DemCare Update

The 'bipartisan' summit where Obama is going to demand that the GOP agree with him will be held tomorrow. I'll have an end-of-week update to go over what happens there, but here are a few links to let you know what's happening as we ramp up to it.

The second highest-ranked Dem in the House says they don't have the votes to pass Obama's bill. That could be partly because Bart Stupak and his 'pro-life' Dems are making some noise that they won't support the new bill. I'm still skeptical they have the stones to follow through, but regardless of that, there's a lot of fuzzy math guesswork involved in trying to predict how many votes there are, and we probably won't know until the actual vote takes place.

The latest DemCare plan has yet another new tax that is bad, bad news:

The health care plan President Obama recently released is mostly a combination of the different plans passed by the House of Representatives and the Senate. But in one major way it breaks with long-standing precedent, proposing a fundamental wrong-headed change to both entitlement policy and tax policy. He proposes for the first time to tax capital income to support entitlement programs.

Payroll taxes have always applied just to wages and salaries and the revenue those taxes raise has gone solely to pay for entitlements like Social Security and Medicare. The deal has always been that we pay payroll taxes during our working years and receive the benefits they fund after we retire. President Obama’s health care plan would shatter this compact forever.

Another promise broken. I think I'm losing count.

And how about the plan to use reconciliation to shove this down the throat of America? Well, let's just say it's amazing how much difference a change in power makes to how the Dems feel about the filibuster and using reconciliation to get around it:

You know, I can respect someone who has different beliefs than I do, as long as they're principled about it. But this constant shifting of positions based purely on the political moment is really, really, obnoxiously hypocritical.

The bottom line is that for Obama to even propose a new DemCare plan after the outrage and opposition of the past several months shows only that he holds utter contempt for the American people. He has clearly lost the consent of the governed, but that's not stopping him. What other conclusion is there? The Wall Street Journal put it this way:

So after election defeats in Virginia, New Jersey and even Massachusetts, and amid overwhelming public opposition, Democrats have decided to give the voters what they don't want anyway.

Ah, the glory of "progressive" governance and democratic consent.

Simply because I like what they wrote, here's some more:

"The President's Proposal" ... is in one sense a notable achievement: It manages to take the worst of both the House and Senate bills and combine them into something more destructive. It includes more taxes, more subsidies and even less cost control than the Senate bill. And it purports to fix the special-interest favors in the Senate bill not by eliminating them-but by expanding them to everyone.

The bill's one new inspiration is a powerful federal board that would regulate premiums in the individual insurance market. In all 50 states, insurers are already required to justify premium increases to insurance commissioners, who generally have the power to give a regulatory go-ahead, or not. But their primary concern is actuarial soundness and capital standards, making sure that companies have enough cash to pay claims.

The White House wants to create another layer of review that will be able to reject any rate increase that is "unreasonable or unjustified." Any insurer deemed guilty of such an infraction by this new bureaucracy "must lower premiums, provide rebates, or take other actions to make premiums affordable." In other words, de facto price controls.

Great. Good stuff.

Sadly, the GOP are still planning to attend the summit, supposedly to 'crash the party'.

*sigh*

When can we get some real leadership in here that's more concerned with cleaning up the mess made by the Dems than with playing nicey-nice with Dems who are quite happy to stab the GOP in the back while spitting in their face?

Oh, and by the way, do you remember how Obama has repeatedly asked the GOP to put forward their own plans and ideas? If you've read this blog this week, you know that they've had a plan out there for months. Mary Katharine Ham points out that not only was the plan public, but it was linked on the White House's own website, too!

Talk about really, really, obnoxiously hypocritical...! And incompetent, too.

Ham adds the fact that the GOP plan has a CBO score that shows it not only cuts the deficit, but puts all of the major entitlement programs into the black over the next few decades. Obama's plan doesn't have a CBO score at all because he hasn't provided enough details yet. Just something to keep in mind during all this 'bipartisan' summit nonsense.

More details to come in the next couple days.

There's my two cents.

Daily Must-Reads

Dobson leaves Focus on the Family; is this a signal that FotF will become much more PC?

Could Al Gore and other Green Priests go to prison for their global warming fraud?

The federal government is wasting millions of taxpayer dollars on advertising for the 2010 census.

White House 'Muslim envoy' is a terrorist supporter...and got busted lying about that support!  But good news: the Obama administration still has confidence in him.

You know how Democrats are the party that is supposedly on the side of minorities?  And how Democrats are the party that wants to provide better lives for the poor and oppressed?  Never mind all that, because Democrats are deliberately and systematically dismantling a scholarship program for poor and oppressed minorities in Washington DC.

Celebrate diversity unto death.

The Next Great Recession...

...is the one we're already in, according to James Srodes -- an author and broadcaster and a former Washington bureau chief for Forbes and Financial World magazines -- at The American Spectator:

Are you ready for the Great Recession of 2011–2012? You should be, for it is getting under way even as you read this. Just as the 2009 "greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression" actually began back in 2007, so we are in the early days of the next cycle. Only this recession is going to be a doozy. And the aftershocks will be felt long after President Hillary Clinton leaves the White House in 2024.

The coming crisis should be no surprise, for we all have had plenty of advance warning. If it is a surprise, blame those chat-show economists who have become so politicized that they ignore the truths of their own science in order to acquire celebrity. Nor should we forget those politicians who deliberately suborn national interest for the security of zero-sum pork-barrel politicking. Combine it all with a news media largely made up of self-referential ignoramuses and it is small wonder that most of the world has been diverted as Dorothy was in Oz by the lightning bolts, explosions, and billowing smoke screen being generated by the men behind the curtain. The truth is our wizards dare not admit that the levers they pull are not really connected to the true crisis that confronts America or its place in the global market.

Despite the self-congratulatory assurances from the White House, Congress, and part of Wall Street that we have been saved from a slide into a 1930s depression, our most serious trials still lie ahead of us. We are unlikely to be able to get back to those halcyon days of perpetual prosperity and optimism that Americans (and most of the industrial world) enjoyed for the last 50 years. A tectonic shift is occurring beneath our feet and the world's economic climate has shifted. We face not just a few abrasive years of getting back to normal, but a generational hard slog of constricted markets, limited resources, and rolling setbacks. And in each episode of crisis, some will prosper, the weak will suffer most, and radical visions propounded by political snake-oil salesmen of all persuasions will make rational discourse nearly impossible to conduct.

Ignore the reference to Clinton waiting that long to run for Pres again, as well as her actually winning.  ;)

CONSIDER JUST A FEW of the economic bellwethers one hears about on the evening news as proof that the crisis has been stabilized and recovery is imminent. Stock prices are up, true. But trading volume is way down and that is because retail investors—citizens making real investment choices— are on the sidelines. The price rises that swell the Dow Jones Industrial and other indices reflect almost pure speculation by Wall Street's investment houses that are soggy with Washington's cash injections. Just as Cash for Clunkers inflated Detroit's hopes last summer, so the share price recovery is more of a sign of a new bubble inflating than it is of real value returning to share market prices.

The same for housing prices, only more so. It was headline news recently that house prices in "some" areas of the country had stopped declining quite as fast, while in some fewer areas there were even tiny increases in prices of houses sold, if not much increase in the volume. Yet there are uncounted hundreds of thousands of vacant houses, condominiums, and commercial office space for which there is no rational prospect of a buyer during 2010 or perhaps ever.

It will get worse. Of the 47.4 million home mortgages in place today, nearly 10.7 million are "underwater," that is, the money owed on the loan is greater than the value of the house. And that's not counting the 2.3 million other mortgages that are "near-negative equity." Most of these latter will face sharply higher upward ratcheting of their interest rates in 2010 and 2011 and that will automatically plunge those debts below the surface.

This article is quite long and full of great details, so I would highly recommend you read the whole thing.  He talks about the competition between Reagan's policies and Keynes' theories, the world's energy supply, and decades of chronic Congressional irresponsibility.  One of the most poignant rhetorical questions Srodes asks is this:

The policy response of all Western governments is to follow the failed Japanese model of trying to inflate one's way out of a downdraft, pumping up another bubble. The theory is that if interest rates are forced low enough, and the money supply increased enough, and the government ramps up deficit spending to redistribute more wealth from the supposed rich to the supposed poor, a "multiplier effect" of economic growth will be sparked by consumers buying more, businesses investing more, and more jobs being created with prosperity spreading and growing. But if interest rates are already at zero, and the value of the dollar has been halved by doubling the supply of it, and the debt service burden of government spending is already suffocating the capital markets, how can one expect consumers to buy more (to buy more of what?), or businesses to invest more (for a new machine to do what?), much less to hire old workers back when the jobs they used to have are vanished, not to some Third World haven, but just vanished?

And that seems to strike at the heart of the root problem:

...until there is a general acknowledgement of government's blame in compounding this upcoming recession on the back of the earlier slump, how can we expect Washington to seek a new approach to the global marketplace?

This is the problem with career politicians, and the reason we need to change out our elected leaders periodically.  Of course, the Democrat party has long been on a crusade to expand government.  The Republican party, by contrast, used to be the opposition to that crusade, fighting the expansion as much as possible.  Over the past few years, that opposition disappeared, leading to a ramp-up to what Srodes appears to view as a crisis point that we are now approaching.  The GOP may be turning back around now, but even if it succeeds will it be enough to derail the train wreck bearing down upon us?

It will get ugly, make no mistake. How ugly? Wait until those things we consider "rights" start to get squeezed in the interest of what our ruling politicians decree as the national interest. The uproar that greeted the mere suggestion that health care resources for the elderly might be circumscribed was genteel debate by contrast with what's ahead. The notion that rights can be rescinded as easily as they have been obtained is not a happy thought. Case in point: my mother recalled that she and my father had to marry in secret and she continued to live with her parents throughout 1936 because the New Dealers who controlled the Pennsylvania state legislature had decreed that no married woman could be a public school teacher or hold another state job when a jobless married man could take her place. Try that out on the next dinner table debate you attend and see how many bread rolls get thrown at you by women who are convinced that it can't happen again; times have changed, they've come a long way, baby. Well, yes. Nowadays most women don't have the option not to work.

HOW LONG WILL THIS DARK AGE LAST? Ask the Japanese, who have been at it for nearly 20 years. Ask the Chinese, who are just making a heroic jump out of a medieval time-warp into a modern industrial urban society only to teeter on the brink for lack of enough food, water, and arable land even as they accumulate piles of American dollars that lose value every day.

It's a real upper to consider, but we don't live in Happyland where everything is ponies and rainbows.  We live in the real world.  It's time we elected leaders who also live in the real world, and who understand that real solutions are to be had, but not by doing the same things our government has been doing for decades.  If we're going to pull out of this dive, we need real change...not just fancy speeches and deceptive pseudo-solutions.  It's time we took responsibility for our own governing, spent the time and energy to discover the people and motivations behind the names on the ballot, and demanded real accountability.

I'm not as pessimistic as Srodes seems to be; maybe it's my naivete, my lack of snooty 'advanced' education, or my fundamental belief in the people of this country.  But, I'm also not foolish enough to believe that we can keep doing what we've been doing and expect everything to be all right.  Every responsible American who has a desire to leave this nation a better place for their children and grandchildren has a duty to examine our situation, our government, and what will really make a difference in our nation's future.

There's my two cents.

DemCare Peripherals

We've already covered the basics of the DemCare battle, and more will be coming soon, especially on the so-called bipartisan summit dog-and-pony-show. But, here is some exploration of a couple of the more crucial aspects of what the Dems are trying to do.


Price controls never work

For many, price controls may seem like a tempting solution to holding down health care costs. However, past attempts at price controls teach us a very different lesson—this is one government policy guaranteed to do more harm than good. In fact, throughout history, price controls have been a notorious flop, bringing on economic stagnation and decline, rationing, hoarding, black marketing and organized crime, assaults on civil liberties, and even inflation, not to mention untold waste, graft, and human suffering.

In fact, from Babylon’s King Hammurabi to presidents Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter, the thirty-eight-century history of price controls is a recurring economics lesson for any modern Luddite seeking a quick fix to health care costs. For instance, after he and previous emperors had debased the currency, creating rampant inflation, the Roman emperor Diocletian set maximum prices on more than one thousand products and services. Goods disappeared in legal markets, and reluctantly consumers and producers turned toward black markets despite a penalty of death for participating in these markets. After much suffering and bloodletting of the unfortunate caught violating the law, the law was revoked and Diocletian abdicated.

Hot Air helps explain:

The Obama Administration’s proposal leads to rationing of health insurance ... It creates a shortage, as any effective price control does. To provide the health insurance to others you will have government subsidies paid for by additional taxes. The growth-damaging effects of those additional taxes will not be recognized.

And as prices are reduced and people continue to be promised health care at near-zero marginal cost, insurance companies will slowly suffocate. Who will save us?

If you are old enough to remember (or have read about) the gas shortages of the late 1970s, you'll recall that was the result of the Carter administration's attempts to control the price of oil. The suggestions of Obama being merely the second Carter administration, well, there's a reason for that.


Reconciliation for DemCare is not possible

For a couple of reasons, according to Micheal E. Hammond, former General Counsel of the U.S. Senate Steering Committee, and one of the preeminent experts on U.S. Senate procedure:

First, you cannot get the bill through the House without “fixing” abortion, and you cannot do abortion on reconciliation in the Senate.

Cao will not be the deciding vote. This means that, if absolutely nothing has changed, the current House vote count on the House bill is 217-216. But things have changed:

-Public support for ObamaCare has continued to sink through the floor.

-Between 10 and 12 “yes” votes would vote against the Senate bill based on its abortion language.

-Many House Democrats are still uncomfortable about the “Cadillac tax.”

But, under the Byrd Rule (which prohibits reconciliation language with budgetary implications which are only ancillary to the policy ramifications), you can’t fix abortion on reconciliation. We have asked Senate parliamentarian Alan Frumin concerning our ability to offer abortion amendments to reconciliation, and he has adamantly stood by the position that this is not allowed. And, to get around the Byrd Rule, the Senate requires 60 votes. Without an abortion “fix,” this bill cannot pass the House.

Furthermore, the new provision to allow the government to set insurance rates is also a violation of the Byrd Rule.

Also, the $60 billion union “fix” requires a $62 billion offset. And the additional substantial costs of Obama’s proposal would also have to be offset. Assuming they take the entire $2.5 trillion package and pass the whole thing through reconciliation, they can pay for some of these costs with the phony $124 billion budget “surplus” contained in the Senate-passed bill. The downside of this is that the insurance “reforms” (preexisting conditions, limits on copayments, etc.) which form the core of the bill will be thrown out under the Byrd Rule.

But, assuming they are using reconciliation for nothing more than a “fix,” they have to come up with a new set of offsets. The offsets on the Senate bill are unavailable to them. And it’s not like it has been easy to come up with the offsets they have.

In order to comply with the 1974 Act, these offsets would have to make the reconciliation bill compliant with the reconciliation instructions during the first five-year window and revenue-neutral in every year thereafter. Thus far, NO VERSION OF THE LEGISLATION HAS BEEN ABLE TO COMPLY WITH THIS REQUIREMENT, EVEN USING THE PHONY ACCOUNTING GIMMICKS.

...

What bothered the American people, as much as anything, was the perception that the Senate’s ObamaCare bill was produced by fraud, secrecy, corruption, bribery, and extortion. Rather than improve the process, the White House has actually made it more corrupt by –-

-threatening to fraudulently take a process restricted SOLELY to deficit reduction and using it to pass the biggest deficit engine in human history; and

-refusing to release legislative language, in the hope that controversies can be kept secret.

Hammond goes on to outline that tax increases, mandates, and government expansions set out in the Obama version of DemCare, and it's worth checking out for that information, too.

The bottom line, I think, is that there are clear precedents and serious legal issues to forcing DemCare into law this way. But, as we've seen so often over the past year, the Constitution and the law don't really seem to matter to the Obama administration. It'll be very interesting to see how Robert Byrd -- for whom the rule is named and who still serves in the Senate -- reacts to using reconciliation for DemCare.

More details to come.

There's my two cents.

Cut Up Your Plastic!

Fast! Yesterday the new credit card law took effect, and it's not all rosy:

Who said the 111th Congress has never accomplished anything? Today, major parts of the Credit Card Act of 2009 take effect. Enacted last May with great fanfare, the legislation restricts rate increases on existing balances, requires promotional rates to last at least six months, limits over-limit fees, mandates 45 days notice before certain terms of service can be changed, and imposes a host of other requirements intended to help credit card users.

So should consumers be celebrating? Maybe not quite yet. As it turns out, the legislation ran smack dab into the Law of Unintended Consequences, likely leaving consumers worse — not better — off.

As a first matter, credit card issuers have been raising rates in anticipation of the new limits. In fact, according to one report, annual percentage rates (APR) for new cards averaged 13.46% last week, compared to 11.51% a year ago. At the same time, the once nearly extinct annual fee is making a comeback.

And there are new fees as well: Fifth Third Bancorp, for instance, has announced it will charge a $19 inactivity fee for cards not used for a year. JPMorgan Chase is raising balance transfer fees from 3% to 5%, and minimum payments from 3% of balances to 5%. Discover is adding a 2% fee for transactions made outside the United States.

So much for Congress’ claim that it would save consumers money. Even worse, the new, supposedly pro-consumer law is making credit harder to get in the first place. The amound of credit made available, in fact, nosedived 7% from March to September of last year. Some — especially low-income and younger consumers — may be left without credit entirely.

As unintended as these consequences may have been, they certainly were not unforeseeable. Congress — and the Administration — were warned of such un-consumer friendly results, but chose to ignore them, opting instead to pose as the consumer’s protector as they enacted the legislation, hoping that those consumers wouldn’t connect the dots once the downside hit.

And, rather than scramble to undo the damage, Congress may soon double down on its mistake. Under financial services reform legislation being considered in the Senate, a new consumer financial services agency would be created, with broad-ranging powers to regulate not just credit cards, but the whole spectrum of consumer financial services.

The legislation, however, neglects to repeal the law of unintended consequences. Despite all the efforts to protect them, consumers should not feel very safe.

Why is it that so many attempts by liberals to 'help' people have so many unintended consequences?

Regardless, you might want to not only get all your cards paid off quickly, but then stop using them and close the accounts. If they're going to charge you not to use them, I say we should oblige and make it official.

There's my two cents.

Daily Must-Reads

Dem Congressman laughs at the suggestion of reciting the Pledge of Allegiance to open a union meeting.

ACORN dissolves national structure.

The Bye-Bye Hawaii bill comes up for a vote soon.

California insanity: charging $300 for a 9-1-1 call!

The White House learned nothing from Massachusetts.

A Real Solution

Rep. Paul Ryan, once again putting forward his Roadmap for real reform (excepts):

Imagine your family's finances if you spent and borrowed like Washington: you'd owe $60 in credit-card loans for every $100 of income. Every month you'd pay back a little but borrow even more. In 10 years, you'd owe $87 for every $100 you made. At some point you'd hand off the debt to your kids. If they worked until 2035, they'd owe more than $180 for every $100 they earned. In 2050, your grandkids would owe more than $320. By 2080 they'd owe seven times their earnings. Of course, lenders would cut them off well before then, and your family would be ruined. But this is the path your government is on right now.

I like this because it puts our government's failing into easily understandable numbers.  I think we sometimes get lost in the billions and trillions, and examples like this break things down very quickly and effectively.  Ryan lays out some more groundwork:

Today, our country faces a fiscal meltdown—and Washington's continued cowardice is a big part of the problem. The social-insurance strategies of the 20th century—Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security—are driving our federal government and economy to collapse. It's long been obvious that we're ill prepared for the retirement of the baby boomers. Now, the recession and Washington's recent spending spree have accelerated the day of reckoning.

Consider just one program: Medicare. Today, this program is short $38 trillion of what it promises to provide your parents, you, and your kids. In five years, the hole will grow to $52 trillion. Your family's share: $458,000. Medicaid will add trillions more in state and federal debt.

Social Security's surplus is already gone, and its debt is mounting. Without shoring up its finances, the government will be forced to cut benefits nearly 25 percent or raise payroll taxes more than 30 percent.

So, the problems we face are huge; we all know that.  What's Ryan's plan for correcting these failures?

You, not your government or your boss, should own your health plan. The Roadmap replaces a tax break that benefits only those with job-based health insurance with tax credits that benefit every American. It addresses the key drivers of rising health-care costs, securing universal access to quality, affordable health coverage.

Everyone 55 and over will remain in the current program. For those now under 55, the Roadmap turns Medicare into a health-care program like the one enjoyed by members of Congress. Future seniors will receive a voucher and will be able to choose from a list of Medicare-certified insurance plans that best suit their needs. The government subsidy will provide additional support for those with lower incomes and higher health costs.

Everyone 55 and older will remain in the existing program with no change. My plan offers those now under 55 a choice: continue to take part in traditional Social Security or join a retirement system like Congress's own plan. Future seniors will be able to invest more than a third of their payroll taxes in savings accounts they will own. These accounts will be guaranteed and managed by the federal government—not by a private investment firm. For both Social Security and Medicare, eligibility ages will gradually increase.

Sounds good to me.  What do you think?

Now, on the economy at large:

To get the economy going again, the Roadmap offers the option of a simple, low-rate, two-tier personal income tax, eliminating loopholes and the double taxation of savings and investment. Corporate income taxes will be replaced by a simple 8.5 percent business consumption tax. (For specifics on these and other reforms, go to americanroadmap.org.)

Ryan's proposal does precisely the opposite of all of Obama's agenda: it puts the responsibility and power into the hands of individuals rather than the government.  Hey, that's what made America great in the first place, so why not get back to it?

And that's why the Democrats can't stand it.  Obama has made several calls on TV for Republicans to offer their own plans and ideas...Ryan's plan has been public for months and has been presented to Congress at least twice (that I've seen).  Since they have no way to really combat the facts, they simply ignore it.

America is in trouble, but it can be fixed.  Not by empowering government, but by doing just the opposite.  That's the struggle we face right now, and that's why we need to support plans like Ryan's.  I'm not a terribly big fan of entitlements like Medicare in the first place, but we can't exactly take them away, certainly not with so many people desperately in need of them right now.  Step one -- stopping the bleeding and putting the country on solid footing again -- is to fix what can be fixed right NOW.  Step two -- trimming back entitlements that already exist -- can and should happen later.  But it's clear that we cannot wait any longer for step one to begin.

There's my two cents.

It's Alive And It's Coming To Destroy You

DemCare, that is:

Not quite a year after he first started pushing Congress to pass something, The One finally puts his own plan on the table. Here's the overview, the newsiest bit of which is a new federal Health Insurance Rate Authority to oversee "unreasonable" premium increases. And with that, it's suddenly clear why there's no public option in the package: As Tom Maguire notes, if things work out as badly as expected, America will come begging for a public plan soon enough.

The long run effects won't be helpful for the insurance industry but they will be good for advancing the interests of the Democratic Party. A key Democratic goal of health reform (as was kicked around during the HillaryCare debacle) is to create a new middle-class entitlement. If this plays out like Social Security it will tie the middle class to their benefactors in the Democratic Party, which will forever position itself as the party of more generous benefits paid for by Someone Else.

A price control board can advance that same goal, since the Democrats can position themselves as the champions of lower prices for all. In the not-so-long run insurer won't be able to make a reasonable profit and will exit the industry, and coverage will be scarce (but cheap!). At that point the collapse of the private market will be offered as further evidence of the desirability of a full government take-over of health care, or at least, the adoption of a stalking-goat "public option".

They're going to starve the beast, to borrow a line that's suddenly back in vogue on the NYT op-ed page, and then replace it. That's one easy point for the GOP to make at the summit on Thursday; another, anticipated last night by the Times and already in full swing this morning among GOP aides, is that having a price-control mechanism in place even before O-Care's up and running tells you a lot about what the Dems expect will happen to premiums once this debacle passes.

Without rehashing all of the old arguments from the House and Senate bills, suffice it to say that the Obama plan is basically the same deal as the last one, only worse.  The White House provided so few details that the CBO can't officially tell us how much it will cost.  It forces all Americans to fund abortion-on-demand.  It puts the lie to Obama's promise of letting you keep your current health care plan if you like it.  It would sharply raise taxes on low-income individuals.  It has higher spending and more tax increases than either the House or Senate bill.

There is not a single Republican proposal or idea in it, nor are there any indications that Obama and the Dem leadership is willing to include any now.  House Minority Leader John Boehner pins the obvious tail on the donkey:

"The President has crippled the credibility of this week's summit by proposing the same massive government takeover of health care based on a partisan bill the American people have already rejected."

More:

"This new Democrats-only backroom deal doubles down on the same failed approach that will drive up premiums, destroy jobs, raise taxes, and slash Medicare benefits. 

"This week's summit clearly has all the makings of a Democratic infomercial for continuing on a partisan course that relies on more backroom deals and parliamentary tricks to circumvent the will of the American people and jam through a massive government takeover of health care. 

"The best way to protect families and small businesses in this time of economic uncertainty is to start over with a step-by-step approach to health care reform focused on lowering costs, and that's exactly what Republicans are fighting for.  The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has confirmed that the Republican bill reduces premiums for families and small businesses by up to 10 percent.  The Republican bill reduces premiums by implementing common-sense reforms such as allowing Americans to purchase insurance across state lines.  Despite their rhetoric to the contrary, none of the Democrats' proposals - including the President's - provides this much-needed reform in a manner that can actually be effective. "

Why the GOP should bother to show up at the 'summit' later this week is beyond me.  Their very loud and public statement should be nothing more than to point at poll after poll after poll of the American people telling the Dems NONONONONONONONONO, and say that until Obama is willing to listen to the American people they're not interested in being Obama's props.  It's Barack Obama and the Democrats vs. the GOP and the American people.

It's true, and it's that simple.  Don't be afraid of the label 'party of no'...right now, NO is what the American people want!  Stand up and shout it proudly!

Anyway, back to the bill.  Obama's version of DemCare is the embodiment of government overreach and control, reckless spending, and a deliberate attack on free markets.  Legal Insurrection summarizes it this way:

...one thing becomes clear: The plan does nothing to control health care costs, and everything to increase those costs.

There are no market mechanisms to encourage consumers to price shop or to introduce price competition into the health care industry.

To the contrary, the plan continues the trend towards divorcing consumers from price decisions as to services and products; there also is no incentive to decrease demand because a large percentage of the population will receive government subsidies.

Yet because of the new insurance price control mechanism, the private insurance system will not be allowed to recoup the costs of such coverage.

This is a balloon which must burst, and it will several years down the road.

The result of the burst will be a collapse of the private insurance sector, and a government unable to pick up the pieces without severely rationed care (even if coverage remains expansive in theory, the care will not be available).

Obama's plan (and so too the House and Senate versions) is the worst of all worlds. It is a replica of the housing bubble, thrill for the first few years, and then the bill becomes due without any way to pay for it.

Look what the housing bubble did to this nation (and, by extension, to the rest of the global economy).  Can you even imagine what the equivalent meltdown would be if it was the entire health care system melting down?

Tragically, we may very well get to experience it in person, as the Dems are now pretty clear in telegraphing their intent to shove this thing onto an unwelcoming American public with just a warped 51-vote simple majority.

The icing on the cake is that if they can pull this off with DemCare, they're already planning on using the same tactic for anything and everything else they want to do.

Democracy?  Pshaw!  Democrats want nothing to do with it.

On a related note...

Charlie Cook, whose Cook Political Report is the go to source for reporters assessing the competitiveness of Congressional races, has declared that, "it's very hard to come up with a scenario where Democrats don't lose the House."

Self-immolation.  Unfortunately, they're going to flame out the rest of America along with themselves, too.  Note to all Republican candidates for the next three election cycles: run on a platform of rolling back everything that Obama and the Dems have done over the past year.  It'll work.

There's my two cents.


Related Reading:
Obama Health Plan Costs $950 Billion Over 10 Years
Today in Health Care Reform
Here come government health care price controls
A First Look at the President's Health Summit Proposal: Liberal Proposal Number Three

Bribery? Say It Ain't So!

It wouldn't be the first time, but that doesn't make it okay. Jeffrey Lord at The American Spectator:

"Whoever solicits or receives … any….thing of value, in consideration of the promise of support or use of influence in obtaining for any person any appointive office or place under the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both." -- 18 USC Sec. 211 -- Bribery, Graft and Conflicts of Interest: Acceptance or solicitation to obtain appointive public office

"In the face of a White House denial, U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak stuck to his story yesterday that the Obama administration offered him a "high-ranking" government post if he would not run against U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania's Democratic primary."
-- Philadelphia Inquirer
February 19, 2010

"D.C. job alleged as attempt to deter Romanoff"
--Denver Post
September 27, 2009

A bombshell has just exploded in the 2010 elections.

For the second time in five months, the Obama White House is being accused -- by Democrats -- of offering high ranking government jobs in return for political favors. What no one is reporting is that this is a violation of federal law that can lead to prison time, a fine or both, according to Title 18, Chapter 11, Section 211 of the United States Code.

The jobs in question? Secretary of the Navy and a position within the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The favor requested in return? Withdrawal from Senate challenges to two sitting United States Senators, both Democrats supported by President Obama. The Senators are Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania and Michael Bennett in Colorado.

On Friday, Pennsylvania Congressman Joe Sestak, the Democrat challenging Specter for re-nomination, launched the controversy by accusing the Obama White House of offering him a federal job in exchange for his agreeing to abandon his race against Specter.

In August of 2009, the Denver Post reported last September, Deputy White House Chief of Staff Jim Messina "offered specific suggestions" for a job in the Obama Administration to Colorado Democrat Andrew Romanoff, a former state House Speaker, if Romanoff would agree to abandon a nomination challenge to U.S. Senator Michael Bennett. Bennett was appointed to the seat upon the resignation of then-Senator Ken Salazar after Salazar was appointed by Obama to serve as Secretary of the Interior. According to the Post, the specific job mentioned was in the U.S. Agency for International Development. The Post cited "several sources who described the communication to The Denver Post."

The paper also describes Messina as "President Barack Obama's deputy chief of staff and a storied fixer in the White House political shop." Messina's immediate boss is White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.

Sestak is standing by his story. Romanoff refused to discuss it with the Denver paper. In both instances the White House has denied the offers took place. The Sestak story in the Philadelphia Inquirer, reported by Thomas Fitzgerald, can be found here, While the Denver Post story, reported by Michael Riley, from September 27, 2009, can be read here.

In an interview with Philadelphia television anchor Larry Kane, who broke the story on Larry Kane: Voice of Reason, a Comcast Network show, Sestak says someone -- unnamed -- in the Obama White House offered him a federal job if he would quit the Senate race against Specter, the latter having the support of President Obama, Vice President Biden and, in the state itself, outgoing Democratic Governor Ed Rendell. Both Biden and Rendell are longtime friends of Specter, with Biden taking personal credit for convincing Specter to leave the Republican Party and switch to the Democrats. Rendell served as a deputy to Specter when the future senator's career began as Philadelphia's District Attorney, a job Rendell himself would eventually hold.

Asked Kane of Sestak in the Comcast interview:

"Is it true that you were offered a high ranking job in the administration in a bid to get you to drop out of the primary against Arlen Specter?"

"Yes" replied Sestak.

Kane: "Was it Secretary of the Navy?"

To which the Congressman replied:

"No comment."

Sestak is a retired Navy admiral.

In the Colorado case, the Post reported that while Romanoff refused comment on a withdrawal-for-a-job offer, "several top Colorado Democrats described Messina's outreach to Romanoff to The Post, including the discussion of specific jobs in the administration. They asked for anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject."

The Post also noted that the day after Romanoff announced his Senate candidacy, President Obama quickly announced his endorsement of Senator Bennett.

The discovery that the White House has now been reported on two separate occasions in two different states to be deliberately committing a potential violation of federal law -- in order to preserve the Democrats' Senate majority -- could prove explosive in this highly political year. The 60-seat majority slipped to 59 seats with the death of Senator Edward Kennedy, a Democrat, and the election of Republican Senator Scott Brown. Many political analysts are suggesting Democrats could lose enough seats to lose their majority altogether.

This is the stuff of congressional investigations and cable news alerts, as an array of questions will inevitably start being asked of the Obama White House.

This is another one of those bald-faced sleaze-bag moments that probably happens all the time behind closed doors, but only rarely escapes out into the public's eye. Like the House banking scandal of the 1990s, this one is so simply (and obviously wrong) that if a large portion of the American people find out about this, it is certain to have repercussions. Throw it on top of the already sky-high resentment toward all things government in the country and we truly do have the makings of a bombshell.

We know the media won't widely report this sort of thing, nor will they ask the questions that need to be asked to bring the needed political pressure to bear, so it's up to you and I to pass the story along from person to person. Information is the key, and this story must be spread as far and wide as possible. This is one fire that absolutely MUST be stoked.

There's my two cents.

Weekend Round-Up

Here are the best links from over the weekend. Dig in!

An unholy trinity guns for Toyota...and for you.

Obama caught in major ACORN video lie...on tape!

Missouri's Robin Carnahan linked to ACORN.

Obama's approval rating the lowest it's ever been - just 22% strongly support him; overall approval number is -19.

Americans Believe Business Leaders Make Better Economic Decisions… Obama Disagrees:


On U.S.-bound cargo, Europeans understand what Congress doesn't.

Fun and Frivolity: Keepin' It Political

We're going to keep it political this time around because I've gotten so much funny stuff that is political in nature. Enjoy!

From Gregg...

This is what the last few First Couples looked like coming into the White House...and the second photo is what they look like going out...

And...

Alexander Hamilton, founding father, first secretary of the treasure and leader of the constitutional convention:


Andrew Jackson, "Old Hickory " fought the British in New Orleans:


Ulysses Grant, Union army general, lead the North through the Civil War:


Ben Franklin, Genius inventor, political theorist and leading author of the constitution:


Where to put our current President's picture:


(More of his voters will see it here than any other place, so it is appropriate.)

And...

First came the commemorative coins, then the T-shirts, and then the plates. Now, something for the rest of us...

Sweet! But only one square per person, please!

From Patriot Post...

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California has now identified with certainty the heaviest element known to science.

The new element, Pelosium (PL), has one neutron, 25 assistant neutrons, 88 deputy neutrons, and 198 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312.

These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons.

Pelosium is inert, and has no charge and no magnetism. Nevertheless, it can be detected because it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A tiny amount of Pelosium can cause a reaction that would normally take less than a second, to take from 4 days to 4 years to complete.

Pelosium has a normal half-life of 2 years. It does not decay, but instead undergoes a biennial reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places.

Pelosium mass will increase over time, since each reorganization will promote many morons to become isodopes.

This characteristic of moron promotion leads some scientists to believe that Pelosium is formed whenever morons reach a critical concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as critical morass.

When catalyzed with money, Pelosium becomes Senatorium, an element that radiates just as much energy as Pelosium since it has half as many peons but twice as many morons.

And...

My dog sleeps about 20 hours a day. He has his food prepared for him. He can eat whenever he wants, 24/7/365. His meals are provided at no cost to him. He visits the Dr. once a year for his checkup, and again during the year if any medical needs arise. For this he pays nothing, and nothing is required of him. He lives in a nice neighborhood in a house that is much larger than he needs, but he is not required to do any upkeep. If he makes a mess, someone else cleans it up. He has his choice of luxurious places to sleep. He receives these accommodations absolutely free. He is living like a king, and has absolutely no expenses whatsoever. All of his costs are picked up by others who go out and earn a living every day. I was just thinking about all this, and suddenly it hit me like a brick in the head: My dog must be a democrat!

That's probably enough for this week - you get the point, I'm sure. Stay tuned for next Friday, when I expect to post more stories like these. Until then, have a great weekend!

The Carlson Crew

The Terminator Zombie

IT. JUST. WON'T. DIE.

Beware...the rumors of using reconciliation to pass DemCare are creeping closer to becoming reality:

Greg Sargent reports that the Democrats are nearing a final deal on health care, which would give them a completed bill to bring to the table of the Feb. 25 "summit" — the purpose of which is ostensibly to hear new ideas.

Sargent says the sticking points are tweaks to the "Cadillac Tax":

The House wants the threshold tweaked to make it more palatable to Dem members who oppose it. Some Senators adamantly oppose this. But the leadership is discussing various tweaks that could work.

Crucially, the House leadership may sign on to the compromise even without a tweak to the Cadillac tax, according to a senior leadership aide. That’s because the compromise is not going to be voted on — it’s merely to create something to take to the summit. So this logjam may still get resolved in time.

Sargent also says Senate Democrats are coming around on reconciliation:

“We’re getting closer,” the Senate aide says of reconciliation, adding that the leadership is more likely to pursue that course if the summit doesn’t yield any kind of compromise with Republicans, as expected. “People want to get rid of health care. They want it off the agenda. The simplest answer is that reconciliation may be the most expedient way to do it.”

And the American people be damned, saith the Democrats.

For a refresher on how the reconciliation process would work, what it is intended to do, and how the Dems would be completely abusing the process to pass DemCare this way, check out these links:

Health care nuclear option - liberals get ready to launch
Reconciliation and ObamaCare a 'bad mix'
The ObamaCare nuclear option

As Minority Leader Mitch McConnell put it:

“Using reconciliation would be an acknowledgment that there is bipartisan opposition to their bill, another in a series of backroom deals, and the clearest signal yet that they've decided to completely ignore the American people.”

What's interesting is that the Dem leadership is constructing this legislation in secret; not even all Democrats have seen what will be in the final bill. Obama has invited Republicans to a 'bipartisan' summit to discuss health care reform, but everyone knows it's nothing more than a dog-and-pony show designed to make the Republicans look obstructionist. That could backfire because most of the country wants obstruction on this legislation. Consider the overwhelming opposition to DemCare that has been measured time and time again for the past year. Consider also that few Americans would support insuring everyone if it meant having to pay for it out of their own pockets via tax increases. The GOP is on extremely solid political footing if they stand fast...but the GOP in Washington has a mere fraction of the spine as the GOP base throughout the rest of the country, so it's hard to predict what they'll do.

Still, the GOP has pledged not to show if Obama isn't actually willing to compromise (which he isn't). Will they have the spine to follow through? I sincerely hope so; there is nothing to be gained by showing up to this summit because Obama has already said that he expects the GOP to roll over and accept his version of DemCare.

As a perfect example of what the nation as a whole faces if DemCare is passed into law, look at California:

Anthem Blue Cross, the California subsidiary of Wellpoint, one of the nation’s largest health insurers, recently announced steep premium increases for its individual (i.e., not employment-based) insurance customers. The political response to these premium increases – of up to 39% for almost 700,000 customers – was swift and blunt. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius ordered a federal investigation into how Anthem could “justify” the increases, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) scheduled a hearing, MoveOn.org launched a petition drive, and President Obama himself jumped at the opportunity to claim this as justification for the Democrat health reform effort, calling it “a portrait of the future if we don’t do something now.” Today, HHS released a report citing similar premium increases in several other states.

On the contrary – it’s a portrait of the future for the entire United States if either the House or Senate Democrats’ health bill becomes law. The Wall Street Journal points out that while Wellpoint as a whole is profitable, it has been losing money in this particular market, and these steep premium increases are the direct result of California’s state insurance regulations. Regulations require that insurance companies offer individual “conversion policies” to former employees who have exhausted their COBRA continuation coverage rights. This may be a good idea in principle, but California takes it a step further and sets the premiums to be charged for such coverage by statute. And, since those electing to take advantage of this option are disproportionately those with higher than average health care costs (often due to pre-existing conditions), the statutory rates aren’t sufficient to cover the costs of providing care for those patients. To stay in business – and indeed, to meet financial solvency regulations also imposed by the state – insurance companies have to get the money someplace, and the only place left is to increase premiums for customers not covered by the statute. Essentially, several of California’s regulations have combined to, in effect, require these steep premium increases.

California’s regulations are much less extreme versions of the regulations imposed by both the Democrat health care reform bills – the one that passed the House on November 7 and the one that passed the Senate on December 24. The House bill would direct a newly-created bureaucracy to determine what services insurance must cover, and directs that the Commissioner of that bureaucracy “shall deny excessive premiums or premium increases,” without defining “excessive” and in particular, without regard to whether premiums not deemed “excessive” are enough to allow insurers to pay for the required benefits. The Senate bill would also direct bureaucracy to determine what services insurance must cover, but would impose a complicated system of taxes and “medical loss ratio” requirements that could combine to force insurance plans to pay out more in taxes and claims than they take in in premiums.

Both bills would also require insurers to sell health plans to all comers at prices fixed without regard to their health history. Therefore, healthy people would have an incentive to forego insurance and pay the tax penalty – which would be less than the price of the health plan – knowing they could enroll in a health plan whenever they “need” it. The result would be that almost everyone in the insurance pool would have substantial health care needs, spreading the cost of health care over a much smaller insured population. That would produce very steep premium increases nationwide – no doubt much higher than the increases Anthem Blue Cross has been forced to impose in California.

The recent premium increases in California may indeed be it “a portrait of the future”—a scaled-down portrait of the future under Obamacare.

But these radical Leftist liberals are going to do what they must to make it happen. They understand that control of health care is control of the American people, and they seem more than willing to immolate themselves on the alter of DemCare for the sake of the cause. Will the GOP wake up to this suicidal willingness and fight like there is no tomorrow? It's up to us to force that awareness.

Prepare yourself. It won't be long before we'll need to melt the phone lines to Washington again.

There's my two cents.

Daily Must-Reads

Global warming alert: Snow observed in all 50 states simultaneously!

Over the past year, we've seen Barack Obama flip-flop on essentially every issue known to man (and even some the liberal Left has made up just for him). Whether he flips or flops is usually based on his audience, and happens because someone has pointed out some inconsistency in his record. Now we see him flip-flop on that, too.

This goes beyond gaffe and into dangerousness: Biden downplays a nuclear Iran.

Interactive map of American unemployment. (h/t Melekiop)

What does this unprecedented level of national debt mean for you? It ain't pretty: "Economic forecasters say future generations of Americans could have a substantially lower standard of living than their predecessors' for the first time in the country's history if the debt is not brought under control." Elections have consequences...

John Stossel: do we want to be a nation of makers, or a nation of takers? Good stuff.

Liberals are beginning to chant about America being ungovernable...again. This is, of course, a ludicrous assertion, as Charles Krauthammer eloquently demonstrates, showing how it's much more a lack of leadership than governability. Can you guess the last time this mumbling was heard? During Jimmy Carter's term. Hmmm...

61% in US Want Government Out of Housing Business — Obama Blows Another $1.5 Billion on Housing Business.

I Tried, I Really Did

Remember when I gave props to Barack Obama for seemingly moving forward with nuclear power plant development?  I hereby officially withdraw the props.

In my previous post, I had said this:

...my fear is that this is a legislative sleight-of-hand purely for political speechifying purposes.  Remember how Congress made a big deal of voting to build a fence along the southern U.S. border to help crack down on illegal immigration?  Looked great, didn't it?  And boy, did some of them really speechify hard on the fact that they 'cracked down' on illegal immigration.  Of course, they then somehow failed to allocate the funding to actually build that fence, accomplishing precisely nothing in reality.  Could this be another one of those situations?

Sure, Obama signed off on the construction of a couple of nuclear plants.  Great!  I'd love to see a bunch of these go up all over the country.  But...is he going to use the Yucca Mountain maneuver as a way to counter this move, accomplishing precisely nothing in reality?  Time will tell.

Didn't take long to prove my skepticism:

President Barack Obama recently took drastic steps forward to carry through on his campaign promise to close the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste facility before it ever opens for business. His Department of Energy (DOE) successfully petitioned judges hearing license requests for the dump site to cancel the hearings. The final step in Obama's effort to kill the project for good will be to completely withdraw the DOE application for Yucca Mountain.

Yucca Mountain has been designed as a specialized storage center to keep nuclear waste safely contained in an underground facility deep inside a mountain, long after the material is believed safe and no longer radioactive. The storage center is on a military base almost one hundred miles from civilization (and that's Las Vegas, for what it's worth), in the middle of the Nevada desert.

It may sound like the Yucca Mountain site is in the middle of nowhere. Actually, it's under the middle of nowhere.

Interestingly, the actions of Obama's DOE are in defiance of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, which a bipartisan Congress overwhelmingly approved in 2002. 

Gilles Whittel, reporting for the Times (U.K.) online, wrote the following about the Yucca mountain facility:

About $9 billion (£5.6 billion) was spent on the first phase of concrete tunnels and chambers designed to keep waste safe for at least a million years.[my emphasis] A 5 mile (8km) U-shaped tunnel was bored into the side of the extinct volcano, which is inside the Nevada nuclear test site.

Closing Yucca Mountain will leave 130,000 metric tons of nuclear waste stranded at 131 different sites spread across 39 states. The federal government will be at risk of breach-of-contract lawsuits for breaking agreements with utility companies. Some estimates indicate the potential for the Obama DOE could incur more than 50 billion dollars of legal liability in the case. [Hat tip: Nye County YMIC]

That is the biggest drawback to Obama's bright new idea for creating green power, which is to add two new nuclear reactors in rural Burke County, Georgia. What will we do with the nuclear waste produced by these new reactors? And for that matter, what about the waste from the current reactors in Tennessee and South Carolina?

One may be wondering how critical the problem of storing nuclear waste has become.  According to an article on CNN.com, "Currently, 70,000 tons of radioactive waste are stored at more than 100 nuclear sites around the country, and 2,000 tons are added every year."

How is all this stuff being stored today?  Expended nuclear waste is typically kept in special canisters stored above ground and constructed of concrete, steel, and lead at the reactor's plants, which generate them as a temporary solution. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has certified the expected lifespan of these containers to be ninety years, though how that number was determined is unclear. Nuclear energy didn't exist ninety years ago, and therefore nuclear waste hasn't been kept in one of these containers for ninety years to test the theory.

The rub lies in a fact that CNN also reported: "After uranium has been used in a reactor, the spent fuel remains radioactive for thousands of years."

Okay, so our means of storage is good for ninety years, but the threat from this radioactive material could last for two thousand or more. I'm not a nuclear scientist, but that doesn't sound like a viable long-term solution to me.

Harry Reid chimed in on the debate and said, "Leave it on-site where it is. You don't have to worry about transporting it. [Not transporting nuclear waste s]aves the country billions and billions of dollars."

Harry, I never claimed to be a math whiz, but the numbers just don't seem to add up. It might save a few dollars in transportation costs over the short term, but what happens in thirty or forty years when these temporary above-ground containers expire?    

Why would Obama close the only viable answer to long-term storage of nuclear waste while he simultaneously calls for additional nuclear power plants? One reason, though not a very good one, is that he made closing Yucca Mountain a campaign issue. Another would be his obligations to radical environmental groups opposed to the facility. As for rational reasons, I'm still trying to think of one.

*sigh*

Let the record show I tried.  Also, let the record show that, once again, Barack Obama is all about political expediency over legitimate substance like energy policy and national security.

There's my two cents.