Health Care Bill: Gut Reactions
Friday, October 30th, 2009Do I feel like I’m beating a dead horse? Yes. The problem? It ain’t dead. The health care bill is very much alive and it’s almost unthinkable that it’s even being considered for the following reasons:
The Cost Is Enormous: More importantly, America is already staggering under loads of debt. Why are we talking about a vast new entitlement? We are talking about this because the Democrats believe the state is the answer to all problems. Taking care of all your problems costs money. How much? According to this from Americans for Tax Reform, alot:
Official scores of H.R. 3962 (the House Dem health bill) are out from the Congressional Budget Office (spending) and the Joint Committee on Taxation (revenues). A few highlights:
When the bill is fully phased-in, it will increase spending by approximately $150-$200 billion annually. Put another way, it will add about a percentage point to federal spending as a portion of the economy. Put yet another way, it will increase the historical size of the federal government by about 5 percent.
For a comprehensive list of new taxes, read this.
The Health Care Bill is Government-Run Health Care aka Socialized Medicine: There is just no way around it. As John Hinderacker says over at Powerline:
Under the House bill, it is scarcely an exaggeration to say that health insurance companies are no longer in the insurance business. They can’t rate and underwrite risks, which is the essence of insurance. That’s illegal. They can’t decide to whom they will issue policies; that’s illegal, too. They can’t offer novel or innovative coverages; their coverages are dictated by law. To a limited extent they can make decisions on paying claims, but under the watchful eye of government regulators. Meaningful competition among insurance companies will be, in effect, illegal. (In that context, it is a sick joke that the Pelosi bill also subjects health insurance companies to the antitrust laws, from which they had been exempted in consideration of their regulation by state, not federal, authorities.)
In the world that the House bill would create, the money we will pay to insurance companies won’t really be insurance premiums. Insurance premiums are contractual payments which the parties voluntarily agree upon and which are based on a mutual assessment of risk. Rather, the checks we write to insurance companies will be taxes–legally compelled, at rates set by the federal government that are designed to punish some and subsidize others.
Your Life Will Be Regulated By The Government: Good grief, I want to swear right here. Like fire off a string of expletives. Do you buy food from a candy machine? Regulated. Own a hospital and you’re a doctor? Regulated. Parenting like a moron according to your nurse, she’ll come into your home and tell you how to parent. Regulated. Illegal immigrant sucking off the system and paying nothing in? Not regulated.
Why oh why would anyone want this bill? It is an atrocity. It will be expensive, limit choice, be centrally run, and citizens will be hectored to death by an invasive, oppressive government. Gah!
Forget Halloween, the health care bill is terrifying.
Will The Debt Hamstring Democrat Hopes? Doubtful.
Saturday, October 17th, 2009This dropped yesterday:
The Obama administration has released new deficit numbers, and they are not pretty.
The deficit for Fiscal Year 2009, which ended Sept. 30, came in at a record $1.42 trillion, more than triple the record set just last year.
In addition, future deficits are currently projected to total $9.1 trillion in the coming decade.
Will the reality of massive debt stop Democrats? No. Their answer to debt is to push reality down the road. They have too many big plans they want to pass right now. They know they’ll lose the coming elections, but they hope to get the big programs passed while they can. Let the grown-ups deal with deficit details.
Public Works Not Working, Mass Transit Not Moving: A Conservative Perspective
Wednesday, October 14th, 2009Matt Lewis writes a must-read piece about a conservative view on public transportation. I’m not going to get into the details of it, but I urge you to read it.
Here is where conservatives and Republicans need to get with the program: the government does have a role in public life. Infrastructure and defense are the two obvious roles. The problem for conservatives, is that they haven’t given enough thought to the implementation of tax dollars for infrastructure. This void has been filled with leftist fantasies. The results haven’t been effective or pretty. That is, both form and function have stunk.
I believe that it is a thoroughly conservative notion to use public monies for public purposes in positive ways. Conservatives need to give more thought to how. When conservatives get involved, their philosophy drives beauty. Since they triumph the achievements of the individual, they are more likely to prize a unique, local, and beautiful representation rather than a bland statist ideal.
Sid Burgess wrote to me on this subject. He said:
The start is making our communities communities again. Then those INDEPENDENT and strong places will create change in the government that are needed. Our founding father got it, we just forgot the purpose of local governments.
Sid also said of public transit:
As a conservative myself, I have often lamented at the wasteful and ultimately bankrupt ideas of moving hundreds of millions of people via car and highway. Until we build roads that have lifespans much longer than a decade, we must be willing to consider most financially sustainable methods.
Conservatives need to stop ceding this ground to liberals. Conservation, integrity, efficiency, and longevity are thoroughly conservative notions. It’s time to embrace them again.
Breitbart: NEA Conference Call, Your Tax Dollars, And Artistic Coercion–UPDATED
Monday, September 21st, 2009Here is the explosive tape from the NEA at Brietbart as well as a transcript in full. I’m listening now.
Nick Gillespie, also of Breitbart’s Big Hollywood says:
As Patrick Courrelieche, an L.A.-based arts organizer who participated in the call, reported at Big Hollywood, the people running the call, including the NEA’s director of communications Yosi Sergant and members of the White House Office of Public Engagement and United We Serve, told the assembled crew of “thought leaders” that “we’re going to come at you with some specific asks here” (that’s a direct quote from Buffy Wicks of the Office of Public Engagement).
Chief among the requests from Sergant (who was either “reassigned” from the agency or “reportedly resigned” after denying the full extent of his role in organizing the call) was “to pick something whether it’s health care, education, the environment, you know… [and] apply artistic, you know, your artistic creative communities’ utilities and bring them to the table.” Beyond the specific policy issues above, the call organizers stressed the ideologically loaded concept of “service” as the animating principle of the Obama administration and wanted the artists to do whatever they could to promote that. As Wicks put it, “We really view [our efforts] as an onramp to a lifetime of service. We really want service to be incorporated into people’s daily lives.”
Given that the NEA prides itself on being the single largest funding source for the arts in the country, such arm-twisting by agency officials, however masked in fulsome compliments to creators’ genius, is disturbing on its face. It clearly sets a political agenda for the very people who are likely to be applying for, well, NEA and other government grants. Does anyone think that the organizers were fishing around for projects that might complicate the public option for health care?
The National Endowment for the Arts has always been looked upon with skepticism by many a taxpayer. Taxpayer money has been used to fund such notable pieces of artwork such as the cross in urine jar, etc.
But this affront goes one further. Artists are asked directly to create to support the Obama administration’s agenda ends. By definition, artists should be “independent”, right? But the government is asking artists to play along with a certain perspective.
There are problems for both the taxpayer and the artist. What would happen, for example, if an artist didn’t support the president? What if an artist created art that harmed the President’s objectives? Would funding be pulled? Consider some of the things said in the preamble to the call:
“the role that we played in the campaign”
“the president has a clear ‘arts agenda’”
“all on this phone call were selected for a reason”
So artists might feel honored because they like this president, but when or if their opinion changed, this call could be construed as coercion. It IS coercion.
Now, the American taxpayer has an entirely different concern: The Obama administration is using an arm of the government to pay artists with taxpayer money to create, essentially propaganda. Art will be used to promote the taxpayer’s dime to promote a specific Obama policy.
“Valerie Jarrett is one of our fantastic leaders”
“Bolster civic engagement with this effort”
“We want to connect with labor unions, womens groups”
“It’s going to take all of us working together–progressive groups”–this is the United We Serve, a government program director talking–the Corporation for National Service.
This, obviously, is a problem all the way around.
The government is asking artists to focus on these policies: health care, energy and environment (parks), education (Department of Education), and community renewal.
Listen to the whole thing. It’s an abomination. And listen with this thought in mind: Imagine if President Bush’s surrogates engineered a similar phone call. Yeah. There’d be outrage.
Perhaps Andrew Breitbart and friends shouldn’t be surprised when they find the White House staffers making “specific asks” of allegedly independent artists on a conference call organized by the allegedly nonpartisan National Endowment of the Arts. Obama’s appointee to head the endowment, Rocco Landesman, said about 20 days after that conference call, “If the president had wanted a timid NEA, he would have made a different choice.”
No timid NEA. Oh no. The NEA is the new Obama propaganda funder. Thank you, American taxpayer.
UPDATED:
Dan Riehl and the connection between ACORN, NEA, faith based initiatives and Obama.
Taxing The Poor And Middle Class
Thursday, September 17th, 2009When you add it up, the Obama Administration is sticking it to the poor and and middle class in a huge way. Consider:
Cigarette taxes are overwhelmingly against the poor and middle class as they’re the ones who smoke.
Now, the government is considering taxing Soda pop. Guess who will be harmed by that tax? There is also this point: Since when is it the government’s blankety-blank business to decide what is and is not good for people? But Democrats love coercion and forcing behavior:
The group’s review of research on the topic, appearing in The New England Journal of Medicine, was released on Wednesday, the same day that Senator Max Baucus, the Montana Democrat, made public his health care reform plan, with an estimated cost of $774 billion over 10 years. The Baucus plan would be paid for by an array of taxes and fees on high-end group insurance plans, drug and medical device makers, and other sources, with no mention of any tax on sugary beverages.
The scientific paper found that a beverage tax might not only raise revenue but have significant health effects, lowering consumption of soda and other sweet drinks enough to lead to a small weight loss and reduced health risks among many Americans.
The study cited research on price elasticity for soft drinks that has shown that for every 10 percent rise in price, consumption declines 8 to 10 percent.
The real goal? Tax revenue. Democrats don’t give a rats ass if people die from obesity but they know a fat hog when they see one and they want a piece of that money.
Cap-n-Tax will cost the average American family $1700/year.
Health care under the Baucus plan would cost a family of four $700/month minimum. That’s much more than some pay right now and nearly $9,000 in new taxes. In addition, the Baucus plan has perverse incentives to hurt single people and single parents with children.
Add this all up and the American family could be paying $15,000 more/year than they are now. Remember, the Bush tax cuts are about to be repealed. All in all, average Americans will be burdened.
More than that, this is all during a recession. So that means that less money will be circulated into the economy. The government will control American purse strings. With less money, job creation will come to a halt. Temporary jobs and lower income jobs will be eliminated. Again, the poor, working class and middle class will be affected most. These plans will create more wards of the state.
But of course, this is all common sense. The population is aging, there are fewer workers and more obligations. The only choice is to reduce obligations or increase taxation on producers. The solution, Democrat-style is to always increase taxation.
And the poor and middle class always get screwed first. Always.
2% Too Much: Federal Employees Should Get Pay Cuts, Not Pay Raises
Tuesday, September 1st, 2009Federal government employees make nearly 100% more, on average, per year, than the average American worker. With the deficit soaring, Nancy Pelosi suggested a 19% pay increase. President Obama is getting props for saying it should be 2%.
Pardon me, but what the hell?
Private sector employees are either taking a cut in hours, are laid off or have pay freezes–because that’s what people do to stay competitive in a down economy.
But with the American taxpayer ponying up for Federal employees wages, the sky is the limit. What a disgusting system.
President Obama’s Moralizing
Thursday, August 20th, 2009So, Barack Obama has gotten religion. How convenient. And he’s gotten religion just in time to beat the bitter Bible-thumping, gun-clingers with it. Even better.
Ann Althouse has the whole story:
Bearing false witness? Breaking the 9th Commandment? So his opponents are sinners. I’m trying to imagine the separation-of-church-and-state freakout if George Bush had taken this approach to arguing for one of his policies.
According to the lede paragraph in the linked NYT article:
President Obama sought Wednesday to reframe the health care debate as “a core ethical and moral obligation,” imploring a coalition of religious leaders to help promote the plan to lower costs and expand insurance coverage for all Americans.
Strangely, the context of that quote — “a core ethical and moral obligation” — is missing from the body of the article. Was something cut? Was it too embarrassing? Too Bush-y? I have to go elsewhere:
First, bearing false witness is not the same as lying. Bearing false witness means witnessing against someone, knowing he is innocent, in order to harm him. In the Old Testament days, a false witness could get a person stoned. Is President Obama actually implying that those who disagree with his ideas are against him personally? Of course he is. Because to disagree ideologically is to besmirch his very existence.
Second, health care is a core moral obligation? Of the government? Now there’s the crux of the matter. See, a Christian has a duty to care for the weak, oppressed, widowed, orphaned, imprisoned, etc. But what President Obama is talking about is NOT Christian charity, he’s talking about forced taxation to redistribute to all who don’t have health care. That might mean the able-bodied and lazy, those who don’t care for their health, etc.
President Obama should steer clear of his religious talk. First, he doesn’t walk the talk as Ann points out. Second, he is talking about the state taking on the obligation of an individual’s religion which is a personal choice–whereas taxation is most definitely NOT a choice. Well, not much of one.
Note To The Middle Class: You Shall Be Taxed
Sunday, August 2nd, 2009Silly, silly, voters. Taxes are for everybody–kids, too!
Tim Geithner was on with George Stephenopoulis and said that “we have to bring down the deficits very dramatically and that will require tough choices.” [By the way, ABC, the fact that I can't pull a quote from your stupid site makes me not want to link your stupid site. It's bad online etiquette to have relationships go one way.] Anyway, a couple notes:
1. The deficits were created by you with all the bailouts.
2. Now, you want the American people to pay for regulatory mistakes the government made that killed industries twice over.
See, people who invested in banks or real estate or car companies or companies that served car companies, lost all their money. Then, their tax dollars were used to bail these idiotic industries out. Now, the American people are being asked to accept higher taxes to pay off deficits created by the above.
Adding insult to injury, the American people will be asked to do this AFTER they had been promised that there would be no taxation for 95% of the American people. Yeah, right.
Basically, if you produce anything, make anything, contribute anything to the American economy, You Will Be Taxed. Doug Mataconis says, “I’s pretty clear that Obama’s agenda precludes the possibility of significant, meaningful, budget cuts that will actually do something about the size of the budget deficit.”
That was pretty clear during the campaign.
What Professor Gates Hid…..
Monday, July 27th, 2009…turns out that the Gates Affair is really a legal problem regarding (give you two guesses and the first two don’t count) taxes. The intrepid Dan Riehl reports the mischief.
Who says Bloggers aren’t reporters? More likely, bloggers report what reporters refuse to report.
UPDATED:
President Obama made a very big mistake. Wow. From Backyard Conservative:
President Obama’s Broken Tax Promises
Saturday, July 25th, 2009I still don’t know how Barack Obama could say, with a straight face, that 95% of people would not see any form of tax increases. And I still don’t understand how people could believe him. But they did. And so, with his credibility on this issue gone, how can they believe him when he talks about a “deficit neutral” health care plan when the Congressional Budget Office says that the plan would add 1 trillion in debt? It requires an astonishing suspension of disbelief….
