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.

Congratulations, It's a . . . Cross-Border Incident! - Mark Steyn - The Corner on National Review Online

Congratulations, It's a . . . Cross-Border Incident! - Mark Steyn - The Corner on National Review Online:

"Here's the latest entry, from Hamilton, Ontario:

Hamilton's neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) was full when Ava Isabella Stinson was born 14 weeks premature at St. Joseph's Hospital Thursday at 12:24 p.m.

A provincewide search for an open NICU bed came up empty, leaving no choice but to send the two-pound, four-ounce preemie to Buffalo that evening.

Well, it would be unreasonable to expect Hamilton, a city of half-a-million people just down the road from Canada's largest city (Greater Toronto Area, 5.5 million) in the most densely populated part of Canada's most populous province (Ontario, 13 million people) to be able to offer the same level of neonatal care as Buffalo, a post-industrial ruin in steep population decline for half a century."

Read Mark Steyn's entire hilarious post. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll write your Senator to urge him oppose ObamaCare.

Fly-Over America Isn't Drinking the Kool-Ade

9 of 10 Americans worry about Obama's spending deficits: Poll | Top of the Ticket | Los Angeles Times: "The shift in public assessments of the stimulus package has clear political ramifications: At the 100-day mark of Obama's presidency, 63 percent of people in states that were decided by fewer than 10 percentage points in November said the stimulus act had or would boost the economy.

Today, in the telephone poll of 1,001 Americans conducted Thursday through Sunday, the number has plummeted to 50 percent in those closely contested states, with nearly as many now saying the stimulus program will not help the national economy."

Wait and see how they feel when the bill for all this spending comes due. I wouldn't want to be a Democrat candidate in those states in 2010.

The Ministry of Information Requests The honor of Your Presence at the Premiere's Next "Press Conference"

Dana Milbank - Washington Sketch: Welcome to ‘The Obama Show': "The use of planted questioners is a no-no at presidential news conferences, because it sends a message to the world -- Iran included -- that the American press isn't as free as advertised. But yesterday wasn't so much a news conference as it was a taping of a new daytime drama, 'The Obama Show.' Missed yesterday's show? Don't worry: On Wednesday, ABC News will be broadcasting 'Good Morning America' from the South Lawn (guest stars: the president and first lady), 'World News Tonight' from the Blue Room, and a prime-time feature with Obama from the East Room."

The Obama administration is pre-arranging questions at press conferences and making arrangements for hand-picked questioners to be in attendance, front and center. The author of this Washington Post column is no conservative, but he has become increasingly concerned about the servile posture of the Washington press corps.

The RNC has created a good spot on this topic: http://www.gop.com/weeklytrunk/index.html

Color-Blind Justice, At Least Until Obama Gets His Second Pick

EDITORIAL: Sotomayor reversed again - Washington Times: "Martin Luther King can rest easy. His dream is being protected by the Supreme Court - against and over the opinion of Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor.

The high court's landmark decision in Ricci v. DeStefano, the New Haven, Conn., firefighters case, is a dramatic stride toward the cherished goal of achieving a colorblind society. In Ricci, the court told us that people of ability can succeed regardless of skin color, and government bureaucrats seeking racially biased outcomes can be thwarted in their racist designs."

It's sad that the court is already so far gone that this obvious conclusion was only decided on a 5-4 basis.

See No Evil

Target: Hawaii - WSJ.com: "The Pentagon recently announced that it is repositioning ground-to-air radar and missile defenses near Hawaii in case North Korea decides to launch another long-range missile, this time toward the Aloha State. So at least 1.3 million Hawaiians will benefit from defenses that many officials in the current Administration didn't even want to build.

But what about the rest of us? It's an odd time to be cutting missile defense, as the Obama Administration is doing in its 2010 budget -- by $1.2 billion to $1.6 billion, depending on how you calculate it. Programs to defend the U.S. homeland are being pared, while those that protect our soldiers or allies are being expanded after the Pentagon decided that the near-term threat is from short-range missiles. But as North Korea and Iran show, rogue regimes aren't far from having missiles that could reach the U.S."

This administration's missile defense position is to ignore the threat and hope it will go away. Perhaps if we tour the world making grand speeches about a nuclear-free world, regimes like Iran and North Korea will beat their nuclear swords into plowshares.

Right.

Green Jobs and the Wishful Thinking of the Left

IBDeditorials.com: Editorials, Political Cartoons, and Polls from Investor's Business Daily -- Spain Tilts At Windmills And Pays Price: "The Spanish professor is puzzled. Why, Gabriel Calzada wonders, is the U.S. president recommending that America emulate the Spanish model for creating 'green jobs' in 'alternative energy' even though Spain's unemployment rate is 18.1% — more than double the European Union average — partly because of spending on such jobs?...

Calzada's report concludes that they [green jobs] often are temporary and have received $752,000 to $800,000 each in subsidies. Wind industry jobs cost even more, $1.4 million each. And each new job entails the loss of 2.2 other jobs that are either lost or not created in other industries because of the political allocation — sub-optimum in terms of economic efficiency — of capital."...

Calzada says the creation of jobs in alternative energy has subtracted about 110,000 jobs from elsewhere in Spain's economy.

Yet another example of the fallacies and myths behind Obama's policies. Cap and trade will "create" jobs? Perhaps, but he never tells you about the greater number of jobs it destroys. The last thing our nation needs during a very serious recession is to pass the largest tax hike in the history of the world. But Obama would have you believe it can be done without any cost to the society. He takes these mythical positions on virutally every issue:

- We can provide healthcare for all Americans and SAVE money - because of the efficiencies of electronic medical records and the mythical savings associated with disease prevention (see next post)

- We can SAVE money on healthcare without having to ration it

- We can divulge all of our interrogation techniques to our enemies and not make the country more vulnerable to terrorists

- We can triple the deficit in a matter of months, creating countless permanent new entitlements and not expect it to weight down our economy

- We can expect 5% of taxpayers to be willing and able to foot the bill for everyone else

- We can repeatedly raise taxes on the "rich" and not expect the taxes will change their economic behavior in any way

- We can cheat bondholders out of their money - and give it to our pals in the unions - and expect those bondholders to be willing to lend out their moeny to other industries that need it

- We can stand in the way of domestic energy production but actually become more energy independent

- We can cut the defense budget as we surge in Afghanistan, maintain the peace in Iraq, and face down lunatic nuclear regimes in North Korea and Iran

- We can close down Gitmo without having a plan for what to do with 250 incorrigible detainees that none of our "allies" want either

Nearly the entire agenda of this President is built upon wishful thinking and false promises.