Views on the News
August 22, 2009
Views
on the News*
Our Constitution is very
clear on a limited federal government, and providing health care and other
social services on a federal level are not what our founders intended. Before
we debate socialized health care, we need to have an open, national discussion
about socialist influences on America. We
must openly acknowledge and discuss the ramifications of continuing down the
path of centralized government and abandoning the Constitution as it was
intended. Federal programs such as
Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and Welfare... are all theoretically
unconstitutional. Glenn Beck used a letter from a woman in Arizona to discuss the
biggest issue in today’s political environment.
She articulated that neither major political party represented her views
or works to pursue issues important to her and too many people feel
disenfranchised by both major political parties. The issue is that this woman is not alone,
but in fact represents a huge number of Americans who feel disconnected from
their representatives in Washington. Americans
no longer trust Obama at his word, since so often his leftist actions and
intrusive legislation (once finally read and understood) bears little
resemblance to the glowing rhetoric that embellished it. The belief is that the current administration
and many prior administrations of both parties abandoned the Constitution and
the underlying principles on which it was written. I believe our federal government
needs to Return to Common Sense contained in the Constitution of our Founding
Fathers.
We are witnessing one of
the more rapid turnabouts in recent American political history with President
Obama’s popularity plummeting to 45% while the public expresses even less
confidence in the Democratic-led Congress and the direction of the country at
large. President Barack Obama's popularity has plummeted to a
record low, with just 45% of voters now approving of his performance, according
to the latest Zogby International poll. Victor Davis Hanson tries to understand
what happened, other than the usual hubris of the party in power:
·
Voters
had legitimate worries about health care, global warming, immigration, energy,
and inefficient government, but it turns out that they are more anxious about
the new radical remedies than the old nagging problems.
· Americans were at first merely scared
about the growing collective debt, but by June they became outraged that Obama
has quadrupled the annual deficit in proposing all sorts of new federal
programs at a time when most finally had acknowledged that the U.S. has lived
beyond its means for years.
· Many voters really believed in the “no
more red/blue state America” healing rhetoric, but instead, polls show they got
the most polarizing president in recent history, both in his radical programs
and in the manner in which he has demonized the opposition to ram them through
without bipartisan support.
· Americans wanted a new brand,
youthful, post-racial, mesmerizing abroad, but their president has proven not
so post-racial, but instead hyper-racially conscious.
· Even skeptics are surprised at the
partisan cynicism, for today the Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Barack Obama
have become near-Nixonian in demonizing popular resistance to their
collectivized health-care plans as mob-like, inauthentic, scripted, Nazi-like,
and un-American.
· There is a growing fear that Obamism
is becoming cult-like and Orwellian, as words change meanings as acts of terror
become “man-caused disasters” and hunting down jihadists is really an “overseas
contingency operation” and media sycophants do not merely parrot Obama, but now
proclaim him a “god.”
· The Obama cabinet is sounding
downright uncouth and boorish as: the tax-challenged Treasury secretary, Tim
Geithner, unleashed a profanity-laced diatribe against bank regulators; and Hillary
Clinton’s recent outburst in the Congo was something out of Days of Our Lives; Joe Biden cannot speak
extemporaneously without causing an incident with the Russians or misleading
the public about swine flu; Attorney General Holder sounds like a tired scold;
and only to be overshadowed by the President’s off-the-cuff cuts about the
Special Olympics, Las Vegas, and the Cambridge police.
· We were all appalled by Wall Street
greed and the notion that an individual could take $100 million rather than one
or two million as a bonus, but the Obama remedy for that obscenity was to conflate
Goldman Sachs or AIG with the family orthodontist or local asphalt contractor
whose 80-hour weeks might result in an annual $250,000 income.
· Democrat populism turned out to be
largely aristocratic elitism, as Obama spends more money on himself than did
Bush and the liberal Congress has a strange fondness for pricy private jets.
·
Americans
no longer believe this is our moment when the seas stop rising and the planet
ceases warming, because there is a growing hopelessness that despite all the
new proposed income taxes, payroll taxes, and surtaxes, the deficit will
skyrocket, not shrink; and there is foreboding that while apologies abroad are
nice in the short term, they will soon earn a reckoning; and while the
productive classes pay more of their income, and while government grows and
entitlement expands, there is a sense that what follows will not be thanks for
either taxes paid or benefits received, but even more anger that neither is
enough and that much more is owed.
Obama’s popularity might rebound with
a natural upturn in the economy, continued low energy prices, and good will for
our first multiracial president. Congress
popularity is wallowing at 24% even though the Democrats own both houses of
Congress and the Presidency. An
inflation-debt-induced mini-recovery will help Obama by early next year. The laws of physics
will then catch up to him, as a falling dollar, high interest, high inflation,
low growth, and high unemployment return to choke off a return to former
prosperity.
The face-off between the ruling party and the people
continues to unfold, as Democrat politicians hold town hall meetings across the
country to build support for the Obama administration's latest power grab,
misleadingly labeled 'health care reform.' Barack
Obama’s Big Bang is beginning to backfire, as his plans for rapid,
once-in-a-generation overhauls of energy, financial regulation and health care
are running into stiff resistance, both in Washington and around the country. The Obama theory was simple, though always
freighted with risk: Use a season of economic anxiety to enact sweeping changes
the public likely wouldn’t stomach in ordinary times. But the abrupt swing in
the public’s mood, from optimism about Obama’s possibility to concern he may
overreaching, has thrown the White House off its strategy and forced the
president to curtail his ambitions. Nancy
Morgan diagnosed that
the faux outrage that politicians manufacture on demand has been replaced by
real outrage by real Americans. Outrage is
directed at the American people for failing to understand the nuances, the
broad outline of a 1,000 plus page bill that most politicians haven't even read
themselves. Peons from fly-over country
are daring to challenge the carefully scripted and deliberately misleading
talking points. Harry Reid and Nancy
Pelosi are using the standard liberal tactic of diverting attention from the
issue by demonizing the dissenter, in this case, the American people. According to Pelosi and Reid, voicing
objections to the federal government's takeover of 17% of the formerly free
market economy is 'un-American.' Harry Reid has gone a step further, tarring
dissenter's as 'evil mongers.' White House spokesman Robert Gibbs has
blithely dismissed the burgeoning dissent by informing one and all that these 'town halls are not representative of
America.' The Los Angeles Times found the creator of the Obama as
Joker poster sweeping the nation is a 20-year-old
college student of Palestinian descent with largely liberal political leanings. Unused to any opposition that can't be spun
to their advantage or ignored, Democrats are desperately trying to convince
Americans that the tidal wave of opposition is not genuine. After all, every person these lawmakers know
agrees with them on this issue… it’s called the 'inside the beltway syndrome.' Despite a new $12 million ad campaign
designed to soothe Americans into relying on misplaced compassion instead of
common sense, pesky Joe Six-Pack and Susy Homemaker still don't get it. Obama, in his latest finger-pointing lecture
to the great unwashed, assured the masses that the proposed 'public option' won't put private
insurers out of business, while the legislation clearly shows a strategy to
gradually migrate everyone onto the ‘public
option.’ When confronted with his
own words to the contrary in 2007, he dismissed the discrepancy as a 'mis-statement'. The Obama administration's offer to drop a
Medicare-like health insurance option for Americans under age 65 is neither a
surprise nor a comfort, because it does nothing to change the administration's
dangerous plan for single-payer health reform. Rather, it is a tactic
designed to change the debate – one that fits nicely within the
administration’s broader strategy of deception.
Identifying a common enemy is another tried and true tactic liberals
employ when it gets too hot in the kitchen. Unfortunately the only
villain left is the American people! The
only problem is, Americans aren't buying it, since they're suffering from the
political equivalent of the 'battered
woman syndrome.' Americans have been
deceived and beaten up by the government so many times lately, that, even
though they still love Obama, they're taking steps to distance themselves from
what has become an increasingly dangerous relationship. Liberals have finally succeeded in persuading
Americans to look at the broad picture instead of inconvenient details. The kicker is, as more Americans see the broad
picture, they see the unprecedented devolution of power to the federal government.
The American
people see the loss of America's traditional reliance on individuals instead of
government, and they see the loss of personal liberty and freedom of choice, and
they don't like it!
The weakness of
socialism is that it cannot be revealed for what it truly is until it is too
late to stop it… like all things evil, it cannot stand the light of day. Andrew Thomas found when socialism’s evil intent is
revealed, the leftists retreat and then re-package it in different wrapping
paper. Socialized medicine becomes HillaryCare which in turn become becomes
ObamaCare. Environmentalism becomes global warming which in turn becomes
climate change. The problem for these strategies is that once people have
had a chance to examine the packages, they are discovering that they are Trojan
horses. They do not save the planet nor provide quality healthcare for
all Americans. The new “health care
cooperatives” idea is just a benign sounding repackaging of the “public plan” with all the same
government control and mandates included – another Government Sponsored
Enterprise like Fannie Mae to enable backdoor
nationalization. The sole purpose is to dramatically expand the
power of the government over its citizens, providing the potential for complete
enslavement. Americans are finally
waking up to this fact, albeit almost too late which makes them angry, because
they have been misled. Surprising the socialist left with their ferocity,
they are storming into town hall meetings and confronting their dishonest
legislative representatives. Hypocrisy is being
exposed, but victory is far from assured. We are facing the most
ruthless and power-hungry government in American history. They have the
most effective and dedicated propaganda arm the world has ever known, i.e. the
misnomered "mainstream media.” Do you really believe that the next elections
in 2010 and particularly 2012 will be the solution to the current socialist
infestation? After fighting the good fight, will they gracefully withdraw
from power? The left dominates election
committees and polling volunteers. Leftists do
not see election fraud or other dirty tactics as illegal, immoral, or
unethical. This is because they believe that the socialist agenda
is for the good of the nation, a noble cause to promote and protect at any
cost. In other words, the ends justify the means. We need to study
the weaknesses of these leftists, and capitalize on their mistakes. We need to use their tactics against them by "picking,
freezing, and personalizing" Democrat administration mistakes (Saul Alinsky's
Rules for Radicals #12).
There is no Health Care Crisis, only a politically manufactured opportunity
for the federal government to expand control over the American economy. The
Democrat manufactured crisis strategy was the 1966 brainchild of two radical
socialist college professors, Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven. The idea was to overwhelm government with
demands for services to the point where the system would collapse and provide
an opening for the socialists to take over.
For more than 50 years before the 1965 enactment of Medicare, the
American people repeatedly rejected the idea of government-mandated health
insurance. Yet advocates of such federal
power inside and outside of government did not take no for an answer. Their dream was partially realized with
creation of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965 as part of President Lyndon Johnson's
"Great Society." The stated goal of these programs was to
provide comprehensive healthcare for seniors and the poor. As the programs grew, the Left clamored for
ever more benefits to these two programs and ever expanding definitions of
covered individuals. Medicare was
originally to be funded with "Hospital
Insurance" (HI) premiums tacked onto the Social Security FICA tax, but
today HI taxes cover a mere 40% of Medicare spending. About 21% comes from premiums paid by
beneficiaries and other sources, while fully 39% comes from general government revenues. Medicaid is funded roughly 50/50 by federal
and state governments. As an essentially
free benefit to the poor, Medicaid has no tax associated with it, so it is
covered by state and federal income tax revenues directly. In 2008, federal Medicaid and Medicare
spending totaled $676 billion. Comprising
only 2% of the federal budget in 1967, these two programs today consume 23% of
total federal spending. We hear
constantly about the misleading number of "47 million uninsured." These figures include 10 to 25 million illegal
immigrants, 14 million people who are already eligible for medical benefits but
haven't availed themselves, and 10 million people earning $75,000 or more who
could presumably afford their own insurance if they chose to. Even assuming the lowest estimate for illegal
immigrants, the true number of uninsured would be only 13 million. Millions of Americans do not have medical
insurance, hardy souls who have actually read the mammoth medical care
legislation being rushed through Congress have discovered all sorts of things
there that have nothing whatever to do with insuring the uninsured-- and
everything to do with taking medical decisions out of the hands of doctors and
their patients, and transferring those decisions to Washington bureaucrats. The Democrats want to
eventually nationalize the entire health care industry, currently 17% of GDP,
to provide benefits to 4% of the U.S. population. The Left has never cared about the elderly or
the poor, but ruthlessly uses them as part of their long-term strategy to
overburden private healthcare until it ultimately collapses, ala the
Cloward-Piven strategy. The same
Leftists who so passionately demanded free healthcare for all now want
euthanasia for seniors and dramatically lower services for the rest of us. A Rasmussen Reports survey found that most
voters (54%) now say they would prefer that Congress simply not pass a health
care reform package. It is a power grab, pure and simple, and the sooner we wake
up and recognize it, the sooner we can kill it before it overwhelms the
American economy!
The Democrat White House
has deploying an array of political tactics to promote ObamaCare, even though
there is no single Obama plan for health care but multiple different Senate and
House evolving versions. Lee
Cary has identified a
number of these tactics deployed thus far:
·
Warn about the cost of inaction
with fantastic claims.
·
Use Grandma to build empathy through association.
·
Accuse opponents of racial prejudice - play the race card.
·
Shift the focus of the debate
from positive to negative.
· When accused of having a controversial proposal, just say "No we don't."
· Hide the plan as a moving target, switching
between alternatives as the need arises.
·
Hide key congressional proponents
to avoid constituent confrontations.
·
Pretend to give up on controversial issues that were never
acknowledged in the first place.
·
Hold pro-ObamaCare pep rallies (infomercials) that profess to be open
town hall-like events.
·
Blame the media for focusing on the opponents as a distraction.
·
Demonize the opposition is the most consistent and frequently used tactic.
·
Make false
claims for ObamaCare and depend on a compliant media not to fact check.
The
latest tactic is to use the new poll-tested phrase of the day “health insurance reform” despite only
six pages of the 1,017 page bill dealing with health insurance reform. A recent New York Times/CBS poll found that
most Americans do not support the content of this “reform:”
·
62%
believe Democrats' proposals would force them to change doctors.
·
69%
believe ObamaCare will hurt the quality of their own health care.
·
73%
believe they will have less access to tests and treatment.
·
76%
believe Obama's changes will mean higher taxes for them.
·
77%
expect their health care costs to rise.
All
those polling findings run counter to the claims Obama makes. Many of these tactics are fundamentally dishonest in intent
or execution, but Democrats apparently feel no shame.
"Medicare is… a
government-run health care plan that people are very happy with," said
President Obama in an effort to defend Medicare as a popular and successful
example of government health care at its best, but unfortunately it is
unaffordable and unsustainable in its current form. Plenty
of people think the existing system is in need of repair since the true cost of
Medicare is stunning. In 1990, rather
than costing American taxpayers $12 billion, Medicare cost $107 billion -- an
increase of 800% over the government's best guess at the program's cost 23
years before. That cost has increased
exponentially as the years have passed since 1990. This year, $484 billion will be spent on
mandatory Medicare outlays; by 2018, that number will be $885.1 billion,
according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. The total amount owed Medicare beneficiaries
(American workers who are at least 22 years old and who have paid into the
system, meaning they are due Medicare coverage upon retirement) is a staggering
$32.3 trillion -- an amount over twice America's GDP, and nearly five times the
publicized national debt. The fact that the federal government has allowed a key health
coverage program with which it has been entrusted to fall over thirty trillion
dollars in debt should send a powerful message about Washington's inability to
be a good steward of Americans' health care dollars and coverage. To be clear, the healthcare system is
in need of reform, particularly health insurance, but the answer is not central
planning. The solution to rising health
care costs is obvious - People should be able to purchase the type of insurance
that they choose and should pay for the health care services they receive. Congressional Republicans have offered five
comprehensive health care reform proposals so far, and one bipartisan Senate
proposal all of which rejected along party lines. The answer is more
market competition, giving consumers more choices, more information and more
control:
·
Limit government mandates (standard benefits package, community
rating, and guaranteed issue) to create a nationwide health insurance market
where any individual or group can shop for less expensive coverage from another
state would provide more choices, forcing private plans to create better
products, improve services and lower prices since state regulations boost premium
costs an average of 15%.
·
Equip individuals with information on healthcare cost and quality,
releasing the Medicare-claims history of doctors and hospitals giving Americans
more knowledge to choose the most efficient institutions, practitioners and the
most effective treatments.
·
Eliminate tax break for employer health plans and replace with
patient tax credits to help consumers purchase private healthcare coverage, or
to deduct the cost of insurance they purchase, just as employers do now.
·
Enact tort reform to eliminate the need for defensive medical
practices, estimated to save $200 Billion per year.
Medicare,
the chief example of health care as run by the federal government, is an utter
mess that is losing doctors, resorting to anti-choice laws to keep seniors
enrolled, and hemorrhaging taxpayer dollars by the trillions. Obama claims he can cut Medicare “inefficiencies, waste and fraud” by $500
Billion to help offset his huge government Medical Insurance expansion plan. President Obama and
his allies in the Democratic-led Congress should demonstrate their ability to
be good stewards of the people's health care dollars and coverage by fixing
their own Medicare mess before they seek to expand their grip on America's
health care system as a whole.
There is a huge void in
the political landscape: anyone who can articulate and run on a political
platform to reverse the damage being done by Barack Obama and the Congressional
leftists. Today there
is populist revolt afoot. It is being fueled by the mass of Americans who
are outraged over Wall Street scandals, chronic high unemployment, incontinent
government spending and, most of all, the Democrats’ handling of healthcare
reform. Rather than remaining silent,
the American majority -- Republicans, Democrats and Independents -- is speaking
up loudly and clearly. A populist
movement is any that champions the rights and power of the people over
elites. Polls show Americans are unhappy with the job Democrats have
done, but they are also uneasy about the GOP. Many Americans are just
sick and tired of politicians of all stripes. Someone needs to step up
and listen to understand the concerns of Middle America. Leadership will be assumed by whomever can
articulate first how to reverse the harm currently done by the Obama
administration direction:
·
Re-privatize
AIG, CitiCorp, General Motors, Chrysler and any other company that the federal
government has ownership.
· Repeal wasteful and counter-productive
federal spending contained in the “stimulus” and the “omnibus” bills.
· Re-mission AmeriCorps to pro-American
goals and values.
· Reassert American leadership on the
international stage, rejecting United Nations sovereignty.
·
Openly
opposing Islamo-fascists and locking up non-state combatants for the duration
of the conflict.
Second, we need a vision and strategy
how to “walk the walk” of conservatism: limited
government, traditional values, and strong national defense.
·
Reduce
the size and cost of federal government by 50%.
· Require balance budgets and sunset
federal programs that have achieved objective.
· Enact term limits for all federal
elected offices and all federal judges.
· Replace progressive tax tables with a
single flat tax for all.
· Submit amendments for Defense of
Marriage and Right to Life.
· Set goal of energy independence
exploiting all energy sources and resources.
· Expand free trade agreements with all
friendly nations.
·
Withdraw
participation and funding from the United Nations.
The silent majority has
awoken and is disappointed with the direction this country is going, and yearns
for a national leader who represents mainstream
America.
* There is so much published each week
that unless you go out of your way to find it, you will miss important breaking
events. I package the best of this
information into my “Views on the
News” each Saturday morning for your reading pleasure and to fill in
factual vacuums.
If you are
sick and tired of government and politics as usual, read my web site with its
individual issue analysis and recommendations sections at: http://www.returntocommonsensesite.com
. Individual issue updates this week
include:
· Domestic
Philosophy at http://www.returntocommonsensesite.com/dp/philosophy.html
· Legal at http://www.returntocommonsensesite.com/dp/legal.html
Week’s
Best Articles:
· “The Letter” by Glenn Beck
dated June 25, 2009 published by Glenn Beck at http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/26742/ .
· “Elite
Meltdown” by Nancy Morgan dated August 16, 2009 published by American
Thinker at http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/08/elite_meltdown.html .
· “Manufactured
Healthcare Crisis” by James Simpson dated August 16, 2009 published by American
Thinker at http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/08/manufactured_healthcare_crisis.html .
· “Beware the
Counterrevolution” by Andrew Thomas dated August 16, 2009 published by American
Thinker at http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/08/beware_the_counterrevolution.html .
· “I Don’t
Accept the Premise” by Andie Brownlow dated August 17, 2009 published by American
Thinker at http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/08/i_dont_accept_the_premise.html .
· “What Went
Wrong” by Victor Davis Hanson dated August 17, 2009 published by National
Review Online at http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MWRmMjAxNmNhZDRhMjllYmFjYTZjYmRlYTZmYWNjYTA= .
· “The Array
of WH ObamaCare Tactics Grows’” by Lee Cary dated August 17, 2009
published by American Thinker at http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/08/the_array_of_wh_obamacare_tact.html .
· “Wicked,
Lazy Servants’” by Jeff Emanuel dated August 17, 2009 published by The American
Spectator at http://spectator.org/archives/2009/08/17/wicked-lazy-servants .
· “When Out of Hope, Feign Change” by Michael F.
Cannon dated August 17, 2009 published by Town Hall at http://townhall.com/columnists/MichaelFCannon/2009/08/17/when_out_of_hope,_feign_change .
· “ObamaCare
and Hidden Agendas” by Randall Hoven dated August 18, 2009 published by
American Thinker at http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/08/obamacare_and_hidden_agendas.html .
· “Crackpot
Co-Ops” dated August 18, 2009 published by Investor’s Business
Daily at http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=335486312745503 .
· “Catch Me If
You Can” by Peter Ferrara dated August 19, 2009 published by The
American Spectator at http://spectator.org/archives/2009/08/19/catch-me-if-you-can .
· “Health care
debate confirms this is not the Barack Obama we elected” by Michael Goodwin
dated August 19, 2009 published by New York Daily News at http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/columnists/goodwin/index.html .
· “Don’t like
ObamaCare? Here’s an alternative” by Shawn Tully dated August 19, 2009
published by CNN Money at http://money.cnn.com/2009/08/18/news/economy/obamacare_alternative.fortune/index.htm .
· “Whose
Medical Decisions? Part III” by Thomas Sowell dated August 20, 2009 published by Town
Hall at http://townhall.com/Common/PrintPage.aspx?g=78ad262c-03ec-46fe-ac3f-425aae2361ed&t=c .
· “Zogby:
Obama Hits Record Low in Poll” by David A. Patten dated August 20, 2009 published by News
Max at http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/obama_zogby_poll_health/2009/08/20/250566.html .
· “ObamaCare’s
Bait and Switch” by Michael Tanner dated August 21, 2009 published by Front
Page Magazine at http://www.frontpagemagazine.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=36015 .
· “GOP Must
Embrace ‘The Vocal Majority’” by Gary Bauer dated August 21, 2009 published by Human
Events at http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=33223 .
· “The Strange
Case of the Obama Meltdown” by Victor Davis Hanson dated August 21, 2009 published by
Pajamas Media at http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/the-strange-case-of-the-obama-meltdown/
.
· “Obama’s Big
Bang could go bust” by Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei dated August 22, 2009
published by Politico at http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0809/26341.html
.
David Coughlin
Hawthorne, NY