Heritage Morning Bell-Stimulus and Healthcare

"The American Public Is Not Behind This Bill"

After more than a year of $862 billion dollar deficit stimulus bills, national-debt-doubling federal budgets, and government takeovers of the auto industry, it is difficult to remember that President Barack Obama actually ran as a moderate in many ways. On his way to a 53% - 46% win over Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), then-Sen. Obama promised to “cut taxes for 95% of workers and their families,” expand the Army by 65,000 and the Marines by 27,000, and enact “a net spending cut” for the federal government. Obama promised lower taxes, a strong defense and shrinking the size of government. No wonder independents in nine states that went for President George Bush in 2000 and 2004 switched their vote to Obama in 2008 (CO, FL, IN, IA, NV, NM, NC, OH and VA). But now those independents are beginning to reassess. Public Policy Polling (a liberal polling firm) notes that Obama now has a negative approval rating in every state that he flipped from the Bush column to his in 2008.

And now President Obama has lost one of his biggest and earliest supporters on his signature issue: health care. Yesterday, when pressed on CNBC if he would be in favor of scrapping the Senate health care bill, Warren Buffett responded: "I would be." Specifically, Buffett believes that the Senate bill will not contain health care costs: "We have a health system that, in terms of cost, is really out of control, and if you take this line and you project what has been happening into the future, we will get less and less competitive. So, we need something else. Unfortunately, we came up with a bill that really doesn’t attack the cost situation that much and we have to have a fundamental change." Buffett is correct on both fronts: 1) the President’s own Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has reported that the Senate health care bill would raise national health expenditures $234 billion by 2019; and 2) our current system is completely unable to control exploding health care costs.

So why is our current system completely unable to control costs? For the same reason most Americans over-eat at buffets: when you don't have to pay for each plate of food, you usually eat more. In recent decades, the percentage of health care spending paid "out of pocket" by patients has fallen substantially, from 52% in 1965 to only 15% in 2005. Instead of patients paying for the care they receive, our system is built around a third-party payment system where the government and insurance companies are the ones who actually pay for individual medical expenses. When prices are determined through administrative procedures rather than market processes, both patients and producers are anesthetized from normal market incentives to reduce prices and spending. That is why our health care costs are rising so rapidly.

And every major pillar of Obamacare makes the third-party-payer problem worse: mandates that limit out-of-pocket spending by patients, mandates that extend the minimum benefits insurance must cover, a massive expansion of Medicaid, and lower limits on the tax deductibility of out-of-pocket spending. And the one measure that the left once pointed to as its key cost-reducing measure - the taxing of expensive health insurance plans - has been gutted and pushed back until 2018, when any honest observer knows it will never be implemented. Commenting on the state of health care reform, Buffet told CNBC yesterday:

If it was a choice today between plan A, which is what we’ve got, or plan B, what is in front of — the Senate bill, I would vote for the Senate bill. But I would much rather see a plan C that really attacks costs. And I think that’s what the American public wants to see. I mean, the American public is not behind this bill. And we need the American public behind the bill, because it’s going to have to do some tough things.

The current system is unsustainable. We do need heath care reform. But not reform that is opposed by the vast majority of the American people and makes the core problem of the current system worse. The President should follow Buffett's advice, scrap the current bill and start over.

Democrat Definition of Bipartisanship

Just say yes and give us everything we want.

By THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Bipartisanship is the word of the hour in Washington, and President Obama's teleprompter seems to be stuck on it. This is nothing new for him. The president came to town promising a new bipartisanship, along with openness, transparency, responsibility and a number of other hopes and changes he immediately dumped overboard.

At his impromptu press conference on Tuesday, Mr. Obama said, "Bipartisanship can't be that I agree to all the things that they believe in or want and they agree to none of the things I believe in or want." That, however, has been his working definition of bipartisanship since his first day in office.

This was evident a year ago when the White House labeled the stimulus bill a "bipartisan victory" after it had passed with support from just three Republicans in the Senate and none in the House of Representatives. Opposition to the bill, which included 11 Democratic House dissenters, was more bipartisan than the support. All told, the primary feature of Mr. Obama's definition of bipartisanship is that he gets his way.

Read the rest of the editorial here.

Reasons 7 Thru 10 of "10 Reasons to Oppose Cap and Tax"

7. It prevents market forces from working for the environment:

The market distortions imposed by a cap and trade system would be significant. Recently, major energy companies such as ExxonMobil and Shell have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in technologies that capture and store carbon as well as lower carbon alternative energy sources. A cap and trade system however, sets up perverse incentives that will distract these and other companies from market-based solutions to curb carbon output. Resources instead will be funneled to the artificial market for carbon allowances that cap and trade sets up.

8. It threatens to put the U.S. at a competitive disadvantage with other countries:

Though the E.U. and the United States may be buying into cap and trade, industrial giants like China and India are not. Remember the lost jobs we talked about in point #4? In addition to China and India, nearby Mexico (another country where cap and trade is not even a remote possibility) are more than willing to pick up the U.S. slack and bolster their already robust manufacturing sectors.

9. It opens the door to massive fraud and corruption:

As energy companies look to game the system, cap and trade would open the door wide for fraud and corruption that could devastate U.S. investors and the economy as a whole. This has been seen already in the UK, a country currently participating in cap and trade. In a recent article by the British-based Guardian newspaper they report: “Britain’s biggest polluting companies are abusing a European emission trading scheme (ETS) designed to tackle global warming by cashing in their carbon credits in order to bolster ailing balance sheets.”

In the United States we have seen what happens when companies engage in creative accounting measures to hide losses and the staggering domino effect it can have on Wall Street investors and the larger economy. If you need more proof of this threat, look no further than this report by The Competitive Enterprise Institute that discusses Enron’s support for a cap and trade scheme that would allow them to dominate this new, made-up market for carbon.

10. It threatens to bust the federal budget at a time when the United States can scarcely afford it:

Federal spending continues at a breakneck pace. The recent passage of the trillion-dollar stimulus bill along with even more taxpayer funded bailouts looming on the horizon add to U.S. budget woes and sink us deeper into recession. And as if times weren’t tough enough, the CBO reports that cap and trade would heap additional undue pressure on our fragile budget.

According to their report, government would face the same challenges with higher energy costs that consumers do. Additionally, the fall in production for U.S. industry would lead to a loss of federal government tax revenues. Further increasing spending while decreasing revenues makes cap and trade a tough sell in the current economic climate.

State of the Union since the election of the Democrats

Tell me again why electing these monsters into office was so much better than McCain. Tell me again why Obama doesn't need a lick of common sense or experience in the real world. Tell me again why staying home instead of voting for the GOP in 2006 was SUCH a good idea to punish the GOP....

The price of gold has risen over $200/oz. since election day.
The Dow Jones Average has dropped by nearly 2000 points since election day, has lost approximately 50% in value since its high in 2007, and is at its lowest since February, 1997. We have lost 12 years of gains!
Banks that were given billions, and refuse to state what they did with the money, are now asking for more.
Companies that were given bailouts, are now asking for more billions to drop into the money hole.
And the only sales that are booming are guns and ammo. 4.5 million NICS background checks for gun transfers since the election. And that's just the FFL dealers.....

The press has clamored that the economy has been bad since President Bush took office. Their predictions have finally come true. We ARE in a recession, one caused by debt, fear mongering, and unexplained runs on money market accounts. A run that the press has STILL refused to investigate. A recession that has yet to hit 1981-82 levels, yet could become a depression if the fear mongering by Congress, Obama, and the press, continues. Obama needs to continue this mode of operation in order to pass unread spending bills that include socialist programs that could not get passed, otherwise.

Malfeasance and corruption on the part of Congress created this mess. It is directly attributable to the Democrat Party, Barney Franks, Chris Dodd, Fannie and Freddie's failure, and Schumer's comments that caused a run on IndyBanc.

First, the banks tanked because of a mysterious run on the money market accounts. Bush pushed for the first bail out after this info and dangerous comments by Schumer about Indymac. Then, the Big Three needed to be rescued. They're "too big to fail." And the Democrats saw a crisis that just couldn't be wasted. Now everything that the Democrats hold dear needs a bail out. We're going to spend an additional TRILLION PLUS dollars on a spending bill that some say isn't BIG ENOUGH. NOW, the Democrats are asking for additional billions for more bailout. And this doesn't include the new budget that will saddle every taxpayer with a bill of over $20,000.00.

US GDP: $14.3 Trillion (and contracting)
Projected US Debt 2013: 15+ Trillion. ( I think that means we're bankrupt.)

Mr. Tough Money Love has the numbers:(Get the duct tape) He also explains "deficits" in a very simple way.....

According to the budget document, here are the projected federal debt numbers:

Gross Federal debt in 2008 = $ 9.986 trillion (actual)

Gross Federal debt in 2009 = $12.704 trillion (est.)

Gross Federal debt in 2013 = $16.198 trillion (est.)

(That’s $16,198,000,000,000.00 for those who like to see the zeroes.)

So in one budget year, the Obama team wants to increase our national debt by 27% and over four years, by 62%. Staggering. I expect the actual numbers to exceed the estimates, unless Congress decides to throw even more tax increases into the equation.

Moving on, the budget document includes some economic assumptions on which the projections are based. One of those economic assumptions was so bogus I laughed out loud.Because the CBO estimates used by the White House do not take into account the recently passed stimulus bill. You know, that little $787 billion expenditure. (The budget document points that out in a tiny footnote.) Table S-8 shows that the White House assumes that real GDP will fall by 1.2% in 2009 then increase by 3.2% in 2010. That’s a gigantic swing in one year. Table S-8 also includes the real GDP estimates from the Congressional Budget Office. The CBO predicts that GDP will fall by 2.2% in 2009 and increase by only 1.5% in 2010. These numbers are significantly less optimistic than those of the White House and even these numbers are wrong. Why?

So why would the White House use CBO estimates that ignore the stimulus spending? You would hope that the stimulus bill would actually improve GDP growth. But, as I reported in this fantasy interview, the CBO ran GDP projections that included the stimulus spending. Those projections were for GDP to show no growth in 2013 and to actually begin to decline in 2014. No wonder the White House didn’t use those numbers in its budget document.

Apparently, the cure is actually what might kill us.

Its gotten so bad that even liberals are furious with Congress and Obama.

And Conservatives are actually protesting in the streets.

Uncle Jimbo in DC

What he said.

With Friends like these,.......

The Democratic party is in the process of stealing or buying as much power as they possibly can.
Both the House and Senate "stimulus" bills are nothing more than spending bills aimed at their constituencies, ie, more government. Even the Congressional Budget Office has come out against this bill.

Nothing in the bills promotes the idea of free markets and free enterprise. Nothing in the bills enables the power of the American citizenry to move forward in pursuit of the American dream.

The overriding philosophy behind the Democratic party and some Republicans seems to be that too much freedom for citizens to control their own money is a waste. The politicians feel that they can do so much more responsibly: From Senator Kerry:

I've supported many tax cuts over the years, and there are tax cuts in this proposal. But a tax cut is non-targeted.

If you put a tax cut into the hands of a business or family, there's no guarantee that they're going to invest that or invest it in America.

They're free to go invest anywhere that they want if they choose to invest.

The Senate feels that they need 60 votes to close debate. They are seeking Republican cover so that they can declare that this bloated bill was "bipartisan," as if they have ever cared about true bipartisanship before. Republicans have, since Reagan, supposed to have been the party of "less government, more freedom." Whether this has been true in action is a very good question. Many recent acts were passed by Republicans that have been anathema to the idea of more freedom. The past two election results demonstrate the feasibility of Republicans becoming the party of more government and more spending, even if it is in supposedly conservative causes.

So why are Senators Spector, Collins, and Snowe supporting this bill? Of course, they say that they might not vote "yes" on the final bill, but why have ANY Republican fingerprints on this to cover the Democratic party's handiwork? From their own words you may know them:

Senator Spector - "Personally I would prefer not to be on the edge of the pin, as so frequently is the case in this body. But I do believe we have to act, and under the circumstances, this is the best we can do.” (He is under the politician's delusion that something must ALWAYS be done. He voted for it, even though the public has denounced it. The Capitol switch board was swamped with "NO" entreaties.)

Senator Collins - Even before negotiations have started, one influential Republican supporter of the bill, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, is stressing her desire for the cost of the final package to be held to $800 billion. She is suggesting that her support for a final compromise package can't be taken for granted. "I made no commitments," she said. (She just made one. Her "price" is a bill under $800 billion. That's all. Just a measly $800 billion. Of YOUR money. On a Democrat power grab. What's that joke's punchline, "We both know what you are. Now we're dickering on price....)

Senator Snowe - "I want to vote for a package," she said. "I think we are close to being able to do that with some changes, because at the end the worst mistake we could make is to pass a package that has virtually no impact on the economy." (The mistake is thinking that one can remove pork from a bill that is entirely made of pork. How does one remove enough pork from a pig to have a porkless pig? She is looking for any cover that allows her to vote for this package.)

The bargaining of any Republican Senator or Representative to "remove pork" from this bill is nothing more than ammo given to the Democratic party: "See, that evil Republican wants to take your Insert special perk here from you." Better to vote NO on the entire bill out of principle. If you're going to be damned, let it be for something worthwhile. Don't be condemned for petty actions.

Senator Reid even voted NO on his own bill in order to be able to bring it up again. The vote was 58-41. The Democrats want Republican support to prevent a possible filibuster. Watching this bill pass with ONLY Democratic support would be worth forgoing a filibuster. This package is going to pass even if it is filibustered. If these weak kneed Republicans are voicing this much "possible" support, do you truly think that they would support a filibuster?

Unless these three Senators change their votes on the final bill, they should be removed from the party. This bill goes against EVERY BASIC principle of the Republican party. We already are fighting overwhelming forces. Better to have open opponents than a fifth column. Senators like those above are part of the reason we lost this past election.

UPDATE:

Is the Stimulus Bill actually a REPARATIONS BILL?

UPDATE 2:

CBO determines that the recession will end in 2009 with NO ACTION TAKEN

UPDATE 3:

Falling Panda, commenting at Crystal Clear Conservative:
"I think that instead of targeting the three GOP defectors, Republicans should slam the phone lines of the Red State Dems tommorow. Blanch Lincoln, Tester, Begich. But especially Lincoln who’s up for re-eelction in 10."