Obama's Answer To Devastating Critiques of His Plan - Dismiss them as "Talking Points"

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/IBDEditorials.aspx?p=1#: "But [few in the mainstream media] notie Obama's conspicuous non-rebuttal to Rep. Paul Ryan.

It was the Wisconsin congressman who made the most pointed remarks about Obama's reform proposal. For example:

• 'This bill does not control costs (or) reduce deficits. Instead, (it) adds a new health care entitlement when we have no idea how to pay for the entitlements we already have.'

• 'The bill has 10 years of tax increases, about half a trillion dollars, with 10 years of Medicare cuts, about half a trillion dollars, to pay for six years of spending. The true 10-year cost (is) $2.3 trillion.'

• 'The bill takes $52 billion in higher Social Security tax revenues and counts them as offsets. But that's really reserved for Social Security. So either we're double-counting them or we don't intend on paying those Social Security benefits.'

• 'The bill takes $72 billion from the CLASS Act (long-term care insurance) benefit premiums and claims them as offsets.'

• 'The bill treats Medicare like a piggy bank, (raiding) half a trillion dollars not to shore up Medicare solvency, but to spend on this new government program.'

• 'The chief actuary of Medicare (says) as much as 20% of Medicare providers will either go out of business or have to stop seeing Medicare beneficiaries.'

• 'Millions of seniors who have chosen Medicare Advantage (Medicare through a private insurer) will lose the coverage that they now enjoy.'

• 'When you strip out the double-counting and ... gimmicks, the full 10-year cost of the bill has a $460 billion deficit. The second 10-year cost of this bill has a $1.4 trillion deficit.'

• 'The 'doc fix' (restoring cuts in Medicare reimbursements) costs $371 billion ... a price tag (that) made the score look bad. (So) that provision was taken out, and (put) in stand-alone legislation. But ignoring these costs does not remove them from the backs of taxpayers. Hiding spending does not reduce spending.'

• 'Are we bending the cost curve down or are we bending the cost curve up? If you look at your own chief actuary at Medicare, we're bending it up. He's claiming that we're going up $222 billion, adding more to the unsustainable fiscal situation we have.'

In response to all this, Obama basically talked up the benefits of Medicare Advantage. Call us sticklers, but we expected something a little more, uh, professorial."

You'd think in 7 hours, over two of which the President himself filibustered, he' have had a chance to refute one of these devastating points by Rep Ryan.

Myth - Government Run Healthcare Is An Answer to Healthcare Inflation

Obamacare’s Costly Flaw - Dr. David Gratzer - National Review Online: "Health care might be cheaper in socialized systems (in part, because of rationed care), but, even with their long waiting lists, costs are rising just as quickly there as here...

And how did the United States do with its lack of Obama-inspired Canada-Irish-German-style bureaucratic controls? Health inflation here was 3.4 percent last year, just over double the basic inflation rate. Tellingly, the worst cost increases were experienced by . . . government. Medicare costs were up 8.6 percent, and Medicaid, up 9.9 percent."

Government-run systems globally are doing barely better than the United States in controlling healthcare costs, even with government rationing. In the United States, the portion of our health care economy that seems least able to control inflation is the government, where costs are rising at a nearly 10% rate. Does this suggest to a rational (i.e. non-Leftist) mind that we should shift control for MORE of our healthcare system to the government? And remember, Medicare and Medicaid price controls are already effectively shifting a considerable amount of the burden for those programs onto private insurers. If not for that fact, the inflation numbers for government-run healthcare would look even worse.

Don't Mess With Texas

"DALLAS, Feb 16 (Reuters) - Texas and several national industry groups on Tuesday filed separate petitions in federal court challenging the government's authority to regulate U.S. greenhouse gas emissions."

OK, Other Than That, Is There Any Reason to Doubt Anthropogenic Global Warming?

Climategate U-turn: Astonishment as scientist at centre of global warming email row admits data not well organised | Mail Online: "The academic at the centre of the ‘Climategate’ affair, whose raw data is crucial to the theory of climate change, has admitted that he has trouble ‘keeping track’ of the information.

Colleagues say that the reason Professor Phil Jones has refused Freedom of Information requests is that he may have actually lost the relevant papers.

Professor Jones told the BBC yesterday there was truth in the observations of colleagues that he lacked organisational skills, that his office was swamped with piles of paper and that his record keeping is ‘not as good as it should be’.

The data is crucial to the famous ‘hockey stick graph’ used by climate change advocates to support the theory.

Professor Jones also conceded the possibility that the world was warmer in medieval times than now – suggesting global warming may not be a man-made phenomenon.

And he said that for the past 15 years there has been no ‘statistically significant’ warming."

I can't think of anything I need to add to this...

If Dems Have Their Way, We'll Be Bailing Out Utilities Next

"But addressing a Heritage Foundation seminar last May, Dr. Gabriel Calzada, Professor of King Juan Carlos University in Madrid explained what Feed In Tariffs and other wind subsidies did to Spain (as well as Portugal and Greece) got into debt:

'The feed-in tariff... would make (utility) companies go bankrupt eventually. So...the government guarantees...to give back the money in the future -- when (they) are not going to be in the office any more. Slowly the market does not want to have these securities that they are selling. Right now there is a debt related to these renewable energies that nobody knows how it is going to be paid -- of 16 Billion Euros.'


In early 2009 the Socialist government of Spain reduced alternative energy subsidies by 30%. Calzada continues:

'At that point the whole pyramid collapsed. They are firing thousands of people. BP closed down the two largest solar production plants in Europe. They are firing between 25,000 and 40,000 people....'

'What do we do with all this industry that we have been creating with subsidies that now is collapsing? The bubble is too big. We cannot continue pumping enough money. ...The President of the Renewable Industry in Spain (wrote a column arguing that) ...the only way is finding other countries that will give taxpayers' money away to our industry to take it and continue maintaining these jobs.'


That 'other country' is the United States of America.

Waxman-Markey seems dead, and Europe's southern periphery is bankrupt. But the wind-subsidy proposals being floated in Congress suggest that American political leaders have yet to understand that 'green power' means generating electricity by burning dollars."

A great article that explains in detail why wind power generation "capacity" is usually vastly overstated. Coal and natural gas plants must be standing by at all times to cover the ~75% of the time when wind turbines aren't generating power. Also, I didn't know this - California is littered with the hulks of derelict windmills from the 80's and 90's.

Obama Fiscal "Freeze" Is a Hoax

"President Obama sold the $862 billion in stimulus spending as 'targeted, timely and temporary.' Critics said that was highly unlikely, and now the 2011 Obama budget has proven them right.

To wit, the White House is proposing to convert spending sold as a one-time economic boost into a permanent feature of future government growth. As both the Tax Policy Center and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget have pointed out, supposedly temporary parts of the stimulus—expansions of the earned income tax credit, the child tax credit and Pell Grants for college students—have now found their way into the budget baseline.

True to the way Mr. Obama has honored his campaign pledge of transparency, this news was buried in a footnote on page 170 of the budget's Analytical Perspectives.

...

The Responsible Federal Budget folks estimate that this fiscal sleight-of-hand would cost about $266 billion over 10 years, which by itself almost cancels out the White House's spending freeze."

The President is not serious about even slowing the spending. He is driving us over the debt cliff. This budget is full of phoney gambits, like the fact that the freeze doesn't start till next year, that they freeze budgets at levels bloated by two years of unprecedented Obama discretionary spending growth, that they assume massive savings from some future pie in the sky health care plan. But this one alarmed me more than all the others - $266B that they tried to trick us into believing was part of the current budget baseline, when in fact it is just another $266B of additional Obama robo-spending. As the link notes, just this one trick cancels out any benefit of the President's puny stab at fiscal responsiblity.

President Me! The Musical

"President Me! The Musical"

Health Care Bipartisanship Comes To TOwn

"In fact, the only thing bipartisan about ObamaCare is the opposition."

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Chicago Tribune (!) - Washington - First, Do No Harm

It's crucial to keep in mind that recessions are temporary things, and they end even without decisive measures by Congress. What the political class does in the coming weeks is not likely to have a big effect on total employment.

In the long run, however, sound policies that give private companies the freedom to do what they do best, without onerous taxes and regulations, can make a difference. In the current political climate, unfortunately, Washington is more likely to do the opposite."

Chicago paper's EDITORIAL PAGE gets it right. Hope the boys in the White House still read the hometown rag.

Steyn Nails the Obama Analysis of Scott Brown's Victory

So what went wrong? According to Barack Obama, the problem is that he overestimated you dumb rubes' ability to appreciate what he's been doing for you. "That I do think is a mistake of mine," the president told ABC's George Stephanopoulos. "I think the assumption was if I just focus on policy, if I just focus on this provision or that law or if we're making a good rational decision here, then people will get it."

But you schlubs aren't that smart. You didn't get it. And Barack Obama is determined to see that you do. So the president has decided that he needs to start "speaking directly to the American people."

A couple of weeks old, but still uproariously funny, and painfully true.

Investors.com - GOP Idea Man Charts Course For Solvency

Investors.com - GOP Idea Man Charts Course For Solvency

"in January 2010, Ryan released an updated version of his 'Roadmap for America's Future,' a cure for the most completely predictable major problem that has ever afflicted America."

George Will lays out the GOP vision for dealing with the impending fiscal apocalypse. Contrast this with the "tax and spend our way out of our tax and spending problem" mindset at the center of the disastrous Obama budget.

Obama Takes Spending to Ludicrous Speed

Investors.com - If 'Unsustainable'Is New Normal, Collapse Is Closer Than We Think

"The other day, Douglas Elmendorf, director of the Congressional Budget Office, described current deficits as 'unsustainable.' So let's make them even more so.

The president tells us, with a straight face, that his grossly irresponsible profligate wastrel of a predecessor took the federal budget on an eight-year joyride, so the only way his sober, fiscally prudent successor can get things under control is to grab the throttle and crank it up to what Mel Brooks in 'Spaceballs' (which seems the appropriate comparison) called 'Ludicrous Speed.'"

Mark Steyn, of course.

Krauthammer on the Obama Foreign Policy

George Will on the Stimulus, er, "Jobs" Bill

"He called Wednesday for a third stimulus (the first was his predecessor's, in February 2008) although the S-word has been banished in favor of 'jobs bill.' It will inject into the economy money that government siphons from the economy, thereby somehow creating jobs. And you thought alchemy was strange."

KAHPOW!!!

Republicans Should Call for a Stimulus Reset

The Dems seem to like the image of the "Reset Button." Let's use it on them. Nearly 2/3 of the $800B+ Stimulus Bill passed last year has yet to be spent. Clearly, the Stimulus Bill hasn't worked. It hasn't produced any private sector jobs. It has mainly fended off state and local public employee layoffs that might have occurred due to state and local government budget crises.

Now the Dems want to double-down on stimulus. They are being careful to call it "jobs" vs "stimulus" because they know the word stimulus has become discredited. But why should net new funds be spent on a "jobs bill?" Let's hit the reset button on the stimulus bill, claw back the unspent funds (which if they haven't been spent by now can hardly be expected to be stimulating anything), and use them to fund real stimulus, i.e. meaningful and permanent tax cuts. For example, making the Bush tax cuts permanent and more.

The case that the unspent billions are not stimulative, and merely represent shameless and unprecedented pork barrel spending, is easily made. And in the current climate of voter sensitivity to runaway spending, such a case would be most compelling.

In one fell swoop, the conservatives could reverse hundreds of billions of wasteful spending and the associated debt hangover, and find a source to fund the tax cuts we need to truly get the economy back on its feet again.

In Case You Need More on Copenhagen...

Gullible eager-beaver planet savers - Mark Steyn - Macleans.ca: "I’m always appreciative when a fellow says what he really means. Tim Flannery, the jet-setting doomsaying global warm-monger from down under, was in Ottawa the other day promoting his latest eco-tract, and offered a few thoughts on “Copenhagen”—which is transnational-speak for December’s UN Convention on Climate Change. “We all too often mistake the nature of those negotiations in Copenhagen,” remarked professor Flannery. “We think of them as being concerned with some sort of environmental treaty. That is far from the case. The negotiations now ongoing toward the Copenhagen agreement are in effect diplomacy at the most profound global level. They deal with every aspect of our life and they will influence every aspect of our life, our economy, our society.”"

...“The environment” is the most ingenious cover story for Big Government ever devised. You float a rumour that George W. Bush is checking up on what library books you’re reading, and everyone goes bananas. But announce that a government monitoring device has been placed in every citizen’s trash can in the cause of “saving the planet,” and the world loves you.

...At their Monday night poker game in hell, I’ll bet Stalin, Hitler and Mao are kicking themselves: “ ‘It’s about leaving a better planet to our children?’ Why didn’t I think of that?” This is Two-Ply Totalitarianism—no jackboots, no goose steps, just soft and gentle all the way.

As usual, Mark Steyn's entire column is both entertaining and enlightening. Read it and weep.

The RINO is out!

Republican Scozzafava Drops Out of New York Congressional Race - FOXNews.com: "Republican state Assemblywoman Dierdre Scozzafava has suspended her campaign for upstate New York's 23rd Congressional District seat, giving a possible boost to Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman against Democrat Bill Owens, Fox News has confirmed.

The move comes on the heels of a new poll that showed Scozzafava had fallen behind her two competitors in a close race.

The special election is Tuesday, and political analysts believe upstate New York could be a preview of congressional races nationwide in 2010 and 2012 as Republican leaders struggle to rebuild, redefine and regain control of Washington."

Take that Newt. We don't have to settle for RINOs. Only by running principled conservatives like Hoffman can the GOP take back the House in 2010.

Sign Up to Oppose "Carbon Reparations" and Violation of US Sovereignty

Unfortunately, with the current administration in power, it is necessary to go on the record for positions that used to be obvious:

1) The US should not cripple its own economy to fight fictitious global warming, particularly when giants like China and India have no intention of playing along (a position affirmed 95 - 0 by the Senate when presented with the Kyoto Treaty)

2) The US must not and cannot cede its sovereignty to any world body for any reason

3) US citizens must not ever be made liable to pay taxes to any world body, for any reason

All of the above are currently contemplated by the Copenhagen treaty

Follow the link above to take a stand against this monstrosity.

The Inescapable Allure of the Public Option

As we near the finish line on health care "reform" legislation, the Dems are converging on various flavors of "public option." The pundits are all weighing in on the political considerations driving this move (mollify the MoveOn wing of the party), and no doubt that has its role. But the real reason it has come down to the public option is that the public option is the only type of plan that Congress can rig to appear as if it is saving the taxpayer money. Only in a public option can Congress get the CBO to score fictitious savings that are written into law by fiat. For example, legislating a schedule of reimbursement decreases to health providers year after and then counting those "savings" as offsetting the massive costs of their plans.

I think almost all Americans know that such savings will never materialize. And in case anyone had any doubts just look at the "Doc Fix" bill that went down to defeat last week. The Doc Fix bill was a brazen attempt by the Dems to buy off doctors by cancelling out years of legislated reductions (aka "savings" of $250B) in payments to health providers. Year after year, Congress backs out the phony savings promised when they passed the bill, under pressure from reality as well as from special interests:

"Since its enactment in 1997 the so-called 'sustainable growth rate' mechanism [aka "savings'], which uses a complex formula to establishes annual target costs for physicians' services under Medicare, has not kept up with actual costs.

That's required Congress to step in almost annually with one-year fixes to prevent doctors from facing ever-bigger potential cuts in payment rates. The cut that loomed for doctors in 2010 was 21 percent. Without a permanent redo of the payment formula, Congress would presumably have had to continue to do one-year fixes, something that would also have cost money and that doctors hated because of the uncertainty involved."

Rural legislators hated these legislated "savings" because it had the effect of greatly diminishing the supply of and access to quality health care in their rural districts.

For the "savings" to ever become real would require Congress and the President, year after year, to have the discipline and the integrity to follow through with the painful choices that need to be made, and resist the temptation to cave to special interests or to buy votes by reneging on their responsibilities. The sad history of our Congress clearly argues against our ever seeing any savings.

The Congress is not serious about fiscal responsibilities. It is telling you so by cancelling out Medicare "savings" at the same time it is telling you its new health care plan will be paid for through "savings" in Medicare. And the President is going along with this charade, all the while accusing his opponents of intellectual dishonesty. How stupid do they think we are?

Great News! Taxpayer RIghts in Blue State America

..."voters in two liberal states on opposite ends of the country will also take up measures to limit spending. The outcomes will give us a clear sense of the public mood toward runaway spending.

Maine and Washington are both more liberal and secular than the rest of the country. Barack Obama carried each state with identical 17-point margins, and both have powerful public employee unions that have driven up the cost of government to the point that a backlash has developed." ...

"A similar law, the 'Gann Limit,' passed in California in 1979. It helped keep the Golden State's balance sheet stable until 1990. Then Republican Gov. George Deukmejian teamed up with public employee unions to convince 52% of voters to fund a transportation spending package that slyly rewrote the spending limits, effectively emasculating them. Voters were left with the illusion that they still had a curb on spending when they didn't. California has since experienced three state budget crises as runaway spending combined with volatile revenues left it with junk-bond ratings on its debt and enormous future pension and benefits obligations. With a real Gann Limit, its budget would be balanced now.

If voters in Maine or Washington state pass a taxpayer bill of rights, it will be a clear sign that even in blue states the public is coming to believe that government spending is out of control and that elected officials can no longer be trusted to rein it in. That's a message that will likely reverberate in Congress regardless of who wins in the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races."

Deficit spending/public sector debt is the Holy Grail of issues for conservatives. We must put forward fiscally conservative candidates who can articulate the small government philosophy of the Founders, and who will stand firm against growth in government spending. If we do, we will win.