Headed for the Bottom Rung

Headed for the Bottom Rung 

Watching the Obama Presidency in action is an uncomfortable thing.  There’s no doubt about the fact that Barack Obama is intelligent.  But being intelligent is not the same thing as being wise and competent.  I hate to say it, but Barack Obama is an embarrassment as President of the United States, and it’s so unnecessary.

I did not wish it, but I did predict that the Administration of Barack Obama would resemble Jimmy Carter, but on steroids.  I had hope that he would be more realistic and less ideological as President of the US.  I had hope that he would use common sense and be a President of all people, not just a tight coterie of leftwing radicals.  Sadly, he has made bad choices in advisors, and that has been deadly for a young man with such limited experience.

Being President of the United States is a big job for someone with common sense and big shoulders.  Being President is about the people of the United States, not about the man or woman in the job.  The President promised “hope and change,” but instead his inexperience and blind devotion to a hard left agenda has only brought on despair, division, and failure.  There is less hope and the change is not what the American people want.
Growing up in Chicago politics with close ties to Marxists like bomber Bill Ayers and nut cases like Jeremiah Wright, together with a devotion to the radical tactics of Saul Alinsky, are not a good resume for serving as President of the United States.  Our President has lots of smarts, but sadly little wisdom. 

Clearly the President is a political captive of the big union bosses.  He genuflects to big labor on every issue.  When the UAW forced Chrysler and GM into bankruptcy, Obama forced the courts to violate and ignore the rights of the bond and stock holders, and then gave 50% of the ownership of the new GM Corporation to the Unions who had absolutely no right whatsoever to any equity position.  The Unions who caused the problem in the first place, got paid off for their political support with a gift paid for by the American people.

Our President is also captive of a Marxist redistributionist philosophy.  Obamacare is a tragedy, the scope of which will become quickly evident if and when it actually takes effect.  Anyone with common sense knows that socialism or its twin sister fascism are failed economic models.  Why would anyone think or believe that a top-down, government run (socialism) or government controlled (fascism) enterprise of any kind would be efficient, fair, or effective?  There are no examples of scientific advances under Marxist (socialism) or NAZI (National Socialist Party) run enterprises.  There are plenty of examples of limited human freedom, economic misery, and brutality under enlightened socialist/fascist utopias.

It is simply a failure to understand the fallen state of man that dooms all such utopian experiments to failure, to less individual freedom, and to human misery.  There is no segment of people of any kind—rich, successful, intelligent, white, black, yellow, or brown—that have any claim to being better, more benign, more altruistic, or kinder than the rest of the human race.  As our Founders understood clearly, we all live under the curse of sin.  Look at our Founders, they understood the essence of human nature and that if power was not limited the natural course of any government is a devolution into a dictatorship.  They themselves were very flawed.  After all, many were slaveholders.  Yet, in spite of their human failures, they created a government that was designed to limit the power of any group or single individual.  And in doing so, they laid the groundwork for the end of human slavery.  Their principles of limited government and maximum human freedom in a virtuous state are still as valid today as they were more than 200 years ago. 

Today’s liberals and all who seek power over others are guilty of the first sin of man.  The devil told Adam and Eve that if they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil they would be like God.  It was a lie by the father of lies.  And you and I share the same DNA of Adam and Eve.  We too seek to have power over others.  Human nature has not changed and will never change and that is why human freedom depends on this understanding.  When we lose this understanding and we no longer rely on God as the source of all wisdom and truth, we have cut loose the anchor that is essential to maintaining a healthy and free society.  It’s not about intelligence, or smarts, or education, or hard work.  It’s about holding onto the anchor and limiting the power of any group of people or any single individual over our lives.  Freedom is precious and it is also rare in the annals of world history. 

If only President Obama understood this absolute truth!  If he did, he would not be promoting big government, or spending money we don’t have, or pushing massive, unprecedented tax increases.  He would be cutting taxes and putting more money in the hands of the people, not the government.  He would be slashing government spending, not creating record deficits.  He would stop setting white against black, rich against poor, the educated against the uneducated, and instead seek to unite our nation.  He would reject socialism and fascism as the failed economic models they are.  He wouldn’t go on world tours apologizing for the greatest, most blessed nation in the history of the world.  He would quit attacking our allies like Israel and quite cozying up to dictators like Hugo Chavez.  He would man up and quite blaming others for the problems he has created.  He would understand his own failings and limitations as a man and in humility seek God’s wisdom, and not rely on the rigid ideology of Karl Marx as his guiding light. 

Barack Obama is a sad case.  He is a bright, intelligent, energetic, young man who is trapped in the maze of confused and hazy far left thinking.  Because of this blindness his Presidency is doomed to failure.  It is already failing.  Jimmy Carter move over, there’s someone else headed for the bottom rung on the scale of success for American Presidents.  Barack Obama is a sad case.  He is a bright, intelligent, energetic, young man who is trapped in the maze of confused and hazy far left thinking.  Because of this blindness his Presidency is doomed to failure.  It is already failing.  Jimmy Carter move over, there’s someone else headed for the bottom rung on the scale of success for American Presidents.

Good Decision, Mr. President!

Good Decision, Mr. President!

Even if you are an infrequent reader of this blog, you know that I don’t often praise the policies of President Obama.  He looks to the government for solutions to America’s problems, while I believe that too often government is the problem and that the solutions lie in the creativity and ingenuity of individual Americans.

Perhaps you noticed there was a very special milestone in the utilization and exploration of space last week, but perhaps not.  I have always thrilled at the exploits of our astronauts and I know how much you and I rely on communications from space for communications, national defense, and even watching television. 

While I first watched early suborbital launches by NASA when I was in college, I got to see space technology and numerous launches first-hand while serving in the Army at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico.  White Sands is where Dr. Robert Goddard and Charles Lindberg came in the 1930s to design and launch rockets after the Doctor wore out his welcome in more heavily populated Massachusetts.  White Sands is also where the US Government sent the German Rocket Scientists they captured at Peenemünde, Germany toward the close of World War II, among them, Dr. Wernher von Braun.  And it was at White Sands that I witnessed one of the first flights of the Sprint anti-missile missile as well as other air to ground, ground to air, and ground to ground missile firings.

Of course, all Americans were thrilled when President Kennedy proclaimed, “We will go to the Moon!” and we did.  Who can forget Neil Armstrong walking on the Moon in 1969!  It was amazing.  Less than 25 years after World War II ended, the United States had conquered travel to the Moon.  It’s still almost unbelievable to me.  Neil Armstrong walked on the Moon just 42 years after Charles Lindberg first flew across the Atlantic in the Spirit of Saint Louis.  In fact, our landing on the Moon took place just 66 years after the Wright brothers first flew at Kitty Hawk!

Today we tend to take launches of the soon to be retired Space Shuttle for granted, although we remember vividly the tragic Challenger disaster.  Our nation mourned and the lives lost reminded us just how risky it still is to travel into space.

But last week we began a grand, new chapter in space exploration as space entrepreneur, Elon Musk, made history as his Falcon 9 rocket carried a prototype crew capsule flawlessly into a 155 mile orbit.  Mr. Musk, a native of South Africa, made his fortune when he sold PayPal, an Internet company he created, to eBay, Inc.  He has put more than $100 million of his own money into the high risk opportunity to provide commercial launches to private and military users, as well as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), a government agency that started out on the right foot, but soon went the way of all government bureaucracies—fat, bloated, and generally out of control.

The successful launch of the privately funded and constructed Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral signals great things for the future of space exploration and utilization if only the government will stay out of the way.  Yes, Mr. Musk’s SpaceX is counting on government contracts, both military and NASA, but his primary target is the commercial launch of communications satellites, and even private transportation into space.  Today you need to be a billionaire to afford what governments charge for flight into space, but with private enterprise in the picture there is real reason to hope that the cost of a trip into space will drop dramatically.  After all, what is there that government can do that private enterprise can’t do better, faster, more efficiently, and cheaper?

Discussions are already underway to use Falcon 9 to provide manned missions to the US Space Station.  I won’t be surprised when SpaceX or one of its private competitors develops the first SSTO—Single Stage to Orbit—rocket system that can deliver men and supplies with an efficient, less costly single stage rocket that can be launched by a small crew instead of a cast of thousands that is necessary to launch today’s out-of-date Space Shuttle.  Thanks to President Obama, private enterprise will take the lead in developing and providing space transportation of the future.  Great decision, Mr. President, well done!

“If They Bring a Knife to the Fight, We Bring a Gun”

“If They Bring a Knife to the Fight, We Bring a Gun”

      That statement was made to a Philadelphia audience on June 13, 2008 in the heat of the Presidential campaign by candidate Barack Obama.  I can only imagine what the news media would have said if that comment was made by Sarah Palin or John McCain.  I guess you might call this Chicago thug wisdom – never bring a knife to a gun fight.

You could pass it off as overheated campaign rhetoric, but clearly the thugs who run the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) took that advice to heart.

Last August, at a town hall meeting in St. Louis, Missouri, hosted by Democratic Congressman Russ Carnahan, Kenneth Gladney was apparently selling “Don’t Tread on Me” flags and other paraphernalia.  SEIU thugs clearly did not like the fact that Mr. Gladney was an African-American favoring the Tea Party movement.  After calling Mr. Gladney the “N” word, they beat him up so badly that he had to be taken to the hospital.

Where was Jesse Jackson?  Where was Al Sharpton?  Where was the President?  Where was the national news media?  For that matter, why did it take the St. Louis County Police Department three months to file charges since the attack was witnessed by police officers?

The President held a beer summit, perhaps he could have convened a thug summit.  But there was no outrage.  The cat must have gotten the tongue of The Washington Post, the New York Times and “major” TV networks.  They had plenty to say about non-verifiable racial slurs supposedly made by the Tea Party folks at an anti-Obamacare rally on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.  They were outraged by the fact that they could not stir up trouble – just as they were outraged that the Times Square Bomber did not turn out to be a Tea Party activist. 

But the sands of time are running out for the liberals.  The real racists have been exposed.  Liberals know that average African-Americans have more in common with average conservatives, than they do with those on the left, like the President.  African-Americans want prayer in schools.  They embrace good schools brought to them via vouchers.  They want low taxes so that they can climb the ladder of success and not have it kicked out from under them by bankrupt socialist schemes.  They seek low crime and they endorse traditional moral values.  They don’t want any more unborn black babies to die from abortion.  African-Americans are natural allies of conservatives.

While the liberals and the Democratic Party see African-Americans only as a voting bloc to be manipulated, conservatives see African-Americans as individuals and as natural allies in building a colorblind nation with equal opportunity for all.

Radicals cannot let the truth get out that in terms of political philosophy there is just as much diversity of opinion among black Americans as there is among white Americans.  This is why liberals are terrified that they will lose control of the African American community and it’s why they hate black conservatives even more than white conservatives.  Black conservatives threaten liberals even more than white conservatives.  The liberals’ only hope is to use all forces they can muster to perpetuate the lie that conservatives, Tea Party members, and Republicans are racists. 

That big lie is all they have.  That’s the sole hope the Democrats have to maintain political hegemony among black Americans.  They are hanging by a thread.  They know that if and when the truth gets through the media fog to the black community, the party is over.  And so the lies become worse, the shrillness grows, and their panic intensifies. 

Double standard hypocrisy is the modus operandi of the liberal media and liberal politicians.  How much longer can they maintain the fiction that conservatives are racists?  How many more black Americans like Mr. Gladney have to be beaten up and called awful racist names?  How many more young black Americans have to be denied good schools?  How many more young black men have to die on the streets?  How many more black babies have to be aborted?  How many more lies have to be told?

The left has their marching orders, “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.”  Thug wisdom seems to be the order for the day. 

The Founder’s Genius

The Founder’s Genius
 

There’s a lot of misunderstanding about the founding of our Republic and the mindset of those who signed the Declaration of Independence and created the United States Constitution with the Bill of Rights.  Our President has complained about the fact that it only contains “negative rights.”  Similarly, his latest Supreme Court nominee, Elena Kagan, has bemoaned the fact that our Constitution is primarily about “negative rights.”  Just what do the President and his nominee mean by negative rights?

The answer is that they view government entirely different than did the Founders.  To understand our Founders’ mindset we must understand what they believed and the principles that caused them to risk all to create a republican form of government.  We must start by understanding that contrary to what is being taught in our schools today, our Founders were men of deep faith.  Did you know that nearly half of the men who signed the Declaration of Independence had some formal seminary training and a number had seminary degrees?  That’s how devout our Founders were, how serious they were about their faith.  It’s a matter of record and fact, not speculation, that these men, including those who did not have formal seminary training, were driven primarily by their Christian faith.

The real difference between the vision of our President and the Founders is their view of human nature.  Our Founders based their understanding of human nature on that of the Bible.  The Bible repeatedly discusses the fallen nature of man.  In fact, it is to rescue man from his fallen state that God established His plan of salvation.  After sin came into the world, God devised a plan to make it possible for frail and corrupt men (and women) to be allowed to enter into heaven—God’s perfect home where there are no more quarrels, no anger, no abuse, no jealousy, no greed, no evil of any kind.

But the Bible makes it absolutely clear that man is inherently sinful.  The great leader of the Old Testament, King David, said in Psalm 51:3-5, “…my sin is always before me…   I have sinned and done what is evil in Your sight…  Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.”  Similarly, in the New Testament book of 1 John 1:8, it says “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.”  These are but two of many references to the fallen state of man in the Bible and the Bible was the most widely read book by our Founders.  They read it, they knew it, they understood it, and most important of all, they believed it.

And while nearly all of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and the writers of the Constitution held this view of man, they also knew history well and knew that placing power in the hands of government often led to tyranny.  Corrupt men cannot handle power whether they gain that power from wealth, from election, from inheritance, or from any other form.  They seek to become like God and exercise power over other men and women.

This is the difference between the vision of the Founders and our President.  It’s not a matter of being well-meaning or having good intentions, it’s a matter of understanding the fallen nature of man.  The Founders knew well that placing power in the hands of a few or in the King led to oppression and despotism.  That is why they intentionally placed what our President describes as “negative rights” into the US Constitution.

In contrast, President Obama believes the government should do things for its citizens like provide universal health care, keep Americans from eating the wrong food, tell them what kind of cars they should drive, regulate where they live, decide what they their children should learn in school, regulate what is politically correct and acceptable speech, decide who should be allowed access to the airwaves and the internet, alter the moral code in the interest of tolerance and fairness, and otherwise involve itself intimately in the lives of its citizens for their good.  Our President and those on the left don’t like the limitations placed on the activities of government by the Constitution and thus deplore the fact that it only deals with “negative rights” which keep government from intruding into the decisions of free Americans.  Obama sees the Bill of Rights as “negative” rights because they limit the power of government over the lives of American citizens.  He (and liberals in general) ignores, dislikes, and mocks Article X of the US Constitution which states: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, not prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”  People who believe in the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution are derided as “Tenthers,” as if they are kooks and screwballs.

In short, liberals don’t like to limit the power of government over your life.  They have no fear of government.  They apparently believe they have a special corner on intelligence, wisdom, benevolence, broadmindedness, and tolerance that is far greater than their fellow citizens, especially those they refer to as “the little people.”  Accordingly, they believe they should have much, much more power over how you live your life.  They can’t imagine that the growth of government will devolve into a dictatorship because they see man, or at least enlightened liberals, as good.  

Liberals like to ignore the Declaration of Independence, but you cannot understand the vision of the Founders or understand the United States Constitution without reading and understanding the Declaration.

The Declaration, which was primarily written by Thomas Jefferson, explicitly acknowledged that our rights do not come from government, but from our Creator.  The Declaration states, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…”  To the Founders it was “self-evident” that their rights came not from government, but from God.  The Declaration repeatedly refers to the danger of government taking away the rights of its citizens.  Our Founders believed so strongly that unlimited government posed a great threat to their freedom that they concluded the Declaration with these words, “…for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”  They were men of honor and some lost everything they had including their life, their property, and their families.

They were willing to risk all for freedom.  And they knew it was a great risk with long, long odds.  It wasn’t just that the American colonies were weak and were up against the world’s greatest power of the day.  Theirs was a radical experiment that tested whether, as Lincoln would later say, “a nation so conceived and so dedicated could long endure.”

They knew they had no chance whatsoever of success unless blessed by God.  They knew that only a nation comprised of men and women of virtue who put their trust in God could preserve the freedom they dearly won.  John Adams said the American Revolution, “…connected, in one indissoluble bond, the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.”  At another time Adams said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.  It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

There is no common ground between the understanding and vision of the Founders and our President or those on the left.  They put their trust in government.  Our Founders put their trust in God.

It’s time to restore the vision of our Founders.  Will we leave to our children a nation of virtue, freedom, and equal justice for all or will our legacy be a descent into totalitarianism?  What will we choose, limited government and maximum freedom or big government and limited freedom?  There is no other choice.

Our nation is walking dangerously close to the precipice of an all powerful, big government.  Will 2010 be the beginning of American renewal, or will it be the beginning of the end of the American dream?  We must cast our votes wisely, not only in 2010, but also in 2012, so that the legacy we leave to our children resembles the legacy each of us received from those who came before us.  Let us, as did our Founders, ask “Divine Providence” to restore the vision of our Founders for a nation of laws and limited government that values each and every human being and relies on God as the author of our freedom.

A Free Market Health Care Solution

A Free Market Health Care Solution

Presuming we witness a tsunami in November that brings in a large majority of men and women to Congress who believe in limited Constitutional government, how should they address the health care issue? 

Is there a free market solution that benefits consumers with lower cost and higher quality health care, while at the same time eliminates wasteful government and health insurance bureaucracy?  Yes, I believe there is such a solution, and more than that, a solution which will empower the consumer, encourage more young people to become health care professionals, reduce the size and scope of government, take care of the poor, and save Medicare.  Is that really possible?  Is there is a market place solution that will, unlike the Obamacare’s path to socialized medicine, improve medical care for all?  Yes, I believe there is, and the solution is not complex, nor will it take more than 1,000 pages and tens of thousands of bureaucrats to administer it.  It works like this—

1.  Step 1.  Every American would be entitled to an annual $7,500 tax credit above a $500 deductible amount to spend on his or her health care needs.  In other words, you would deduct all amounts spent annually on your health care needs above $500, up to a total of $7,500, directly from your income taxes (not taxable income).  There’s no magic in the $500 deductible amount or the size of the tax credit.  These could be modified and still have a similar impact.  All medical expenses above $7,500 could easily and inexpensively be covered by purchasing a catastrophic insurance policy, the cost of which should be deductible from your taxable income.  Just remember, each American would be able to deduct their own medical expenses directly from their own taxes up to a fixed amount.

2.  Step 2.  Those American citizens who have no income would receive medical and hospital coverage from health care pools operated by nonprofit organizations.  Contributions into such designated nonprofit groups (both secular and religious) would be deductible (from taxable income) at an annually adjustable rate of $1.00 or more.  The annual rate would be adjusted to make certain that the medical care pools have sufficient funds to cover all individuals.  In other words, a contribution into such a pool might be $1.50 or even $2.00 for every dollar contributed into such a pool, thus incentivizing donations to the pools and assuring that sufficient funds would be available to cover all American citizens.

3.  Step 3.  Outlaw and eliminate all punitive damages for medical care both by the doctor and by your hospital.

What would be the impact of this three step process on doctors, hospitals, medical research, consumers and uninsured, unemployed American citizens?

1.  Doctors.  Today doctors are burdened by a vast amount of paperwork required by both the government for Medicare and by insurance companies for corporate and individual plans.  On top of that your doctor may be paying $100,000 or more per year for malpractice insurance.  Of course, that cost is passed along to you in the form of higher insurance premiums.  The elimination of punitive damages for health care providers (both doctors and hospitals) would immediately and dramatically lower the cost of health care.  But far more important, the elimination of the need for any health care insurance under $8,000 ($500 deductible plus $7,500 tax credit) would get rid of all the paperwork and bureaucracy that doctors face, which has nothing whatsoever to do with your health care.  You would be paying by credit card, cash, or check for your medical services up to $8,000 per year.  Doctors could focus exclusively on being the very best at what they love and were educated for, providing top flight health care service.  They would benefit in handling their Medicare patients too, as I will shortly explain.

2.  Hospitals.  Free from punitive damage suits, hospitals too would be much less costly.  This would directly impact the quality of their service and the cost of catastrophic health care insurance, which would decrease.

3.  Medical Research.  This is something very near and dear to my heart since my wife has Multiple Sclerosis.  Today the United States drives health care research worldwide, providing hope to millions suffering with all sorts of currently incurable diseases.  With the rationing of healthcare that is an integral part of all government-run health care programs, Obamacare included, medical research is always one of the first casualties.  In a very short period, all health care research comes to a screeching halt.  That’s why the world depends on the United States to fund all advances in health care.  Of course, when we fund research that is successful, they take advantages of such advances, but their socialistic system provides no incentives whatsoever for such advances.  By strengthening our health care system through tort reform (the elimination of punitive damages) and the elimination of costly and unproductive government and insurance red tape, the United States will continue to develop cures for diseases that burden men, women and children around the globe.

4.  Consumers.  You and I and every American would reap the greatest benefit from a free market, non-government, limited insurance approach to health care.  You, not your company or the government, would be in charge of your health care.  Your health care would be your responsibility and you would not be dependent on your employer’s selection of coverage.  With the elimination of punitive damages, the cost of health care would decline.  For both those still working and those retired, the quality of health care would improve.  No more arguing with insurance companies or Medicare bureaucrats over coverage.  No more refusals by doctors of Medicare patients (for those who decide to opt-out of Medicare coverage up to $8,000).  That’s right, many, if not most, who are currently covered by Medicare may well opt-out of Medicare because of the advantage to them of deducting their health care costs directly from their taxes.  Seniors who choose to opt-out would receive better, less-regulated, health care service, and those who choose not to opt-out could rest assured that Medicare would not go bankrupt.  All seniors could either rely on Medicare for catastrophic needs only or choose to pay for a catastrophic insurance policy.  This program would save Medicare which is currently on the road to insolvency.  The more seniors opt-out of Medicare, the lower the total cost of Medicare, and the smaller government can shrink.  And that too is a benefit to consumers—smaller government, less bureaucracy.  With this free market approach there would be no need for government bureaucrats to decide who gets health coverage and who doesn’t.  There would be no shortage of doctors, nurses and hospital beds.  In short, there would be no need for government rationing of health care services that is always part and parcel of any government controlled health care program.  There is not one exception to this practice under socialized medicine in any nation in the world and there is absolutely no reason to believe that Obamacare would lead to anything different.

5.  Uninsured, Unemployed American Citizens.  While individuals should be responsible for their own lives, including health care, some make bad decisions and others suffer unanticipated calamities.  The Lord tells us that “the poor will always be with us” and that we should have compassion on them.  There are many instances in the Bible of collections being taken up and efforts being made to assist the poor.  By taking government out of the equation and making private, religious and secular nonprofit charities directly responsible for providing health care coverage, many, many good things will be accomplished.  The person in need will no longer just be another number processed by a bureaucrat, but will instead have their life touched by a caring, compassionate human being.  In the process both will be lifted up morally and spiritually.  The Church that initiated the development of health care and institutions to care for the poor will be encouraged to once again assume the responsibility for caring for the soul and the health of those in need.  Of course, the opportunity to generate large sums of charitable gifts would also incentivize non-religious groups to reach out to help those in need.  Nonprofit hospitals could solicit contributions to cover the cost of health care services for the poor and for-profit hospitals could establish tax-exempt foundations that could receive gifts to cover uninsured, unemployed US citizens.

Would this be a perfect solution to America’s health care needs?  There is no utopia on this earth.  As I have said repeatedly, those who try to create utopia always create nightmares and they have names like Hitler, Stalin, and Mao.  Of course what I propose would not be a perfect system, but it would be many, many times better than any form of socialized medicine including Obamacare.  Socialized medicine always translates to:

1.  Less medical research

2.  A rationing of health care services

3.  A shortage of health care professionals

4.  A shortage of hospital beds

5.  Worse medical coverage

6.  Skyrocketing health care costs that would add to the already dangerous financial predicament in which the US finds itself today

7.  Not everyone receiving quality health care

8.  More government control over our lives

In stark contrast, the free market health care program I propose would:

1.  Expand medical research and hasten the discovery of cures for some of our worst diseases

2.  Dramatically reduce the cost of health care services

3.  Encourage talented young people to enter the field of health care services

4.  Free doctors from bureaucracy to focus on taking care of your heath

5.  Put you in control of your health care, not your employer, not an insurance company, and not the government

6.  Reduce the cost of doctor and hospital services

7.  Encourage better decisions in health care

8.  Provide health care to every uninsured, unemployed American citizen

9.  Shrink government and insurance company control over your life  and mine

10.  Save Medicare and improve the quality of medical services for 
 senior citizens

11.   Receive strong support from a vast majority of American citizens

There would be some losers—

1.  Politicians, Bureaucrats and Union Bosses.  They would not succeed in gaining more control over your life, especially the quality of your medical care.

2.  Insurance Companies.   Their revenues would shrink in size because there would be no need for anything but catastrophic medical coverage insurance.  They too would have less control over your life.

3.  Trial Lawyers.   Ambulance chasing would no longer be profitable and therefore they would no longer become rich from punitive damage lawsuits.  Instead those dollars would go back in your pocket as the resultant medical and hospital fees decline.

So let’s do it.  Let’s throw out the bums—Republican RINOs and Democrats, take back our country, and start rolling back socialism—the enemy of all free people.

The GOP Wins, Then What?

The GOP Wins, Then What?

Nothing is a sure thing. Just ask Tom Dewey or Mary Sue Terry. Tom Dewey was supposedly a “shoo-in” for President in 1948 and Mary Sue Terry had a 19 point lead in the Governor’s Race in Virginia on Labor Day. Contrary to the famous Chicago Tribune headline, Dewey lost and George Allen demolished “Governor” Terry in a landslide.

Nevertheless, let’s just suppose that the Republicans take control of both the US House of Representatives and the US Senate in 2010. After all, Scott Brown was elected in Massachusetts (of all places) to fill the seat previously held by Ted Kennedy!

Of course, even a big Republican majority would be impeded by an Obama veto and frankly, by RINO Republicans. But it doesn’t hurt to speculate. Or more importantly, to start thinking about a pro-American, pro-freedom agenda. When you are in the leadership it is imperative to lead.

Here are my suggestions should the GOP win this November:

1- Repeal Obamacare. It doesn’t make any difference if it will be vetoed by Obama, make it clear that the GOP has heard the voice of the American people.

2- 10% Congressional Pay Cut. While a pay cut for Congress won’t materially affect the wild spending, the GOP should send a message to the American people that they will share in the pain of a recession.

3- 10% RIF for all Federal Employees. Except for the military, Congress should pass a bill mandating a 10% reduction in force for the entire federal bureaucracy. You can’t heal an economy by expanding an already bloated bureaucracy that uses up vital capital and manpower that could otherwise be expended by private enterprise. 

4- 10% Pay Reduction for All Government Employees. Again, except for the military, a 10% across-the-board reduction in pay for all federal employees. For the first time in history, average compensation for a government bureaucrat exceeds those in the private sector who create all our goods and services. 

5- 10% Across-the-Board Reduction in Government Spending. Government is already too big and too intrusive. When times are tough, a reduction in expenditures is exactly what companies of all sizes do and it’s far past time for the federal government to do the same thing. 

6- Freeze on all Earmarks. Frankly, earmark spending is just a tiny fraction of the expenditures of government, but they are unconstitutional and highly disliked by the American public. 

7- Suspension of all TARP and Stimulus Spending. If your family hits hard times, you don’t go out and start spending like a drunken sailor. You cut back, eat out less, and work to get your financial house in order. A suspension of all TARP and so-called “stimulus spending” would be a small step in the right direction. 

8- Across-the-Board 30% Tax Rate Reduction. We know from the successful effort of Ronald Reagan to extract the US from the worst economy since the Great Depression that the key to jobs and restoring a healthy economy is a tax rate reduction. Tax revenue to the Government actually increased after the 30% tax rate reduction called Kemp-Roth! Warren Buffet employs tens of thousands of people and the more money he has, the more he will invest in expanding his business ventures. Similarly, the consumer is hit hard by excessively high gas prices and by higher taxes. He needs tax relief now. A tax rate reduction will mean more jobs and get the US back on track. 

9- One Year Suspension of the Capital Gains Tax. A one year suspension of the Capital Gains tax will give a huge positive jolt to the economy and hasten the recovery. 

10- One Year Suspension of Corporate Income Taxes. Far from benefitting the rich, a one year suspension of Corporate Income Taxes will dramatically boost job growth and create a healthy economy. 

11- One Time Suspension of Taxes on Corporate Foreign Earnings. Such a suspension would flood the US economy with urgently needed capital and hasten a full economic recovery.

So what if President Obama foolishly vetoes this pro-growth agenda for America? It would be, as Reagan said, a banner of bold colors, instead of pastels to let the American people know that the Republican Party has come back to its senses and will provide leadership that listens to the concerns of the American people.

Ronald Reagan not only governed wisely and according to the United States Constitution to the great benefit of every American, he also proved that straightforward, honest, conservative policies not only work, but make good political sense. 

Much more can be done in the long run if we soundly defeat Obama in 2012 to restore and rebuild the exceptional nation we call the United States of America. With the right leadership, we can restore personal responsibility, expand human freedom, and put in place once again the ladder of economic opportunity for all Americans. 

Let’s do it!

The GOP Wins, Then What? Nothing is a sure thing. Just ask Tom Dewey or Mary Sue Terry. Tom Dewey was supposedly a “shoo-in” for President in 1948 and Mary Sue Terry had a 19 point lead in the Governor’s Race in Virginia on Labor Day. Contrary to the famous Chicago Tribune headline, Dewey lost and George Allen demolished “Governor” Terry in a landslide. Nevertheless, let’s just suppose that the Republicans take control of both the US House of Representatives and the US Senate in 2010. After all, Scott Brown was elected in Massachusetts (of all places) to fill the seat previously held by Ted Kennedy! Of course, even a big Republican majority would be impeded by an Obama veto and frankly, by RINO Republicans. But it doesn’t hurt to speculate. Or more importantly, to start thinking about a pro-American, pro-freedom agenda. When you are in the leadership it is imperative to lead. Here are my suggestions should the GOP win this November: 1- Repeal Obamacare. It doesn’t make any difference if it will be vetoed by Obama, make it clear that the GOP has heard the voice of the American people. 2- 10% Congressional Pay Cut. While a pay cut for Congress won’t materially affect the wild spending, the GOP should send a message to the American people that they will share in the pain of a recession. 3- 10% RIF for all Federal Employees. Except for the military, Congress should pass a bill mandating a 10% reduction in force for the entire federal bureaucracy. You can’t heal an economy by expanding an already bloated bureaucracy that uses up vital capital and manpower that could otherwise be expended by private enterprise. 4- 10% Pay Reduction for All Government Employees. Again, except for the military, a 10% across-the-board reduction in pay for all federal employees. For the first time in history, average compensation for a government bureaucrat exceeds those in the private sector who create all our goods and services. 5- 10% Across-the-Board Reduction in Government Spending. Government is already too big and too intrusive. When times are tough, a reduction in expenditures is exactly what companies of all sizes do and it’s far past time for the federal government to do the same thing. 6- Freeze on all Earmarks. Frankly, earmark spending is just a tiny fraction of the expenditures of government, but they are unconstitutional and highly disliked by the American public. 7- Suspension of all TARP and Stimulus Spending. If your family hits hard times, you don’t go out and start spending like a drunken sailor. You cut back, eat out less, and work to get your financial house in order. A suspension of all TARP and so-called “stimulus spending” would be a small step in the right direction. 8- Across-the-Board 30% Tax Rate Reduction. We know from the successful effort of Ronald Reagan to extract the US from the worst economy since the Great Depression that the key to jobs and restoring a healthy economy is a tax rate reduction. Tax revenue to the Government actually increased after the 30% tax rate reduction called Kemp-Roth! Warren Buffet employs tens of thousands of people and the more money he has, the more he will invest in expanding his business ventures. Similarly, the consumer is hit hard by excessively high gas prices and by higher taxes. He needs tax relief now. A tax rate reduction will mean more jobs and get the US back on track. 9- One Year Suspension of the Capital Gains Tax. A one year suspension of the Capital Gains tax will give a huge positive jolt to the economy and hasten the recovery. 10- One Year Suspension of Corporate Income Taxes. Far from benefitting the rich, a one year suspension of Corporate Income Taxes will dramatically boost job growth and create a healthy economy. 11- One Time Suspension of Taxes on Corporate Foreign Earnings. Such a suspension would flood the US economy with urgently needed capital and hasten a full economic recovery. So what if President Obama foolishly vetoes this pro-growth agenda for America? It would be, as Reagan said, a banner of bold colors, instead of pastels to let the American people know that the Republican Party has come back to its senses and will provide leadership that listens to the concerns of the American people. Ronald Reagan not only governed wisely and according to the United States Constitution to the great benefit of every American, he also proved that straightforward, honest, conservative policies not only work, but make good political sense. Much more can be done in the long run if we soundly defeat Obama in 2012 to restore and rebuild the exceptional nation we call the United States of America. With the right leadership, we can restore personal responsibility, expand human freedom, and put in place once again the ladder of economic opportunity for all Americans. Let’s do it!

Dangerous Dishonesty
 
So the radicals in the Democrat Party shove a first step socialized medicine bill down the throats of the American people (with polls showing only 35% of Americans support the bill), with the assurance of former President Bill Clinton that it will turn out to be a political benefit in November.  But, it didn’t happen that way.  Today, less than 35% of the American people want a government takeover of health care.

It’s hard to understand liberals, especially those of the far left variety like Pelosi, Reid, and Obama.  Conservatives clearly say that they are for a smaller, less intrusive government, with lower taxes, more personal responsibility, and personal freedom.  Why can’t liberals simply say– 

        We think government needs to grow more powerful
        and larger and raise taxes so that we can take care of
        you.  We think government can do a better job of taking
        care of your retirement needs and your health care needs
        when it’s run by fair minded, smart, well-educated people
        like us.  After all, we are the intelligentsia and have a
        higher sense of social responsibility than the masses and
        if you’ll just turn your life decisions over to us, we’ll do a
        better job than you can do in deciding what kind of home
        to live in, what to eat, what kind of car to drive, how many
        children to have, what your children will learn, who should
        get health care, and what you can listen to on the radio.  

If liberals would openly state what they believe, it would not only be a refreshing breath of fresh air, it would be honest.  Apparently therein lies the rub.

So back to the health care debate.  Some of the more seasoned pros in the Democratic Party have sensed that the November 2010 elections might be rough for the Democrats.  They couldn’t debate the issue, because the American people knew the facts and were on to them.  So what else could they do but to try and discredit the opposition?

Early on, Speaker Pelosi referred to the Tea Party folks as “Nazis” and “racists” and said she feared “violence,” but that smear didn’t seem to gain any traction.  Then there was the undocumented accusation that some who attended the Tea Party protest the day of the vote shouted out racial and homophobic slurs.  But when there was absolutely no validation of such smears, that balloon went flat.

So Bill Clinton decides to come to the rescue by trying to link the Tea Party folks to Timothy McVeigh who bombed the federal building in Oklahoma.  Quickly, President Obama joined in using the occasion of his commencement address at the University of Michigan to allude to the possibility violence by his opponents—a dark, but clear reference to the Tea Party movement.  But before Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid could chime in, something happened that seemed like a godsend.  It was almost too wonderful to be true.  There was a powerful bomb planted in the heart of New York City.  Fortunately, it failed to explode.  But even better, from the liberals’ perspective, the surveillance cameras revealed that a white male was apparently the culprit.  What joy, what bliss, a white male was to blame, hopefully an active member of the Tea Party movement.  White males are, you see, the worst, most awful problem in the United States.  They are, according to liberals, rude, uncouth, gun toting, bitter, Bible thumping, and nationalistic (liberals don’t believe in patriotism).  Worst of all, white males consistently vote by margins of 70% or more for conservative candidates for public office. Quick, get out the tar and feathers!

The early evidence, from the biased liberal perspective, was very promising.  You could almost hear the liberals praying (if it’s correct to use “prayer” in connection with liberals) that it would turn out that the bomber was a member of the Tea Party movement.  How wonderful would that be!  To quote from the editorial section of the May 5th edition of The Washington Times, “New York City Mayor Michael R. 
Bloomberg, prompted by CBS News reader Katie Couric, speculated that the culprit was ‘homegrown, maybe a mentally deranged person or someone with a political agenda that doesn’t like the health care bill or something.’”

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews and their in-house “terror analyst” Roger Cressey spent time discussing the likelihood that the bomber came from the “right wing.”  What ecstasy that would be!

Then the bubble burst like a huge bubble gum bubble and it put gooey stuff all over the face of Katie Couric, Michael Bloomberg, Chris Matthews and the whole left-wing gang who profile white males as the source of all evil.  Oh no!  The bomber was Faisal Shahzad, a naturalized American citizen from Pakistan, trained by al Qaeda.  

It just could not be true.  Before all the details came out, but after they knew he was a naturalized citizen from Pakistan, CNN still referred to him as a man from “Connecticut.”  They were hoping against hope that somehow Faisal Shahzad was a member of the Tea Party movement.
When asked three times by Steve Doucey of FOX and Friends if Faisal Shahzad was a terrorist, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Janet Napalitano, continued to dodge the question.  Apparently within the White House and the leadership of Congress, only white male Tea Party members are likely terrorists, while we must never assume that Muslim males like those who flew the airplanes into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center buildings and who plant bombs in Times Square are likely terrorists.

When Cornwallis surrendered to General George Washington at Yorktown the American band played the popular ditty, “The World Turned Upside Down.”  It must have felt like that to Cornwallis and it would be equally appropriate today.  

If Obama and his liberal friends don’t quit sticking their head in the sand and ignoring the real threat posed by radical Islam, the next bomb will go off and hundreds, if not thousands, of American lives will be lost.  Perhaps the President should seek out the advice of his friend, Bill Ayres, to better understand the mindset of those who plant bombs.