrats can’t even put people out of work without spending near a trillion dollars!

Just to return to where we were at the end of 2007, 8.4 million jobs have to be created. To reduce unemployment to its pre-crisis level of 5 per cent by the end of President Obama’s term, our economy needs to create 247,000 new jobs per month. But we are headed in the wrong direction … except in one field: the government is growing at breakneck pace in expanding federal payrolls.

Although millions of private sector jobs have been lost since the recession began, Washington is on track to add about 275,000 more people to the public payrolls – a whopping 15 percent increase. And we aren’t talking minimum wages here. More federal workers make over $100,000 than those earning $40,000 or less. The average government worker’s salary in 2009 was 21 percent higher than private sector salaries. The average federal worker’s compensation package, including benefits, was nearly $120,000 in 2008, twice the private sector at $60,000. One study shows the private sector benefit package averages $9,900 while the federal package averages almost $41,000. Now the Administration wants Congress to privilege federal workers by writing off their unpaid student loans after ten years. People in productive private sector jobs would keep paying for twenty years. Progressivists would really like everyone to work for the government.

Has any Congress in history enacted, or tried to enact, so many foolish, squalid, and counterproductive programs?

It isn’t good news when anyone losses his job. But I’ll make an exception when the Speaker of the House and the Senate Majority Leader lose theirs in November!

As their first major item of business last year, these leaders pushed through a budget so bloated that it will double the federal debt in five years, and triple it in ten.

Now the Administration has sent Congress a budget that’s far worse. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office [CBO] reports that 10 years from now, this budget will drive the federal debt burden up to 90 percent of the nation’s entire economic production. It propels spending to a new record of $3.8 trillion next year [FY 2011]. It widens the annual deficit to a new record of $1.5 trillion this year [FY 2010], and raises $1.8 trillion in new taxes through 2020.

Two and a half years after this recession started, and no new private jobs? Think what these mind-boggling tax increases and mountain of debt are signaling to people who want to open or expand job-creating businesses. Congress keeps raising the barriers against work and production – that’s your answer.

At a time when economic and job expansion should be Washington’s highest priority … and as if the multi-trillion dollar Health Care debacle were not enough, the Progressivist leadership in Congress are adding insult to injury by promoting their energy and climate agenda through their Cap and Trade plan. Put aside the fact that there is growing disagreement among scientists about climate change and its causes. This bill is a big mistake for other reasons.

CBO estimates that Cap and Trade’s total cost is another near-trillion dollars. By one CBO estimate, the tax and energy cost bills for the average American household may grow by $1,600 a year. Other studies put this cost a lot higher.

If you don’t believe me, let me quote a key Democratic Senator:

Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket. Coal-powered plants…natural gas…whatever the plants were, whatever the industry was…would have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money. They will pass that money on to consumers…So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it’s just that it will bankrupt them because they’re going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.

That was Senator Barack Obama in January 2008, talking about what he would do as President. Don’t say the man doesn’t work to keep his promises!

Economists across the spectrum tell us that Cap and Trade would make our long-term national economic production fall below potential, causing higher unemployment. Federal spending is on an unsustainable path that can only get worse if this happens. There is general agreement that the environmental improvements from Cap and Trade are either nonexistent or too small to measure.

Congressional leaders are also pushing an unprecedented expansion of the Federal Reserve Board’s regulatory powers over financial institutions under the belief that government must protect the people from themselves. This measure will direct federal agents to inspect, and at their pleasure object to, the wages and compensation which businesses on Main Street as well as Wall Street wish to pay employees. It puts bureaucracies in charge of deciding the type and line of credit which consumers and businesses will have access to when they shop for cars, homes, education, and expansion of facilities. The Fed has already failed the twofold assignment it has – keeping the economy and jobs growing, and keeping prices stable. It should return to its original mission of guaranteeing the long-term value of our dollar. Instead the same leaders who never knew the government mortgage giants were supplying credit for worthless mortgages now want Fed bureaucrats to regulate the businesses that supply personal and commercial credit? If that happens, economic recovery will be a longer time coming.

And now I want to return to the Health Care Frankenstein. Most Americans understand that government-run Health Care is not free, not cheap, and not compassionate. I think most Americans believe Congress has no idea of what the public demand will be for subsidized Health Care. They are correct. When Medicare was enacted, Congress guessed it would cost about 10 percent of what it turned out to be after 25 years. Heck, Congress couldn’t even figure the cost of the 3-month long Cash for Clunkers subsidy last year, underestimating it on the order of 1 to 9. Most Americans know the Congressional majority are clueless about what their government-run Health Care system is going to cost.

The drama that brought this creature to life was unedifying … part tragedy and part farce. Ethical categories went out the window. Never in history have the deliberations of Congress been subverted on this scale. The secrecy, the lack of transparency, the half-truths were stunning. The votes called at midnight … the 2 and 3 thousand page bills members of Congress had no time to read before the votes … the sordid backroom deals, the Cornhusker Kickback that shamed Nebraska, the Louisiana Purchase, the “Gator Aid” Medicare privilege for Florida, the additional Medicare dollars for states whose wavering representatives only yesterday were ferociously denouncing earmarks … the federal judgeship dangled for one lawmaker’s brother … the raid on the Medicare piggy bank … the lie that $250 billion for “doc fix” shouldn’t count as a Health Care cost … the double-counted deficit estimate scam that would land any accountant in jail … the proposed Slaughter rule that Congressmen not record a vote on a bill their constituents hate, just “deem” it passed and vote on the amendments…and to complete the farce, the phony Executive Order pretending not to fund abortions when the Health Care bill, as “the supreme law of the land,” does fund abortions. The level of political corruption to buy the votes for this debacle makes all past examples look penny ante by comparison.

Self-government stands or falls on integrity, not only in those who represent you but in the enactment of law. This indecency soiled our freedom and embarrassed the democracy we promote in other nations. And this may not be the last of it. To enact its transformative agenda, this leadership employs the Machiavellian saying that the end justifies the means. America was born in a revolution against that whole idea. Soon it will be the norm.

The Constitution and the consent of the people are all that stand between limited and unlimited government power. Zealous ideologues with the best of intentions brush aside the limits on power in order to get whatever they believe is good for the people … no matter what the people believe. Our system of freedom can survive an assault, but it won’t survive if the people are frightened, or angry, or asleep at the switch. A great Democrat, President Andrew Jackson, once said: “eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty.” We can thank our current leaders at least for this: they have awakened the nation to the danger of taking self-government for granted.

Congress is not only enacting a social welfare state agenda over the objections of the people. It is failing to address the problems that threaten to engulf our country, principally economic decline and entitlement-driven debt crisis. The coming election will be a referendum on the agenda of our current leadership. Either it will give them a mandate that says “more of the same,” or it will end the abuse of power and put America back on the path of growth and freedom.

Supposing the American people use their referendum in November to elect a new majority, what would the next Congress do?

The first order of business will be “repeal and replace.” We will work to repeal federalized Health Care and replace it with a robust, competitive open market in health care that puts patients and their doctors at the center – not employers, not insurers, and not government agents. This takes at least two elections, and we must show our perseverance.

A new Congress will then turn to the great problem of our stagnant economy and the debt tsunami bearing down on us. The days of pretending not to notice are over. The next Congress will understand this threat and act after transparent deliberation and real debate.

I have put forward my specific solution, called “A Roadmap for America’s Future,” to meet this challenge. The CBO confirms that this plan achieves the goal of paying off government debt in the long run – while securing the social safety net and starting up future economic growth.

The problem in a nutshell is this: Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, three giant entitlements, are out of control. Exploding costs will drive our federal government and national economy to collapse. And the recession plus this Congress’ spending spree have accelerated the day of reckoning.

Today, Medicare is $38 trillion short of its promised benefits. In five years, the hole will grow to $52 trillion. Your family’s share of this gap is $458,000. Medicaid will add trillions more in state and federal debt.

Social Security’s surplus is already gone, and its debt is mounting. Unless its finances are strengthened, the government will be forced to cut benefits nearly 25 percent or raise payroll taxes more than 30 percent.

Both Republicans and Democrats have failed to be candid about this. And we have only postponed the crisis by shaking a tin cup at China and Japan.

A new Congress could start by making you the owner of your health plan. Under my Roadmap reform, a tax break that now benefits only those with job-based health insurance will be replaced by tax credits that benefit every American. And it secures universal access to quality, affordable health coverage with incentives that hold down health-care cost increases.

Everyone 55 and over will remain in the current Medicare program. For those now under 55, Medicare will be like the health-care program we in Congress enjoy.

Future seniors will receive a payment and pick an insurance plan from a diverse list of Medicare-certified plans – with more support for those with low incomes and higher health costs. To reform Medicaid, low income people will receive the means to buy private health insurance like everyone else.

Under the Roadmap’s Social Security proposal, everyone 55 and older will remain in the existing program with no change. Those under 55 will choose either to stay with traditional Social Security, or to join a retirement system like Congress’s own plan. They will be able to invest more than a third of their payroll taxes in their own savings account, guaranteed and managed by the federal government. For both Social Security and Medicare, eligibility ages will gradually increase, and the wealthy will receive smaller benefit increases.

And we need to get this economy moving again, so the Roadmap offers taxpayers an option: either use the tax code we have today, or use a simple, low-rate, two-tier personal income tax that gets rid of loopholes and the double taxation of savings and investment. And let’s replace corporate income taxes with a simple, competitive 8.5 percent business consumption tax. These low-rate and simple tax reforms would provide the certainty and the incentives for investors to open new enterprises and for workers to find a marketplace expanding in new jobs.

The Roadmap plan shifts power to individuals at the expense of government control. It rejects cradle-to-grave welfare state ideas because they drain individuals of their self-reliance. And it still honors our historic commitment to strengthening the social safety net for those who need it most.

I would welcome honest debate in the next Congress on how to tackle our fiscal crisis – and the larger debate on the proper role of government. It’s time politicians in Washington stopped patronizing the American people as if they were children – deferring tough decisions and promising fiscal fantasies. Tell Americans the truth, offer them a choice, and count on them to do what’s right.

A political realignment is on the way. Democratic leaders are staking their party’s future on their ideological agenda. Financial Services Committee Chairman Frank candidly admits that his party “are trying on every front to increase the role of government.” Former President Clinton told a Netroots convention last year that “We have entered a new era of progressive politics, which if we do it right could last 30 or 40 years.”

The question is, do we realign with the vision of a European-style social welfare state, or do we realign with the American idea?

My party challenges the whole basis of the Progressivist vision of this country’s future. We challenge their attack on American exceptionalism. We challenge their claim that bureaucratic centralization is the only way the US can meet the economic and social challenges of our time.

Those leaders have underestimated the good sense of the American people. They broke faith with independents, Republicans, and their own rank-and-file. They walked away from the foundational truths that made America the wonder and the envy of the world. The price of their infidelity will be high.

I hope you won’t mind an aside. I absolutely love Oklahoma! As you may know, I married Janna Little, daughter of Dan and Prudence Little, from Madill. Well, Janna and I are planning on spending half of our year here in retirement. And I can tell you it won’t be Summer…it’s just gets too hot here for a Wisconsinite. We will be spending the Fall and Winter here. You see, I love to hunt and fish. Each year we come for deer, duck, and turkey season. Janna refers to these times as Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter. There’s something about Oklahoma that is truly captivating. It’s a beautiful, big, unconstrained country with great-hearted people who know what it is to live like free men and women.

Some of my friends in Marshall County have on occasion called me “yankee,” which I find particularly disturbing. I have always thought a yankee is someone from the Northeast, not the upper Midwest. Needless to say, I am told this can be fixed if I include among my life’s achievements the high and noble accomplishment of noodling a giant catfish from the banks of Lake Texoma. And so, I will be returning in early June, otherwise known as noodling season, to gain this rite of passage so that I may never be called yankee again, and also hoping I keep my ten fingers intact.

Knowing America, and Oklahoma as I have come to know it, I am confident that the American character is up to every challenge. America is not over. This exceptional nation will not go down the way of mediocrity. Ronald Reagan used to say: “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction … It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for [our children] to do the same.” We are that generation. The fight is our fight, and it begins now! The time is at hand to reclaim America for freedom.

Thank you very much.

If I had a dollar for every time some tool during the health care debate brought up how “we’re the only industrialized” nation in the world without socialized health care I’d have a lot of money. Why, I could even retire from my current job of poisoning the environment and taking advantage of the working man. I could, you know, relax.

Even the U.K., the drones blather, has government run health care. I guess they think we can identify better with the U.K. because they’re mostly white and speak English. I don’t know. I won’t waste any time trying to figure out the left’s thought process. Doing so would be as dangerous and pointless as trying to decipher the Necronomicon.

Invoking the U.K. as a model should, naturally, have the opposite effect on the American psyche. I hate to bring it up, but we kinda fought a war a couple hundred years ago to insure that we were NOT just like England. We already had the English life. We were right there and we rejected it.

Think of all the things we missed out on, only to aspire to end up in the same place. Our fish and chips are inferior. Guinness served over here is never quite as fresh. We don’t have tea time. I really like tea. We also ditched the cool accents. I mean seriously, I could have sounded like Ian McKellan or Sean Connery if it wasn’t for those clowns Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson.

Thanks to the American Revolution we can’t claim Led Zepplin, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Arctic Monkeys, The Smiths, Blur or the Spice Girls as our own. James Bond is not our brother. Neither is Dr. Who. On top of it, I would probably be a Lord or Earl or something. Damn it, Lord Leigh Scott of Wauwatosa sounds freaking awesome! Thanks a lot Thomas Paine.

Jerks.

The second half to the whole “we’re the only nation to not have” nonsense is that we are the “richest” nation. To that, I would like to affirm the obvious. We are the richest nation precisely because we DON’T have bloated, intrusive, nanny state government.

But Leigh, they say, it’s over. They passed it. Elections have consequences. Just deal with it.

I think that’s a dangerous idea. Accepting defeat when it is so far on the horizon for our great nation would be a huge mistake. I quote my almost countryman Winston Churchill when I say “Do not let spacious plans for a new world divert your energies from saving what is left of the old”.

No matter how you want to spin it, what happened at the end of March was indeed historic. Circumventing the “spirit” of the law to force a massive expansion of government has never happened before. Both the Social Security Acts of 1935 and 1965 passed with healthy bipartisan majorities. They weren’t “squeakers” voted late on a Sunday night after months of back room deals and shady pay-offs.

The process that just gave us the Obamacare more closely resembles the power grabs in Central America than it does anything Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton wasted their time writing about.

Oh, yeah. I forgot to mention Lily Allen and Oasis. Great, we can claim Lady Gaga and Avril Lavigne. Wait, Avril Lavigne is Canadian? Damn it. Thanks again Alexander Hamilton.

Back to the point. The Left has made a critical error here. My Dad used to say “never make a threat unless you’re willing to follow through”. He was talking about fights on the playground, and later in business about suing people, but I think it’s true here. When you try to rig the system, ignore the will of the people, and rely on a favorable press to push a socialist agenda you better have the other toys that usually come in the evil dictator/commie/socialist toolkit. The American Left doesn’t.

Do you really think that any of this stuff is enforceable? What are they going to do when we all just stop paying taxes? What if we simply say “no thanks” to signing up with Blue Cross/Blue Shield? There aren’t enough jails. How long before the local police refuse to arrest people? The new bill calls for 15,000 new IRS agents, not 15 million.

Do you think that the 101st Airborne is going to accept an order to invade Arlington, TX?

The only way socialism overtakes America is if we accept it. If we simply mope around and complain about our taxes and the government like we always have. The only way this becomes the nightmare we all fear is if we let it.

And that is exactly what they expect us to do.

Unlike their heroes in Venezuela and Cuba, the left doesn’t have the muscle. I’ve gone head to head with union thugs. Not that scary. Sorry Nancy Pelosi, but I don’t see a Che Guevara in your future who can force social justice with the barrel of a gun.

It’s going to take more than Nancy Pelosi’s over-sized gavel, MSNBC, and presidential double talk to drive this country into the same recycle bin that the EU finds itself. It would take guns. And thanks to George Washington and Co., we have those too.

The Second American Revolution will be bloodless. It will amount to rank and file citizens sitting on their hands and on their wallets. Remember what our almost countrywoman Margaret Thatcher said; “the problem with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money”. Agreed Maggie. I say we cut it the purse strings early.

The ultimate genius of the Founding Fathers wasn’t simply the Constitution. We saw how malleable that piece of paper was Sunday night. No, their genius is the political philosophy behind it. It’s in the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, The Federalist Papers, and Paine’s Common Sense. It’s now part of our DNA, our national identity. The government works for us, we don’t work for it. When the government forgets that and oversteps its bounds…time for a new government.

And that idea, my friends, it tougher to beat than a few parliamentary procedures or stubborn representatives.

So I take back what I said. Who wants to be an Earl anyway? The American Revolution insured that we have what no one else has: true liberty and freedom. Millions of our countrymen did not sacrifice their lives to allow us to slip into the same wretched trap that the rest of the world has. Our countrymen stared down legions of Redcoats, and we can’t stare down a botoxed illiterate like Nancy Pelosi? Our countrymen endured hand to hand combat with Nazi SS soldiers and we can’t put a moron like Paul Krugman in his place? Right now our brave brothers and sisters battle crazed Islamic militants who dream of death, and we can’t tell the goon at Starbucks with three earrings who lives in his parent’s basement, working on his “band”, where to stick it? Please.

Outside of our fondness for scotch and red meat, we are now nothing like our cousins in jolly old England. Thank God for that. Sure, the U.K. can claim Duran Duran, but we have Nirvana. And Prince. And The Doors. Plus, we have MGD and PBR. Guinness is good, but it’s a bit filling, like a milkshake. I’d like to insert a Daniel Day Lewis “milkshake” joke here, but I don’t think enough people will get it.

Anyway, I still kinda wish I had the cool accent.

Mississippi State Senator Chris McDaniel and I have filed a class action lawsuit today, Good Friday 2010, challenging the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as “ObamaCare” and a variety of other less polite euphemisms.

We believe that the PPACA is DOA for several equally important reasons, but only one of which has received much attention. Most folks know by now that Congress has invoked the Commerce Clause to justify this massive expansion of governmental power. Our “Good Friday” Complaint spends many pages discussing how Congress has clearly exceeded the limits of its power under the Commerce Clause. I strongly urge you to read the entire Complaint. What I really want to point out, though, are some things you probably don’t know, and definitely will not like — even if you consider yourself a “Liberal.”

Consider for a moment that you have now been commanded to enter into a contract with an insurance corporation, whether you want to or not, whether you need to or not. Yes, there are many who actually choose to be uninsured. For most, it is simply an economic decision that often works out to the uninsured’s economic advantage. Not always, of course, but that’s the beauty of liberty — you get to make the decisions, and live with the good or bad that comes of them.

Now that you realize that a dictate has been handed down, compelling you to contract with an insurance corporation or else, consider what you have to do. It’s not like you can go to a vending machine, swipe your debit card and pull out a policy. You still have to apply. True, they cannot turn you down, but so what? You still have to give a big, scary, mean corporation a lot of private medical and psychological information about yourself and your family. Then, forever after, the insurance corporation’s bureaucrats will gather this private information without even bothering to let you know. As our Complaint states:

Moreover, compelling Plaintiffs to enter into a private contract to purchase insurance from another entity will legally require them to share private and personal information with the contracting party. Specifically, by requiring Plaintiffs to abide by the Act’s individual mandate, Congress is also compelling Plaintiffs to fully disclose past medical conditions, habits and behaviors. Not only will the insurer be privy to all past medical information, Congress’s individual mandate will, by necessity, allow the compelled insurer access to Plaintiffs’ present and future medical information of a confidential nature. If judicially enforceable privacy rights mean anything, then private and confidential medical details certainly merit Constitutional protection. Plaintiffs should not be forced to disclose the most intimate details of their past, present and future medical information.

Do you have an STD? How many abortions have you had? How about a sexual dysfunction? Did your father or mother have cancer? Do you have a birth defect? Have you ever been prescribed drugs for a mental condition, such as anxiety or depression? There are many reasons people have concerns over their medical privacy. The desire to keep one’s medical history private is universal.

Privacy, choice, and Roe v. Wade

Medical privacy is so important that we have enshrined it as fundamental right in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution — just ask the Supreme Court, which even allows women to kill unborn children in order to protect their constitutional right to medical privacy.

If you want health insurance badly enough, you’ll probably choose to give up your medical privacy rights to an insurance corporation. But perhaps you are indifferent to buying health insurance in the first place, and really, you don’t want it in writing anywhere that you’ve had two abortions, or eat Viagra like popcorn. You’ve decided that it would just be better to pay for your healthcare directly and avoid the entire insurance hassle. What’s wrong with this choice? Nothing, if you believe in the concept of liberty.

Forcing citizens to enter into a contract to buy insurance is a bit different than requiring them to buy a loaf of bread. Congress cannot conceivably be said to have the power to force you to buy a loaf of bread, even though that would indeed have some effect on interstate commerce. Think about how much more egregious a denial of liberty it is to force people to contract with an insurance corporation. Those contracts create rights and obligations for both parties, but guess who gets to write the contract? Hint: insurance corporation lawyers. It’s an actual contract that you will actually be forced to sign by your government. You will not have any bargaining power to alter the contract; it’s not even a “take it or leave it” situation, it’s “take it or face the legal consequences.”

Which brings us to another important but poorly understood issue: Just what are the consequences? Exactly how will the mandate will be enforced? Unfortunately, this is something that none of us really know. Congress states outright that there will be a “penalty” assessed for citizens who disobey their command. These lawbreakers will have to pay an amount that will be assessed as a tax. Yes, we all know Congress has the power to tax, but remember, Congress itself has called this tax a “penalty.” As we explain in our Complaint,

Central to the definition of penalty is the “idea of punishment” – “[p]unishment imposed on a wrongdoer . . . in the form of imprisonment or fine. Though usually for crimes, penalties are also sometimes imposed for civil wrongs.” Black’s Law Dictionary 1153 (7th ed. 1999).

Yes, you wrongdoers who decide to go without insurance will be punished by the federal government. You will have to pay a special tax that applies only to wrongdoers like you. The Complaint points out that this “constitutes a capitation and a direct tax that is not apportioned among the states according to census data,” which is unconstitutional in itself. But this does not make great bedtime reading, so I’ll let you in on a secret: It’s a tax that they cannot make you pay.

A plain reading of the individual mandate shows that Congress first sets forth a penalty for failure to buy insurance, then says that regardless of anything written anywhere else in any other law, there can be no criminal penalty:

‘‘(A) WAIVER OF CRIMINAL PENALTIES.—In the case of
any failure by a taxpayer to timely pay any penalty imposed
by this section, such taxpayer shall not be subject to any
criminal prosecution or penalty with respect to such failure.

Then, to make it even very difficult (perhaps impossible) to civilly enforce the penalty/tax, Congress denied the government any power to file liens or levy any wrongdoer’s property:

‘‘(B) LIMITATIONS ON LIENS AND LEVIES.—The Secretary
shall not—
‘‘(i) file notice of lien with respect to any property
of a taxpayer by reason of any failure to pay the
penalty imposed by this section, or
‘‘(ii) levy on any such property with respect to
such failure.’’.

If the feds cannot levy or lien you, then what can they do to get your money? Write scary letters to you? Just what happens to the authority of the federal government when people laugh at these scary letters?

What indeed. We have demanded in our Complaint that if the government has some trick up its sleeve, that we be told what it is. If we are to be punished for not buying something, we deserve to know ahead of time what that punishment might be. That’s not just an old American tradition, it’s a constitutional principle.

The alternative, of course, is for the feds to admit that there is no enforcement mechanism. Consider what that means for a minute: the pièce de résistance of the PPACA is the individual mandate. Without an enforcement mechanism, the individual mandate fails; without the mandate, the entire legislative act fails utterly.

If the government admits, or the federal judiciary declares, that there is no enforcement mechanism for the individual mandate, millions will be free to ignore it. We believe, though, that the lack of an enforcement mechanism makes the individual mandate unconstitutional for reasons that we will discuss further with the federal court for the Southern District of Mississippi.

A call to service

We’ve got Mississippi covered. Now we need for you to do your part to take back your liberty. This lawsuit can be filed in every state in the greatest nation on earth, and it should be. Wherever this abomination applies, there is at least one federal court, often many. Find them, take our lawsuit, change the names and file it. Add to it if you have more arguments. If you are serious about doing so and need information, we are easy to find.

We have much more to say about the unconstitutionality of this abominable act of Congress, and we’re looking forward to your comments. God bless America!

Full Complaint below:

PPACA class action Complaint filed 4-2-10

We have heard a lot lately about my comments relating Obamacare to the failed socialist policies of the Soviet Union. Liberals and a host of radical leftists have mocked my observation in their blogs and some mainstream news outlets have even poked fun at me. However, the transformation of America is no laughing matter.

The parallels between leftist policies today and those of failed socialist states are undeniable; so much so that even a Russian state-owned news commentator was forced to concede my point:

“Republican Devin Nunes accused the bill of continuing the failed Soviet experiment. He was overly emotional but there is a grain of truth in what he said… Apparently, the socialist experience has proved too tempting to be resisted.” (RIANOVOSTI News, March 22, 2010)

Thanks to increasing regulation, rising taxes and greater centralization of power in Washington America is slowly leaving behind the foundation of its economic strength; namely the entrepreneurial energy that comes from freedom. And while a full-fledged Marxist revolution may not be on the horizon, the transformation of America in the image of European socialism is real and it should be of great concern to us all.

The most obvious example of failed central planning remains the Soviet Union. However, failed socialist policies are not limited to the history books. Consider the economic decline and social unrest in Europe.

As a result of government dominance throughout the European economy, member states are facing the current global economic crisis with limited options. The direct pain confronting Europeans is therefore magnified, just as the prospects for economic recovery are limited. These limitations are practical, resulting from the patchwork of laws and regulations imposed on their economies, as well as political, the result of mass dependence on government programs—a dependence shared by all but a handful of wealthy elites.

Evidence of this fact is widely available today. For example, French leaders recently cut federal spending in an attempt to address their national debt crisis. The cuts, however, resulted in massive general strikes, as well as social unrest—riots, looting and mass demonstrations.

Throughout Europe political leaders have been burned in effigy by protestors. They are being forced to choose between social order and financial order. Pay cuts for government employees, for example, result in general strikes. More radical reforms, including those needed for long-term economic health, can’t even be discussed openly.

In the final analysis, without the support of the masses, EU governments are left without the ability to change course and are forced to preside over national decline. I refer to this condition as an economic death spiral.

EU democracies face this threat because deficit spending cannot sustain an economy long-term. At some point, foreign lenders will resist additional financing—a problem already faced by a group of European countries known as the PIGS. The PIGS are Portugal, Ireland, Greece, and Spain. Together they have a combined debt of approximately $198 billion. Spain’s debt is highest, at $116 billion, followed by Greece at $37 billion, Ireland at $30 billion and Portugal at $15 billion.

Some have suggested these nations could be the first in the developed world to default on their credit obligations but the more likely scenario is that they will face long-term economic stagnation. This means high unemployment, high interest rates and little prospect for improvement.

Interestingly, you don’t have to look as far as Europe to find such as doomsday scenario. Leftists in California have driven the state to the brink of bankruptcy with a deficit of $20 billion. If major reforms are not enacted, California will join the PIGS of Europe as another failed social democracy. Perhaps worse, if Obamacare and other Democratic policies are allowed to continue unaltered, America itself will join in this fate.

The Hysteria of the political establishment and the media that covers it is incredible. I’m not a politician and I don’t talk like one .On March 23rd ,I went on the Curtis Sliwa Show on 970AM the Apple in New York City to discuss my opposition to Obamacare.

Source: CATO Institute

Here is what I actually said:

“This day, the day that that bill was passed, will be remembered just as 9/11 was remembered from history. It was an attempt by these people in Washington to defy the Constitution it is clearly in conflict with all of the basic precepts of the constitution.”

Within minutes liberals were insisting that  this madman from Buffalo had compared the passage of Obamacare with the tradgedy of 9/11. Why would reporters willfully misrepresent what I said and political hatchetmen like Congressman Jerrold Nadler attack me when I made no such comparison? Why would they smear me?

Any fair-minded person could see that I merely said both days would be widely remembered like JFK’s murder or the Space Shuttle Crash or the1929 stockmarket crash. Why would the pundits and commentators twist my words and seek to make me out an insensitive rube from upstate?

The political class in Albany and New York City know the taxpayers are finally fed up and a reform revolution that returns power to the people is rising. They want to discredit me before voters get a chance to learn my  common sense platform or my record of always doing what I say I’m going to do in business and civic life.

Congressman Nadler dismissed my criticism of the constitutionality of the Health Care Bill passed by Congress noting that he is the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. That does not make him the final authority on this flawed law.

I too, am an attorney. There are several critical unconstitutional provisions in this bill, including:

• For the first time ever, the federal government is forcing people to buy a good or service in the marketplace. In my view, this exceeds Congress’s power under the commerce clause and brings into play the Tenth Amendment of the US Constitution which reserves such decisions to the states and the people.

• Some versions of the bill stretch the general welfare and equal protection clauses of the US Constitution past the breaking point by exempting some states from certain provisions and giving special privileges to others; and

• By forcing the states to create “benefit exchanges,” the bill violates federalism and threatens to make states into mere administrative branches of the federal government.

In short, this bill simultaneously establishes a precedent for total elimination of both federalism and individual economic freedom.

Obamacare must be stopped – for New Yorkers especially, who pay more for insurance than most Americans. Our Medicaid program is the nation’s most expensive, and we pay exorbitant local and state taxes to support it.

I have called on new york Attorney general Andrew Cuomo to  join other attorneys general in
filing suit to halt this destructive and unconstitutional legislation before it does irreparable harm to our already depressed economy.

To date I have not heard back from the Attorney General.

If I were Governor, on Monday I would ask the Attorney General to join in unison with dozens of states that will file suit against the federal government to stop Obamacare.

The fight over Health Care and the totally incompetent and dysfunctional system in Albany have energized me to get in the fight for reform and return New York to the greatness and land of opportunity it once was. I have met with over 2000 individual Tea Party Activists as well as dozens of Conservative and Republican Party Leaders.

I’m mad as hell about what is happening to New York.I have been encouraged to lead a grass roots rebellion for reform in the Empire State, to turn Albany upside down and take out the trash.

On April 5th I will announce my intentions regarding the New York Governor’s race.

After the divisive debate over health care “reform” and the problems that are already emerging from it (see young people, the states, AT&T, Verizon, John Deere, Caterpillar, etc.) you would think The One and Congress would take a breather. Wrongo! Here comes another hard left. A new “bipartisan” Cap and Tax bill is on the way.

Three senior US lawmakers are piecing together a sweeping bipartisan energy and climate bill, which looks set to include sweeteners to galvanize support among Republicans and industry groups…

The senators have hosted meetings with industry groups over the past two weeks, revealing details about their plan that would cap carbon emissions while expanding offshore oil drilling and nuclear power generation.

We definitely need to expand offshore drilling and remove some of the regulations that make it so hard to build a nuclear power plant, but it’s not worth the unnecessary increase in cost every American will pay for our energy (and everything that uses energy) that will come with the rest of this bill.

Will these “sweeteners” to get industry to go along include corporate welfare?

According to people briefed by the senators, the bill aims to cut carbon emissions from 2005 levels by 17 per cent by 2020 and 80 per cent by 2050, largely by implementing separate caps on utilities and manufacturers. The federal government would sell separate pollution permits to each sector, using a “hard price collar” to limit greenhouse gas allowances to between $10 and $30 per ton, and committing to flood the market with credits if the price ceiling is exceeded…

The senators hope to send details of the bill to the Environmental Protection Agency this week. The bill is likely to be introduced by late April.

There is no need for any Cap and Tax bill. Let’s keep our focus on real pollution, not what we breathe out. Our water and air is now cleaner than it was in the 70s. Our politicians are acting as if the manmade global warming scandal didn’t happen. They are ignoring polls of scientists, Americans, weather forecasters and even the Germans who say the science isn’t settled. And we’re picking it up again just when the French are dropping it. We’re moving to the left of France!

If Congress doesn’t pass a new law devastating our energy production and our economy, the enviroMentals are ready to go around the people.

Environmentalists, unable to squeeze “cap and trade” rules through the U.S. Senate, have a new strategy for combating what they believe is man-made global warming:

They’re going to sue…

The environmentalists allege that individual companies are responsible for climate change because they have emitted greenhouse gases during the course of their operations. Those gases, they say, have “harmed” them by fostering Hurricane Katrina, eroding the shorelines of America’s coasts and causing global warming.

They are using the tort of “public nuisance” as the basis for these suits. They say it doesn’t even matter if all the companies complied with the clean water and air act, they are still guilty because the earth has warmed. Of course they can’t prove the CO2 emissions caused global warming, or Hurricane Katrina or that reducing these CO2 emissions would do anything to stop future warming. But that’s not really the point. They simply want to harass these companies into out of court settlements and scare every business into toeing the manmade global warming line.

There is also a real possibility some crazy judge will go against common sense and precedent and side with the Goreaphiles.

It’s time to stand up and stop the madness.

Don’t forget to check out the Big F@#&* Deal this week and a new term to fan the flames of class warfare.

After the divisive debate over health care “reform” and the problems that are already emerging from it (see young people, the states, AT&T, Verizon, John Deere, Caterpillar, etc.) you would think The One and Congress would take a breather. Wrongo! Here comes another hard left. A new “bipartisan” Cap and Tax bill is on the way.

Three senior US lawmakers are piecing together a sweeping bipartisan energy and climate bill, which looks set to include sweeteners to galvanize support among Republicans and industry groups…

The senators have hosted meetings with industry groups over the past two weeks, revealing details about their plan that would cap carbon emissions while expanding offshore oil drilling and nuclear power generation.

We definitely need to expand offshore drilling and remove some of the regulations that make it so hard to build a nuclear power plant, but it’s not worth the unnecessary increase in cost every American will pay for our energy (and everything that uses energy) that will come with the rest of this bill.

Will these “sweeteners” to get industry to go along include corporate welfare?

According to people briefed by the senators, the bill aims to cut carbon emissions from 2005 levels by 17 per cent by 2020 and 80 per cent by 2050, largely by implementing separate caps on utilities and manufacturers. The federal government would sell separate pollution permits to each sector, using a “hard price collar” to limit greenhouse gas allowances to between $10 and $30 per ton, and committing to flood the market with credits if the price ceiling is exceeded…

The senators hope to send details of the bill to the Environmental Protection Agency this week. The bill is likely to be introduced by late April.

There is no need for any Cap and Tax bill. Let’s keep our focus on real pollution, not what we breathe out. Our water and air is now cleaner than it was in the 70s. Our politicians are acting as if the manmade global warming scandal didn’t happen. They are ignoring polls of scientists, Americans, weather forecasters and even the Germans who say the science isn’t settled. And we’re picking it up again just when the French are dropping it. We’re moving to the left of France!

If Congress doesn’t pass a new law devastating our energy production and our economy, the enviroMentals are ready to go around the people.

Environmentalists, unable to squeeze “cap and trade” rules through the U.S. Senate, have a new strategy for combating what they believe is man-made global warming:

They’re going to sue…

The environmentalists allege that individual companies are responsible for climate change because they have emitted greenhouse gases during the course of their operations. Those gases, they say, have “harmed” them by fostering Hurricane Katrina, eroding the shorelines of America’s coasts and causing global warming.

They are using the tort of “public nuisance” as the basis for these suits. They say it doesn’t even matter if all the companies complied with the clean water and air act, they are still guilty because the earth has warmed. Of course they can’t prove the CO2 emissions caused global warming, or Hurricane Katrina or that reducing these CO2 emissions would do anything to stop future warming. But that’s not really the point. They simply want to harass these companies into out of court settlements and scare every business into toeing the manmade global warming line.

There is also a real possibility some crazy judge will go against common sense and precedent and side with the Goreaphiles.

It’s time to stand up and stop the madness.

Don’t forget to check out the Big F@#&* Deal this week and a new term to fan the flames of class warfare.

Winston Churchill – the statesman who defined champagne as “bottled sunshine” – often suffered bouts of deep depression.  He called that frequent companion his “black dog.”   After their drubbing in 2008 and Obama’s legislative tsunami – pausing, not ending in the enactment of the healthcare reform bill – some Republicans appear ready to settle in for a long political winter with Churchill’s black dog curled up at their feet.

Former presidential speechwriter David Frum, apparently eager to hug the black dog, wrote that the passage of Obamacare is the Republicans’ Waterloo, and that while they may retake the House or Senate this November, that wouldn’t matter because “This healthcare bill is forever.”

Frum merely gives voice to the thinking of the Old Republican Establishment.  They are comfortable in the minority, smiling – as former House Minority Leader Bob Michel used to – at the inability to direct national policy, adept at getting re-elected without the burden of leadership.

Frum’s reference to Waterloo is almost apt.  But the enactment of Obamacare isn’t the Republicans’ Waterloo.  If Frum knew his military history, he’d see it not as Waterloo, but as Marengo: a defeat that turned what could have been a devastating defeat into a crushing victory for Napoleon in June 1800.

Having split his forces in Northern Italy, an overconfident Napoleon found himself under attack by Gen. Michael Melas’ Austrian armies in what the French emperor first thought was a feint.  But as the battle grew into a meeting engagement, French forces fell back into Marengo’s vineyards, desperate for reinforcement.

As the afternoon wore on – after the Austrians fell back to regroup in the heat of the day – Napoleon’s friend and confidant Lieutenant General Louis Desaix’s force arrived and turned the tide of the battle.  Desaix is the man who famously “rode to the sound of the guns” and turned defeat into victory.

Republicans should not surrender: this healthcare bill is not forever. And the American equivalent of Desaix’s force – the vast majority of Americans who oppose nationalization of healthcare – is ready to advance against the hyperliberal congress.

But they won’t if Republicans fall into the trap they so often lay for themselves.  Republicans and especially conservatives are by nature incrementalists: they take things in small digestible bites. But incrementalism is a trap: the temptation to “fix” Obamacare is a quagmire from which they will not escape.

To embrace a strategy attempting to fix Obamacare is to be hypnotized by the siren song of the New York Times and the Washington Post, to pursue – as John McCain did to his ultimate defeat – allies among those who are committed ideologues of the left.  Republicans would have to invest enormous amounts of time and energy on legislation that won’t succeed any more than the good bills they introduced since June of last year to repair what ails American healthcare.

And, inevitably, they will be characterized – fairly or not, but nevertheless effectively — as embracing the major elements of Obamacare that the Democrats will never agree to change.  Which means the Republicans will lose all the political momentum given them by the arrogant, corrupt enactment of Obamacare.

Republicans need to insist that there was no healthcare “crisis” before the president signed the legislation, and that the one we face now is dire:  created by new taxes and big government’s intrusion on the doctor-patient relationship, Americans will find fewer doctors who can provide the medical care they want and need. They will find that the quality of the services they can get is degraded by the reduced production of high-tech medical equipment and by the bureaucrats who now stand between them and their personal physicians.

And they need to listen to the anguished words of the physicians themselves.  Speaking at a conference held by the new group “Docs4PatientCare” last Thursday, I heard an outpouring of frustration and anger from doctors who came from Georgia, Oregon, Colorado and many other states.  These dedicated people who only want to heal and help are crying out, and Republicans had better listen.

Their anger results from one fact: under Obamacare, government regulations will impose a new and lesser standard of care: doctors will be able to do only what the government allows insurers to pay for, not what the doctor and patient believe is best for the patient.  That cannot be allowed to stand, and voters will judge Republicans who want to “fix” the healthcare legislation to be no better than the statists who imposed it.

Frum – like other Republican establishmentarians – seeks to create a self-fulfilling prophecy. Obamacare isn’t forever.  But it is only with us unless conservatives and Republicans act with the audacity needed to regain political power and then repeal it.  They cannot do either by half-measures or timid actions.

Obama and the congressional Democrats are revolutionaries.  They cannot be defeated in 2010 or 2012 unless Republicans turn the political anger that surrounds Obamacare into political energy.  That requires a principled audacity that avoids the trap of incrementalism.

One conservative House member called me on Thursday, worried that a few of his colleagues were walking into that trap.  Some, he said, were planning legislative “fixes” to the new law.  They may as well go to Frum’s house and curl up on the carpet with the black dog.

Repealing Obamacare must be, as Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) said, Job 1.  He and other conservative leaders, including House Republican Conference Chairman Mike Pence (R-Ind.), are agreed on that.

As Mike Pence is fond of saying, a congressional minority plus the American people is a majority.  I don’t know if Pence has studied the Napoleonic Wars.  But it appears that he understands the difference between Waterloo and Marengo.

After 230 years, are the American people coursing toward eventual divorce?

Our polarized society increasingly ponders what would happen if American conservatives and liberals simply agreed that their differences had become irreconcilable, and redivided the nation to go their separate ways. Which side would prosper and experience an influx of migration from the other? Conversely, which side would likely become a fiscal and socio-political basket case?

Any reasonable person already knows the likely answer. One need only compare the smoldering wreckage wrought by liberal governance in such states as California or Michigan with the comparative prosperity created by conservative governance in such states as Texas or Utah. We can also examine the past 400 years, during which immigrants abandoned Europe for an America founded upon the fundamental principles of limited government and individual freedom.

Regardless, the above hypothetical has become increasingly frequent among both conservatives and liberals in recent years.

Following the 2004 election that they confidently expected would vindicate their 2000 rage and send President Bush back to Texas, liberals only half-jestfully proposed that “blue” states secede and join a new “United States of Canada.” Conservatives replied with a collective, “don’t let the screen door hit you in the [posterior] on your way out.”

Now, with this week’s passage of ObamaCare despite ferocious and widespread public opposition, the faint reverberations from that restive elephant in the room became even more pronounced. Consider the words of Dennis Prager, an intellectual whom no serious observer would label a bomb-thrower:

We are in a non-violent civil war. I write the words ‘civil war’ with an ache in my heart. But we are in one. Thank God this civil war is non-violent.

But the fact is that the left and the rest of the country share almost no values. The American value system and the leftist value system are irreconcilable. If the left wins, America’s values lose. If American values prevail, the left loses. After Sunday’s vote, for the first time in American history, one could no longer confidently believe that the American system will prevail. And if we don’t fight for it, we don’t deserve it.

Or consider the commentary of Reason’s Tim Cavanaugh, who references the “s-word” in his article “The Rise of Decline:”

The recession has not just hustled the U.S. economy back to a late-20th-century state of nature that resists all efforts at reinflation, stimulus, and outcome management. It has created a conviction that American society itself, rather than just its institutions of government and public/private rent-seeking, is in collapse… We tend to miss something obvious: The problem isn’t that things are collapsing. It’s that not enough things are collapsing.

Even the mainstream Wall Street Journal ran a June 2009 weekend commentary on secessionist backlash entitled “Divided We Stand.”

For her part, Shikha Dalmia writes in her forbes.com commentary “Resisting ObamaCare, Gandhi Style” that Obama “might have set the stage for the largest civil disobedience movement since the civil rights era.” She notes that, “even if a few million Americans simultaneously refuse to abide by it or pay the fine, they could easily overwhelm the system.”

Whatever one’s views toward such sentiment, it is becoming increasingly difficult to deny the irreconcilable ideals of “red” and “blue” Americans despite efforts to reestablish unity. After all, George W. Bush won the presidency in 2000 on a record of bipartisanship following eight years of extreme acrimony during the Clinton era. Eight years later, the acrimony had only increased and Barack Obama disingenuously campaigned as a moderate promising a “post-partisan” administration.

Just one year into his tenure, however, America has become more resentfully divided than any time in generations. Conservative “Scoop Jackson” Democrats have become nearly non-existent, as have liberal “Rockefeller” Republicans.

How will this resolve? Will we collectively weather this protracted turbulence, or will the centrifugal forces only accelerate? Dissolution obviously remains highly unlikely, but Yale University’s Bruce Judson notes in his book It Could Happen Here: America on the Brink that:

The United States is not the Soviet Union. Our economy is not as terrible. Our government is not as despised. But nobody thought the U.S.S.R. could collapse. Could everyone be wrong again?

Thomas Jefferson wrote in our Declaration of Independence that irreconcilable values sometimes make it “necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another.” Jefferson further recognized the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, stating that “whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles.”

Those on the left, ephemerally content because they possess temporary political control, mock such wisdom as anachronistic. They would be prudent to recall, however, that they said the same thing about CNBC’s Rick Santelli just one year ago when he launched the Tea Party movement that now threatens to hurl their political control into the sea.

Last week, I had the honor of speaking to a robust group of conservatives in New Hampshire — and I saw a level of energy within our movement that I haven’t seen in a long time. People are fired up. And not just in the Granite State. Everywhere I travel these days, Americans are standing up and declaring themselves ready to fight for the principles and values that made this the greatest country in history – principles and values that are under attack by the Democrats in Congress and the current administration.

Today, the federal government owns or controls the nation’s largest insurance company, two of the three American auto manufacturing companies, the two entities that hold a majority of our mortgages, the entire student loan industry, wide swaths of the banking industry and now a major portion of the American health care delivery system.

Think about it. With his individual mandate, President Barack Obama and the federal government are now forcing Americans to buy a good or service simply for no other reason than they are alive. Their reform will lead to higher taxes and higher premiums – and not reduce the exploding health care costs that are the underlying problem of America’s health care system.

Let me put it bluntly: America is headed in the wrong direction.

We need to help good people running for office who understand that the federal government is overreaching and are willing to stand up and say, “Enough!” I’ve set up my Freedom First PAC to help elect those sorts of candidates to Congress this year.

The folks I’m talking with around the country tell me they’re ready to fight back against this massive expansion of the federal government. If you agree with them, I invite you to join me during my Facebook Town Hall on Wednesday night at 7:15 PM Eastern. I’m going to talk for a few minutes about some of the great candidates I’m supporting in 2010 and then I’m going to ask to hear directly from you. You’re going to get a chance to nominate conservative candidates for federal office to be enrolled in the Freedom First PAC’s fundraising program. My hope is that this program will give the grassroots unprecedented influence over the 2010 election.

I hope you will join me on Facebook Wednesday night at 7:15 PM Eastern. Bring your energy and your best ideas.

After 230 years, are the American people coursing toward eventual divorce?

Our polarized society increasingly ponders what would happen if American conservatives and liberals simply agreed that their differences had become irreconcilable, and redivided the nation to go their separate ways.  Which side would prosper and experience an influx of migration from the other?  Conversely, which side would likely become a fiscal and socio-political basket case?

Any reasonable person already knows the likely answer.  One need only compare the smoldering wreckage wrought by liberal governance in such states as California or Michigan with the comparative prosperity created by conservative governance in such states as Texas or Utah.  We can also examine the past 400 years, during which immigrants abandoned Europe for an America founded upon the fundamental principles of limited government and individual freedom.

Regardless, the above hypothetical has become increasingly frequent among both conservatives and liberals in recent years.

Following the 2004 election that they confidently expected would vindicate their 2000 rage and send President Bush back to Texas, liberals only half-jestfully proposed that “blue” states secede and join a new “United States of Canada.”  Conservatives replied with a collective, “don’t let the screen door hit you in the [posterior] on your way out.”

Now, with this week’s passage of ObamaCare despite ferocious and widespread public opposition, the faint reverberations from that restive elephant in the room became even more pronounced.  Consider the words of Dennis Prager, an intellectual whom no serious observer would label a bomb-thrower:

We are in a non-violent civil war.  I write the words ‘civil war’ with an ache in my heart.  But we are in one.  Thank God this civil war is non-violent.

But the fact is that the left and the rest of the country share almost no values.  The American value system and the leftist value system are irreconcilable.  If the left wins, America’s values lose.  If American values prevail, the left loses.  After Sunday’s vote, for the first time in American history, one could no longer confidently believe that the American system will prevail.  And if we don’t fight for it, we don’t deserve it.

Or consider the commentary of Reason’s Tim Cavanaugh, who references the “s-word” in his article “The Rise of Decline:”

The recession has not just hustled the U.S. economy back to a late-20th-century state of nature that resists all efforts at reinflation, stimulus, and outcome management.  It has created a conviction that American society itself, rather than just its institutions of government and public/private rent-seeking, is in collapse…  We tend to miss something obvious:  The problem isn’t that things are collapsing.  It’s that not enough things are collapsing.

Even the mainstream Wall Street Journal ran a June 2009 weekend commentary on secessionist backlash entitled “Divided We Stand.”

For her part, Shikha Dalmia writes in her forbes.com commentary “Resisting ObamaCare, Gandhi Style” that Obama “might have set the stage for the largest civil disobedience movement since the civil rights era.”  She notes that, “even if a few million Americans simultaneously refuse to abide by it or pay the fine, they could easily overwhelm the system.”

Whatever one’s views toward such sentiment, it is becoming increasingly difficult to deny the irreconcilable ideals of “red” and “blue” Americans despite efforts to reestablish unity.  After all, George W. Bush won the presidency in 2000 on a record of bipartisanship following eight years of extreme acrimony during the Clinton era.  Eight years later, the acrimony had only increased and Barack Obama disingenuously campaigned as a moderate promising a “post-partisan” administration.

Just one year into his tenure, however, America has become more resentfully divided than any time in generations.  Conservative “Scoop Jackson” Democrats have become nearly non-existent, as have liberal “Rockefeller” Republicans.

How will this resolve?  Will we collectively weather this protracted turbulence, or will the centrifugal forces only accelerate?  Dissolution obviously remains highly unlikely, but Yale University’s Bruce Judson notes in his book It Could Happen Here: America on the Brink that:

The United States is not the Soviet Union.  Our economy is not as terrible.  Our government is not as despised.  But nobody thought the U.S.S.R. could collapse.  Could everyone be wrong again?

Thomas Jefferson wrote in our Declaration of Independence that irreconcilable values sometimes make it “necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another.”  Jefferson further recognized the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, stating that “whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles.”

Those on the left, ephemerally content because they possess temporary political control, mock such wisdom as anachronistic.  They would be prudent to recall, however, that they said the same thing about CNBC’s Rick Santelli just one year ago when he launched the Tea Party movement that now threatens to hurl their political control into the sea.

Both represent ideals we Americans hold dear. But they aren’t really the same thing and as we have seen in the still acrimonious national debate over the issue of health care and the government’s proper role in providing it, the two concepts come into stark relief.  Moreover, a tension between the meaning of freedom and the meaning of equality will be tested further as President Obama and his newly muscular acolytes in Congress, still intoxicated by the success of their battering-ram legislative strategy, begin to eye other opportunities to (as our president likes to remind us) transform America.  And make no mistake about it; the transformation “party” the president is hosting has only just begun. Think card check, think cap and trade, think compensation control, think regulatory expansion and think, REALLY THINK, about the greatest search in the history of America, through every nook and cranny of our economy, for new sources of tax revenue to pay for the transformation.

To us the word “freedom” embodies the individual right of free choice. The word equality encompasses the bedrock principle that every person should have the same rights to all the protections and rights granted under our Constitution.  Thus, the rallying cry of Patrick Henry, “give me liberty or give me death” exists side by side with the proposition best enunciated by Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream speech where he envisioned a world “where people would be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin.”   In other words, the concept of  “equality” defined as Dr. King stated it can, and should, live side by side with the concept of “liberty (an individual’s right to personal choice as enunciated by the famous remark of Patrick Henry. But with regard to the expansion of government into the private sector the two words can run into conflict.

Those of us who were, and are, appalled by last week’s heavy-handed spectacle of one-party rule mandating the biggest expansion of government in the lifetime of almost everyone reading this essay are alarmed about the ramifications of almost tyrannical rule by a ruling class seeking to expand government into the furthest reaches of what has always been within the domain of the private citizen’s personal choices. Our friends on the left say that we are on the wrong side of history, but it is they who occupy that space.  It is they, including our president and his party, who are racing full speed backwards to emulate societies with entitlement systems that threaten to hobble one nation after another. Think Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain, Great Britain, France, Ireland, Japan and on and on.  The governments and economies of Greece, Portugal, Italy and Spain are hanging on by their finger tips, more or less, counting on the healthier members of the EU (e.g. Germany) to bail them out although “not so fast” say the Germans.  We could go back into history a little further and romanticize the failed egalitarian dreams of the Soviet revolutionaries or, perhaps, Chairman Mao’s People’s Republic of China.  But the Soviet Union crashed nearly a generation ago and China abandoned Chairman Mao’s dream as soon as he died (and they have had nothing but robust economic growth to show for it).  So exactly who is on the wrong side of history here?

Make no mistake; the transformation that the left has in mind for America is nothing more than a grab for the redistribution of wealth.

They disdain the creation and broadening of wealth. And that is where liberty and equality may very well come into conflict. The left wants to create a society based on some expanded notion of egalitarianism which has nothing to do with equal opportunity under the law, and throw under the bus the ordered liberty which has been the bedrock principle which every generation of Americans has enjoyed, and countless others around the globe have envied. It is what Ronald Reagan had in mind when he correctly described our country as the shining city on the hill. Unfortunately the leftists who now run this nation only know one hill and of course that is Capital Hill from which they dictate their ever-expanding mandates.

We believe that individual liberty, that radical Lockean idea which our founders bequeathed to us, has produced the greatest, most vibrant and most promising society man has ever known and, in fact, actually provides the greatest amount of equality for the greatest number of people.  Our society has prospered because so many Americans were willing to fully participate, to the best of their ability, in pursuing the proverbial American dream.  Wave after wave of immigrants who escaped oppressive regimes or societies that afforded no real hope of achieving their highest aspirations for their children have invigorated our nation and been an engine for constant economic growth and the creation and expansion of private wealth to the betterment of all our citizens. A national policy such as that which appears to be unfolding in America today, the cornerstone of which is the promotion of economic egalitarianism (as we said above, nothing more than a fancy term for the redistribution of wealth) can only be pursued by vastly limiting the personal freedom of individuals to chart their own course through life.

The radical 17^th century thinker, John Locke, whose writing so influenced our founding fathers, advanced the notion that the role of government should, more or less, be confined to protecting the people…and their liberty.  His writing, Second Treatise Concerning Civil Government could have served as a template for our own Constitution (and it probably did) with its formulations of checks and balances and representative government. He equated government encroachment on individual liberty as tyranny.  To our founding fathers, that said it all.

Washington, Adams, Hamilton, Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, George Mason and others enshrined the thinking and, indeed, the exquisite wisdom of Locke in our founding documents including the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. That radical thinking generated the energy that enabled a newborn country of mostly poor people to make a dash to freedom and prosperity the likes of which the world had never seen. The peoples and governments of Europe, much of Asia and even many in Latin America were quickly inspired by the American experience.

As we watched the well-orchestrated farce played out from the US House of Representatives last Sunday night, we couldn’t help but think of the choices being stripped from the people and their state governments throughout the land.  As has been frequently written in recent months, many healthy, young families choose to allocate their limited resources to other needs besides health insurance. Many of us would view that as a poor choice.  But the choice to buy or not to buy health insurance has always been theirs to make, and the argument that if the uninsured fall ill it is a burden on our economy is not nesessarily true. Friends, families, private charities often cushion the impact.  Not anymore. “You will buy and you will buy the coverage we say you must buy, or we will fine you,” our government will, in effect, soon tell them.  And just in case anyone thinks that might be an overstatement, the government is now authorized to hire nearly 17,000 new IRS personnel to monitor which individuals are, and are not, complying with these and a plethora of other new rules.

An individual or a small business making over $200,000 is now deemed to be wealthy, which is Obamacare speak for those who will find the government’s hand in their pockets to grab extra tax money to help fund this newest of entitlements.  And, if those same people have worked hard enough and have saved some money to invest in dividend or interest-bearing securities, well, thank you very much, the government will tax that income over and above the higher tax already to be paid on it under the now higher personal income tax they have now legislated for these wealthy citizens.  A variety of businesses will also be (pardon the term) shaken down to help fund the new health-care “entitlement”.  Pharmaceutical companies, medical device companies, tanning salons, medical cosmetic surgery practices, insurance companies and other industries who we presume will be added will be charged fees to help fund the program.  We will leave it for now to others to pick apart the new so-called health-care  “reform.” There is no end to the writers and commentators who are already doing that.  We do, however, wish to advance the thought that the reported 30 million Americans who are uninsured and are, therefore, according to the government’s case for taking control of the nation’s health care, denied adequate medical treatment, can be doctored up for a lot less than the trillions this enormous new medical entitlement is going to cost.  In fact, the government could hire 30,000 new doctors at $200,000 per doctor (more than the earnings of the average physician) each managing 1000 patients a year (less than the average number of charts per physician) and provide doctors for all of the uninsured for about $6 billion per year. And yes, we recognize there will a few billion more required for various tests and procedures, but the trillion-plus-dollar takeover, for the medical-care makeover is an enormous and irresponsible burden to place on the American economy.  We can’t afford it, just as Europe can’t afford it.  But as the President said, that’s what he came to Washington to do.

Perhaps the ubiquitous Reverend Al Sharpton who seems to insinuate himself into every high-profile controversy said it best on Fox as the infamous vote was being tallied. When rhetorically asked by the equally ubiquitous Geraldo Rivera whether he was concerned that the vote was a big step toward socialism, Reverend Al happily responded that when America voted for Barack Obama, America voted for socialism. And he was right…only most Americans who voted for Obama really didn’t know or believe that.

That is why, with this president and this Congress we are facing the possibility that the change Mr. Obama promised could be irreversible. Entitlements, once enacted, become taken for granted. Moreover, they become the baseline for future generations . To those in power, the thinking of John Locke, Adam Smith, not to mention, George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison and virtually all of the founding fathers are clearly passé. Instead our leaders, seemingly blind to the wreckage caused by regimes which followed the discredited theories of economists who preached about the wonders of state-controlled economies, are blindly heading in the wrong direction in order to take over more and more of what has always been part of the private sector and our private personal responsibilities.  In their view, government knows best.

The president’s audacious but absolutely honest campaign promise that he was going to “fundamentally change America” couldn’t have been more candid.  And as last week’s House vote was evolving toward a nearly certain majority in his favor, he, again very candidly, told the Democratic caucus (and the American people) “this is what I came here to do,” not to simply make health care a government preserve, but to fundamentally change America. Watching all of the back patting taking place following the signing ceremony last Tuesday, it is evident that the President and his administration really believe that America wants him to fundamentally change the country.  As Vice President Biden, whispered to the President (and 300 million other Americans) “this is a big f——deal.”

Al Franken became famous as a comedian. A long-time writer for Saturday Night Live, he developed routines and characters that made us laugh. But, as my latest video reminds us, even funny people can be humorless. Not only is Franken a jerk to me, as I ask admittedly tough questions about ObamaCare, but he’s a jerk to his own hapless staff. The job market in DC can’t be bad enough to put up with this.

Check out my new book, Obama Zombies: How the Liberal Machine Brainwashed My Generation. If we have to live through ObamaNation, we might as well laugh at it…and try to understand it.

You think Obama has been a nightmare? You ain’t seen nothing yet. That was just the preview.

American business, the motor of the global economy, was dealt a deathblow by the Marxist putsch that the Democrat Party delivered in the form of the healthcare bill. Why wasn’t this made public before the vote? The numbers are staggering. It was revealed Friday that AT&T, the largest telephone company in the country, will take a one-billion-dollar hit in the current quarter as a result of this economic attack on America. The farm-equipment company Deere is looking at $150 million in new healthcare-related charges this quarter, and Caterpillar is facing  $100 million.

Who do you think will pay for this? We will pay. According to Reuters, “Verizon Communications, the second biggest U.S. phone company, told employees that tax burdens under the new law would likely filter down to employees.” Business is not something in the abstract, or the evil force the leftists and the communists deceptively smear it to be — business is work, business is people, it is jobs, it is production. When business pays, we pay. Jobs pay. Consumers pay.

And we will pay for more than that as well. Have you seen the commercials yet for people who have maxed out their credit cards, and have loans over ten thousand that they can’t pay back, urging them to apply for stimulus dollars? Are you one of those who played by the rules, worked hard, did the right thing? If so, you’re screwed. The man has you and your wallet and your kids’ wallet by the throat. Welcome to the era of the degenerate: they will be sucking your blood and your children’s blood and your children’s children’s blood for decades to come, or however long America lasts.

Notice how Obama bad news always drops on Friday nights. But the Democrats will not forever be able to keep quiet the reality and the consequences of Obama rule.

Meanwhile, as the health care putsch continues, the world goes to hell in handbasket. The sinking of the South Korean warship near the North Korean border Friday was almost certainly an act of war, even as South Korean officials played down that possibility. Nonetheless, it reeks of the North Koreans. North Korea never would have pulled something like this under Bush. Never. But they know Obama will do nothing and that South Korea is on her own. Barack Hussein Obama ain’t Harry S Truman.

With Obama at the helm, expect hell to break loose. Iranian nukes? Yawn. Pakistan jihadis with nukes? Crickets chirping. Abandonment of Israel? Check! Socializing healthcare? Job 1!

And as they take over seventeen percent of the American economy, how cocky the Democrats are — full of contempt for the hard-working American. In order to fund Obama’s counter-insurgency in America, the enemy must be cut off of supplies, succor and support. And who is the enemy? He is us. The U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, has ordered the closing of numerous fast-food outlets on bases. Command Sgt. Maj. Michael T. Hall explained that “some of the morale, welfare and recreation facilities throughout Afghanistan” for troops would be cut: “In the coming weeks and months, concessions such as Orange Julius, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Dairy Queen and Military Car Sales will close their doors.”

Trillions on the backs of our kids, but no cheezboigers for the troops. But there is plenty of money for Kobe steaks for King O. Date nights in Manhattan with Michelle for a million. $600 sneakers for her as well. And remember that taxpayers footed the $101,000 bill for in-flight parties on Air Force jets arranged by Nancy Pelosi: according to journalist Bob Unruh at WorldNetDaily, “it reads like a dream order for some wild frat party: Maker’s Mark whiskey, Courvoisier cognac, Johnny Walker Red scotch, Grey Goose vodka, E&J brandy, Bailey’s Irish Crème, Bacardi Light rum, Jim Beam whiskey, Beefeater gin, Dewars scotch, Bombay Sapphire gin, Jack Daniels whiskey … and Corona beer.”

This is so off the charts. There is no decency on the left. They are hypocrites who are destroying American businesses and stealing from hard-working, struggling Americans.

Could the parties be more different, the differences more stark? Say what you will about the Republicans, but they were disciplined. The Democrats are increasingly fascist in their tactics, statist in their policy, anti-Israel, anti-America, and anti-military. The Republicans are pro-small government, pro-Israel, pro-individual rights, pro-business, pro-America.

I don’t know how any clear-thinking, rational, decent human being could vote in November 2010 for the corrupt statist collectivists.

Jason Mattera is a smart guy.  More than that, he’s utterly unafraid of the left, a leading member of the new breed of conservative warriors who are not frightened by the Alinsky tactics of the Democrats and their allies.  You may remember him from his encounter with Charlie Rangel:

Or his undercover reporting at an ObamaCare rally:

Or his recent speech at CPAC, for which the New York Times labeled him a racist:

Now, Mattera has a new book, Obama Zombies: How the Liberal Machine Brainwashed My Generation.  It’s an exploration of just how the media, Hollywood, and liberal organizations like Rock the Vote helped turn young people into footsoldiers for a man they do not know and an ideology they do not fully understand.  And it’s done with the gloves off and the sarcasm ladeled on in heaping helpings.

The book covers the usual topics you’d expect – the media’s love for Obama (“During the primary, when on his campaign plane talking on his cell phone, Barack Obama caused a gaggle of female journalists to get funny feelings in their pants. And by funny, I don’t mean ha-ha funny.  While being filmed, in the background you hear these female journalists moaning and wetting themselves over B.H.O”), the ObamaCare outreach program (“In reality, Zombies have as much of a ‘right’ to health care as they do to taxpayer-funded trips to KFC to feast on a bucket of wings and biscuits”), and Obama’s Marxist background.

All that’s relatively old news, though it’s always great to get a refresher.  The real story of the book, though, is the Obama campaign’s incredible use of technology, television, and rhetoric to inflate a generation of apathetics into a generation of activists.

In Chapter Two, “Will You Be My (Facebook) Friend?” Mattera delves deep into the technological strategies employed by the Obama team.  If you want to know the story of the 2008 election, all you have to do is look at these statistics Mattera quotes:

• Facebook friends on Election Day: Obama, 2,397,253; McCain, 622,860
• Unique visitors to the campaign website for the week ending November 1: Obama, 4,851,069; McCain, 1,464,544

There’s a reason for that – Obama has all the best people.  Chris Hughes, the founder of Facebook, was on the Obama team.  So was Steve Jobs of Apple.  “In the end,” Mattera writes, “Obama’s Internet team consisted of ninety people …. Meanwhile, McCain was still fiddling with an abacus.”  The Obama campaign used text messaging and YouTube in new and inventive ways.  The McCain campaign came up with an online game called Pork Invaders.  Yes, Pork Invaders.

Mattera also goes after two targets who have escaped attention for two long, largely because the right has abandoned the culture war: Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.  These two jokers are ideologies in the disguise of comedians, and they use their comedy to shield themselves from criticism.  Mattera exposes them thoroughly, even as he criticizes conservatives for running from the cultural battle: “Even though conservatives bear the brunt of his jokes, I do find Stewart smart and sometimes entertaining.  Conservatives are generally slow on what’s in with pop culture, and that has to do with the fact that we’re more interested in ideas than iconography …. But Stewart’s tiresome years of unrequited cheap shots tailored to the under-thirty crowd are paying off.”  Colbert also comes in for criticism for his caricature of Bill O’Reilly: “By turning conservative ideas into satire and jokes, he and his merry band of eighty-six staffers have helped lobotomize a generation of Zombies who have written off the successful ideas of limited government and free markets.”

Mattera’s book is a valuable look into the next generation of voters, and what shapes them, and in its way, it’s a clarion call for conservatives to get with the technological and messaging program.  We can’t afford to use chisels on stone tablets while our opponents use sophisticated text messaging systems to make their followers feel loved.  We can’t afford to write off the glitz and glamour of television and celebrity because we’re “above it all.”  We’re not above it all – we’re in a war, and we have to use all available tactics and means of distribution to get our message out there.  Reading Mattera’s book would be a good way to start.

In a response to Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett’s decision to join 13 other states in filing a lawsuit against the federal health care legislation, PA House Appropriations Chairman Dwight Evans threatened to “do whatever it takes” to thwart the AG’s efforts. Incensed, Evans even went so far as to say he would be willing to cut off all state appropriations to the Office of the Attorney General to prevent Corbett from fighting this legislation. Here is the key quote from Evans:

PA State Rep. Dwight Evans

We are accountable to the voters of this state. He [Corbett] cannot think that he can do whatever he wants with taxpayer money. No one can protect him from being accountable.

For starters, Evans should think about following his own advice, as he is one of the most notorious proponents of “WAMs” in the Pennsylvania Legislature, using taxpayer dollars going to fund his own community group and a failed nightclub venture.

Second, President Obama, Gov. Rendell, and others used far more taxpayer funding – with no objection from Evans – on their public relations campaign on  health care reform than any lawsuit by the AG would cost. Tax dollars were used for everything from rallies to newsletters to press conferences.

Furthermore, Evans’ threat seems a clear violation of the separation of powers, and threatens the independence of the Attorney General. Indeed, it seems particularly curious, coming a mere two days after Corbett secured a conviction against Evans’ former House Democrat colleague Mike Veon, and is continuing his investigation and prosecution of House Democrats.

Lastly, the lawsuit being filed isn’t over some flippant issue. There are legitimate Constitutional concerns over the legality of this legislation. Not only does the legislation violate the 10^th Amendment, but the fiscal impact of the health care bill will assuredly cost Pennsylvanians billions of dollars.

As a surgeon, at least until ObamaCare goes into effect, I have been trained to dissect issues and results into their component parts. My current focus is on the similarities between the two biggest missed political opportunities over the past two years:

1. Senator McCain’s suspension of his campaign to fly back to D.C. to work out a “Bipartisan” solution to the TARP fiasco. By compromising his fiscal principles and NOT drawing a line in the sand….he lost the Public.  It was the beginning of the end of his Presidential bid and opened the door for the election of Barrack Obama.
2. The attendance of Republican leadership ( the same leadership that supported the TARP fiasco above) at the recent” Bipartisan” Health Summit at Blair House.  This smoke and mirrors event purported to compare Republican ideas with the dogma of Obama, Pelosi and Reid.  The event confused and misled the public.  By attending the event, Republicans snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in their opposition to the Obama’s use of our health care system to implement socialist reform.

Rather than being mesmerized by the “illusion” of Bipartisanship at Blair House, the GOP leadership should have walked past Blair House, marched to local clinics and hospitals, and listened to doctors, nurses and patients on the front line of health care.  This could have sent a powerful message to every American and delivered a death blow to ObamaCare.  The symbolism could have ended the debate once and for all.  Picture this:  the Democrats sequestered in a government building talking to themselves, versus The GOP hand in hand with The American People.

It should be noted that some Republicans opposed the Blair House meeting and were pushing for a grassroots frontal assault.  Congressman Thad McCotter and a handful of other GOP members advocated for this action.  I believe this approach would have brought victory to all who support Freedom and Liberty.

On March 14, 2009, New York Times published a profile of  Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s Chief of Staff.  Reporter Peter Baker quotes a “senior administration official” as stating that “Rahm thinks bipartisanship is a way to get what you want—to fake bipartisanship to get what you want.”

It is a formula which worked in September of 2008, when the Democrats sucked McCain into the fake “bipartisan” discussion, and then blamed the result on him, when he compromised his principles.  This slight of hand led to Barrack Obama becoming President.  It is the same formula which has led to passage of the most oppressive legislation in American history on March 21, 2010.  As Yogi Berra said, “It is déjà vu all over again.” Hopefully, when The Obama Administration manufactures its next “bipartisan” event, the GOP leadership will meet it with sound principles and NOT bow to the “illusion of Bipartisanship.”

This week, nominated by Tom Costella of Canton, MI, the “Educated Idiots Award” goes to…

Fidel Castro (remember him)?

The communist octogenarian/anachronism has come out of semi-comatose retirement to praise President Obama’s trillion dollar government takeover of Americans’ health care.  Herewith Cuba’s bath-robed butcher sings a few bars of praise for our President:

“We consider health reform to have been an important battle and a success of his (Obama’s) government,” Castro opined in a published screed.  Though, he couldn’t resist poking a newly socialist Uncle Sam:  “It is really incredible that 234 years after the Declaration of Independence …. the government of that country has approved medical attention for the majority of its citizens, something that Cuba was able to do half a century ago.”

Yet, ominous clouds hover over the dictator’s socialist Utopia.  The very socialism that has earned Comrade Castro “global praise” – “free” health care and education, and heavily subsidized food, housing, utilities and transportation – is not sustainable in the nation’s perpetually depressed economy according to the Cuban regime.

In fact, Fidel’s little brother and successor Raul Castro has said there is one particular area where the regime must spend less money –

Medicine.

So how to explain why Fidel lauds Obamacare for the unsustainable spending of trillions more on health redistribution in the U.S?

Cuba appreciates any act that will bankrupt America’s free-market economy; and international socialists lack a sense of the ironic.

To nominate the next EIA, please visit www.mccotterrocks.com or email nominate@McCotterRocks.com.

Convicted felon Robert Creamer, who wrote the blueprint for the Democrats’ health care reform campaign, attended official health care signing celebrations in Washington, D.C. yesterday. He was joined by numerous activists and “community organizers” who have had their sights set on nationalizing health care and have finally achieved it. Creamer’s spouse, Rep. Jan Schakowsky, was one of the bill’s most vociferous proponents.

Creamer’s attendance was leaked by a fellow partygoer who blogged: “I just got back from the post-signing ceremony celebration at the Interior Department. It was like a family reunion–young Obama staffers mixing with warriors from the ’93-’94 health care fight. I sat next to Bob Creamer, with whom I had been attending organizing meetings back to the early 1980s on passing national health reform.”

Let us leave aside for the moment the question of why federal departments are spending taxpayer dollars to throw parties celebrating the largest expansion of government in two generations, or why felons who failed to pay federal taxes are on the guest list. The real question is how America could have allowed itself to be led to this point, and what can be done to stop it from traveling further down the road to self-destruction.

Even from a sincere lefty point of view–if I can think myself back into the mindset of my teenage years–the bill is a travesty.

It subsidizes Big Pharma. It punishes the most vulnerable–the elderly and disabled–by cutting half a trillion dollars from Medicare and gutting home health care. It raises the costs of education by nationalizing the student loan market. And the benefits don’t begin for years, thanks to the bill’s accounting tricks.

But the real goal is more power, not better health care. The radical left has been trying to pass universal health care for decades before rising health care costs–party the result of government intervention–became a national issue. In 2006-7, Creamer, a political consultant with close White House ties, wrote a ten-point plan for passing the bill in a book he started while serving time in federal prison for check kiting and tax evasion. He explicitly intended his plan to be carried out in 2009.

Creamer’s intentions had nothing to do with increasing access to health care, lowering its cost or increasing its quality. As he stated in his book, Listen to Your Mother: Stand Up Straight! How Progressives Can Win, health care was to be the first in a set of steps aimed at a radical redistribution of wealth and a massive increase in government control. He repeated this theme throughout the health care fight in his columns at the Huffington Post.

The second step he prescribed is sweeping immigration reform aimed at providing amnesty (and the vote) to millions of foreigners who are in the country illegally. And lo and behold, on the day the reconciliation bill passed the House of Representatives, a large pro-amnesty rally was held at the Washington Monument. Creamer promoted the rally on the Huffington Post, daring Republicans to oppose Democrats on the issue.

The White House and the Democrats in charge of Congress agree with Creamer that the health care bill leads the way to other radical changes. As Nancy Pelosi said in the days before the vote: “Once we kick through this door, there’ll be more legislation to follow.” If that proves true, it won’t be because Americans have become used to radical change, but because our elected officials have become used to ignoring us.

“They won’t be so opposed to it once they see what’s in it.” That’s the rationalization House leaders gave skittish Democrats to get them to walk the plank on Obamacare Sunday night.

But one of the first things millions of Americans will “see” is an effective 40 percent tax hike on the over-the-counter medicines – from an antihistamine such as Claritin for allergies, pain relief medicine such as Tylenol or Excedrin, Pedialyte to prevent their kids from becoming dehydrated when they are sick, and even prenatal vitamins if they are expecting another one.

All of these items have two things in common.  One is that they are classified as “over the counter” (OTC) medicines and available without a doctor’s prescription. The other is that if you pay for any of these items with money in your flexible spending account (FSA) or health savings account (HSA) – and according to this guide from FSA administrator Benesyst , all of these are eligible expenses  — you will face an effective tax increase of up to 40 percent on these items in the health care bill that President Obama recently signed.

The bill restricts individuals with these pre-tax accounts to buying a “medicine or drug only if such medicine or drug is a prescribed” one. And ironically, this tax that will raise health care costs substantially by creating incentives for the use of more expensive prescription drugs even when OTC drugs are just as safe and effective.

And while the tax on “Cadillac” plans for union members was delayed in the reconciliation bill until 2018, no such luck for HSA and FSA account holders, many of whom are self-employed and entrepreneurs.

These heath care consumers and voters – and there are more than 40 million of them according to the Washington Times – will still “see” this tax hike go into effect at the beginning of 2011, the same as when I last reported in BigGovernment.com on this “medicine cabinet tax.”  And if there were a couple smart politicians, Americans would “see” this tax as soon as this week’s reconciliation debate.

Both FSAs and HSAs allow Americans to pay for medical expenses with pretax dollars. An HSA goes along with a high-deductible insurance policy and gives individuals a tax deduction for money saved that can be used for health care expenses. An FSA has similar tax advantages, but contributions to it are deducted from an employee’s salary, and money in the account must be used by the end of the year.

In 2003, the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service ruled that OTC medicines could be paid for by FSAs and the newly enacted HSAs. In a press release that sounded unusually compassionate for the IRS, the agency stated:

Drugs are increasingly becoming available over-the-counter without prescription. Many health plans no longer cover the cost of these drugs as over-the-counter. While an over-the-counter drug is less expensive than the prescription drug, the cost to many consumers increases because the price paid by the consumer for the over-the-counter drug is greater than the co-payment by the consumer when the drug was covered by insurance. This is especially an issue for individuals who remedy chronic health problems by regularly taking an over-the-counter medicine.

Then-Treasury Secretary John Snow added in the release, “Since many prescription drugs have moved to the over-the-counter market, this action today makes paying for them a little bit easier to swallow.”

Specifically, the government ruled that since the tax code written by Congress did not specifically require that “only medicines or drugs that require a physician’s prescription be taken into account” for health expenses, OTC medicines were eligible. The ruling made clear that although health accounts could not purchase items for general health such as toothpaste, they could be used for medicines that treat specific conditions, such as an “antacid, allergy medicine, pain reliever and cold medicine.” Companies that administer FSAs and HSAs have developed extensive lists of a variety of OTC items that are covered.  The Benesyst guide fills two pages with an alphabetical list of eligible expenses that includes everything from analgesics to wound care.

But Section 9004 of the Senate bill the House ratified Sunday night, as well as Section 531 of the House bill that passed in November, changes the tax code so that “distribution for medicine” from HSAs and FSAs are “qualified only if for prescribed drug or insulin.” Yes, the bills are merciful enough to allow diabetics to purchase insulin under these tax plans, but if you or your family members need Pedialyte, prenatal vitamins or numerous other over the counter health items, you will see a tax hike that could be huge.

Since HSAs and FSA contributions are exempt from both income taxes and 15.3 percent payroll tax for Social Security and Medicare, and since these together can reach more than 40 percent of an employee’s salary, the effective tax increase on these medicines could be more than 40 percent.

And this tax change will almost certainly cost the health care system billions more dollars in unnecessary spending both to the government and private insurance plans. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that the tax hike will bring in $5 billion in revenues over ten years – itself a drop in the bucket when compared to the bill’s new trillion-dollar entitlement – but that estimate doesn’t take into account behavioral changes as a direct result of this provision.

OTC drugs are much cheaper those available for prescription, but they could now be more expensive to individual consumers given that prescription drugs would still be eligible for favored treatment in the tax plans, and that insurance companies would be mandated to cover many of them. Consequently, any time a consumer has the slightest headache, the financial incentive would often be to see a doctor and get a prescription rather than go to the store and get medicine off the shelf.

This could mean that billions will be wasted on the additional costs for prescription drugs in instances when OTC medicines could be just as safe and effective at treating the illness.  A 2005 study in the American Journal of Managed Care found that the Food and Drug Administration’s clearing of antihistamines such as loratadine (Claritin) for over-the-counter sale saves about $4 billion a year in health care costs. Ironically, the liberals and Democrats who normally rail against big pharmaceutical companies are now creating a huge windfall the firms that make expensive prescription drugs by penalizing users of OTC medicines.

The rallying cry for opponents of Obamacare has been “Hands off my health care.” In addition, they now could say, “Hands off my medicine cabinet.” And the fight could begin as soon as reconciliation. A smart politician could introduce an amendment to strike the medicine cabinet tax, arguing that under dynamic scoring which takes into account behavioral changes of taxpayers, the tax would cost the government more. If they need something else to pay for this fix, there is always the House’s costly repairs to certain “Cadillac” that 51 Senators could decide to ditch.

From today’s New York Times:

The bursting of the real estate bubble and the ensuing recession have hurt jobs, home prices and now Social Security.

This year, the system will pay out more in benefits than it receives in payroll taxes, an important threshold it was not expected to cross until at least 2016, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Stephen C. Goss, chief actuary of theSocial Security Administration, said that while the Congressional projection would probably be borne out, the change would have no effect on benefits in 2010 and retirees would keep receiving their checks as usual.

The problem, he said, is that payments have risen more than expected during the downturn, because jobs disappeared and people applied for benefits sooner than they had planned. At the same time, the program’s revenue has fallen sharply, because there are fewer paychecks to tax.

Analysts have long tried to predict the year when Social Security would pay out more than it took in because they view it as a tipping point — the first step of a long, slow march to insolvency, unless Congress strengthens the program’s finances.

“When the level of the trust fund gets to zero, you have to cut benefits,” Alan Greenspan, architect of the plan to rescue the Social Security program the last time it got into trouble, in the early 1980s, said on Wednesday.

Read the whole thing here. Not to be too harsh on the Congressional Budget Office, but they have a rather bleak track record of accurately predicting too far into the future. (Their biggest problem is that Congress doesn’t keep its word, which negate many of CBO’s basic assumptions.) Keep that in mind when politicians tell you that ObamaCare will save money in the long run.

Remember as you read this: There is nothing the democratic-media complex will not do to lie about the tea party patriots or to prop up these horrid leftists who are transforming our country into some kind of quasi-socialist state.

On Sunday night several members of the St. Louis Tea Party Coalition held a prayer vigil at Russ Carnahan’s office for the millions of babies that will be slaughtered under the democrat’s pro-abortion health care bill. We also prayed for the handicapped and the elderly who will be turned away as they face the death panels created by this bill. And, as we stood outside his office in the rain, we prayed for our country and for the democrats in Washington DC who were stealing away our freedom at that very moment.

We brought a coffin with us to represent the millions of Americans who will suffer from inadequate treatment and perish under Obamacare.

(KSDK Photo)

Local reporters from KSDK News Channel 5 showed up to interview myself and others after our prayer service.

KSDK put together this report on our peaceful protest:

In St. Louis, people on both sides of the issue gathered to watch the vote. Those in favor of healthcare reform came to celebrate, those opposed came to mourn.

For the Tea Party protesters, it was a somber night. Jim Hoft says, “We’re sad about what’s going on tonight in Washington D.C.”

And so complete with candles and casket, they held a funeral, grieving over the heathcare changes to come.

Hoft says, “We believe they’re taking away our freedom and this represents death to part of what we’ve grown up with.”

And the tears here were very real. Cynthia Rice says, “It’ll change everything for us.”

After our prayer service we took our coffin and went and prayed on the sidewalk outside of Russ Carnahan’s home.

We prayed for Russ Carnahan. We prayed that God would forgive him for taking away our freedom. We prayed for the babies who will never feel the warmth of the sun or a gentle spring rain. We prayed for the elderly who will die waiting for care because they couldn’t make it past the Obama death panels.

We prayed for Russ Carnahan.

So obviously it came as quite a shock tonight to see that the Carnahan people and the Democratic-media complex had twisted this innocent prayer vigil into some kind of threat against Russ Carnahan.
The Politico reported:

A coffin was placed on a Missouri Democrat’s lawn, another in a string of incidents against lawmakers after their vote Sunday on a health care overhaul.

Rep. Russ Carnahan (D-Mo.) had a coffin placed “near his home,” a spokesman said Wednesday evening.

“Carnahan appreciates thoughtful feedback received both in favor and opposition of health insurance reform,” Carnahan spokesman Jim Hubbard told POLITICO Wednesday evening “We can disagree on important issues facing our country without resorting to this kind of thing. Russ Carnahan isn’t going to shy away from the importance of reform when 45,000 fellow Americans died last year due to a lack of health insurance.”

Of course, this is a complete lie.

Russ Carnahan is so frightened to meet with his constituents after his very unpopular vote that he is now lying about a prayer service. This is despicable. Russ Carnahan never said anything when his SEIU supporters beat, kicked and stomped on Kenneth Gladney in a parking lot outside one of his events. These were the same supporters he was sneaking into one of his staged town halls. Instead of apologizing for his supporter’s violence, he is making up stories about peaceful tea party protesters at a prayer service.

This won’t stand. There was a time Russ Carnahan and the Politico could get away with this awful lie. Those days are over. We demand that the liberal cranks at Politico and Russ Carnahan retract their dishonest tea party hit piece.

See also… Russ Carnahan fears the reaper.

UPDATE: The Carnahans told reporters that the coffin was left on their lawn. This is an absolute lie. We had a prayer service and then left. The state-run media didn’t bother to follow up on this outrageous lie before they published their hit piece. The coffin is currently in a member’s garage…. Oh, and the protest was on SUNDAY not Wednesday.

Let’s play a quick word game, folks. Who said this?

I recognize there is a certain presumptuousness – a certain audacity – to this announcement. I know I haven’t spent a lot of time learning the ways of Washington. But I’ve been there long enough to know that the ways of Washington must change.

That’s right – none other than Barack Obama, Dear Leader himself, on February 10, 2007, while announcing his intentions to run for president.

And, as I point out in my brand-new book, OBAMA ZOMBIES, the promise to shake up the established political order if elected was a laser-targeted message that Barack Obama, David Axelrod, and Daivd Plouffe used to lobotomize an entire generation.

But why let your staple campaign promise of “change” get in the way of a government takeover of health-care?

Take it away, Robert Gibbs:

P.S. Many thanks to camerawoman Alyssa Cordova of the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute.

Democrats and the leftist media are all atwitter about alleged threats of violence against Congressmen who voted for ObamaCare. We doubt these threats are actually real and, certainly wouldn’t condone them. But, here’s a tip: Hey Democrats, if you are worried about an angry public, how about not passing a sweeping government expansion opposed by 70% of the public. Just a thought.

Hand-wringing today in Politico:

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer is warning that some of his Democratic colleagues are being threatened with violence when they go back to their districts — and he wants Republicans to stand up and condemn the threats.

The Maryland Democrat said more than 10 House Democrats have reported incidents of threats or other forms of harassment about their support of the highly divisive health insurance overhaul vote. Hoyer emphasized that he didn’t have a specific number of threats and that was just an estimate.

TheFederal Bureau of Investigation, Capitol Police and sergeant at arms briefed Democrats behind closed doors today about the incidents of violence — the most high profile of which have been toward Democratic Reps. Thomas Perriello of Virginia, Steve Driehaus of Ohio and Louise Slaughter of New York.

Hoyer hinted that Republicans should do more to condemn these threats of violence.

“I would hope that we would join together jointly and make it very clear that none of us condone this kind of activity,” Hoyer told reporters. “And when we see it, we speak out strongly in opposition to it. And I would hope that we would do that going forward.”

Read the whole article here.

Read more:

So this is what change looks like. If he were here, Mr. Speaker, in this time of momentous national distress, I would remind the President of the United States that he is not the leader of a party or an ideology; he is the leader of our country—one founded, not to emulate others, but to inspire the world.

As families lose their jobs, their homes, and their dreams for their children; as our troops fight and sacrifice in foreign fields for our liberty and security, President Obama’s obsessive-compulsive pursuit of an abominable government takeover of health care has defied the public’s objections, despoiled this, “The People’s House,” and further alienated Americans from their representative government.

As President Obama’s campaign mantra of “hope and change” has degenerated into “tax and hate,” reputable surveys prior to this vote report: the public overwhelmingly thinks that the U.S. Government is broken. Only 21 percent of the public thinks it is being governed with its consent. Only 26 percent of the public trusts the Federal Government most of the time or always; 56 percent of Americans think the Federal Government has become so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedom of ordinary citizens; 70 percent believe the government and big business typically work together in ways that hurt consumers and investors; and 71 percent of Americans think the Federal Government is a special interest.

In the wake of this health care debate’s despicable, dysfunctional process and product, it is clear: The most dangerous special interest is Big Government and President Obama is its lobbyist.

In contrast to Americans’ faith in themselves, every major piece of legislation proffered by the President and his Democratic Congress expands and empowers Big Government at the expense of the people. Possessed of a smug, cynical, patronizing view of Americans as dependents desiring State benefits, this arrogant administration and its enablers have defied the American people and bi-partisan opposition in Congress to unilaterally jam through a trillion-dollar government takeover of health care.

Why? For so many Americans, the answer is that this President and his Democratic Congress think they are smarter than you; want to run your life; and want to make government your ruler, not your servant.

Such hubris threatens not only our health care system but it tears the social fabric and political contract of our Nation. Instead of working for a more perfect Union, the President’s ideological obstinacy exacerbated the disorder and divisions within our Nation, and wrought a crisis of consent—one that puts America’s exceptional experiment in human freedom and self-government on the precipice of implosion.

To do so the President has the power, but not the right. Thus he has merely scored a Pyrrhic victory over the American people. Ultimately, his government-run medicine scheme will be repealed and replaced with free- market, patient-centered wellness, because America’s strength and salvation remains her free people, not a person.

And this November, America’s sovereign citizens will remind the President and his Democratic Congress that We the People do not work for government; the government works for us.

No, the President and his Democratic Congress will not break us beneath Big Government. Devoted to our freedom and a more perfect Union, we will keep the faith, trust the public, calm the times, and heal our country.

One of the main selling points of health care reform was that it would cut the federal deficit by a supposed $143 billion over the next decade and a trillion-plus dollars in the one after that.

But not only will the legislation not cut one thin dime from the deficit, it will also certainly cost far more than the $940 billion in new spending already on the table for at least three reasons.

These include:

1. Legislative Trickery. Congressional Democrats have pledged support for “the doc fix,” a permanent upward adjustment to the rates at which Medicare providers are reimbursed. As Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said, “We have made a commitment to do this. This is very important.” The cost of the “doc fix”? Some $247 billion over the next 10 years, wiping out any deficit reduction from health care reform.

2. Higher Premiums. In 2006, Massachusetts passed health care reform very similar to what President Obama just signed. The result? The Bay State now has the highest premiums in the country and cost about 33 percent more than expected.

3. Bad Accounting. The government is terrible at predicting how much programs will cost, especially when it comes to medical care. Initial 1960s’ projections of Medicare’s costs in 1990 had the program costing about $12 billion; the actual result was almost 10 times that amount. As a Joint Economic Committee report notes, “Major health care proposals have almost always cost more…than the highest cost estimates published while the legislation was pending.”

Approximately 2.19 minutes. Written and produced by Meredith Bragg, Dan Hayes, and Nick Gillespie, who also hosts.

Read more about health care reform and its costs here.

Founding Bloggers’ Michael Kadela hit the streets of Chicago yesterday to document people’s reaction to the passage of socialized medicine in the USA.

He spoke with people young and old alike, and the reactions were both varied and interesting.

At :35  seconds, an older immigrant from Sweden says: “I left the old country because I didn’t like the system over there. The Parliamentary system with the government running your life, you know. So I came here a few years ago. And now they are trying to implement the same system over here, which aggravates the devil out of me. I can’t understand where America is going. The spirit, they are trying to wipe out the American spirit.

2:43 “I think a minor increase in our income taxes won’t be such a big deal.”

3:06 “Let’s face the facts for gods sakes. If you can count money you know this isn’t going to work out.”

4:00 “People wanted change, this is change. So they need to shut up. They voted for it.”

If only we had a real press corps in this country, then Alan Grayson (D-FL) and the other 219 Democrats in the House of Representatives who voted for HR 3952 would’ve been asked this question:

Please explain to me why you voted for a health-care bill that allocates money to fund the rehabilitation of Native American child molesters?

No joke, people: If Grayson and company had their way, the House bill that passed back in November would’ve mandated that our taxes go toward treating “perpetrators of child sexual abuse who are Indian or members of an Indian household.” (It’s on page 1950, section 713. See for yourself)

That’s one of the main reasons why there were so many drone-like youth out there who get suckered by Team Obama’s and the Democrats’ hope-a-dope mantra, as I explain in my brand-new book: Obama Zombies: How the Liberal Machine Brainwashed My Generation.

So Alan Grayson got off the hook, eh? Not exactly. I caught up with the Congressman. Hey — somebody had to do it:

Note: Many thanks to Stephen Gutowski of EyeBlast TV for the camera work.

What a tragedy. After standing firm for so long against such pressure, Michigan Congressman Bart Stupak (D) betrayed his fellow pro-lifers and bought in to a worthless promise from the Abortion President. The Stupak Amendment banning abortion funding in health care garnered 240 votes in the House. The final vote on this unconstitutional and unwise health care takeover – which includes federal funding of abortion – was 219.

There is probably no other measure connected with health care that could command such strong bi-partisan support as last fall’s Stupak Amendment. All the cries for civility and comity, for “reaching across the aisle,” for bringing the American people together were realized in that Stupak Amendment. Bart Stupak got 64 Democrats and every Republican to vote for his amendment last November. And then, he threw it all away.

Henry Hyde’s name will forever be associated with opposition to federal funding of abortion. As a freshman Congressman in 1976, in a House of Representatives dominated by Democrats, big, bluff, friendly Hank Hyde was truly willing to extend his hand across the aisle. He worked with deeply committed pro-life Democrats gladly. Protecting Hyde’s back then was the Hon. William Natcher (D-Ky.), one of the great legislators of the twentieth century. Mr. Natcher’s wisdom, integrity, and deeply held faith were respected by all who knew him. From his post as Chairman of the Appropriations Committee, Mr. Natcher made sure that Freshman Hyde’s amendment would not be gutted by pro-abortion lawmakers operating behind closed doors in the Democratic caucus.

The Hyde Amendment has been voted up time after time, for the past thirty-three years. Henry Hyde has gone to his reward. So has Mr. Natcher. But those who remember this great pro-life Republican and this great pro-life Democrat cherish their memories.

What will we remember about poor Bart Stupak?

That he stood firm, except when it really counted? That he bravely took months and months of abuse, only to fold at the last minute? That he accepted a worthless scrap of paper from the most determined pro-abortion President in U.S. history?

Isn’t the sight of committed pro-abortion legislators assuring us again and again that abortion is not funded revolting enough? These people have spent decades voting to make us pay for the slaughter of innocents. Are we suddenly to accept their word? Has even one of them ever voted not to fund abortion? We thought we had a champion in Bart Stupak, a man of the left, but a man of integrity. How cruel a disappointment it is to find we were wrong. Mr. Stupak may run, but he can’t Hyde.

Sunday, the House passed Speaker Pelosi’s vision of healthcare in America. Here is why I voted “no” and why the American people should re-examine the Democratic leadership of our nation.

First, I do not accept the premise that it is necessary to upend the health coverage currently available to all Americans for the sake of covering those who are uninsured. Expanding access to insurance is far less complex and far less costly than Democrats would have you believe. It does not involve a government takeover of 1/6th of the American economy. It involves insurance market reform but it also and more significantly involves providing choice and competition. The bill I support, the Patients’ Choice Act, provides the framework for such an effort. However, my views were not considered nor were the views of other lawmakers who sought to improve the system we have today. That’s because Nancy Pelosi and her liberal associates intend to destroy private healthcare with the ultimate goal of a Washington centered government healthcare monopoly.

Even before this monopoly takes its final form, the Democratic bill will speed our nation into financial crisis. Simply put, we can’t afford a new government healthcare program—a fact acknowledged by the President and Congressional Democrats. This is why they claim their reforms cost nothing; that it will actually reduce the debt. In truth, the bill conservatively spends a trillion dollars and the final toll on our budget will be many times greater than the initial cost. In their urgency to enact their plan, Democratic leaders papered over the financial problems we face with new government agencies and creative accounting gimmicks. Ultimately, the mechanisms created by this new law will force federal bureaucrats to ration benefits to control spending—a practice that is already common in government programs such as Medicaid.

Unchecked federal spending and the new entitlement just created should concern every American.

Our nation’s long-term financial outlook is worse than at any point in American history. Spending by the federal government outpaced revenues by $1.4 trillion last year and the red ink continues as far forward as we can see. In the real world, this financial condition would result in bankruptcy. Washington, however, can print money and borrow from foreign governments as long as those foreign powers are willing to keep us afloat. Any bets on when the Chinese will cut up the U.S.A. credit card?

The logic behind Speaker Pelosi’s health bill math defies common sense. Indeed, anyone claiming to make things cheaper by having the government provide it would do well to delegate financial decisions to someone else. A quick glance at the Treasury Secretary’s annual financial statement is all the proof we need. The United States is in a financial freefall and a new government healthcare entitlement will only make things worse. Existing entitlement programs like Medicare have unfunded liabilities amounting to $43 trillion—a figure that grows by nearly $2 trillion per year.

If all of these facts were not enough, the Democrats enacted their new law as a result of bribery. The American people have heard about many of the deals made prior to the vote. The Cornhusker Kickback, Florida Gatorade, and Louisiana Purchase are but a few examples. It is a national disgrace that our Congress has become an institution dependent on extortion to enact major legislation. And while the process is not easily discussed or understood, we cannot ignore the historic level of oppression implemented by Speaker Pelosi’s Rules Committee in her effort to gain passage of the bill. As much as the content of the bill itself, the manner in which it passed Congress provides clear evidence that the bill was about government power not the health of America.

The vote is done and we have awakened to a new era. Under the guise of  coverage for pre-existing conditions and the security of knowing that you can’t be kicked off your insurance when you really need it, the democrats have pushed through a bill which will lead to the end of health care as we know it.

Besides taxing us from everything from our unearned income, to payroll taxes to medical devices we can look forward to paying into a pot for the next four years. I only hope the money will be available for health care.  As it stands now, it will be used to set up yet another government bureaucracy run by various task forces and yet another Czar to oversee the entire mess. If we’re lucky they will actually use the money for the intended purpose, but I have visions of the social security lock box. It is hard to believe that this will end up any better than Medicare, The Post Office or Social Security – big, bloated and bankrupt.

The bill sets up committees to study ways to deliver care.  A committee to study what another committee is supposed to do? Sounds like bureaucracy at its finest. It is hard to believe that that money used to ‘study’ things will be used for patient care. By the time 2014 rolls around what money will be left to implement medical care?

The government sold health care reform with 5 basic talking points:

1.  You won’t be able to be kicked off of your insurance when you really need it

• Turns out that the insurance companies CAN kick you off if they pay a fine. It is not hard to imagine that an insurance company will figure out pretty quickly that it would be cheaper to pay the fine than to pay for coverage of a long term chronic illness.

2.  You won’t be denied medical care for pre-existing conditions.

• If the insurance company deems that you have lied on the application you will be denied coverage.
• Sick children are no longer considered to have pre-existing conditions, but what about women who are pregnant?

3.  You can keep the doctor you have if you are already covered.

• With the cuts in Medicare reimbursements that have already happened (no more consultation fees) and the looming 21% cut at the end of October. Many more physicians than the current 30% are looking to opt out of Medicare.  When the commercial insurance reimbursement rates drop (as they invariably will since they pay at a percentage of Medicare) there will be more doctors looking to leave commercial insurance as well.

4.  Health care reform will lead to increased access

• There is no way that there will be an increase in access when you take into account; 1) the physician shortage, 2) Those physicians who will leave medicine after the passage of this monstrosity (a recent poll of physicians states that 35% would leave the profession), and 3) those who will stop taking insurance all together because they are simply fed up.
• Expanding Medicaid to those who are currently uninsured is not going to help since most doctors are not taking Medicaid now.  Currently access to specialists is pretty poor, it will decline further.

5.  Health care reform will cover 30 million more uninsured people

• The bill will cover approximately 7 million more people over the next nine years and leave over 100 million people under insured.

6.  The health care reform bill will decrease the deficit

• The CBO numbers do not take into account the “doctor fix” and the government takeover of student loans was added to pad the numbers.
• If you do real world accounting by adding in the “doctor fix” (over 230 million dollars) you actually wipe out the cost savings and you increase the deficit (anywhere from 400-700 million dollars.)
• It is likely that the estimated costs will likely be much higher. How can anyone really know what is going to happen in the next 10 years. To say that these numbers are optimistic is being kind.
• The Health care reform bill has done absolutely NOTHING that would really lower the cost of health care.

The pharmaceutical companies got three major cost raising concessions

- the government cannot go out of the country to shop for cheaper drugs

- the patent for biologics was extended to 12 years from 7 thereby locking out cheaper generic drugs. (For example a patient can continue to pay over $1000 a month for a drug like Embrel instead of getting some relief.

- patients will not be able to buy cheaper over the counter medications with their health savings account only more expensive prescription medication.

The health insurance companies may whine about their profit margin, but they get millions more people to add to their roles. Most of those people will only see a doctor 1-2 times a year for routine things, but will pay 14% higher premiums for the privilege.

The hospitals which account for the biggest piece of the Healthcare pie (31%) got a pass. Surgeons have had to deal with bundling of charges for over a decade. What about applying that to hospitals? That would have certainly lowered the cost. Since bankruptcy caused by medical costs are largely due to the hospital charges.

- There has been no legislation to change their habit of itemized billing where they stand to make a profit on everything from the single pill of Tylenol to the box of Kleenex in your hospital room.

I got a call from a fellow physician today who talked about picking up stakes and doing medical work overseas. I have a feeling I am going to get a lot more of those types of calls from fellow physicians in private practice. There are only so many physicians that the hospitals can employ and only so many more patients a physician can see.

It seems that the ultimate goal of this exercise is to eventually make all physicians government employees under a single payer system. As it stands the system created by health care reform is a give away to the pharmaceutical industry and the health insurance industry (you just need to look at the rise in their stocks today). It certainly can be seen as the first step on a slippery slope towards single payer. The powers that be are banking on physicians going along like lemmings, but I have no doubt that if we don’t they will institute some sort of draconian policy to make us do it like they have in Massachusetts (medical licensure is tied to taking the state insurance plan). If that happens, good luck finding a physician who will want to deal with this.

The horse trading went long into the night. In the end the House Democrats bought, cajoled, wrangled and bullied enough votes to pass the health care debacle. The battle is far from over and will range into next November and beyond.

As a far right wing nut job I will enjoy the coming downfall of the Democratic Party. I will enjoy the stunned looks on the faces of those who will lose their union and employer health care plans if this legislation stays around long enough to take effect. I will enjoy the coming revolt of the middle and upper class taxpayers. I could of course, be wrong. Maybe the American people are tired of being free and maybe rugged individualism is dead. Maybe the vast majority of my neighbors are looking forward to the never ending growth of the Federal Government. Maybe everyone except we gun owning, SUV driving, meat eating, smaller government, right wing nut job pro lifers want the nanny state.

So now that the first battle of the “health care reform” movement is over we need to ask some questions. Is that it from the left? Will there be no further movement to start a government option? Will there be no push to get to a single payer system? If you believe that you need to get in the line that starts right behind Rep. Bart Stupak.

Rep. Stupak has become the Neville Chamberlain of our time.

Chamberlain, for those of you who attended public school, was the British prime minister who returned from a meeting with Hitler and thought he had reigned in the plans of the Nazis by getting them to sign a piece of paper. Stupak has traded his principled stand for the unborn for less.

Although I don’t approve I can understand someone like Mary Landrieu or Ben Nelson selling their vote for a payoff to their state. What did Bart Stupak get for giving up his values? He got Obama’s promise that he would issue an executive order. This brings to mind a line from the old Simon and Garfunkel song, “The Boxer”, “I have squandered my resistance for a pocketful of mumbles, such are promises.”

Which has the greater force under the law, an Act of Congress or an Executive Order? If you answered an Act of Congress you are correct. So if the President’s Executive Order for Congressman Stupak is determined to be in conflict with the bill then the order is out and the bill is in. I would believe that if this Executive Order isn’t in conflict with the bill then there would have been no point in Mr. Stupak making a big deal about the abortion language all along.

Even if I am wrong, does Rep. Stupak think that the left wing of his party will now stop their push to have federal dollars fund unlimited abortion? He is waving his agreement and thinking he has done well and right. What he has really done is taking his place next to Chamberlain as one of the great political fools of all time.

I am an optimist. I see the glass as half full (preferably with beer). So I am keeping hope alive!

There are a couple of ways this can still be stopped. The first is that numerous state attorneys are going to sue.

Virginia will file suit against the federal government charging that the health-care reform legislation is unconstitutional, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s office confirmed last night.

Cuccinelli is expected to argue that the bill, with its mandate that requires nearly every American to be insured by 2014, violates the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution.

There is a good chance that the Supreme Court will rule the bill unconstitutional based on the mandate for all Americans to buy insurance even if they don’t want it and that some of the bill only helps specific states at the expense of the rest. When it is declared unconstitutional, the Democrats will try to fix it with a new bill. By then we will have had another election. Even without a Republican takeover in the House and the Senate, there will be enough new Republicans to stop Obamacare.

Of course, the Supreme Court could find a way to stay out of the fight and let the bill stand. Then, we’re screwed.

Even if the GOP takes over the House and Senate and they can pass a bill to repeal Obamacare, The One would veto it. There’s no way the Republicans will have a filibuster proof majority in the senate or a two thirds majority to override a veto.

The other way is the senate parliamentarian will find that the reconciliation bill violates the Byrd rule and will send it back to the House. However, that will probably mean Obama will just sign the Senate bill into law without the “fixes.”

But don’t give up. Keep hope alive!

Check out the failure of “deem and pass,” Obama’s new math, and our Education Secretary’s speech problem.

With this vote, the U.S. House has chosen big government over freedom; bureaucracy over people.

The American Conservative Union has opposed this bill from the start because of its massive cost and red tape. The more we learn and Americans learn about the devil in the details of this bill the more disgust among Americans will grow. Empowering IRS agents to determine if Americans have proper health care coverage is not health care reform. Raising taxes is not health care reform. Massive increases in government spending is not health care reform. Imposing fines on Americans who don’t toe the line with what the liberals want in their personal health care plans is not real health care reform.

History will indeed mark this moment – as some Americans become more dependent on government and government becomes more intrusive in the personal lives and financial decisions of its citizens. This is a moment when government growth took a giant leap toward swallowing up more and more of the hard earn money of Americans. This is a moment when common sense reform took a back seat to liberalism run amuck.

In responding to the Democrat’s claims that spending massive amounts of new money on a new government program would actually lower the deficit, the ACU notes that the Ways and Means Committee estimated Medicare would cost only $9 billion each year after 25 years but that on its 25th birthday Medicare spent $67 billion, or seven times the initial cost estimate. The pattern is consistent in federal spending and the massive health care bill’s cost will likely follow suit.

The American people are not stupid or naive.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans, including large numbers of ACU members, attended peaceful Tea Party events, August Town Hall Meetings, signed petitions and made thousands of calls urging Congress to vote NO on this bill. Public opinion poll after poll demonstrates that the American people are opposed to this bill. These liberals who voted for this bill will pay the price when the American voters have the final say on their vote in November.

Yesterday was my son’s 9th birthday and for his present, the government jacked his future. As he sat in the floor and happily opened his gifts, Bart Stupak appeared on television and revealed that he’d sold his soul. The joy was sucked from the room, but my son didn’t notice – thank God for innocence. The faces of the adults in the room fell as Stupak held his presser, as Pelosi gained another YES vote for health control.

The scene was an eerie replay for me; eight-and-a-half years ago that same boy sat in his bouncy seat while cooing and kicking his legs as his father and I watched the twin towers crumble to dust on live television. The feeling was the same.

A lot of people ask why I and others do what we do.

The scene I just described is my answer.

Last night the Democrat party died as it drove a spear through the torso of the Constitution and passed legislation that the majority of Americans overwhelmingly opposed. Nancy Pelosi sauntered into the capitol surrounded by fellow socialists, carrying the gavel used in 1965 to pass the now-bankrupt Medicare.

All summer long Americans filled town halls, emailed, called, and faxed their lawmakers, and they were forsaken. They were called Nazis, racists, homophobes; they were threatened, beaten, and called stupid because they disagreed with the minority who feels that the government should run our lives. Our lawmakers unofficially stopped representing us last spring.

Last night, our legislators officially broke the contract with America that is the Constitution. Last night, they ceased to represent us. Last night, a new party was born; the malignant tumor that is the progressive caucus consumed the Democrat party from within and gave birth to the mainstream Socialist Party.

We have lost our right to determine our own care. Our businesses, the engine of our economy, will see an additional annual $52 billion in new taxes levied upon them. The HHS has determined premium caps which will force the cruelty of rationing to curtail costs from the fed to insurers, and down to our medical professionals. The IRS will now oversee health control and determine whether you are compliant:

A new analysis by the Joint Economic Committee and the House Ways & Means Committee minority staff estimates up to 16,500 new IRS personnel will be needed to collect, examine and audit new tax information mandated on families and small businesses in the ‘reconciliation’ bill being taken up by the U.S. House of Representatives this weekend, according to Brady.

“When most people think of health care reform they think of more doctors exams, not more IRS exams,” says U.S. Congressman Kevin Brady, the top House Republican on the Joint Economic Committee.  “Isn’t the federal government already intruding enough into our lives?  We need thousands of new doctors and nurses in America, not thousands more IRS agents.”

Democrats Socialists employed the fuzziest of math which the CBO confirmed with a ball-busting report on its true cost.

They rallied that “people have a right to health care,” which no one disputes: people have a right to health care but they do not have a right to another’s living. Socialists employed all sorts of dirty tricks, back room deals (a NASA admin job?), and intimidation. They twisted arms and convinced men of lesser character to compromise on their principles. They ignored their electorate. This legislation rotted in congress since summer because of the massive opposition from the American people.

At one point during last night’s debate, John Boehner was rebuked for giving the Socialists hell when reminded to “show dignity to the House.”

There is no dignity left in a House run by political prostitutes.

Nancy Pelosi, Lynn Woolsey, and other Socialist party members tried to play the sex card and exploit women by saying that they were ill-served in this current system. If they think that I and other strong women are as stupid as those within the Socialist party that ironically defend the likes of Bill Clinton, John Edwards, et al. then they’re bigger tools for the old, white patriarchy than I originally thought.

How dare these women sell out their own sex and presume to speak for all women. How dare these “feminists” devalue women as nothing more than victims so as to win support for a bill that invites the IRS and president-appointed medical board into their wombs and doctors’ exam rooms. My body my choice except when you want people to foot the bill for you, right? I believe Heidi Fleiss was arrested for no lesser action.

The Constitution and a 200-year-old understanding that a republic is governed by its people has been shredded with the passage of this bill. The Socialists are emboldened now; they will next come for our children under the guise of “education reform.” They will then come after our energy via cap-and-tax. They will continue to push and bust through every legal barrier we have of protecting our Founding Father’s intent until that shining city on a hill is a barren wasteland.

They have been crafting this plot for over 50 years.

We just woke up one year ago last month.

The future of our republic depends upon us making up lost time.

We lost this battle, not because we didn’t fight, not because we were silent, but because the Socialists in congress don’t care about us or our will.

This battle. There are many battles in a war. We have faced worse, patriots. We have, many times, faced what appeared to be unwinnable situations.

My grandfather served as a gunner aboard the USS Alabama in the Pacific theater during WWII. He spoke of how demoralized our country was after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and took out our entire Pacific fleet.

I thought about how God delivered the Israelites from Egypt.

I thought about how this country rallied the dawn after 9-11 when I woke up and saw flags hanging from the ticky-tacky houses all up and down my street.

I thought of how Great Britain, rallied by Winston Churchill, fought off the German invasion.

Or how Ulysses S. Grant pressed on after his first lost.

How many men and women have shed blood for this country? How many patriots took to the streets to defend this country blessed by God? Don’t you dare give up, patriots. Don’t you dare make their sacrifices in vain because you’re afraid of battle. Take no prisoners, suffer no fools, never surrender.

What – you thought you get this land scott-free? Liberty is never fully paid off and to be deserving of it one must be willing to fight for it on the battlefield, in the halls of congress, by involving yourselves in your communities. Such a struggle is not a burden, it is a privilege.

How bad do you want liberty? I’ve received several emails from folks who’ve said that they’re ready to move, to leave the country, and give up. I received an email the other day from a woman named Melanie who confessed that she just “doesn’t  have time to get involved.” During a conversation about precinct captains with a gentleman at a recent protest, I was told that the commitment “sounds like too much time.”

My reply:

Get out.

Get out of my country any freeloader who possesses such an attitude, you betrayers of conservatism, of liberty. How dare you claim the belief of self-sustenance and individualism while warming your hands by another patriot’s fire, living off the fat of another patriot’s blood, sweat, and tears. As I said on my radio program last week: any one who dares call themselves a patriot and refuses to commit to maintaining their country’s liberty can burn in hades with the socialists who’ve jeopardized our children’s futures.

If you cannot commit several hours per week to maintain the liberty that others afforded you then you by your inaction and silent voice abet those who seek to destroy it.

This is not over. We won the battle of the hearts and minds and still congress trampled over us with an un-Constitutional bill that, for the first time, forces citizens to purchase a product.

We won the battle of persuasion. We’ve won talk radio. We’ve won cable news. We’ve won social media networks. We’ve won the street corners and the community participation and the phone banks and the 11th hour hat tricks. We’re going to win the money battle, next.

We have the Ensuring Liberty PAC, a committee that will give an engine boost and more muscle to the tea party movement by selecting carefully vetted candidates to run these reverse-Elijah Lovejoy legislators out on a rail.

We will plague the Socialists who sold us out, we will end their political careers, we will dog them at their every appearance, their every step, and when they see the yellow of the Gadsen flying uniform in the wind with the American flag they will fear us as a government should fear its people – NOT the other way around.

We will hold every Republican to the fire and so help us if they don’t fight until their last breath to repeal this massive affront to liberty we will burn them in effigy along with the traitors to the Constitution.

We will insert ourselves into every branch and level of public service and devour our party so we will never have to worry about another impotent candidate ascending to power again, so we never again have to worry about being bulldozed by tyrants.

We will bring back the relationship between our churches and temples and the people and fight against the government’s attempt to sever volunteer charity and axe charitable deductions as a way to force more people under its thumb by way of no other options.

We’re going to seek out those small business owners who have spoken up and those who are speaking up, albeit it softly due to fear, and we’re going to bless them with our patronage.

We will modify our strategy and not damage ourselves with an inability to see the forest for the trees or an inability to recognize strategy.We will get off the cutesy little trend of hating the GOP and realizing that while we were drowning in apathy and Paris Hilton, and JLo and whatever mind-numbing vestige of a crumbling society we had people like Michelle Bachmann, Paul Ryan, John Boehner, Mike Pence, and more battling the demons of the Socialist party.

And what happened? We, myself included, blamed an entire party for leaving the base to which we failed to tether it. Did we fail to realize that had it not been for some people within the GOP, we would already be far more socialist than that which we’re currently facing? We cannot start a new movement by passing the buck. This situation isn’t the fault of the Socialists, the Republicans, the hippies, Heidi Montag, or anyone else.

I am thankful for grace. Credit is due this party for holding rank during this latest legislative battle.

We are responsible for our own vigilance. Do not betray the essence of the movement by denying this responsibility. Do not leave the lions in the party, whose platform best mirrors our own, out to dry. I will fiercely support those who support my freedoms and you should, too. I will fiercely support the best strategy to win.

Don’t ask me to respect the office any longer. Respect is a two-way street and the office failed to respect the will of the American people. I, you, owe “the office” nothing. “The office” works for us. I’m not a serf that must verbally-fellate the office of the presidency just because some hustler managed to twist the arms of weak-willed sycophants into betraying the people whom they are to serve. Don’t snow job me into thinking I’m less of a patriot because I refuse to honor an administration that obliterated the very definition of liberty last night. Don’t be ironic.

I said last July that this is no time for nancies. This is the dawn of the modern-day sons and daughters of liberty. We must heed the call of action and with courageous steps and humble hearts work against tyranny. We will guard our hearts and we will realize that the only fight worth having is a fight on the right side of God. We will not allow our opposition to have the final defeat of using our frustration to make us as they are.

You need to decide right now: will you fight to preserve liberty? Will you give of your time, your money, your passion so that your future generations will benefit? Will you get behind groups like ELPAC, candidates who can best win the race and most mirror our platform? Will you become an evangelist for liberty?

“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”

- Samuel Adams

This weekend, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ensured that the 111th Congress will live in infamy. Instead of listening to the people she used every procedural trick at her disposal to pass her health care legislation. She must be stopped.

Over the last year, the American people have witnessed a Speaker who will stop at nothing to achieve her vision of a Leftist government. She believes that she is no longer accountable to congressional rules, and national laws. Those are just guidelines that can be tossed away on a whim if determined they will prevent her from accomplishing her goals. On Sunday, she cast them aside with reckless abandon and forced through her government takeover of health care.
Nancy Pelosi has no regard for public opinion. Even in a hostile electoral environment, she asked members of her caucus to fall on their swords so that she might add another achievement to her increasingly shameful legacy. Her actions are deceptive, dishonest, and simply unconstitutional, but she shows no remorse. To her, the ends justify the means.

Let there be no doubt: Nancy Pelosi’s sole priority in this entire health care drama has been authorizing a government seizure of the American health care industry and nationalizing a full one-sixth of our economy. She ignored the cold hard facts of the federal budget. Plainly put, you cannot add $1 trillion dollars to the budget and then claim that it’s revenue neutral, cut $500 billion from Medicare, and won’t affect recipients. The math simply doesn’t work. But Nancy Pelosi doesn’t seem to have any problem with fudging the numbers when it’s to her advantage.
Worse yet, Speaker Pelosi has claimed that she would preside over the most ethical and transparent Congress in history. She has repeatedly denied Americans their Constitutional right to know what Washington is doing in their name, because she knows that if they find out, they will hold her caucus accountable.

For the sweetheart deals and arm-twisting tactics; for this unconscionable dereliction of her duty; for this gleeful defiance of the Constitution; and for the utter contempt with which she has repeatedly treated the American people, Speaker Pelosi MUST be fired.

The time has come for Americans to speak out. If you believe that American government should be open, honest, and transparent; if you believe that individual Americans, not the federal government, are best equipped to make their own medical decisions; if you believe that the Constitution of the United States – not this radical leftist agenda – is still the ultimate authority in our land, I am asking for your help to fire Nancy Pelosi. I am asking you to pledge your support to punish her and every Democrat who joined her in this abomination and help Republicans regain the majority in the House.

The voice of the people was ignored on health care, but with your help we will make sure they hear it loud and clear when we remove Speaker Pelosi from her throne this November.

Last week, while trying to rally support for last minute maneuvers designed to push his health care “reform” scheme through the House of Representatives, President Obama made a revealing statement.  “We are going to make history!” he exhorted a crowd at George Mason University.

Just like that comforting, exhilarating little buzz his brain experiences each time he takes a drag on his ubiquitous cigarettes, and like the electrical surge he probably felt during the days when he experimented with “blow” in his youth, President Obama has found a new addiction to satisfy his undisciplined cravings:  The President is addicted to making history.

In a way, it’s understandable.  Imagine being a state senator from Illinois and within four years you stand astride the world as the most famous political figure of your time.  It’s a rush, baby… here… take another hit, dude.

Oh, he dabbled with some street-level stuff in his youth.  First African-American Editor of the Harvard Law Review?  Yeah, that’s some good stuff.  That’ll give you a good buzz for a while.  But then, he had to settle for some real retro-grade stuff.  Community organizing on the South-side of Chicago?  Man, that’s like Marion Barry level stuff.  That’s not going to satisfy a guy who was raised around all that “Maui-wowie” notoriety.

But then he got a bit of an upgrade with his election to the Illinois statehouse.  But he was clearly bored with that job.  It’s just not history-making enough to be an African-American State Senator of an African-American district in Chicago.  His next big fix was the U.S. Senate.

Now you’re talking some serious buzz.  Especially that high-end rush he got when delivering the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention.  I mean, he was only a candidate for Senate at the time, but he felt that first big high.  That taste of the really primo stuff.  Tens-of-thousands shouting his name.  Screaming for him to save the party… no, the country… oh come on…  THE WORLD!

But then, with any addict comes the horrible lows after the monumental highs.  The Senate win was anti-climatic.  And once in the Senate, he was bored within a year.   His Senate seat wasn’t even historical in any real sense since Carol Moseley-Braun had already become the first African-American Democrat elected to the Senate (and she was a woman to boot).  No, it was time for another hit off of that “History-Bong” again.

The Presidential primary campaign delivered an amazing rush.  Must have been like a constant snort of amyl nitrate.  All of those crowds, screaming and fainting for him like he was a rock star.  He must have been so stoned on his “History Dope” when he delivered this speech:

I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal… This was the moment — this was the time — when we came together to remake this great nation…

And then, he became President.  History.  More and more history.  The first African-American President in history.  What a rush.  What a buzz.  What a high.  Then, the morning after.  Like any addict searching for his next big fix, President Obama has been appearing desperate, craven, aggressive and hostile.  He is willing to do whatever it takes for that next big high.

He finally found it.  Like Roosevelt with Social Security and Johnson with Medicare, Obama focused on a huge social service entitlement for the next “History-Fix”.  He was so close to getting that fix in December.  When Oprah asked him to grade his first term, instead of demurring like any other President would have and given the appropriate response like “Oh, I don’t worry about things like that.  I’ll let others grade my performance.  And, the American people will have their chance to give me a grade in 2012.” he jumped right out and gave himself a B+!  And, he gave himself an indulgent little taste of the big drug binge he was about to go on by predicting that if he could push through Health Care “Reform”,  he deserved an “A”.  History!  Oh man… he must have had the bed spins!

And right when it looked like Scott Brown had stolen his “primo stash” he turned ugly.  Like any junkie who is denied their next big fix, he did the political equivalent of knocking off a 7-11: He turned to desperate acts which, to the American people, looked petty, conniving, dishonest, and unconstitutional.  He resorted to changing the rules of the game in the last minute of play.  Desperate moves like “Reconciliation” and “Deem and Pass”, free trips on Air Force One, all designed to cram this bill through so he can… make history.

And so now he has.  And let the super-high commence.  This will be a nice trip for a while.  But, we should all be worried about the inevitable crash.  A fame-junkie like this won’t be satisfied by a one-vote win on a flawed law that will likely be over-turned by courts or repealed by the next two election cycles.  No, as soaring as this high is, he’s going to want something new, something big and something even more historic.  Let’s hope it doesn’t involve our troops.

UPDATE: Reconciliation passes, 220-210, along with the government takeover of the student loan business.

***

UPDATE: Bill passes 219 to 212.

***

Tonight, the House of Representatives will conduct a series of votes that will result, most likely, in the passage of the greatest expansion of government in our nation’s history. The vote is the outcomes of side deals, winks and nods, and the closest our system can come to open bribery. Democrats in Congress may think this is the end of the health care debate. It is only the beginning. Tonight marks a low point in our nation’s history, but, let’s draw inspiration from one of its highest points. (Check here for updates throughout the night.) The battle starts anew tomorrow.

I was actually at the Tea Party march against the health care bill in Washington, D.C. yesterday. I don’t attend political events on the Jewish Sabbath, so I simply decided to go and observe, lending a quiet voice of protest. I was in our nation’s capital for the conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and wandered down by myself to Capitol Hill after morning services at the historic 6th & I synagogue.

I saw thousands of people–fifteen thousand, I guessed at the time–gathered on the west lawn of the Capitol building. There were American flags and lots of Gadsden flags (“Don’t Tread on Me”). I noted some of the more humorous signs (“I’m not wee-wee’d up, I’m pissed off”), as well as some of the more esoteric ones (“Restoration, not Transformation”). Almost all of them were home-made with poster-board and marker.

I did not see any comparison of Obama to Hitler, nor any sign advocating violence of any kind. I did see two signs bearing a hammer-and-sickle–which I personally find just as offensive as the swastika, though it is bizarrely trendy to some Americans. There was one sign with an image of Obama and the words “undocumented worker,” which was the only hint of Birtherism I witnessed. The rest of the signs were straightforward slogans: “Kill the Bill”; “Start Over.”

The crowd was far from uniform. There were black people, white people, Hispanic people–both in the audience and on stage. One of the speakers invoked the example of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as an inspiration–and the crowd roared its approval, as it did for mentions of Thomas Jefferson and John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. A few of the speakers invoked religious sentiments about abortion. That was as edgy as it got.

At one point, the crowd to the right of the stage started to boo loudly. It was impossible to see exactly why, from where I was standing, but soon a group of people–members of Congress, apparently–ascended the stairs to the Capitol. If media reports are to be believed, that was the moment when racist and homophobic language was hurled at Rep. John Lewis, and a protestor was arrested for spitting at Rep. Emanuel Cleaver.

I can’t speak about what actually happened–I could not see the incident, nor did anyone else seem to know what was going on. The first I heard of it was when I turned on the news after the Sabbath. Since then, I have seen YouTube video of the event in which Rep. Lewis and others walk slowly through the crowd, and not a single epithet is heard. Presumably, if video evidence to the contrary existed, it would have been aired by now.

I don’t know why Rep. Lewis and the other members with him decided to walk right through the protestors. Did they intend to provoke the protestors? If so, few of those present seem to have taken the bait, from the video that is currently available. At least one did, though, and was arrested by Capitol Hill police–and so now the entire protest, and the entire nation’s opposition to the health care bill, is being tarnished.

Obviously, any such rhetoric and behavior is totally reprehensible and beyond the pale. It is an insult to the nation and to the Tea Party movement itself, which in my experience is made up of ordinary people from all walks of life who are opposed to the massive expansion of government we are living through at the moment. If what the media has reported is true, then an apology is certainly due to the country as a whole.

The only epithet I personally heard yesterday was the one hurled at us by two passersby: “Teabaggers.” Those who first promoted this phrase on MSNBC and who still use it today know exactly what it means. It is a crude sexual metaphor designed to denigrate ordinary people who are just standing up for their rights as best they know how, the way no party–not even the Republican party–has done in this debate.

Journalists have also contrived false accusations against protestors before–as in the case of a man who carried a rifle to one town hall meeting last year, whom MSNBC only showed from the shoulders down to hide the fact that he was black, while accusing the protestors of racism. There have also been racist attacks against black Tea Party protestors, such as Kenneth Gladney, who was assaulted outside a town hall in August.

Then there is the scandal I have personally documented–the way in which groups of paid organizers told their followers outside a town hall meeting in my own community that they should drown out residents who asked questions about the health care bill. That video, which was filmed in August, led me to uncover the strategy written by felon and Democrat strategist Robert Creamer as a blueprint for the events of the past year.

For the record, I have spent my life fighting against prejudice of any kind. I was the first white member of my high school’s Afro-American club. I interned for our nation’s first black female senator, Carol Moseley-Braun. I tutored children in one of the poorest black townships in South Africa, where many of my students lived in shacks without toilets or electricity. I lived in a Muslim community to learn more about the Islamic faith.

I don’t have to take accusations of racism and homophobia. I have spoken out against prejudice before, and I do so again today. I am glad to see the Republicans and the Tea Party leaders do so as well. What is unacceptable is that these allegations have been used to trash a movement that is made up of ordinary, fair-minded people of every race and creed who are simply standing up for their rights. That is offensive to me as well.

I look forward to the day, beyond this vote and this Congress, when Americans will be able to debate complex policy issues in a spirit of civility and open-mindedness. It is heart-breaking to feel the way this administration has set Americans against one another, a far cry from Barack Obama’s rhetoric at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. I am determined to be part of the solution. That is what I believe the Tea Party stands for at its best.

From The Hill:

Democrats have reached a deal on an executive order on abortion that could hand them a victory on healthare.

“Eight or nine” Democrats, including Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), will announce the deal at a 4 p.m. press conference, according to an anti-abortion Democrat.

“We’ve changed [our votes],” said Rep. Steve Driehaus (D-Ohio).

Driehaus said he’s seen the executive order and can now vote for the healthcare bill. He said Stupak has signed off, as well.

Driehaus made his remarks just a few moments ago in the Speaker’s Lobby. He said the group of “eight or nine” Democrats — including Stupak — who had been withholding their votes plans to announce the deal at 4 p.m. in the House Radio/TV gallery.

Read the original article here. Utterly Predictable? Yes. Still Disappointing? Hell yes.

Media Matters, the defender of liberal media, jumped into the developing controversy and debate over White House Health Reform Director Nancy-Ann DeParle’s unsolicited White House emails to federal employees. Media Matters scolds and makes fun of CBS News and Fox News for highlighting the issue, calling the claims “pure speculation”. Ironically, Media Matters doesn’t deny that the unsolicited emails have been sent but rather they defend the emails by saying, “it appears they are sent out to everyone on the whitehouse.gov mailing list.” Well, duh. That’s the problem. Why are federal employees on the whitehouse.gov email list? And why are federal employees being hounded to do the White House’s political bidding for a trillion dollar entitlement program?

Building support for President Barack Obama’s health reform package by sending consecutive emails to federal employees’ official government email inboxes and instructing them to forward the emails to their “friends, family and online networks” is not only unethical but possibly illegal.

Media Matters also complains that the story has no anonymous quotes from frustrated federal employees in order to prove the story. Which is a fair point. I’ll give them that. So here are two anonymous quotes from State Department employees that didn’t sign up for the White House emails but are still receiving political musings from Nancy-Ann DeParle and the White House:

Anonymous Quote #1:

“ I didn’t sign up for this. Why do I have to bother with political fights from work. This is inappropriate and distracting to REAL issues.”

Anonymous Quote #2:

“I have been receiving these emails at my state.gov address, unsolicited e-mails such as the one below on a near weekly basis.  Kinda threatening dontcha think? Budget problems if it doesn’t pass?”

Department of State employees receive hundreds of official government emails every day on pressing issues like the Israeli-Palestinian issue or the Iranian nuclear weapons issue. Should they have to worry about partisan political emails threatening budget complications if Obama’s bill isn’t passed?

DeParle’s language in one email flatly states that there will be budget problems for federal agencies if the Obama bill isn’t passed. DeParle uses scare tactics that are clearly meant as threats:

“No ifs, ands or buts about it — if we do nothing to reform our broken health care system, costs will continue to skyrocket and break the budgets of American families, small businesses and the Federal Government,” read the March 12th email from DeParle.

Since Media Matters is trying to dismiss the issue as “pure speculation”, here are 2 examples of the emails. Decide for yourself:

deparle-emails

Over the last several days, old friends and family around the country have contacted me with the same questions: ‘Do they have the votes? What is going to happen?’ Maybe they think that, living inside the Beltway, I get some secret newsletter that can divine what Congress will do. To all of them and you, let me be clear: I have no idea what is going to happen tonight. We have slipped well beyond any rational political thought or calculation. By any traditional analysis, this bill would have been buried long ago. So, while I don’t know what is going to happen, it is worth thinking a bit about what is going on. On that I have something to say.

The Democrats and the White House are lost in a legislative “fog of war” right now. They are focused on twisting enough arms, offering jobs and negotiating specific “deals” (bribes) to get them to 216 votes. Their attention and energy is focused exclusively on a final vote in the House tonight. No one is looking even one minute beyond that horizon. They are like a general who pours all his reserves into taking a symbolic bridge, never realizing that his lines have already collapsed and his flanks have been turned. They may take the bridge and get to 216 votes. (I’ve learned to never bet against Congressional leadership and an Administration united for a single legislative victory. ) But, they have already lost the war. They have deluded themselves that if they can…just…get…this…bill…passed, the public’s anger and attention will subside, they can put health care ‘behind them’ and they can focus on other ‘popular’ measures that will shore up their election prospects in November.

What they don’t realize is that today’s vote isn’t the end, but just a new beginning in the debate over health care. Buckle up, because if they manage to cobble together enough votes to pass the Senate Health Bill today, we’re set for weeks and perhaps months of a constitutional and political crisis the likes of which we haven’t seen in our lifetimes.

In a matter of hours after House passage of the Senate Bill, the state of Virginia will file suit in federal court. The Commonwealth will be joined in the suit by a dozen other states. I expect a flood of additional lawsuits. The suits will be based on the provision that requires every American to purchase health insurance. (This is how the Dems ‘crack down’ on the insurance industry; by requiring everyone to buy its product?) Because this is an individual mandate, virtually every American has standing to file suit against this provision. Also, it is in direct conflict with state law in at least two states, Idaho and Virginia.

While the legal battles wage on, expect an enormous public back-lash against the Democrats. Longtime political observers will recall the backlash after Democrats passed a “catastrophic health care” bill in the 80s. That event pales in comparison to what is brewing. Yesterday, around 30,000 people protested on the steps of the Capitol, an event that was organized in just a little over 24 hours. In cities throughout the country, protests and rallies broke out, each attended by hundreds of citizens with only a few hours notice.  This kind of spontaneous public outcry has never happened in any of our lifetimes. Today, many of these protesters are buoyed by a faith that reason will prevail and the Democrats will stand down from their position of willful disdain for the American people. If that doesn’t happen tonight, then we will have fallen into totally unchartered territory. It is without hyperbole that I say I am at times afraid of what may ensue.

I have told my Democrat friends–yes, I have many–that they are missing the simple fact that people are really scared today. The economy is nowhere close to recovering and, in some places, may be getting worse. Millions of people have been unemployed for a very long time and untold millions more live in fear of it. Spending, deficits and debt have grown beyond the hypothetical world of economists and into a realm that the average person understands. Against this, the Democrats are now steaming towards the greatest expansion in government ever and, more importantly, into the part of our lives that commands our deepest fears, our health and mortality. That they have done so in an openly corrupt manner, with side deals, special exemptions, special interest favors and patronage (a judgeship, really?), betrays a contempt for the legislative and political process that is almost unfathomable. Worse, they raise the specter that the government is an interest, separate, distinct and opposed to the people.

The Democrats cannot do this. Sure, they may get the votes to pass the Senate bill tonight, but ultimately they will be defeated. A representative democracy cannot long endure a political class that is so out of touch with the populace. In some respects, what happens tonight is almost beside the point. The politics are set. Some Democrats are deluding themselves that they can put this behind them and somehow survive in November. They are most assuredly wrong.

I’m beginning to think that George Soros is a GOP plant. He has invested millions an in array of leftist organizations, but rather than providing a foundation for progressive policies, they have devolved into little more than a giant echo-chamber. Instead of trying to build public support, groups like Center for American Progress and Media Matters simply spin–lamely, by the way–any facts that counter their narrative. A rational political party absorbs new information and public opinion and adjusts its policies. The leftist cocoon inoculates Democrats from this, convincing them that their policies are actually popular, in spite of every piece of data, and cheers them on as they march off the cliff into political oblivion.

(Of course, it could be that Soros has simply made very large, leveraged bets against the dollar and wants to maximize deficit-busting policies, but that is speculation for another day.)

And off a cliff is exactly where the Democrat party is going. In 1994, the party lost 54 seats in the House, losing control for the first time in 40 years. 54 seats is my opening bid for November 2010. They will lose that amount if ObamaCare somehow fails tonight. If it passes, their losses will be much worse in the House (hell, I’d take odds on a 100 seat loss) and they likely will lose the Senate as well. Worse for the parties future, they will be decimated in state house races, which is critical to the future of they party. The winners of these races will draw new legislative districts next year. A GOP rout in statehouses could doom the Democrats for a decade.

The Democrats are especially doomed because of a final trap they have set for themselves. Their need to game the CBO score to minimize the buckets of borrowed money that are necessary to fund ObamaCare has created for them the ultimate political headache. All the taxes and fees necessary to fund government’s expansion take effect right way, but all the benefits, expanded coverage, etc., don’t take effect for several years. As soon as ObamaCare is signed into law, it will exert a strong gravitational pull on the entire health care sector. Premiums will rise, taxes will increase, providers and physicians will leave the market while all the “good” things in the bill, i.e. expanded coverage, insurance subsidies, etc., will be years away. All pain and no gain for four years. That is the exact opposite of good politics.

So, looking to tonight’s vote, I am torn. The policy wonk in me desperately wants the bill to fail. There are simply far too many provisions with sweeping consequences that we can’t fully imagine. There is too much damage that could be done and I don’t fully trust that the GOP will repeal every last provision. Clearly, the Democrats are betting that they won’t. They believe that, even if they have to lose their majority, enough of ObamaCare will remain that health care dominates our political discourse forever and they will always be able to outbid the GOP on the issue.

That said, the political animal in me is hoping they find 216 votes. A victory for ObamaCare tonight, It will spark a public revolt that will wipe clean the progressive agenda for at least a generation. In battle, it is critically important to have clarity; to understand the fight you are in. If the Democrats pass ObamaCare tonight no one will have any doubts about the battle ahead. So, my political instincts say, “Bring it On. Let’s sort this out once and for all.”

Tonight, if the Democrats get 216 votes, every one of those “yes” votes will be the deciding vote on ObamaCare. It will also be the deciding vote on the Democrats’ political oblivion.

According to AP reports, “Catholic nuns are urging Congress to pass President Barack Obama’s health care plan, in an unusual public break with bishops who say it would subsidize abortion.”  Reportedly, 60 leaders of religious orders sent lawmakers a letter pleading with them to pass the Senate healthcare bill.

The AP clearly has not noticed the virtual ongoing war within the Catholic Church, especially with regards to government responsibility as opposed to private/church responsibility.  In no sphere is this internal war more evident than when it comes to matters involving the Church’s Doctrine on Social Justice.

The Doctrines on Social Justice are, perhaps, the most misunderstood and lied-about facets of the Catholic faith.  Just about everyone in public life, including even the majority of Catholics themselves, completely ignore the fundamentals of Social Justice teaching.  They summarily conclude that Social Justice is a synonym for socialist redistributive policies, which seek to equalize material outcomes for all.  I call this the Kumbayah Fallacy.

These nuns have fallen hook, line and sinker for the Kumbayah Fallacy.  Right along with all the liberation theologians, who have shamefully wrapped Marxist doctrine around the cross of Christ for decades.

This mingling of socialism with Christianity makes a diabolical mockery of the Church’s genuine Social Doctrine, as delineated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.  In fact, the Catholic Church explicitly rebukes all forms of “communism” and “socialism” right there in plain sight in the Catechism.  While the Church also condemns completely unfettered capitalism, with no regulations whatsoever, She saves most condemnation for the Marxist doctrines, which attempt to regulate the economy “solely by centralized planners,” as this “perverts the basis of social bonds” between human beings.

While President Obama has made wide use of his claim to fighting for Social Justice, especially with his zeal towards a government takeover of our healthcare system, he has utterly ignored the natural – fully predictable – unintended consequences of his attempt to reorder the best medical delivery system the world has ever created.

In fact, this reordering of the American medical delivery system to suit the whims of socialist reformers, President Obama is ensuring a genuine Social Justice nightmare for the whole world.

In which Country do the new drugs, medical innovations and most advanced surgical techniques originate?  Exactly.  In the United States of America.

But the United States is not a selfish Nation.  And every one of these medical “miracles,” the products of free enterprise, under the supervision of government oversight, makes its way quite quickly to the rest of the world.  Socialist countries, unable to produce the cures themselves because they have choked innovation with their own “centralized planner” philosophies, then buy the new American drugs at highly discounted prices for their own citizens.  In effect, the American medical system quite heavily subsidizes all the other medical systems of the world with its own ingenuity and enterprise.  Our doctors routinely travel around the globe, sharing and teaching their techniques to other doctors in other countries.  Our charities routinely offer free medical aid around the globe.

Of course, once Obamacare makes all these “miracle” cures unprofitable, those new innovations will dry up here just as surely as they have in all the other socialized medical systems in the world.

That, in itself, creates a wholly unnecessary Social Justice nightmare for which not only America, but the entire world will pay a hefty price in untold suffering and death.

In addition to drying up incentives for medical innovations, which aid the entire human population, Obamacare will immediately cut the numbers of practicing doctors by up to 45%.  This Investors Business Daily polling data, taken last summer, was widely criticized by liberal advocacy groups, but then was vindicated by a figure of 29.2% doctors quitting in an insert of the New England Journal of Medicine.  The fact that a sizeable proportion of medical doctors would quit “if patient loads increase while pay decreases,” should not be at all surprising, since this is precisely what has happened in every other country with socialized medical models.  Decreasing the supply of doctors will unarguably strike a blow at Social Justice, which simply cannot be overstated.  One can throw all the taxpayer money he wishes at a disease, but that won’t cure what ails real patients.  Keeping people unnecessarily sick because of a doctor shortage is unconscionable in the realm of Social Justice doctrine.

Another huge piece of the Social Justice puzzle, which is mightily threatened by Obamacare, is the charity sector of American medicine.

There is not a single medical delivery entity in America today, which does not have a social worker charged with helping people pay for their medical costs.  In every hospital in these United States, patients are helped in myriad ways to either work out extended payment plans for services or receive already-available taxpayer assistance or charity dollars to meet their obligations.  American doctors do much pro-bono work, just as lawyers do.  But studies invariably show that once government takes over the obligations of individuals, charity dries up, causing the government burden to be much greater than it was believed it would be at the outset of new programs.  Under Obamacare, not only will taxpayers assume the burdens of more and more entitlements, but will now also assume the burdens being alleviated through generous charity today.

Killing opportunities for charity may fit perfectly with the Marxist-oriented Kumbayah Fallacy, but it proves a diabolical mockery of the doctrines on genuine Social Justice.

Then, of course, there is the abortion component of Obamacare.  As prohibitions against taxpayer funds being funneled to abortion coverage are not included in the Senate bill, every American taxpayer will now be conscripted into the Democrats’ genocidal denial of Social Justice to pre-born Americans – with no provision for conscientious objector status.  This one thing – this fundamental, primordial facet of Social Justice – is more than enough reason to reject Obamacare on its whole.  As the Pope and all others before him have repeatedly proclaimed, the right to life, once conceived, is the fundamental right upon which all others rest.  No one – not even a president – can claim to be fighting for Social Justice without first protecting this unalienable right.

It is a sad commentary on our times, when even Catholics of high standing do not know enough about their own faith to stand up for it in the public square.  Supporting Obamacare, and the piece-by-piece destruction of the finest medical system ever created,  is an affront to the doctrine of Social Justice.  It will prove a nightmare, not only for Americans, but for the whole world.

Pro-life leaders, including a top representative of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB,) discussed on Friday the prospects of the Senate health care bill, warning that the present version will ban conscientious exemptions among private health care plans while making “billions” of dollars available for federally funded abortion.

They urged pro-life Democrats to “stand firm” until better legislation can be written and prevent the bill from passing on Sunday.

Speaking in a Friday press conference Tom McClusky, the senior vice president of the Family Research Council (FRC), characterized the legislation as “the biggest expansion of government-funded abortion since Roe v. Wade.”

Also addressing the conference was Richard Doerflinger, associate director of the USCCB Secretariat of Pro-life Activities.

The Catholic bishops, supporters of universal health care since 1919, wanted to support the bill, he commented. They did not seek an explicitly pro-life bill, but only a “neutral bill.”

However, the Senate legislation is “morally unacceptable,” with billions in community funding appropriated outside of the Hyde Amendment abortion funding restrictions and not covered “by any limitation.”

Liberal Catholic organizations have been trying to undermine the Catholic Bishops’ position, claiming that the bill is “sufficiently” pro life. Nevertheless, the USCCB representative explained that “a very long line of federal court precedent holds that if abortion funding is not explicitly prohibited then it is required.” The statutory language, which trumps Department of Health and Human Services regulations, will free up “billions” for direct funding for abortions.

The Senate bill also lacks Hyde restrictions barring funding for benefits package that include abortion. Its attempt to segregate abortion funding actually creates a “really stunning new conscience problem.”

“If a private health plan … decides to cover abortion, it must collect from every enrollee a separate payment each month just to pay for other people’s abortions. That’s not the situation now,” he said.

At present health plans “carve out” options for Catholic organizations seeking insurance that does not cover abortion.

“This actually bans conscientious exemptions; it makes the situation worse than it is now.”

“I didn’t think it was possible for health care reform to make things worse than insurance companies on a matter of conscience, but this one has.”

According to Doerflinger, the bill also lacks “Hyde-Weldon” language preventing government bodies from discriminating against pro-life health care providers that refuse to perform abortions.

“There’s not a reason in the world the Senate should have rejected it … they just can’t stand to have anything in there that actually shows some respect for the conscientious objections of Catholics and others who object to abortion.”

National Right to Life Committee (RNC) legislative director Douglas Johnson said that pro-abortion groups wanted to use health care legislation to “greatly expand access to abortion.”

Many of the Democratic leadership’s proposed solutions disguised this, he charged, adding that the proposals were not subjected to much critical scrutiny by the media.

In his view, the Stupak Amendment was the “most bipartisan thing that’s happened the entire Congress.” One in four Democrats voted for the bill and only one Republican did not.

President Obama could have accepted the Stupak Amendment and ensured it a place in the base Senate bill. If he had done so, Johnson explained, 60 votes would have been required to remove the legislation from the Senate version.

“We wouldn’t be having this discussion today,” he continued.

“The president did just the opposite. He lamented the House vote. He expressed opposition to the Stupak Amendment. And he and his agents collaborated with the Senate Democratic leadership to make sure that it did not get into the base bill.”

Johnson said that this vote would be a factor on the NRLC candidate scorecard and indeed would be “a career-defining vote.”

“If they are voting to put this bill on the president’s desk, they own it.”

Tony Perkins, FRC president, said the abortion issue was the “single largest issue” for bipartisan opponents of the bill. He compared the legislation to the Roe v. Wade decision in its possible breadth of scope.

The issue will “dramatically” change the political landscape in the November elections, Perkins predicted, because many people are concerned not only about abortion but about “forcing everyone to fund it.”

He claimed that HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has said everybody will be “forced to contribute to funding, providing access to and subsidizing abortion through this plan.”

“We don’t know what’s going to happen on Sunday,” he continued, discussing the scheduled vote on the bill, saying pro-life advocates will be working “aggressively” in 28 Congressional districts across the country.

Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) and Rep. Peter DiFazzio (D-Ore.) have unexpectedly opposed the bill with objections on grounds other than abortion, speakers told the press conference.

However, hard numbers were not available. Speakers warned that secure votes for the Senate bill were being announced to “create a perception of momentum” and were selectively reported in the media.

Perkins said that efforts against the bill are being made in hope that Congress will “yield and go back to the drawing board.”

“There are measures here that we would support. There are problems in our health care delivery system that need to be reformed, and there are ways to do that. We want to be a part of that, but not in way that jeopardizes human life, limits the freedom of Americans, and creates the tax burden on families that it will if enacted.”

Asked about speculation of separate Senate legislation to be passed after the health care passage, McClusky said they were “very wary” of any deal that “promised something down the road.” Perkins thought it would not fix the bill but was a “fig leaf” to allow pro-life Democrats to vote for this bill “thinking that the Senate is going to fix it.”

Doerflinger said it was “very important” that pro-life leaders “stand firm.”

Other topics at the press conference included tax resistance to mandatory abortion payments, the status of Catholic organizations which endorsed the bill contrary to the bishops’ position, and whether Catholic members of Congress could vote for the bill in good conscience.

Several hours into last month’s marathon health care summit, President Obama became exasperated.  Republican lawmakers Rep. Paul Ryan and Sen. Jon Kyl had plainly laid out their party’s objections to his massive legislation by emphasizing a major philosophical point of departure between the two parties.   Democrats place a great deal of faith in the effectiveness and wisdom of the federal government in handling complex social and fiscal issues, they said, whereas Republicans view centralized planning and onerous regulation with a jaundiced and skeptical eye.  This virtuosic issue-framing wouldn’t do, Obama concluded:  “Any time the question is phrased as, ‘Does Washington know better?’ I think we’re, kind of, tipping the scales a little bit there—since we all know that everybody is angry at Washington right now,” he griped.

Indeed.  Ryan and Kyl were stating the obvious: The American people don’t trust big government.  Reinforcing those insecurities and applying them to the health care debate was precisely the point of raising the issue, and the president knew it.  In fairness, negative perceptions of government bureaucracy certainly pre-date the Obama administration and the current “reform” battle.  Cracks about the DMV’s inefficiencies and the Post Office’s red ink have long been political punch lines.  (Oddly, Obama once unfavorably cited the Post Office while advocating increased federal involvement in health care).  Those warmed-over bromides notwithstanding, much of today’s scorn for big government can be laid at the feet of policies proposed and instituted by President Obama and his party.  Americans’ skepticism toward government intervention has grown more acute after a series of recent high-profile federal flops.

“Making Home Affordable” was the federal program introduced in February 2009 that touched-off Rick Santelli’s infamous Tea Party-catalyzing rant.  It was a $75 Billion mortgage program devised to protect homeowners from foreclosure.  Nobody relished the thought of fellow citizens being forced from their homes, but critics of the plan argued it would reinforce foolish bank lending practices, reward individuals for living far beyond their means, and punish responsible taxpayers with current mortgage payments.  Epitomizing the program’s backwardness was the case of bus driver Minta Garcia.  According to CNN, Garcia had managed to “buy” an $800,000 home that her family couldn’t remotely afford.  Inevitably, she soon fell hopelessly behind on her payments.  Thanks to Obama’s tax-funded munificence and empathy, she and others like her could qualify for personalized government bailouts.

These reprieves were short-lived.  A January, 2010 New York Times report entitled,  “US Loan Effort Is Seen As Adding to Housing Woes” painstakingly outlines how Obama’s mortgage plan actually accelerated the crisis.  “Making Home Affordable,” the article explains, raised false hopes, leading struggling families to throw scarce money after bad, and merely delayed a “wrenching yet cleansing” market correction. “Desperate homeowners have sent payments to banks in often-futile efforts to keep their homes, which some see as wasting dollars they could have saved in preparation for moving to cheaper rental residences,” the piece concludes. “Some borrowers have seen their credit tarnished while falsely assuming that loan modifications involved no negative reports to credit agencies.”  Oops.

The same month that President Obama rolled out his mortgage plan, he also signed his so-called “stimulus” act in to law.  Team Obama overcame near-lockstep Republican opposition and convinced a majority of Americans the bill was both necessary and would prove effective.  Among the promises offered in pitching the legislation was a pledge of unprecedented transparency in the process of dispersing the $800 Billion it would require.  Also central to Obama’s sales pitch was an oft-repeated assurance:  With the stimulus in effect, America’s rising unemployment rate would be arrested at 8 percent.  Without it, unemployment could reach as high as 9 percent, the White House warned.

On both fronts, the “stimulus” has been a failure on its own terms.  Millions of stimulus dollars have been doled out to phantom (ie, non-existent) Congressional districts across the country.  Buckets of cash have been dispensed to recipients who were insufficiently vetted as qualified or eligible for the funds. Obama’s unemployment vow has also been exposed as fantasy.  After passage of the recovery act, unemployment didn’t stop at 8 percent.  It quickly rocketed past the projected worst-case scenario of 9 percent and currently floats in the vicinity of 10 percent.  Coupled with discouraged job-seekers who no longer file for unemployment and the chronically under-employed, the so-called “real” national unemployment rate exceeds 16 percent.  Public support for the program has cratered, with many Americans demanding that its remaining $500B be paid back.   That will not happen. In short, the president’s most conspicuous early foray into big government intervention has become an unpopular and ineffective endeavor at best, a scandalously wasteful and dishonest slush fund at worst.

Administration officials may contend that quickly and efficiently spending nearly a trillion dollars in the midst of an economic crisis is an indescribably difficult task.  It would be unfair, they’d say, to judge the efficacy of all federal interventions based on the stimulus (while, of course, insisting that it has been a great success).  Fair enough.  Let’s examine a comparatively miniscule, targeted program: Cash for clunkers.  This $1 Billion program was designed to jumpstart US auto sales last summer while simultaneously protecting the environment by forcing fuel-inefficient vehicles off the roads.  Terrific.  Yet despite its relatively small scope and mission, this federal program—surprise!—encountered a number of unpleasant and unanticipated snags.

First, funds dried up in less than a week, shocking everyone in Washington, who apparently didn’t envision that many people jumping at the chance to let Uncle Sam help buy them a brand new car.  Incredibly, many Democrats quickly declared the program a “success” because the government had run out of the free money it had promised citizens at a faster clip than expected.  Two billion additional dollars were frantically pumped into “clunkers” to keep the program afloat. Its federally-operated website repeatedly crashed.  Dealers complained about reams of red tape and reimbursement delays that inflicted paralyzing cash flow problems on their dealerships.  Some experts observed that the energy expended to build clunker-replacing cars effectively negated any environmental benefit derived from forcing the older cars out of commission.  Others wondered if trading in broken down “clunkers” for new, street-ready cars would likely result in more driving and thus more CO2 emissions.  Still others angrily denounced the wastefulness of destroying every single element of the clunkers’ motors—some of which were perfectly salvageable.  Too bad: The hastily-written law mandated irreversible motor destruction.  Economically, the program led to a flurry of car sales in August, but proved to be little more than an expensive flash in the pan: Sales in September flat-lined to pre-“Clunkers” levels.

All of these failures share two elements in common.  First, they were each proposed and enacted with the best of intentions: Helping struggling families keep their homes.  Creating jobs and staving off rising unemployment.  Boosting domestic auto sales.  Preserving the environment.  Who could possibly oppose any of these goals?  Intentions, however, do not overshadow results, and the results of these programs have ranged from disappointing to outrageous.

The second commonality among these programs is that they all represent demonstrable failures of centralized, top-down government planning.  Despite Washington’s best and brightest crafting policies they hoped would improve society, their solutions ultimately failed to achieve their stated goals, and in some cases inflamed the original problem.  Senator Kyl and Representative Ryan are keenly aware of this dynamic, which is why their appeals to citizens’ concerns about Washington-on-steroids was a savvy and effective tactic.   Obama’s maladroit attempt to delegitimize their point backfired.  Not only did it invite further scrutiny into why Americans are so “angry at Washington right now,” it fueled the emerging narrative that Democrats’ “more Washington!” approach to health care amounts to political and fiscal insanity.

Hundreds rallied today outside of Russ Carnahan’s office in St. Louis.

500 protesters met today at Carnahan’s Brentwood office. The rally was called late yesterday afternoon. Missouri protesters wanted to let “Rubber Stamp Russ” know that he will pay in November for being Pelosi’s puppet all year long.

Angry protesters chucked shoes at radical Russ Carnahan on a can:

The protesters torched Russ’s photo while they chanted “Death to Dictator.”

The more “Rubber Stamp Russ” votes with Pelosi the more he loses support in St. Louis. It’s so bad he’s even popping up on billboards in South St. Louis.

The St. Louis Tea Party website has more on today’s rally.

From The Hill:

Top Democrats confirmed Saturday that the House would hold separate votes on the Senate healthcare bill and the reconciliation bill, making fixes to it.

Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), one of the chief deputy whips, Rep. Melvin Watt (D-N.C.), and Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), all of whom said that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) won’t use the tactic of deem and pass for healthcare reform.

The move effectively kills the “deem and pass” strategy Democrats had been eyeing to make changes to the Senate bill through a rule on the bill, which at the same time would have deemed the original Senate healthcare bill to have passed the House.

The House appears set now to move toward an up-or-down vote on the Senate healthcare bill, as well as a separate, up-or-down vote on the series of changes to that bill. There will still be a vote on the rule, as there always is for a piece of legislation, though it will not package the two bills together.

Read the whole article here.

From The Hill:

Top Democrats confirmed Saturday that the House would hold separate votes on the Senate healthcare bill and the reconciliation bill, making fixes to it.

Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), one of the chief deputy whips, Rep. Melvin Watt (D-N.C.), and Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), all of whom said that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) won’t use the tactic of deem and pass for healthcare reform.

The move effectively kills the “deem and pass” strategy Democrats had been eyeing to make changes to the Senate bill through a rule on the bill, which at the same time would have deemed the original Senate healthcare bill to have passed the House.

The House appears set now to move toward an up-or-down vote on the Senate healthcare bill, as well as a separate, up-or-down vote on the series of changes to that bill. There will still be a vote on the rule, as there always is for a piece of legislation, though it will not package the two bills together.

Read the whole article here.

The indispensable Jake Tapper of ABC News took an interview with Vice President Joe “Foot in Mouth” Biden that contains a nugget of information that tends to prove that Barack Obama intends to destroy America’s insurance industry and place it under the full control of the federal government.

Tapper asked VP Biden what he’d been hearing from the members of the Democrat Congress that are vulnerable over this healthcare debate and Biden’s reply let slip the administrations ultimate goal; full government control of the insurance industry. (My bold)

BIDEN: Well, I yes. Some of them I say they say, well, Joe, look, man, I mean, you know, you guys haven’t massaged this very well. And, you know, this thing has gone on so long, I don’t know. And my response is, hey, man, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. I’m telling you, you know, pre-existing, they’re going to be covered. You know we’re going to control the insurance companies.

Granted Joe Biden is the court jester of the Obama Administration. He is a fool of the highest order. It would be easy to dismisshis words. However, the idea that Obama wants to take full federal control of the insurance industry fits quite nicely with Obama’s claims as a candidate — that he was for a single payer plan all along.

Barack Obama fully intends to destroy the health insurance industry and replace it with a socialist nationalized healthcare program.

Call your representatives in Congress and tell them to vote “no” on this un-American legislation.

Congress Switchboard: (202)224-3121

In Kurt Vonnegut’s 1969 novel, Slaughterhouse Five, the main character, Billy Pilgrim, is an American POW who hides in a meat cellar as Dresden is being fire bombed.

In 2010, the Slaughterhouse Three, Obama, Pelosi and Reid, shove every American in a meat cellar as they fire bomb America with their rationing-based health care plan. ObamaCare is a plan designed to strip Freedom and Liberty from every American.

Obama, Pelosi and Reid now have decided to avoid an up/down House vote on the Senate Bill and to enforce the “Slaughter House Rule”. In other words, when you do not have the votes, just change the rules, pass the changes to the bill and pretend you passed the “real” bill. Previously, the public was outraged that members of Congress did not read the bill prior to voting. This is even worse. With this latest charade, Obama, Pelosi and Reid are forcing House members to pass the bill without voting on the bill. …So much for a democratic republic and The Constitution.

The latest version of ObamaCare is troubling on many fronts. ObamaCare takes control of every American’s health care life. This plan would not improve the current system, and is fatally flawed because it:

• Rations and denies access to healthcare. Denying access to healthcare is the most inhumane and unethical means of cutting costs;
• Costs $1 TRILLION ( $100 Billion more than The Senate Bill) ;
• Creates over 110 Federal Agencies, commissions and boards;
• Creates The Health Insurance Rate Authority….a direct violation of States’ Rights;
• Establishes a “ Comprehensive Database” on Americans;

• Establishes Individual and Employer Mandates (Mr. Obama’s own Chair of Council of Economic Advisors has stated that this alone would cost 5.5 Million jobs….more unemployment.);
• Institutes $748 Billion in new taxes;
• Cuts Medicare by $500 Billion, over a period when 30% MORE Americans will be added to Medicare rolls, (You do the math…);
• Imposes $136 Billion in tax hikes on working families making LESS THAN $250,000 (Americans for Tax Reform Analysis);
• Ends Medicare Advantage Program for Seniors and forces them to a more expensive plan with less benefits;
• Applies Medicare Tax to unearned income;
• Increases Medicare Payroll Tax from 2.95 to 3.8%; and
• Increases unfunded mandates on every State.
• Increases Capital Gains tax rate as of 2014 to 23.8%
• Creates 16,000 jobs for the IRS to implement penalties for those not buying insurance

The Slaughterhouse Three, Obama, Pelosi and Reid, have authored the legislation that will make every American a POW, strip them of their Freedoms and Liberty and shove them in a meat cellar for cold storage. So how is that Hope and Change working for you now?

We were elected to make tough choices, not run from them.  On Thursday, House Democrats sparked widespread outrage by voting to authorize the use of the controversial “Slaughter Solution” to force amassive government takeover of health care through the House without voting on it.  They voted to protect themselves instead of their constituents, who are fed up with the lack of accountability and transparency in Washington.  But there is no hiding from this vote.

That’s one reason why I sent a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) requesting that she hold a special “call of the roll” for the final health care vote this weekend.  Under this procedure, each lawmaker will be required to stand up and declare how he or she is voting on this bill.  This weekend’s votes will be among the most consequential votes we will ever cast as Members of Congress. I believe the stakes are too high, and this bill too controversial, for anything less than complete transparency and accountability.  It’s time to stand up and be counted.  I discuss the letter and the vote this weekend in the weekly GOP address you can view here:

Democratic leaders keep telling their Members that once this bill passes, it will be more popular.  They’re dead wrong.  Seniors will be furious about the Medicare cuts.  Small businesses will be furious about thejob-killing new taxes and mandates.  Veterans will be furious that it doesn’t protect Tricare.  And EVERYONE will be furious about the army of new IRS agents.

That’s why the only responsible course of action is to scrap this health care bill.  Let’s start over with a clean sheet of paper.

Let’s work together on a step-by-step approach focused on lowering costs for families and small businesses. We know this vote is going to be tight.  That’s why it’s important for the American people to stay engaged in this fight.  Republicans can’t beat this bill, but the American people can.  It’s not too late to make your voice heard.

After a successful video town hall in Pennsylvania, various members of congress will once again gather to video conference another area: Fresno, California.

Led by Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, Congressman Todd Akin, Congressman Steve King and various other members of congress. Members of the audience will have the opportunity to interact and ask questions with all of the elected officials from our nations capitol.

If you are in central California, we encourage you to join this event by coming down to the Radisson Hotel and Convention Center in Fresno.

Invitation below:

CA20 Video Conference

As we write this short essay, we are being promised by Nancy Pelosi that the health care bill will be posted online so that we and those who will “deem” it already to have been enacted can actually read it. This online posting has been repeatedly postponed so that the Congressional Budget Office could score it for its 10-year cost. That exercise, which went on behind closed doors, has been tainted by secret deals, and new stealth taxes slipped in at the last minute without disclosure or debate and are based on assumptions provided by the House leadership which the CBO is required to follow. Only this weekend will the 535 members of Congress and the American people be given an opportunity to see what is in the surprise package consisting of over 2700 pages of text. They will have 72 hours to read it before they “deem” it to be the law of the land. Presumably, they have completed the Evelyn Woods speed-reading course. We believe that millions of Americans will “deem” those Members of Congress who actually participate in this farce to be unworthy of further service. Of course, they, unlike their Congresspersons, will actually have to vote.

We make no secret about our negative view of this legislation as bad public policy. But something far more important is at work here. We would rather have the House pass the bill in normal fashion even if only by a tiny margin (as they did with their first version in November 2009) and have it properly enacted into law, than to use trickery and deceit to get their way.

The Democrats in Congress point at the Republicans and say “they did it before” as if that justifies this kind of corruption of process. Leave aside that no one can cite any previous example of the use of such a combination of trickery and deceit to pass a major piece of legislation; instead let’s focus on where this country is headed. For their part the Republicans seem to be enjoying this debacle on the Hill, licking their chops awaiting this fall’s Congressional elections. For what reason? Is it just to get back in power for the purposes of payback?

The whole situation is beyond what commentators call gridlock or extreme partisanship. This is nothing less than a major erosion of the trust in the foundation upon which the American form of government rests. Will we have any bedrock principle of governance left upon which we can rely?

At this very time in history, we can see elsewhere what happens if the rule of law is subjugated to the will of those in control of governing. Look at the never ending cycle of democratic governments giving way to despots in many of the nations of Latin America. Take note of how in an economically successful China, an all-powerful controlling class can, by hiding the truth from its citizenry, keep over a billion people from the enjoyment of personal freedom. What has immunized us from this kind of despotism? We can point to the genius of our Founders and the experiment in constitutional government they created in Philadelphia. But the Constitutions is only words. Our system has endured because for over two centuries the American people have had faith that their elected representatives understood their obligation to carry out the expressed will of the people. That is what we know as “trust” and that trust is disappearing before our eyes.

Our leaders should pay attention to the words of our 35th president, John F. Kennedy who famously said “We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies and competitive values, for a nation that is afraid to let its people judge truth and falsehood in an open market, is a nation that is afraid of its own people.” If we do not follow that advice, we might never get back the precious trust upon which freedom and democracy rest, which is steadily slipping through our fingers. Once it is gone it will be difficult, if not impossible to ever restore.

This week, the vast majority of the American people have nominated a motley crew of elitists for the “Educated Idiots Award:”

The arrogant Democrats who will defy the American people and abet Obama’s nearly trillion dollar government takeover of Americans’ health care.

Embodying the arrogant intellectuals unacquainted with real life who foist their insane ideas on the rest of us, these ideologically addled Democrats:

1. Feel they are smarter than you;

2. Believe they can run your life better than you; and,

3. Consider themselves your masters not your servants.

Because of these self-anointed, educated idiots our nation’s revolutionary experiment in freedom and self-government teeters on the precipice of implosion.

But even if this abominable bill should pass, our sanctuary of liberty shall not. America’s strength and salvation remains her free people. And this November, all across America her sovereign citizens will teach these Democratic educated idiots that we do not work for government; government works for us.

Keep the faith! Seize your freedom! Save our country!

To nominate the next EIA, please visit www.mccotterrocks.com or email nominate@McCotterRocks.com .

Making the rounds of Democrat Offices on Capitol Hill is a ‘messaging’ memo designed to help Democrat members navigate a politically dangerous environment where the public is united in opposition to their government take-over of health care. Key message:

“do not allow yourself (or your boss) to get into a discussion of the details of CBO scores and textual narrative. Instead, focus only on the deficit reduction and number of Americans covered.”

This goes to the heart of what has been so wrong about the entire health care debate. The whole episode has been legislating by talking points. The Dems make claim about what they intend to do, but never provide any actual legislative text to demonstrate that is, in fact, what they are doing. They say their proposal will ‘crack down’ on insurance companies, yet their legislation would require every American to buy the companies’ product. Every business should face such a ‘crack down.’

The entire memo is below, for your enjoyment/disgust. We doubt you’ll find a better example of the desperation and panic gripping Democrat offices than these two pages.

DemHCMemo –

Yesterday, I decided to call Rep. John Garamendi’s (CA-10) office in Washington, D.C. He’s my representative and I wanted to voice my opposition to the Senate Health Care Bill. I spoke with a female staffer and politely told her that, while I support health care reform, I oppose the Senate Bill because it wasn’t true “reform.” She said the Congressman thinks it’s a good bill and that he campaigned on health care reform. I told her I knew that. I also mentioned that I voted for him. When I tried to give her specific reasons why the Senate Bill would harm our system rather than reform it, she refused to listen. She said she was very busy and hung up on me. Being the persistent person that I am, I kept calling back. Each time I tried to finish my point, she hung up.

I called one more time. This time she said, “If you call one more time, we will notify Capital Police.” I asked why my conduct warranted involving federal law enforcement agents. She said I was “harassing” her. I tried to explain that trying to convince a representative to change his or her vote didn’t constitute “harassment.” Before I could fully explain, she hung up again.

I called back. This time, I asked to speak to her supervisor in order to report her repeated hanging up as well as the threat she made. I was placed on hold. Thinking I was holding for her supervisor, I was shocked when a Federal Agent with the Capital Police picked-up the telephone.

At first, the Agent was curt with me. He claimed I was harassing Mr. Garamendi’s staff by continually calling after being told to stop calling. I asked him when it became a federal crime to lobby a congressman. He said that it wasn’t but it was a crime to “harass” congressional members and staff pursuant to 47 U.S.C. 223. I told him I was an attorney (which I am) and that I would research the statute he had cited.

After researching 47 U.S.C. 223, I called Mr. Garamendi’s office again and asked to be transferred back to the Capital Police Agent. The Agent picked up the phone and I explained to him that the statute he cited was not controlling since it only prohibits people from calling with the specific intent to harass. I further explained that I was simply trying to voice my concerns with the intent of getting Mr. Garamendi to change his mind, not to harass his staff. The Agent eventually agreed with my position and said he would call Mr. Garamendi’s office and instruct his staff that I was within my rights to call my congressman and voice my concerns.

After I hung up, I realized that this story should be told. Besides being an attorney, I’ve also had the privilege of serving this great country in the United States Marine Corps. Having seen the ugly legislative process the Senate Bill had been through, I saw this as not just another tactic to pass the Senate Bill at all costs, but also as an affront to our liberties.

While I’m fortunate enough to be able to legally challenge what happened today, others aren’t. The sad part is the democrats know this. They know that Americans unfamiliar with federal jurisprudence can easily be silenced when threats to involve federal agents are made. They know that most Americans don’t want trouble and they’ll go away rather than face the possibility of having to explain themselves to federal agents. That’s why I found this tactic appalling, as a Marine, as an attorney and as a proud American.

During my final contact with Mr. Garamendi’s staff, it was confirmed to me that he would vote for the Senate Bill no matter what. I was told that I was wasting my time by calling. Mr. Garamendi is a junior member of the House of Representatives. He was just elected via a special election last November. He has made it clear that he is willing to forsake his constituents in order to please the Speaker of the House.

Speaker Pelosi has said that she will stop at nothing to get the Senate Bill passed. She publicly stated that she would “pole vault over a wall” if barriers stood in her way. While that may be an amusing spectacle, it is indicative of what happened to me today. Apparently, threatening Americans with federal crimes to silence them is the latest tool in Speaker Pelosi’s dirty bag of tricks.

In the coming days, I’m sure more stories will develop illustrating the “win at all costs” tactics being employed by democrats. It’s these tactics that have appalled a majority of Americans to the point that the Senate Bill has overwhelmingly been rejected by the American people. When we try to explain that to Speaker Pelosi’s Caucus, we are threatened with criminal sanctions. We are told to shut up or face federal agents. Such treatment may be acceptable in the former Soviet Union, but it’s repulsive in the country I love and served. Is this hope and change?

Yesterday, I decided to call Rep. John Garamendi’s (CA-10) office in Washington, D.C. He’s my representative and I wanted to voice my opposition to the Senate Health Care Bill. I spoke with a female staffer and politely told her that, while I support health care reform, I oppose the Senate Bill because it wasn’t true “reform.” She said the Congressman thinks it’s a good bill and that he campaigned on health care reform. I told her I knew that. I also mentioned that I voted for him. When I tried to give her specific reasons why the Senate Bill would harm our system rather than reform it, she refused to listen. She said she was very busy and hung up on me. Being the persistent person that I am, I kept calling back. Each time I tried to finish my point, she hung up.

I called one more time. This time she said, “If you call one more time, we will notify Capital Police.” I asked why my conduct warranted involving federal law enforcement agents. She said I was “harassing” her. I tried to explain that trying to convince a representative to change his or her vote didn’t constitute “harassment.” Before I could fully explain, she hung up again.

I called back. This time, I asked to speak to her supervisor in order to report her repeated hanging up as well as the threat she made. I was placed on hold. Thinking I was holding for her supervisor, I was shocked when a Federal Agent with the Capital Police picked-up the telephone.

At first, the Agent was curt with me. He claimed I was harassing Mr. Garamendi’s staff by continually calling after being told to stop calling. I asked him when it became a federal crime to lobby a congressman. He said that it wasn’t but it was a crime to “harass” congressional members and staff pursuant to 47 U.S.C. 223. I told him I was an attorney (which I am) and that I would research the statute he had cited.

After researching 47 U.S.C. 223, I called Mr. Garamendi’s office again and asked to be transferred back to the Capital Police Agent. The Agent picked up the phone and I explained to him that the statute he cited was not controlling since it only prohibits people from calling with the specific intent to harass. I further explained that I was simply trying to voice my concerns with the intent of getting Mr. Garamendi to change his mind, not to harass his staff. The Agent eventually agreed with my position and said he would call Mr. Garamendi’s office and instruct his staff that I was within my rights to call my congressman and voice my concerns.

After I hung up, I realized that this story should be told. Besides being an attorney, I’ve also had the privilege of serving this great country in the United States Marine Corps. Having seen the ugly legislative process the Senate Bill had been through, I saw this as not just another tactic to pass the Senate Bill at all costs, but also as an affront to our liberties.

While I’m fortunate enough to be able to legally challenge what happened today, others aren’t. The sad part is the democrats know this. They know that Americans unfamiliar with federal jurisprudence can easily be silenced when threats to involve federal agents are made. They know that most Americans don’t want trouble and they’ll go away rather than face the possibility of having to explain themselves to federal agents. That’s why I found this tactic appalling, as a Marine, as an attorney and as a proud American.

During my final contact with Mr. Garamendi’s staff, it was confirmed to me that he would vote for the Senate Bill no matter what. I was told that I was wasting my time by calling. Mr. Garamendi is a junior member of the House of Representatives. He was just elected via a special election last November. He has made it clear that he is willing to forsake his constituents in order to please the Speaker of the House.

Speaker Pelosi has said that she will stop at nothing to get the Senate Bill passed. She publicly stated that she would “pole vault over a wall” if barriers stood in her way. While that may be an amusing spectacle, it is indicative of what happened to me today. Apparently, threatening Americans with federal crimes to silence them is the latest tool in Speaker Pelosi’s dirty bag of tricks.

In the coming days, I’m sure more stories will develop illustrating the “win at all costs” tactics being employed by democrats. It’s these tactics that have appalled a majority of Americans to the point that the Senate Bill has overwhelmingly been rejected by the American people. When we try to explain that to Speaker Pelosi’s Caucus, we are threatened with criminal sanctions. We are told to shut up or face federal agents. Such treatment may be acceptable in the former Soviet Union, but it’s repulsive in the country I love and served. Is this hope and change?

In yet another admirable display of the right kind of Attorney General activism, Virginia AG Ken Cuccinelli has put House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on notice that what she and the Democratic leadership are reportedly scheming to pass Health Care ‘reform’ is not only wrong — it’s unconstitutional.

3.18.10 KConPelosi

Amidst discussion and arguments surrounding health care reform, is the effect passage will have on the re-election of Democrats in the Fall. The health care reform legislation currently in front of Congress is so widely unpopular on both sides of the aisle that Democrats have taken up the idea for a process called, “deem and pass” to get health care reform passed through.

Deem and pass is a process by which House Democrats will be able to avoid taking recorded votes on the Senate health care bill. Given the political environment and discussion within the blogosphere and mainstream media, the motives behind enacting this process specifically for this bill are highly transparent.

In a letter to the Speaker, above, Cuccinelli wrote, “A bill of this magnitude should not be passed using this maneuver. As the President noted last week, the American people are entitled to an up or down vote.” (He’s not exaggerating when he talks of the “magnitude” of this bill. It’s said to project up 2.5 trillion dollars in new spending).

“Based upon media interviews and statements which I have seen, you are considering this approach because it might somehow shield members of Congress from taking a recorded vote on an overwhelmingly unpopular Senate bill.”

“Deem and pass,” in this context, is an egregious violation to the democratic process. I applaud AG Ken Cuccinelli for not only acknowledging this, but also for being willing to stand against the crazies pursuing it.

In yet another admirable display of the right kind of Attorney General activism, Virginia AG Ken Cuccinelli has put House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on notice that what she and the Democratic leadership are reportedly scheming to pass Health Care ‘reform’ is not only wrong — it’s unconstitutional.

3.18.10 KConPelosi

Amidst discussion and arguments surrounding health care reform, is the effect passage will have on the re-election of Democrats in the Fall. The health care reform legislation currently in front of Congress is so widely unpopular on both sides of the aisle that Democrats have taken up the idea for a process called, “deem and pass” to get health care reform passed through.

Deem and pass is a process by which House Democrats will be able to avoid taking recorded votes on the Senate health care bill. Given the political environment and discussion within the blogosphere and mainstream media, the motives behind enacting this process specifically for this bill are highly transparent.

In a letter to the Speaker, above, Cuccinelli wrote, “A bill of this magnitude should not be passed using this maneuver. As the President noted last week, the American people are entitled to an up or down vote.” (He’s not exaggerating when he talks of the “magnitude” of this bill. It’s said to project up 2.5 trillion dollars in new spending).

“Based upon media interviews and statements which I have seen, you are considering this approach because it might somehow shield members of Congress from taking a recorded vote on an overwhelmingly unpopular Senate bill.”

“Deem and pass,” in this context, is an egregious violation to the democratic process. I applaud AG Ken Cuccinelli for not only acknowledging this, but also for being willing to stand against the crazies pursuing it.

Below is the just-released text of the House Reconciliation Bill. In the strange, ‘through the looking glass’ world that is the House Democrat Leadership, they will vote for these “fixes” to the Senate passed health care bill. In voting for these fixes, the House will ‘deem’ that the Senate Health Care bill is passed. See, the Democrats can vote for the fixes without having to vote for the bill that is being fixed.We already knew they don’t have to read bills to pass them. Now, they don’t have to vote for them either.

The Senate, then, will dutifully enact all of these “fixes,” by using elaborate procedural tricks and at least a couple votes to override the Senate Parliamentarian. Right, like that is going to happen.

111_hr4872_amndsub

For those keeping score at home, the whole idea of a reconciliation bill is simply to provide cover for House Democrats to pass the Senate Bill. The Senate will never take up reconciliation. The Senate bill will become the law of the land.

Somebody nominate Bret Baier for a Pulitzer!  There has never been a more revealing interview with Candidate or President Obama and after yesterday, there likely won’t be one again.

The president found his conversation with Baier “frustrating” because it focused too much on “process” for his taste.  The irony is, if Obama’s Democratic colleagues supported his health care take-over, process wouldn’t be an issue.  They don’t and thus it is.  So it is important because it shows the leadership will change the rules in order to get what they want.

But the president proved Glenn Beck’s argument that the fundamental transformation of America has begun.

“We’re not transforming one-sixth of the economy all in one fell swoop,” Obama told Baier.

This implies that what is being bandied about is only the beginning, not the end.    And that pattern of thought has emerged from Washington with similar statements from Sens. Tom Harkin and Sherrod Brown.

It is likely what persuaded Rep. Dennis Kucinich to flip from a ‘no’ to a ‘yes.’

Obama also promised that the legislation will be available on-line for “several” days before a vote.  Congressional leaders set a vote deadline of this weekend, so that bill should appear within hours in order for the president to keep his word – unless that was a casual promise never intended to be kept, either.

Baier’s interview showed the president doesn’t know what’s in the bill, when it will be voted on or what it will do to the economy.  Nevertheless, we have a crisis on our hands and a yet-to-be-seen fix must be passed.  NOW!

Welcome to the transformed America.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi plans to force a vote on the health care bill this week, and people need to contact their representatives to urge them to vote “No.” This legislation will force tax increases, it will increase the cost of health care and it will force cuts to Medicare benefits. If that wasn’t enough, the House leadership is resorting to procedural tricks to pass legislation that most Americans don’t want. It’s just bad medicine.

Any legislation which will impact one-sixth of our economy ought to have support across a broad political spectrum. The only thing bi-partisan about this legislation is the opposition to it.

The always impressive John Kass in today’s Chicago Tribune:

Not even three or four pipes full of Hopium could have convinced me that the Congress of the United States would ever start looking like the Chicago City Council.

But now, with the Chicago Way White House twisting arms for its federal health care legislation, Democrats in Congress and Chicago aldermen are beginning to share a remarkable resemblance.

They’re starting to look like fall guys.

“The Congress? They’re acting like aldermen. Like fall guys. And we know all about fall guys in the city of Chicago,” said Jim Laski, a former Chicago alderman and former federal inmate who is now a WGN radio talk show host.

And:

In Chicago, the mayor gets what he wants, and the mayor’s friends get what they want. And the aldermen? They get the ridicule and the blame.

If the president gets what he desires — a health care victory — then Congress will pay for it in the midterm elections in November, and they know it.

The proof is in that latest congressional trick announced on Tuesday, a ploy so weaselly that it could have been hatched by Chicago politicians.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland is now talking about allowing his members to pass the president’s health care package — whatever’s in it exactly, no one really knows — without a direct up-or-down vote on the current bill.

“It’s consistent with the rules,” Hoyer was quoted as saying on Tuesday. “It’s consistent with former practice.”

Consistent with the rules? Perhaps, but it sure isn’t what President Barack Obama promised when he was talking like a reformer.

Read the whole thing here.

This week will be a defining moment for Congress and our country. As Democratic leaders map out their health care end game, we as elected officials have a choice to make: Will people control their lives, or will government?

The stakes of the health care debate are clear. On the table is a bill that would put the federal government in charge of one-sixth of the American economy and, perhaps even more stunningly, the way Americans get medical care. Yet far too few Americans realize there is another government takeover in the offing – this one in how Americans pay for college.

First, some history. Since 1965, the Federal Family Education Loan Program has helped tens of millions of students and parents by providing low-cost, federally guaranteed loans. This public-private partnership offers students and schools choice and competition among loan providers, as well as essential value-added benefits such as college outreach, debt management and financial literacy.

For these reasons, FFELP has consistently been the more popular choice among colleges and universities. It leverages the innovation and competitive forces of the private sector with congressionally mandated benefits and protections that keep interest rates and fees low.

Yet right now, the Majority in Congress and the President want to make it more difficult to pay for college by putting the government between you and the money you need to pay for higher education.

The Administration wants to end FFELP in favor of a 100 percent Direct Loan program. Under this approach, the federal government will become the sole originator and collector of student loans, forcing the roughly 4,000 schools who have chosen FFELP to the government-run alternative.

Stunningly, they plan to perpetrate this government takeover by quietly tucking it into the infamous health care plan now careening toward a final vote. It is the culmination of nearly two decades of Democratic plotting to crowd out the private sector and federalize approximately $100 billion in annual borrowing.

In an ironic twist, the Direct Loan program was first conceived as a “government option” rather than a complete government takeover. For a decade and a half, the government-run Direct Loan program was available to schools as an option, alongside FFELP. Not surprisingly, schools voted with their feet – roughly four out of five colleges in America have consistently chosen FFELP.

Not satisfied with the unpopularity of the Direct Loan government option, Democrats have now decided to make it the only option for colleges and their students. The relentless pursuit of a government option for health care was a transparent attempt to do to medicine what Democrats are now doing to student lending: putting bureaucrats in charge over the wishes of the American people.

Until the global credit markets collapsed, FFELP loans were financed exclusively with private sector capital. Congress has temporarily injected federal funding and purchase agreements to cover a portion of FFELP originations in the current economic downturn, but when the economy recovers, there is no reason the FFELP could not return to a model that leverages private capital to finance the largest single source of student financial aid.

In contrast, Direct Loans are financed with Treasury borrowing. This poses a risk for taxpayers and places a stunning amount of long-term debt on the books at a time when America is borrowing more than ever from China and our other foreign creditors. If the Majority has its way and ends FFELP in favor of a government-run lending scheme, the Department of Education will become one of the country’s largest banks—originating more than $100 billion in federal student loans each year.

During these tough economic times, we should be doing everything we can to make education more accessible. Ending a proven, and successful, student loan system in favor of a one-size-fits-all government program only will make it more difficult for American students to receive a 21st century education, ultimately putting our nation at a competitive disadvantage. The Democrats’ thirst for a bigger, more intrusive federal government is putting both health care and college lending at risk. What’s next?

This week will be a defining moment for Congress and our country. As Democratic leaders map out their health care end game, we as elected officials have a choice to make: Will people control their lives, or will government?

The stakes of the health care debate are clear. On the table is a bill that would put the federal government in charge of one-sixth of the American economy and, perhaps even more stunningly, the way Americans get medical care. Yet far too few Americans realize there is another government takeover in the offing – this one in how Americans pay for college.

First, some history. Since 1965, the Federal Family Education Loan Program has helped tens of millions of students and parents by providing low-cost, federally guaranteed loans. This public-private partnership offers students and schools choice and competition among loan providers, as well as essential value-added benefits such as college outreach, debt management and financial literacy.

For these reasons, FFELP has consistently been the more popular choice among colleges and universities. It leverages the innovation and competitive forces of the private sector with congressionally mandated benefits and protections that keep interest rates and fees low.

Yet right now, the Majority in Congress and the President want to make it more difficult to pay for college by putting the government between you and the money you need to pay for higher education.

The Administration wants to end FFELP in favor of a 100 percent Direct Loan program. Under this approach, the federal government will become the sole originator and collector of student loans, forcing the roughly 4,000 schools who have chosen FFELP to the government-run alternative.

Stunningly, they plan to perpetrate this government takeover by quietly tucking it into the infamous health care plan now careening toward a final vote. It is the culmination of nearly two decades of Democratic plotting to crowd out the private sector and federalize approximately $100 billion in annual borrowing.

In an ironic twist, the Direct Loan program was first conceived as a “government option” rather than a complete government takeover. For a decade and a half, the government-run Direct Loan program was available to schools as an option, alongside FFELP. Not surprisingly, schools voted with their feet – roughly four out of five colleges in America have consistently chosen FFELP.

Not satisfied with the unpopularity of the Direct Loan government option, Democrats have now decided to make it the only option for colleges and their students. The relentless pursuit of a government option for health care was a transparent attempt to do to medicine what Democrats are now doing to student lending: putting bureaucrats in charge over the wishes of the American people.

Until the global credit markets collapsed, FFELP loans were financed exclusively with private sector capital. Congress has temporarily injected federal funding and purchase agreements to cover a portion of FFELP originations in the current economic downturn, but when the economy recovers, there is no reason the FFELP could not return to a model that leverages private capital to finance the largest single source of student financial aid.

In contrast, Direct Loans are financed with Treasury borrowing. This poses a risk for taxpayers and places a stunning amount of long-term debt on the books at a time when America is borrowing more than ever from China and our other foreign creditors. If the Majority has its way and ends FFELP in favor of a government-run lending scheme, the Department of Education will become one of the country’s largest banks—originating more than $100 billion in federal student loans each year.

During these tough economic times, we should be doing everything we can to make education more accessible. Ending a proven, and successful, student loan system in favor of a one-size-fits-all government program only will make it more difficult for American students to receive a 21st century education, ultimately putting our nation at a competitive disadvantage. The Democrats’ thirst for a bigger, more intrusive federal government is putting both health care and college lending at risk. What’s next?

This week will be a defining moment for Congress and our country. As Democratic leaders map out their health care end game, we as elected officials have a choice to make: Will people control their lives, or will government?

The stakes of the health care debate are clear. On the table is a bill that would put the federal government in charge of one-sixth of the American economy and, perhaps even more stunningly, the way Americans get medical care. Yet far too few Americans realize there is another government takeover in the offing – this one in how Americans pay for college.

First, some history. Since 1965, the Federal Family Education Loan Program has helped tens of millions of students and parents by providing low-cost, federally guaranteed loans. This public-private partnership offers students and schools choice and competition among loan providers, as well as essential value-added benefits such as college outreach, debt management and financial literacy.

For these reasons, FFELP has consistently been the more popular choice among colleges and universities. It leverages the innovation and competitive forces of the private sector with congressionally mandated benefits and protections that keep interest rates and fees low.

Yet right now, the Majority in Congress and the President want to make it more difficult to pay for college by putting the government between you and the money you need to pay for higher education.

The Administration wants to end FFELP in favor of a 100 percent Direct Loan program. Under this approach, the federal government will become the sole originator and collector of student loans, forcing the roughly 4,000 schools who have chosen FFELP to the government-run alternative.

Stunningly, they plan to perpetrate this government takeover by quietly tucking it into the infamous health care plan now careening toward a final vote. It is the culmination of nearly two decades of Democratic plotting to crowd out the private sector and federalize approximately $100 billion in annual borrowing.

In an ironic twist, the Direct Loan program was first conceived as a “government option” rather than a complete government takeover. For a decade and a half, the government-run Direct Loan program was available to schools as an option, alongside FFELP. Not surprisingly, schools voted with their feet – roughly four out of five colleges in America have consistently chosen FFELP.

Not satisfied with the unpopularity of the Direct Loan government option, Democrats have now decided to make it the only option for colleges and their students. The relentless pursuit of a government option for health care was a transparent attempt to do to medicine what Democrats are now doing to student lending: putting bureaucrats in charge over the wishes of the American people.

Until the global credit markets collapsed, FFELP loans were financed exclusively with private sector capital. Congress has temporarily injected federal funding and purchase agreements to cover a portion of FFELP originations in the current economic downturn, but when the economy recovers, there is no reason the FFELP could not return to a model that leverages private capital to finance the largest single source of student financial aid.

In contrast, Direct Loans are financed with Treasury borrowing. This poses a risk for taxpayers and places a stunning amount of long-term debt on the books at a time when America is borrowing more than ever from China and our other foreign creditors. If the Majority has its way and ends FFELP in favor of a government-run lending scheme, the Department of Education will become one of the country’s largest banks—originating more than $100 billion in federal student loans each year.

During these tough economic times, we should be doing everything we can to make education more accessible. Ending a proven, and successful, student loan system in favor of a one-size-fits-all government program only will make it more difficult for American students to receive a 21st century education, ultimately putting our nation at a competitive disadvantage. The Democrats’ thirst for a bigger, more intrusive federal government is putting both health care and college lending at risk. What’s next?

The Cincinnati Enquirer nails it today:

America’s robust discussion of health care reform during the past year has been beneficial in many ways, giving the public greater awareness and insight into this complex issue. Unfortunately, the debate has been held pretty much on one-party terms as Democrats, controlling both houses of Congress and the White House, crafted the only plan allowed on the table, and negotiated behind closed doors. Now, despite the deep reservations of a majority of Americans, congressional leaders plan to ram through their proposal this week – bypassing normal congressional procedures.

It is a distressing prospect. We hope that moderate House Democrats – among them Rep. Steve Driehaus of Cincinnati, who says he “will not bend on the principle of federal funding on abortion” but will be stuck in the middle of an elaborate charade to include that funding anyway – will put a stop to this sham.

Real debate has been sidestepped, while Democrats played a childish game of Catch-22 with health care legislation: Congressional leaders wouldn’t allow Republican proposals to be formally considered, then turned around and accused them of not having alternatives. Among themselves, Democrats cut a series of backroom deals that in any other context would be considered criminal payoffs and bribery.

Here’s how blatant it’s become: Last week, President Obama nominated for a federal appeals court the brother of a wavering Democratic House member from Utah.

This disgusting process, which Democrats brazenly wish to bring to conclusion this week, is being done with little regard for the opinions of a clear majority of Americans who, while they may believe health care reform is necessary, think this particular approach will take our nation down the wrong economic path.

Obama, despite all his fine talk of bipartisanship, has proven he has little regard for the ideas – or the constituencies – of those who are not his political allies. The paltry few GOP proposals that he has indicated he is willing to consider – even here, there are no real commitments – are so token as to be laughable.

Meanwhile, an Associated Press poll last week showed that 68 percent of Americans don’t want health care reform passed without Republican support.

Supporters of the Democratic plan can spin it any way they wish, but polls have consistently shown that a majority of Americans oppose their heavy-handed approach to reform. Americans may favor general principles such as universal coverage, but they are distrustful of the way this bill has been crafted and how it will change their relationship with their health care providers.

According to the Quinnipiac Poll, Ohioans oppose the Democrats’ reform plan 56 percent to 33 percent, although they agree 53 percent to 44 percent that Congress should keep trying to reform health care.

The legislation has major problems that have not even begun to be discussed in a serious way, and if Democrats have their way will not be debated at all. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, for example, calls the Senate bill “racially discriminatory” because of provisions that “in addition to being unconstitutional, will not improve health care outcomes for minority patients.”

And despite denials, the bill has worrisome implications for Medicare. According to an Associated Press news account, much of the reform bill is “financed with Medicare cuts the government’s own experts say could be unsustainable.”

Democrats are devising an elaborate set of sleight-of-hand tricks to get this bill on Obama’s desk this week, including Senate “reconciliation” to avoid a GOP filibuster.

Yes, both parties have employed reconciliation in the past – it has been used by Republicans in 14 of 22 instances since being adopted in 1974 – but its purpose is supposed to be resolving budget issues, not making far-reaching policy decisions that will alter one-sixth of the U.S. economy.

Its blatant abuse is yet further damning evidence of congressional leaders’ arrogant, condescending attitude toward the people they ostensibly were elected to serve.

View the original article here.

Today, Sen. Mitch McConnell and I make our case against ObamaCare in the Wall Street Journal:

A little over a year ago, when President Obama first took up health-care reform, Republicans reached out to him in the hopes of working together on solutions that would lower health-care costs for families and small businesses. A bipartisan bill focused on lower costs could have been sent to the president’s desk last year, and it would have received the support of the American people.

For instance, this month the president announced his support for additional reforms to crack down on waste, fraud and abuse in Medicare and Medicaid. This is something we can and should be doing already. Do we really need to pass a $2.5 trillion spending bill, raise taxes, and slash Medicare to implement it?

In other areas, Democrats have taken solid Republican reforms—such as putting an end to junk lawsuits and allowing patients to purchase insurance across state lines—and watered them down to a point where they cannot be effectively implemented. Still, we could have used this common ground as a foundation for a bipartisan, step-by-step approach to health-care reform.

Unfortunately, the White House and congressional Democrats are still insisting on their massive, 2,700-page bill that includes higher premiums, $500 billion in higher taxes, and $500 billion in cuts to seniors’ Medicare. That’s not reform.

If there’s one thing the American people didn’t want, it was for us to make health care more bureaucratic and expensive.

The Obama administration’s own scorekeeper at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services says overall health spending will go up by more than $200 billion under the Democrats’ bill. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) also says federal health spending will rise.

The CBO also says health insurance premiums for millions of families across the country will go up by as much as 13% as a result of all the new government mandates contained in this bill—and continue to rise at the current unsustainable rate for nearly everyone else. And it’s all going add to the mountain of debt we are already piling onto our kids and grandkids.

Democrats in Washington are well aware of the mess they’ve made. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) recently revealed her party’s closing argument for health-care reform by stating, “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy”—as if the steadfast public opposition to this bill is one giant misunderstanding. It’s not. The American people have been laser-focused on this bill for a year, and have only become more opposed to this job-killing monstrosity.

This bill is so toxic that House Democrats are concocting a scheme by which they would pass it but spare themselves the embarrassment of actually voting for it. Democratic leaders claim they can “fix” the dreaded Senate bill through the reconciliation process, but the American people won’t be so easily hustled. No legislative sleight-of-hand can make this bill more palatable: higher premiums, higher taxes, and cutting Medicare is not reform.

Taxpayers can expect Republicans to stand up for them and do whatever is necessary to prevent Democrats from forcing such an unpopular, unaffordable bill through Congress.

After Scott Brown won the Senate race in Massachusetts, the president claimed that his health-care bill ran into a “buzzsaw” of opposition from special interests. But the “buzzsaw” wasn’t special interests, it was the American people. They aren’t an obstacle to be circumvented. The president and his party should heed the people’s message—scrap this bill and start over.

Some Democrats in Washington still don’t get it. This is not an argument between Democrats and Republicans, it’s a fight between Democrats and their own constituents. And if Democrats still insist on forcing this government takeover of health care through Congress over the objection of the people who sent them here, we know this for a fact: Those constituents won’t sit down and shut up. Nor should they.

Our country faces big challenges. Our economy is struggling, the debt is exploding and tens of thousands of Americans are still losing their jobs every month. Health-care costs are skyrocketing. It’s time for both parties to come together and solve these problems. That’s what the American people want, and that’s what they deserve.

Knowing that the 111th Democrat-Progressive ruled Congress is indeed tyrannical in its endeavors to ram through ObamaCare, the Left continuously touts that the American people want this bill. Now, I have seen the polls and so have you, and so have the Democrats, including Obama, and they clearly know that they American people are vehemently against this healthcare takeover.

This leads me to my next point. I search through our Founder’s words in the Declaration of Independence. I’m searching for guidance, for the Founders must have known there would be tyranny lurking at every corner to deconstruct the nation that they had instituted. So many of us read the founding documents today, dusting them off, reading every word, clinging to every word. And there it is:

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. emphasis mine

What’s missing is the how. We have the Right. But, does it go further?  An obligation, perhaps? Do the Founders leave the door open to any effective means? The people have the Right to abolish an oppressive form of government. Because we do not consent, we have the Right to institute a new government–to abolish all that exists and start new. All the entitlements, bribes, kickbacks, deals, unfair taxation–everything.  They give Americans the Right, directive, and ability to dissolve the current tyrannical government.  They knew this would happen.  That is why they give us the “Right” to guard this great nation against future tyranny.

In addition, our Founders, as only Fathers could to, give us the directive in the Declaration of Independence:

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. emphasis mine

It is our duty to ”throw off such government.” Not optional.  An obligation.

It appears that there is a difference in the working definition of “the consent of the governed.”  While the Obama administration keeps saying, “We won,” so shut up and deal with it to lawmakers and the American people, is that how they are qualifying the consent of the governed.

Now, we have an impasse.  Is the consent of the governed based on the elections of representatives sent to DC to represent the will of the people?  Or, does the consent of the governed mean that once legislation has been offered, dissected by the American people, and their opinion voiced to their representative, only then does the representative vote according to the will of the people in their district?

Presently, Rasmussen reports that only 21% believe the government has the consent of the governed.

How does Congress obtain the consent of the governed, when the entire Obama campaign was a lie and you’ve got Anita Dunn admitting:

“In a campaign, you’re not held to the same standard of actually doing what you say you’re going to do,” said Anita Dunn, a former White House communications director and Obama campaign adviser.

It appears that we need to have campaign promise reform more so than campaign finance reform.

At this very point in time, when Congress ignores the consent of the governed, subverts the Constitution to an obscene extent, and attempts to enforce a healthcare takeover designed to obviously trigger a socialistic society to control the people, what recourse are the American people left–liberal judges that this administration can influence? It is apparent that the Founders gave us instruction when the “consent of the governed” is not adhered to.

To the Democrats in Congress elected who truly thought they would represent their districts and believed in the oath you swore, do you even realize that your vote–the people’s will–is becoming obsolete and usurped by the executive branch. Just look at the EPA attempting to enforce cap and trade legislation, the power shift to the HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius in the healthcare bill, the czars, and the remaining power landing directly on the executive branch and the Obama White House. Why do we even need you anymore? Clearly, you are not representing the people and do not have the “consent of the governed.”

And because you–the Democrats in Congress–have not read any of the ObamaCare legislation, you wouldn’t even know your power–the people’s power– is being stripped.  Obama is making Congress obsolete–with willful enablers–the weak-kneed Democrats.  Even the Blue Dogs have gone the way of the Dodo bird.  We don’t even hear talk of the Blue Dogs anymore–guess they were masquerading as conservatives–as socialists tend to do–to hide their true intentions.  The shift in power from the legislative branch to the executive branch by Obama is unprecedented.  It is also the foundation for a socialistic state–a strong, centralized government (via the executive branch in this case).

Another newsflash to Congress, the power shift is not accidental or a coincidence–it is intentional and, ultimately, destructive to the country.

My fear, among many, is that like most outrage, it eventually dies down. The Obama administration may weather the storm and the American people and press (who actually report on it) go silent.  We scream for a few days or weeks, then once we get used to it, like bad medicine, it eventually tastes ok.

How do I know this?  Well, the czars are still there–including Cass Sunstein and Kevin Jennings–the EPA is still grabbing power, the healthcare bill is alive, the Slaughter Rule is breathing, and the WH  is still managing the census for starters.  This administration cuts loose only those it truly doesn’t need.  Van Jones resigned without the WH disavowing him, and Anita Dunn resigned, but how important was she?  The EPA is taking over where Van Jones was needed.  It seems that those who are needed to continue the framework for Obama’s core plans for America’s “transformation” are still in place.

Now, what do Americans do with all of this information, because the Founders have made it clear that no matter what, the “People” retain all of the power.