Myths Of The Raptor

Myths Of The Raptor: "Add up all the real-world facts and there does not seem to be much of a victory here for any one--the possible exception being those nations who are planning to do battle with the U.S. in the future and will now face a mere token force of F-22s. The decision not to continue F-22 production might be justified on other grounds, but this week's vote has been based on a set of false assumptions and creates a false sense of economy. The future of U.S. combat airpower is much too serious a business for it to be held hostage to this manner of legislative myth-making."

If the Dems really wanted a "shovel ready" project to stimulate the economy, the F-22 was it. 24,000 jobs if I am not mistaken. Arguably good for our nation's defense, too. Canceling these programs after we have eaten all the up-front sunk costs, but before we have a viable force is just nuts. Gates and McCain are on the wrong side of this one.

When a Lib Asks Why You Oppose Government Run Health Care, Respond "Tennessee, Hawaii, and Massachusetts

Tried and Found Wanting: "'There is not a credible example of having brought about a cost savings and insured everyone. We have seen that in TennCare,' Blackburn told me. 'I just find it unconscionable that they are not talking about the lessons that they learned from the TennCare experience, the lessons that are still being learned every day from the TennCare experience.'

Blackburn, a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, one of the committees that have reviewed health care legislation, had a simple enough question for Health and Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius. 'I would like to know what lessons the administration has taken from Tennessee's experiment with 'public option' health care; a program known as TennCare,' Blackburn wrote."

You don't need to point to foreign countries like Canada and Great Britain. Tennessee, Hawaii, and Massachusetts have already demonstrated the myriad flaws in the Dems health care proposals. And none of these systems is remotely the size of what Pelosi, Reid, and Obama are trying to ram down our throats.

I Thought Obama Was The Hope President

Health Reform and Cancer - WSJ.com: "I have been battling non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, an incurable blood cancer, for the past nine years. Last year, I was also diagnosed with uterine cancer.

I didn’t run to Canada for treatment. Medicare took care of my needs right here in New York City. To endure, I just need the freedom to choose my insurance, my doctors, and get the diagnostic scans and care I need. And one more thing: I need hope that a treatment will be developed that can control my diseases the way insulin controls diabetes.

Every cancer patient needs these things, especially hope. But the government’s plan to reform the health-care system in this country threatens all of this—particularly the development of new treatments."

She's right. The Lefties are going to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs (miracle drugs, innovative treatments and surgeries, etc.). Their plan for the health care system will squash the incentives that today make the US the engine of health care innovation for the world. They don't seem to realize that after it's dead, the goose doesn't keep on laying those golden eggs.

There Is No ‘Right’ to Health Care - WSJ.com

Dalrymple: There Is No ‘Right’ to Health Care - WSJ.com: "The question of health care is not one of rights but of how best in practice to organize it. America is certainly not a perfect model in this regard. But neither is Britain, where a universal right to health care has been recognized longest in the Western world.

Not coincidentally, the U.K. is by far the most unpleasant country in which to be ill in the Western world. Even Greeks living in Britain return home for medical treatment if they are physically able to do so.

The government-run health-care system—which in the U.K. is believed to be the necessary institutional corollary to an inalienable right to health care—has pauperized the entire population."

A British physician explains how the concept of a "right to health care" has taken Britain, the leader in such thinking, down a path to substandard health care.

More One-Sided Diplomacy

U.S. Woos Damascus by Easing Export Ban - WSJ.com: "'The regime feels very confident politically now,' said Ammar Abdulhamid, a Syrian democracy activist based in Washington. 'Damascus feels like it's getting a lot without giving up anything.'"

More gifts to tyrants courtesy of the Obama administration. Gifts to a regime that has been complicit in the deaths of untold numbers of US servicemen, and a friend to bloodthirsty terrorists like Hamas and Hezbollah.

Rationing Health Care - Forbes.com

Rationing Health Care - Forbes.com: "the president keeps repeating his straw man argument--that we must support his government-centered options for reforming our health system, because 'the alternative of doing nothing' is unacceptable. But specific alternative reforms that would reduce health care costs, such as removing government-defined barriers to competition, eliminating special interest insurance mandates and empowering the consumer rather than government with control of the money, information and choice, have already been proposed, despite their invisibility to mainstream media.

The honest debate should be about whether the costs should be forced down by increasing government intervention and control, or if Americans and their families should be in control of their health care."

Beware the straw man, as we have noted many times before (search this blog for "straw man").

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs???

The Associated Press: SPIN METER: 'Help Wanted' counting stimulus jobs: "PORTLAND, Ore. — How much are politicians straining to convince people that the government is stimulating the economy? In Oregon, where lawmakers are spending $176 million to supplement the federal stimulus, Democrats are taking credit for a remarkable feat: creating 3,236 new jobs in the program's first three months.

But those jobs lasted on average only 35 hours, or about one work week. After that, those workers were effectively back unemployed, according to an Associated Press analysis of state spending and hiring data. By the state's accounting, a job is a job, whether it lasts three hours, three days, three months, or a lifetime."

This is even worse than Obama's dissembling via the words "new jobs." As Dennis Prager often points out, government can always create "new jobs" by fiat. But they can't create net additional new jobs unless the actions of the government are neutral or stimulative to the creation of jobs elsewhere in the economy.

This is well illustrated by Spain's experience with "green job" creation, commented on last month in this blog. In Spain, the "creation" of each new green job is calculated to have come at the cost of 2.2 other jobs.

Surprising - A Government Program That Seems Dazed and Confused

U.S. Effort to Modify Mortgages Falters - WSJ.com: "An Obama administration effort to reduce home foreclosures by lowering the mortgage payments of struggling borrowers before they fall behind is failing to help as many people as expected.

Among the problems: Some homeowners are being told they must be behind on their payments to receive help, which runs counter to the aim of the program. In other cases, delays are so long that borrowers who are current on their payments when they ask for a loan modification are delinquent by the time they receive one. There is also confusion about who qualifies."

Let's sign this crew up to decide which sorts of cancer protocols have the best efficacy/dollar. That'll be good.

Is This the Best the Nobel Prize Winner Can Do?

Why markets can’t cure healthcare - Paul Krugman Blog - NYTimes.com: "Why markets can’t cure healthcare

Judging both from comments on this blog and from some of my mail, a significant number of Americans believe that the answer to our health care problems — indeed, the only answer — is to rely on the free market. Quite a few seem to believe that this view reflects the lessons of economic theory.

Not so."

Krugman so vastly oversimplifies things as to render this whole column meaningless. I don't think anyone is arguing for laissez faire health care. But showing that a laissez faire free market approach cannot totally solve all health care economics problems is a far cry showing that free market principles have no place in health care. Read the column. Krugman claims:

1) that the free market is not relevant to health care because the expenditures are large and unpredictable. Sounds to me like he's focusing only on the catastrophic side of health care. But today's bloated "insurance" plans, distorted by more than a half century of government meddling are about a lot more than catastrophic care. They cover virtually all doctor visits, drugs, therapies, etc. In each of these myriad smaller transactions, market forces would be vastly more effective at optimizing the use of health care resources than the arbitrary guidlines and mandates coming down from government. A quick recent example: I was at the dermatologist and he said he needed to remove a large mole from my back. He could either cut out all the skin in the affected area (as a previous dermatologist had done elsewhere on my back a year earlier), or he could shave off only the affected layers of the skin, eliminating the need for stitches. At this point, we should have had a conversation about the cost of the two procedures, but since it was irrelevant to me, we didn't. I'd pay the same either way. But the skin removal procedure was in fact significantly more expensive. I chose the less expensive procedure in this case, but not because of cost, but because the more involved procedure would have required two extra visits to the doctor's office. Think how many millions of times a day such small decisions are made, and think how hard it is for government to oversee them all vs. just giving the patient appropriate information and incentives.

2) You can't trust insurance companies.
Well, sorry, but I trust an insurance company competing for my business FAR more than I trust a monopoly board of faceless government bureaucrats. I have been on private insurance for nearly thirty years, and no member of my family has been denied needed care, even through some pretty serious and expensive medical issues.

3) Private insurers waste money in their efforts to resist paying out on claims.
I am sure that there is truth to this, but it is certainly not as significant as another fact. It is estimated that waste, fraud and abuse in Medicare and Medicaid are in the 15-18% range, whereas in private plans it is about 2%.

4) You can't rely on experience or comparison shopping.
You can't now, because there is no market for such information. Consumers of health care currently don't give a darn about cost. When consumers do pay out of their pocket, for example with Lasik eye surgery, or cosmetic procedures, there is a lot more information available about costs and outcomes. And by the way, competition has continuously driven lower costs and better procedures in these areas.

Krugman's column is sloppy, lazy, and wrong. There is certainly a legitimate government role in health care, to address the ways in which health care does not behave economically like other goods and services. But as much as possible, we must deliver health care in a way that leverages free market principles, not central government control, to optimally utilize scarce resources.

Reality Deals Obama Health Care Savings Claims Another Punch in the Gut

Obama Defends Proposed Health Office - NYTimes.com: "WASHINGTON — The Congressional Budget Office said Saturday that a new agency proposed by President Obama as a way to cut health costs might save only $2 billion in its first four years, and that there was a high probability that “no savings would be realized.”"

I say it again, thank God for Mr Elmendorf and the CBO.

Stop - Don't Confuse Us With Facts

IBDeditorials.com: Editorials, Political Cartoons, and Polls from Investor's Business Daily -- Ignoring Science: "The true believers will not be moved by the peer-reviewed findings of Chris de Freitas, John McLean and Bob Carter, scientists at universities in Australia and New Zealand...

Their research, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, indicates that nature, not man, has been the dominant force in climate change in the late 20th century.

'The surge in global temperatures since 1977 can be attributed to a 1976 climate shift in the Pacific Ocean that made warming El Nino conditions more likely than they were over the previous 30 years and cooling La Nina conditions less likely' says co-author de Freitas.

'We have shown that internal global climate-system variability accounts for at least 80% of the observed global climate variation over the past half-century. It may even be more if the period of influence of major volcanoes can be more clearly identified and the corresponding data excluded from the analysis.'"

More facts to add to the growing mountain of evidence that crap and trade is not not only economically disastrous, but environmentally insignificant.

George F. Will - Cold Shoulder to Climate 'Urgency' - washingtonpost.com

George F. Will - Cold Shoulder to Climate 'Urgency' - washingtonpost.com: "Unfortunately, China's president had to dash home to suppress ethnic riots. Had he stayed in Italy at the recent Group of Eight summit, he could have continued the Herculean task of disabusing Barack Obama of his amazingly durable belief, shared by the U.S. Congress, that China -- and India, Brazil, Mexico and other developing nations -- will sacrifice their modernization on the altar of climate change."...

...the [G-8] having vowed to cut emissions of greenhouse gases 80 percent by 2050, which is 41 years distant. As is 1968, which seems as remote as the Punic Wars, considering that more than half of all living Americans were born after 1966. If you do not want to do anything today, promise to do everything tomorrow, which is always a day away.

You MUST READ the entire column, linked above. I couldn't decide what the best excerpts were. It is devastating to the whole crap and trade proposition.

The Post-Special Interest Era - Part XXIV

George F. Will - UPS-FedEx Dispute Shows Labor's Control Over the White House - washingtonpost.com: "It has given the United Auto Workers majority ownership of Chrysler. It has sent $135 billion of supposed stimulus money to state governments to protect unionized public-sector employees from layoffs and other sacrifices that private-sector workers are making. It has sedated the Labor Department's Office of Labor-Management Standards, which protects workers against misbehavior by union leaders. Cap-and-trade legislation might please unions with protectionism -- tariffs on imports from countries not foolish enough to similarly burden their manufacturers. If Congress, seeking money for more socialized medicine, decides that some employer-paid health insurance should be taxed as employees' compensation -- which it obviously is -- generous union-negotiated benefits might be exempted.

Now it is the Teamsters' turn at the trough. Congress might change labor law to assist UPS, a Teamsters stronghold, by hindering its principal competitor, FedEx."

Yet another installment in the chronicle of union pay-offs from this president and his party. I have been tracking it in this blog (search on the tags at the bottom of this post). Have you seen this covered by the MSM?

Here's a quiz: what do the state of California, Delphi, and the Detroit school system have in common?

a) They are all essentially bankrupt
b) They are all heavily unionized

Now the Dems want to cripple another national treausre, FedEx.

Voluntary Amnesia

George F. Will - Liberal Policies Paving Way for Higher Taxes - washingtonpost.com: "But before embarking on Stimulus III, note that only about 10 percent of Stimulus II has yet been injected into the economy. This is not the administration's fault, the administration's defenders say, because government is cumbersome, sluggish and inefficient. But this sunburst of insight comes as the administration toils to enlarge governmental control of health care, energy, finance, education, etc. The administration guesses that these government projects will do better than the Postal Service (its second-quarter loss, $1.9 billion, was 68 percent of its losses for all of 2008) and the government's railroad (Amtrak has had 38 money-losing years, and this year's losses are on pace to set a record)."

The President and his party push forward their big government agenda in complete disregard of every bit of available evidence regarding the efficacy of government programs. It is lunacy (well not so loony if your ultimate goal is to amass maximum power in the central government).

We must not allow the Left to impose its amnesia on the American public. Recent polls are beginning to indicate that they are failing in that effort.

The Era of Special Interest Payoffs Is Over...

Delphi and PBGC settle pension dispute - WSJ.com: "When the PBGC was created in 1974, Democrats running Congress assured everyone there was no taxpayer risk because the agency would be funded by fees from pension plans, as well as by the assets of plans the company takes over. But like Fannie Mae, we are learning that sooner or later these government guarantees always come due. Now the PBGC has a $33.5 billion deficit even before Delphi, and more bankruptcies are headed its way. Mark it down as one more way the taxpayers are being put on the hook for GM, the UAW and Michigan’s 17 electoral votes in 2012."

... RIGHT...

It's much worse than I realized when I first posted on this multi-billion political payoff (I know what you're thinking, why are you wasting your time on multi-billion dollar corruption in a new era of trillion dollar corruption?), under the name of saving the auto industry. Read the column - not only are we now on the hook to the tune of $6B for Delphi's pension obligations, but in a stunning display of a political cronyism, the UAW members are being put at the front of the line for yet another bailout. UAW retirees are slated to get 100% of their benefits, while members of other unions, and former non-unionized employees will have to settle for a fraction of what they are owed.

Obama - Post-Partisan Like LBJ Was Post Partisan

Let’s Face It: Obama Is No Post-Partisan - WSJ.com: "here’s nothing inherently wrong with opting to forgo bipartisanship support for the sake of getting your ideas through. That, however, is not what Candidate Obama promised. And just think how the debate would change if the press were to begin describing Mr. Obama in a way that seems reserved for Republicans: a highly partisan president pursuing a narrow partisan agenda."

This is an interesting exposition of how the President, his handlers, and his media flunkies are "dumbing down" the definition of bipartisan.

Doing His Constitutional Duty

Perry raises possibility of states' rights showdown with White House over healthcare | Top Stories | Star-Telegram.com: "AUSTIN — Gov. Rick Perry, raising the specter of a showdown with the Obama administration, suggested Thursday that he would consider invoking states’ rights protections under the 10th Amendment to resist the president’s healthcare plan, which he said would be 'disastrous' for Texas."

Apparently Gov Perry is one of the few state officials in the US who takes seriously his oath of office and the sovereignty of the state that elected him. This brings to mind an aspect of the ObamaCare debate that hasn't been front & center - the crushing burden of the President's programs that will fall increasingly upon the states in the out years. The federal government is essentially obligating the states to future state expenditures. Last time I checked, that was the sovereign right of the legislatures of the individual states. State officials who do not defend their citizens against such encroachment should be subject to removal from office.

In Case You Missed the Press Conference

IBDeditorials.com: Editorials, Political Cartoons, and Polls from Investor's Business Daily: "From the president we now know that cops are stupid, doctors are greedy, Republicans don't play nice, people are dying and we're all going broke if we don't embrace socialized medicine in a week or so."

I wonder how Obama thinks he can pin his problems on the Republicans when they are so outnumbered the Dems can pass anything they want? Pretty pathetic.

How The Left Thinks

Dennis Prager : Americans Are Beginning to Understand the Left - Townhall.com: "The left everywhere seeks to make as big and powerful a state as possible. It does so because only the state can redistribute society's wealth. And because only a strong and powerful state can impose values on society. The idea of small government, the American ideal since its inception, is the antithesis of the left's ideal."

Dennis Prager, perhaps my favorite pundit of all, lays out clearly and succinctly in this column what motivates the left and how leftist values differ from our nation's founding principles. Read it. If his radio show is on where you live, tune him in. If not, like me, subscribe to his podcast at www.pragertopia.com. It's one of the best investments in your mind that you can make - a comfort, a joy, an education, and a lot of fun. Also, search YouTube for Prager University, where you'll find some excellent Prager videos.

That Giant Sucking Sound - Another $6B of YOUR Money Sucked Into the Black Hole of Detroit

Delphi Gets $6.2 Billion Bailout of Pensions - WSJ.com: "The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. agreed to take on $6.2 billion in pension liabilities from bankrupt auto supplier Delphi Corp., putting in place a key piece in the bailout of the car industry but renewing pressure on a government agency facing huge burdens as more companies fail.

The pension rescue is the PBGC's second-largest ever, ranked by dollars, after that of United Airlines in 2005, which totaled $7.5 billion. As a result, the government will take over payments for 70,000 workers and retirees that Delphi says it can't afford under its restructuring plan."

Another payoff to the UAW, and Obama digs the US auto industry bailout hole another $6B deeper.

Mystery - Where's The Screaming From the AARP?

GovernmentCare’s Assault on Seniors. - WSJ.com: "Since Medicare was established in 1965, access to care has enabled older Americans to avoid becoming disabled and to travel and live independently instead of languishing in nursing homes. But legislation now being rushed through Congress—H.R. 3200 and the Senate Health Committee Bill—will reduce access to care, pressure the elderly to end their lives prematurely, and doom baby boomers to painful later years."

I remember the AARP looking to let blood over Republicans trying to slow the rate of increase in Medicare spending a few years back. Now Obama and Pelosi are openly proposing to cut massive amounts from Medicare reimbursements, and less openly proposing rationing health care, based largely on the age of the patient. I used to think that the AARP was just a shameless lobbyist that was out to steal money from the young and transfer it to the old. Now I have to conclude that, much like the ACLU, AARP is just a leftist organization. We need to organize an AARP for patriots.

Intimidator in Chief: Obama and the CBO - WSJ.com

Intimidator in Chief: Obama and the CBO - WSJ.com: "As Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the Republican who ran CBO from 2003 to 2005, put it, “The only appearance could be that they’re leaning on him. CBO was created for Congress, for independent analysis. The White House did him [Elmendorf] a terrible disservice.”"

President Obama also displayed his bully tendencies last night when, after admitting he knew none of the facts of the case, weighed in on the side of Harvard professor Gates against a humble Cambridge police officer, loudly accused by Dr. Gates of racism. I don't know who's right and who's wrong in that case, but I am pretty sure the President of the United State has no business offering uninformed opinions on local matters on national TV.

Want A Fair Shake From the Dems Health Plan?

IBDeditorials.com: Editorials, Political Cartoons, and Polls from Investor's Business Daily -- Illegals Freed From Dictates Of ObamaCare: "the Senate Finance Committee plan creates a new preference for illegal aliens by exempting them from the mandate to buy insurance. That's right. Law-abiding, uninsured Americans would be fined if they didn't submit to the Obama-Care prescription. Law-breaking border-crossers, visa overstayers and deportation fugitives would be spared."

...Better be a union employee or an illegal alien. The Dems refuse to impose citizenship verification on health care under their plan - so all you seriously ill Mexicans, better start hoofing it to your nearest US hospital! And unlike US citizens, you won't be subject to fine for not having an "Obama-approved" health care plan.

Congress Passing Momentous Laws That Haven't Even Been Written Down Yet

SteynOnline - JACKSONIAN AMERICA: "Government has now effortlessly outpaced the nimble typing fingers of Congressional stenographers, there was no actual physical copy of the bill in existence at the time the House voted for it.

Is that even legal? To pass a law that’s not in writing? Hey, relax. Someone probably tweeted the high points. It’ll be out there somewhere. The White House asked Ashton Kutcher to tweet National HIV Testing Day, so I’m sure they asked Lady Gaga or Perez Hilton to tweet National Unread Unwritten Fifteen-Hundred-Page Bill Day. No taxation without Twitterization!"

I'll admit, I've been too angry to follow very closely the wheeling and dealing on Crap and Trade, but I think it's scandalous that I am just learning for the first time in Mark Steyn's column that Crap and Trade was passed before it even got committed to writing. Where is the press? Where is the outrage?

Read the column - as usual, Mark's gallows humor will still manage to bring a smile to your face.

I Have a Rule I Live By

I have a rule I have lived by my entire adult life - I don't make important decisions with a gun held to my head. If the great deal or the great job can't wait for me to carefully consider my decision, then by default, I pass it up. This has saved me from many a timeshare sales pitch, overpriced autos, unsuitable jobs, and bad investments.

Congress and the American people would do well to heed my rule in the face of the President's high pressure sales tactics. Our healthcare system is too important to radically change it in such a rush that we don't even have time to know what we're getting, much less consider whether we want it or not.

Further, Americans should ask themselves why the President and Nancy Pelosi want to do this in such a big hurry. Most of those high pressure salesmen I disappointed over the years had only one reason for giving me a deadline - they knew that if I had walked away from the emotion of the moment and studied the deal they were offering, I wouldn't have taken it.

I suspect the motivation is the same with health care. The President and his party know that, given time to understand and dispassionately consider their plan, most Americans would opt against it.

Sorry, Obama, Americans Still Aren't Brain Dead

Poll: Less faith in Obama's economic abilities - USATODAY.com: "• By 49%-47%, those surveyed disapprove of how he is handling the economy, a turnaround from his 55%-42% approval in May. The steepest drop came from conservative and moderate Democrats.

• By 50%-44%, they disapprove of how he is handling health care policy.

• A 59% majority say his proposals call for too much government spending and 52% say they call for too much expansion of government power."

The failed Porkulus and obvious lies about health care are quickly eroding the wave of good will upon which Obama arrived in the White House.

We're Still Waiting, Mr President

Remember Obama’s Promise to Cut $100 Million in 90 Days? - Washington Wire - WSJ: "Three months ago, when President Barack Obama announced he was extracting $100 million in spending cuts from his cabinet secretaries, the reviews were not terribly kind, not with a budget well in excess of $3 trillion and a budget deficit shooting toward $1.8 trillion.
Obama_July20_CV_20090720153001.jpgAssociated Press
President Barack Obama attends a roundtable discussion with health care providers at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, Monday, July 20, 2009. The teddy bear is the hospital’s logo.

But the president had a deadline to keep: “As part of his commitment to go line by line through the budget to cut spending and reform government he will challenge his cabinet to cut a collective 100 million dollars in the next 90 days,” the White House fact sheet proclaimed."

They couldn't bring themselves to cut even this laughable amount out of the budget in 90 days, as promised. Another promise broken.

Detroit News - Cut the Spending - GIve Stimulus Job to the Taxpayers

Editorial: Obama's stimulus plan is not working | detnews.com | The Detroit News: "The administration and Congress should act now to bring the spending train to a screeching halt, find ways to make deep cuts in the federal budget and let individual taxpayers act as the primary agents for stimulating the economy."

Amen.

Obama Has CBO Director Over for Tea

No, this move doesn't stink to high heaven.

They Squandered $787B on a Bogus Stimulus, But Trust the Dems on Healthcare!

Robert J. Samuelson - President Obama, Democratic Congress's Squandered Stimulus: "It's not surprising that the much-ballyhooed 'economic stimulus' hasn't done much stimulating. President Obama and his aides argue that it's too early to expect startling results. They have a point. A $14 trillion economy won't revive in a nanosecond. But the defects of the $787 billion package go deeper and won't be cured by time. The program crafted by Obama and the Democratic Congress wasn't engineered to maximize its economic impact. It was mostly a political exercise, designed to claim credit for any recovery, shower benefits on favored constituencies and signal support for fashionable causes.

As a result, much of the stimulus's potential benefit has been squandered."

I think one of the main reasons the Obama train is hitting the skids is because a majority of Americans know that the they were suckered by the Democrats on the Porkulus. Trust in the Dems and Obama is deeply eroded.

How Does Government "Control Costs?"

Obama Talks Health Bill With House Panel - WSJ.com: "the biggest focus of negotiations right now is on finding additional ways to curb the rapid growth of health-care costs for families and businesses, and in keeping the overall cost of the bill under control."

OK, I am relieved that we seem to be moving beyond the fantasy that the House bill as originally advised did ANYTHING to control health care costs. However, these negotiations, now going on primarily in the Energy and Commerce committee, are focused on containing costs within the framework of ObamaCare. In other words, the only ideas on the table are big-government, central-planning solutions, like the NICE board in Britain. Committees of faceless bureaucrats deciding who's health care procedure is worthy of funding, and who's isn't. Americans must be made to see that everything about this approach is ANTI-CHOICE and ANTI-LIBERTY.

In every part of our economy that works well, we use the power of the free market to make our choices on how scarce resources are to be allocated. This allows everyone to have input, not just a blue-ribbon panel. Government has proven over and over and over that it cannot hold a candle to the free market in making such decisions.

The reason that health care has so many problems is that government is already TOO involved. It distorts the economics of health care with its massive spending on Medicare and Medicaid. It shifts costs from those programs to private insurers and hospitals. It dictates and mandates the rules of private health plans, prevents purchase of health plans across state lines, subsidizes employer-paid health-care and disadvantages individual-paid health care, and enables the tort bar to suck $800B a year out of the system.

Even with all this meddling our healthcare system has managed to be the envy of the world. To make it better, make it freer:

Enable a national health insurance marketplace
Stop dictating what coverages must be in plans - let consumers choose
Give individuals the tax break or the tax credits for health care, not employers
Reform Medicare and Medicaid to encourage participants to be wise health care consumers
Encourage heath savings accounts

Of course, Obama and the Dems will never endorse such a plan - it turns over more power to the people, instead of piling up more wealth and power in Washington.

CBO - "The Emperor Has No Clothes!"

Budget Analyst Assails Cost of Congress's Health-Care Proposals - washingtonpost.com: "Congress's chief budget analyst delivered a devastating assessment yesterday of the health-care proposals drafted by congressional Democrats, fueling an insurrection among fiscal conservatives in the House and pushing negotiators in the Senate to redouble efforts to draw up a new plan that more effectively restrains federal spending.

Under questioning by members of the Senate Budget Committee, Douglas Elmendorf, director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, said bills crafted by House leaders and the Senate health committee do not propose 'the sort of fundamental changes' necessary to rein in the skyrocketing cost of government health programs, particularly Medicare. On the contrary, Elmendorf said, the measures would pile on an expensive new program to cover the uninsured."

The courageous Mr. Elmendorf (probably soon to join the ranks of the unemployed) laid bare the ridiculous contradictions of the President's health care argument:

1) Medicare and Medicaid are bankrupting the federal government
2) Only health care reform can save us from this crushing burden
3) Only by vastly expanding the federal government role in health care can we bring about reform.

Mr Elmendorf agreed with point 1. But, inconveniently, he pointed out that there is no real reform in the Democrats' plan (making moot point 2). And, even more inconveniently, he indicated that Mr. Obama's vast expansion of the federal government's role will only exacerbate the problem raised in point 1.

Or, in other words, Mr Elmendorf didn't buy this line of reasoning:

1) Current government health care spending is bankrupting the nation
2) Therefore, to address the problem, government is henceforth going to spend much more on health care
3) Problem solved

I know what you libs are saying: "You are ignoring the key point the President is making. The REFORMS in this bill are going to save us so much money, that we will be able to expand health care while spending less overall. This is due to the well-known superior efficiency of government vs the private sector." Well, to quote Mr. Elmendorf, the Democrat-selected head of the Congressional Budget Office: ":[The] bills crafted by House leaders and the Senate health committee do not propose 'the sort of fundamental changes' necessary to rein in the skyrocketing cost of government health programs."

Here's a list of all the things government does more efficiently than the private sector:

1)
2)
3)
4)
5)

Sorry, OOFS Relapse

I admit it, this blog has slowed down of late due to a relapse of OOFS, Obama Outrage Fatigue Syndrome. Of course, the 100 degree weather doesn't help. You have to give it to the Obama, he's energetic. Just when you get done trying to fend off the largest tax cut in the history of the Milky Way Galaxy (crap and trade), you find yourself tring to stop the program to destroy the best health care system in the Milky Way Galaxy (ObamaCare), and then you find out in the middle of it all, he's been busy trading away our strategic missile defense program in exchange for the Russian's giving up nothing (START). And those are just the big issues.

He can't slow down, because the more America knows about his programs, the less they like them.

Obama Trades Away Our Nuclear Security in Exchange for the Sleeves Off of Putin's Vest

Charles Krauthammer - Obama's Nuclear Arms Deal With Russia Is Plumage -- But at a Price - washingtonpost.com: "Unfortunately for the United States, the country Obama represents, the prospective treaty is useless at best, detrimental at worst.

Useless because the level of offensive nuclear weaponry, the subject of the U.S.-Russia 'Joint Understanding,' is an irrelevance. We could today terminate all such negotiations, invite the Russians to build as many warheads as they want and profitably watch them spend themselves into penury, as did their Soviet predecessors, stockpiling weapons that do nothing more than, as Churchill put it, make the rubble bounce."

Read the column. The Russians are going to have to make the reductions called for in Obama's grand START accord, whether we agree to anything or not. They can't afford to maintain current levels. Any concessions from the US come at zero cost to the Russians. They do come at the cost making our nuclear deterrent less reliable.

I Didn't Copy - Great Minds Just Think Alike

If you follow this blog at all you know that Mark Steyn is one of my favorite writers out there. Right after posting my last post, I went to Steyn online to find that he had already posted the Kyl story with virtually the same headline. Naturally, his is funnier. Click on the heading for this post ad enjoy...

Administration Makes Kyl An Offer He Can't Refuse

The Associated Press: White House turns up heat on Arizona senator: "The White House on Tuesday released letters from four cabinet secretaries to Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican, citing Kyl's comments and outlining transportation, housing, Indian education and other projects in his home state they said would be eliminated if the senator has his way.

Kyl, the No. 2 Senate GOP leader, has said the stimulus spending hasn't succeeded in boosting the economy and that it's adding to the deficit. He's suggested on his Senate Web site and in interviews that spending not already allocated be halted.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, one of two Republicans in Obama's cabinet, made no attempt to conceal his needling.

Kyl 'publicly questioned whether the stimulus is working and stated that he wants to cancel projects that aren't presently under way,' LaHood wrote Brewer. 'If you prefer to forfeit the money we are making available to your state, as Senator Kyl suggests, please let me know.'"

Isn't this a great modus operandi:

1) Steal the assets of a the Senator's constituents
2) Offer to give some of it back in the form of "federal aid"
3) When the Senator objects, threaten to withhold "federal aid"
4) Tell the constituents they aren't getting any of the money back because their senator won't play ball

Obama's Chicago roots are showing. Hat tip to Horendo...

I See A Pattern Here

Ever notice how the left in America is pursuing policies that have already been proven failures? The Dems, flush with power, are hurtling toward a European socialist model that the Europeans are now backing away from. They are trying to impose on us the same type of socialized medicine system that has forced Canadians and Europeans to travel to America to find decent/timely healthcare. The want to adopt the fiscal policies of California and New York. They want to vastly expand the healthcare bureaucracy that has brought us bankrupt Medicare and Medicaid programs. The list goes on and on.

Add to the list binding arbirtration for labor disputes, as called for the in "Free Choice" (ha-ha) Act:

The 'Free Choice' Act and Binding Arbitration - WSJ.com: "In 1969, the Wolverine State embraced a form of compulsory arbitration nearly identical to the one proposed in EFCA to resolve disputes with its police and firefighters. Years later, Detroit mayor Coleman Young -- who had authored the original law as state senator -- rued what he had done. 'We now know that compulsory arbitration has been a failure,' he lamented to the National Journal in 1981. 'Slowly, inexorably, compulsory interest arbitration has destroyed sensible fiscal management and has caused more damage to the public service than the strikes it was designed to prevent.'"

I guess the point I am missing is that there was actually never anything wrong with any of these policies. We just lacked a leader brilliant enough to implement them properly. Until now.

Obama's Vision - The World's Nightmare?

James R. Schlesinger: Why We Don't Want a Nuclear-Free World - WSJ.com: "'Nuclear weapons are used every day.' So says former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger, speaking last month at his office in a wooded enclave of Maclean, Va. ...

We use nuclear weapons every day, Mr. Schlesinger goes on to explain, 'to deter our potential foes and provide reassurance to the allies to whom we offer protection.'...

Mr. Obama likes to talk about his vision of a nuclear-free world, and in Moscow he and Mr. Medvedev signed an agreement setting targets for sweeping reductions in the world's largest nuclear arsenals. Reflecting on the hour I spent with Mr. Schlesinger, I can't help but think: Do we really want to do this?...

'If, by some miracle, we were able to eliminate nuclear weapons,' he says, 'what we would have is a number of countries sitting around with breakout capabilities or rumors of breakout capabilities -- for intimidation purposes. . . . and finally, probably, a number of small clandestine stockpiles.' This would make the U.S. more vulnerable.

Everyone keeps telling me how brilliant the President is. Well, there is intelligence and there is wisdom. The President may be extremely intelligent, but he has no wisdom. And his left-wing indoctrination has inoculated him from the accumulated wisdom of the ages. Any eighth-grade-educated hayseed from fly-over America could tell the pursuit of a nuclear-free world is a stupid and dangerous idea. Our Harvard Law Review president will have to learn through trial and error. Trial and error experimentation with a an international nuclear order that has prevented World War III for six decades - not a brilliant policy in my eyes - but I only went to a public university.

Venezuela's Chavez Moves to Tighten Control Over Private Media

In Caracas, Venezuela:

Venezuela's Chavez Moves to Tighten Control Over Private Media - WSJ.com

Public Works Minister Diosdado Cabello, who is also head of the government's broadcasting regulator, announced Thursday the government's new blueprint for the media industry.

The new regulations will bring under government oversight private Venezuelan channels that only broadcast through private cable providers.

Mr. Cabello's plans to "democratize" the airwaves involve turning over the frequencies to community groups that back Mr. Chavez.

MEANWHILE, in Caracas on the Potomac:

FCC Chairman Nominee: ‘I Do Not Support’ Reinstating Fairness Doctrine: conservatives say the new administration may try to use existing FCC regulations, such as its “localism” policy, to bring back the requirement that broadcast stations either present “both sides” or avoid talking about controversial issues. Under localism, which is already in place, "local content boards” would be created to ensure that a broadcasting station is up to par with community standards. ..

[Conservatives} say the boards would likely bow to political influence to determine what should – and should not -- be aired – in some localities, which could wind up excluding some conservative talk radio shows that dominate the talk radio airwaves. [Emphasis added]

Kudos to TEXAS Senator Hutchison for attending the hearing and asking questions of the nominee. However, it does not seem like she got a straight answer. The Dems are smart enough not to acknowledge support for the Fairness Doctrine any more. The "localism" policy, cited above, along with shorter terms on broadcasting licenses will be the way they go after talk radio. It doesn't appear Sen. Hutchison managed to sound out the nominee on the implementation of "localism" under his chairmanship.

Here's What I Say About Porkulus II - Son of Sham

Democrats now say they underestimated the severity of the recession and that they need to double down on the stimulus. I think it was the Wall Street Journal that pointed out the absurdity of this claim, noting how many Democrats have since last fall been calling this the worst financial calamity to hit the US since the Great Depression.

Conservatives, including Gone2TX, have been saying since the outset that the $800B stimulus bill was a sham, containing very little true stimulus, with most of that occurring in the out years. Time and the facts on the ground have shown that we were right. Less than 10% of the stimulus has been spent, and the economy has declined far more than projected by Obama's economic team when they were selling us on the need for that enormous pork barrel spending bill. In fact, unemployment now exceeds what Obama's wiz kids said it would be WITHOUT the stimulus. So much for their credibility.

Isn't it just like the left? Whenever their policies fail it was because we just didn't implement the policy on a grand enough scale. They never consider that the policy itself might be flawed. Apparently, $787B is chump change these days, and no one can expect much to be accomplished with so little "investment." So now, like Einstein's definition of insane people, we are asked to keep doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results.

We must not acquiesce to this madness. Here's what we propose instead:

We agree that the Porkulus bill didn't work. It didn't work because it did not inject enough stimulus into the economy fast enough. That is because it is dominated by Democrat spending intitiatives that won't kick in for months and years - too late to provide a kickstart to the ecomony here and now - in 2009 . So, we are prepared to go back to the table with you and figure this out. Let's pass a bunch of new stimulus measures that immediately put more money in the hands of individuals and businesses. We can do so by declaring tax holidays (e.g. capital gains) or distributing stimulus checks. Because we are ALL very concerned about the burgeoning deficit, we will cancel out a corresponding amount of out year spending in the Porkulus bill. That way, we get the immediate stimulus we need without exceeding the original $800B price tag agreed to at the outset.

Chicago Tribune Sees Budget Hurricane on the Horizon

A budget hurricane -- chicagotribune.com: "A deluge of debt, looming on the horizon, threatens to wreak frightful damage on our economic future. But instead of taking steps to minimize the risk, we're acting as though the skies are clear and always will be.

That's the essence of a new report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which has the thankless task of reminding us that our budgetary choices have consequences. The CBO says that in recent months a dismal outlook has gotten even darker as projected future spending -- particularly on entitlements such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid -- expands much faster than expected revenue. Federal debt held by the public peaked at 113 percent of total GDP right after World War II, when the U.S. government had to spend vast amounts to defeat Germany and Japan. Today, the debt stands at about 41 percent of GDP.

But with the government running trillion-dollar deficits and facing the Baby Boom generation beginning to retire, CBO estimates that the debt will break the previous record by 2026 and hit 200 percent of GDP by 2038."

The hurricane flags have been hoisted, but the Obama administration is still doing keg stands at the Democrats Gone Wild beach party. But it's worse than that. They are encouraging everyone to come to the shore in their Winnebagos.

Anecdotes From Public Healthcare

Mark Steyn regularly reports on horror stories from the public health systems in the UK and Canada. He has another great one in the post linked below:

And Another Mopping Up Operation . . . - Mark Steyn - The Corner on National Review Online: "When we quote stories like these at NRO, we get a lot of e-mail saying these are just 'anecdotes.' And yes, if you look on yourself as being part of a government health system of millions of people, getting a bedsore and dying in hideous pain is no big deal in the scheme of things. But I look on myself as being part of the Mark Steyn health system. So if I get a bedsore and die, as far as I'm concerned, that's a 100% systemic failure. The difference between government health care and a private system is that, under the latter, you're free to say, 'This dump's filthy. I'm going to the state-of-the-art joint five miles up the road.' You may have to get out your checkbook, but ultimately the decisions are yours."

Mark Steyn has also written a health care piece in the current print edition of National Review. Choice, personal power over you own medical destiny, independence, freedom - these are what are lost when a society goes to public health care. Oh, and of course, quality of care, innovation, and excellence.

Something YOU Can Do To Stop ObamaCare

In addition to writing your Senators, you can sign on to this petition:

http://www.freeourhealthcarenow.com/

and use the link it provides to pass it on to your friends.

ObamaCare is absolutely the CRUCIAL issue for us to defeat. Do it now.

Think Sotomayor's Racial Preference Was Rejected 5-4? Try 9-0.

National Journal Online -- The Ninth Justice -- Justices Reject Sotomayor Position 9-0 -- But Bigger Battles Loom: "the court was unanimous in rejecting the Sotomayor panel's specific holding. Her holding was that New Haven's decision to spurn the test results must be upheld based solely on the fact that highly disproportionate numbers of blacks had done badly on the exam and might file a 'disparate-impact' lawsuit -- regardless of whether the exam was valid or the lawsuit could succeed...

...even Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's 39-page dissent for the four more liberal justices quietly but unmistakably rejected the Sotomayor-endorsed position that disparate racial results alone justified New Haven's decision to dump the promotional exam without even inquiring into whether it was fair and job-related."

Stuart Tayor, in National Journal, explains how Sotomayor's racial justice positions are to the left of EVERY current Supreme Court justice, not just the 5 that voted to overturn the Ricci decision. The Republicans need to make this clear in the Senate hearings on her nomination.

Shamulus - The Numbers Are In

IBDeditorials.com: Editorials, Political Cartoons, and Polls from Investor's Business Daily -- Stop The Madness That's Killing Jobs: "the June jobs data mark a milestone of sorts: Our unemployment rate equals that of the no-growth Eurozone nations.

Why is this job decline happening? The private sector — the real engine of economic and job growth — won't hire because it's scared of what it sees coming out of Washington.

On the horizon, as far as the eye can see, are higher taxes, uncontrolled spending and layers upon layers of new regulations.

Who would hire new workers faced with that?"

No surprises here. Nothing this administration is doing will shorten the recession - from start to finish, they seem to be following the recipe book for converting recession to depression. Domestically, Obama is FDR on steroids. Internationally, he is Carter on steroids.