The contents of these articles are based on Fact and Truth. Challenges are invited.
The day’s top political news:
House Democrats approach danger zone with retirements
The political import of New York Democratic Rep. Eric Massa's surprising retirement on Wednesday was largely eclipsed by the controversy surrounding why he decided to depart Congress after a single term.
It shouldn't be. Massa is the seventh House Democrat leaving a seat that Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) won in 2008. That means that 43 percent of the Democratic retirements in the House so far in this election have come in McCain districts. It also means that 14 percent of the 49 Democratic members who hold McCain districts are retiring this fall.
Conventional wisdom has suggested that if Democrats have to defend 10 or more seats either won by McCain or narrowly carried by Obama that their majority status might be legitimately in danger. "We're in the [danger] zone," said Charlie Cook, a political handicapper.
http://webmail.aol.com/30746-111/aol-1/en-us/Suite.aspx
Obama Now Selling Judgeships for Health Care Votes?
Obama names brother of undecided House Dem to Appeals Court.
Last night, Barack Obama hosted ten House Democrats who voted against the health care bill in November at the White House; obviously trying to persuade them to switch their votes to “yes”.
One of the ten is Jim Matheson of Utah. The White House just sent out a press release announcing that today President Obama nominated Matheson's brother Scott M. Matheson, Jr. to the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. (NOTE:Can we all say “Hmmm”?)
http://weeklystandard.com/blogs/obama-now-selling-appeals-court-judgeships-health-care-votes
President Launches Last Push on Health-Care Overhaul
Obama threatens to impose his health care scheme if GOP doesn’t surrender to his demands.
Obama opened the final act of a year-long drama over health-care legislation Wednesday, calling on Democrats in Congress to approve the sweeping bill despite political risks and Republican opposition.
The president vowed to rally Americans and wavering lawmakers alike. White House aides said a pair of trips next week will be followed by a stream of public and private lobbying. The White House wants final votes by month's end. Polls continue to reflect a majority of Americans reject the Obama health scheme.
Opinion:
What matters with imposing government take over of health care has nothing to do with what has been done before
Democrats frantically scrambling to justify their plans to impose the Obama health care scheme on an unwilling America, keep whining about the process having been used before. Again, they don’t get it.
Most Americans reject this health care bill – a full court press by Democrats, especially far left Democrats, to take over health care. They argue about details while America itself screams “enough, already”.
Republicans fight back by gleefully re-running clips of Obama and other liberals condemning the very action actions they condemned vehemently a few years back. These embarrassing denials don’t deal with any substantive problems with pending legislation, but assail the process itself.
These liberals express outrage at the affront to honest democracy, use of “reconciliation” actually represents. They miss the point.
“Bush did it”, it’s “Bush’s fault” and other redundant Democrat theme lines are thread bare and running weakly these days. Americans are better informed these days, thanks to the Internet, talk radio, and Fox News. Fooling voters will be harder this fall – not that Democrats wont try it again.
I now hear Democrats are trying to create an answer to the tea party movement – they are apparently calling their version a “coffee movement” – I’m not sure that will fly, it calls up visions and thoughts that are not compatible, but that’s beside the point.
Democrats, of course don’t understand the tea party movement is a spontaneous revolt against Washington extremism. They are pushing back against it, and have no clue how massive the sentiment it represents actually is.
Good.
Any Senior Citizen who supports Obama’s scheme, is simply not paying any attention at all. They are threatened far more than any other group. They will learn to their regret the reality of what has been termed “death squads”. No, government enforcers wont be shaking down retirement homes, but the government will be examining age, health, and probably productive future, in determining who gets what treatment and who can get into a visit to physicians.
Of course, a lot of doctors will hang it up if Obama care passes. They don’t need the increased aggravation and loss of income. (Did I mention Doctors get paid less for Medicare patients if Obama has his way?)
Along with a sharp decrease in physician availability – Medicare itself will suffer major cuts. If Obama reaches his goal, this will not be a good time in which to be old.
Wish we had control of our own aging – Democrat like Obama will probably find a way to make getting old our own fault – or they will simply blame it on Bush.
Buddy
The day’s top blogs:
1.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203585004574393110640864526.html
ObamaCare's Crippling Deficits
The higher taxes, debt payments and interest rates needed to pay for health reform mean lower living standards.
MARTIN FELDSTEIN
While the deficits caused by the fiscal stimulus package will end in 2011 and will help to sustain a fragile recovery in 2010, the deficits projected for the longer term are a threat to our economic future. The starting point for controlling those future deficits is for Congress to abandon the administration's health-care plan—a plan that will cost more than $1 trillion.
The deficits projected for the next decade and beyond are unprecedented. According to an assessment released in March by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the president's budget implies that deficits will average 5.2% of GDP over the next decade and will be 5.5% of GDP in 2019. Without the president's proposals, the budget office forecasts a 2019 deficit of only 2% of GDP.
The CBO's deficit projections are based on the optimistic assumptions that the economy will grow at a healthy 3% pace with no recessions during the next decade; that there will be no new spending programs after this year's budget; and that the rising national debt will increase the rate of interest on government bonds by less than 1%. More realistic assumptions would imply a 2019 deficit of more than 8% of GDP and a government debt of more than 100% of GDP.
Such enormous deficits would crowd out productivity-enhancing investments in new equipment and software as the government borrows funds otherwise available to private investors. The result would be slower economic growth and a lower standard of living.
In the nearer term, the projected deficits could cause interest rates on bonds and mortgages to rise sharply if bond investors fear that the government will not prevent inflation. This is a greater risk now that more than half of the U.S. government debt is held by the Chinese and other foreign investors. Such an interest rate rise could kill a recovery in 2010 or 2011 and depress growth in the years that follow.
Dropping the Obama health plan would significantly reduce fiscal deficits over the next decade and help restore public confidence in the ability of Congress to control spending. The CBO estimates that the House committee versions of the Obama health plan would add more than $1 trillion to federal deficits over the next decade. But the actual costs would be much higher.
For starters, $1 trillion of extra debt-financed spending would cause the government to pay about $300 billion of extra interest in the next decade. Moreover, the CBO's method of estimating the cost of such a program doesn't recognize the incentives it creates for households and firms to change their behavior.
The House health-care bill gives a large subsidy to millions of families with incomes up to three times the poverty level (i.e., up to $66,000 now for a family of four) if they buy their insurance through one of the newly created "insurance exchanges," but not if they get their insurance from their employer. The CBO's cost estimate understates the number who would receive the subsidy because it ignores the incentive for many firms to drop employer-provided coverage. It also ignores the strong incentive that individuals would have to reduce reportable cash incomes to qualify for higher subsidy rates. The total cost of ObamaCare over the next decade likely would be closer to $2 trillion than to $1 trillion.
The administration's claim that the health-care plan would be "self-financing" is both false and irrelevant. It is false because it would only be self-financing if one counts a variety of President Obama's proposed tax increases—and even those would produce much less revenue than is assumed in the budget calculations. The claim is irrelevant because those tax increases have nothing to do with health care and could be used instead to reduce other projected deficits.
For example, the administration and the congressional designers of ObamaCare say they would finance a substantial part of health reform with the revenue from new taxes on corporate foreign profits and on high-income individuals. The likely revenue from these tax changes would be much less than the official estimates because of the induced changes in taxpayer behavior that the estimators ignore.
Previous experience with changes in the marginal tax rates of high-income individuals implies that the current proposal to raise the marginal tax rate to about 50% from today's 40% would produce only about half of the official revenue estimates. No one knows how much of the estimated extra tax revenue on foreign profits would be lost as the resulting fall in international competitiveness reduces profits, and as businesses sell their overseas subsidiaries or shift their profits in other ways.
While abandoning health reform would be an important step, it would not be enough to limit the exploding level of future deficits and debt. That requires substantial reductions in existing spending programs, if large tax increases are to be avoided. Since Medicare is the largest contributor to the explosive growth in government spending, a good way to start shrinking government outlays would be by restructuring Medicare to shift more of its costs to supplementary private insurance, perhaps on an income-related basis.
Given the perceived need for significant additional tax revenue to shrink future fiscal deficits, there is now talk in Washington of introducing a value-added tax (VAT), the kind of national sales tax that European governments use to finance their welfare states. That would be a triply bad idea. Although it is a tax on spending, a VAT effectively raises marginal tax rates. Like the income tax, it reduces the reward for work and entrepreneurship by adding a tax to the prices of all goods and services. A VAT would also be grossly unfair to those whose lifetime savings would now be subject to a new tax when they start to spend those savings.
A VAT would open the door to an explosion of new spending programs. That's because, no matter how low the initial rate, the tax rate would be drawn inevitably to European rates of more than 15%—on top of existing income and payroll taxes.
The key to raising revenue without raising marginal tax rates or creating a new tax is to reduce or eliminate some of the "tax expenditures" that now lower tax revenue by special deductions and exclusions. Ending the current exclusion from taxable income of employer payments for health insurance would increase income tax revenue by more than $1 trillion over the next five years and nearly $3 trillion over the next decade. Eliminating this subsidy would also lead to a restructuring of private health insurance that would give patients the incentive to seek more cost-effective care and thereby bring down the overall cost of health care.
Restructuring Medicare and reforming tax rules would be politically difficult. But a failure by Congress to address the exploding path of fiscal deficits would be morally irresponsible.
Mr. Feldstein, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Ronald Reagan, is a professor at Harvard and a member of The Wall Street Journal's board of contributors.
2.
http://www.tothepointnews.com/content/view/3988/130/
Just How Dumb is This Guy? Obama
Jack Kelly
President Barack Hussein Obama talked a lot at his health care summit -- 119 minutes, as compared to 114 minutes for the 20 other Democrats in attendance combined, and 110 minutes for the 17 Republicans combined.
When you talk so much, there's a chance you'll say something stupid. In his case, something unbelievably stupid and ignorant.
Mr. Obama told an anecdote he said helped shape his view that the government must tell health insurance companies what benefits they must provide.
"When I was young, had just got out of college, I had to buy auto insurance," the president said. "I had a beat up old car. And I won't name the name of the insurance company, but there was a company, let's call it Acme Insurance, in -- in Illinois. And I was paying my premiums every month. After about six months I got rear-ended, and I called up Acme and said, ‘You know, I'd like to see if I can get my car repaired.' And they laughed at me over the phone.
"Because, really, this was set up not actually to provide insurance, what it was set up was to meet the legal requirements. But it really wasn't serious insurance.
"Now it's one thing if you've got a beat up old car that you can't get fixed. It's another thing if your kid is sick or you've got breast cancer."
It seems apparent from this anecdote -- Mr. Obama's insurance "was set up to meet the legal requirements" -- is that the insurance Mr. Obama had on his beat up old car was liability insurance, which is all that is required by law in Illinois and most other states.
The purpose of liability insurance -- as virtually every driver except Mr. Obama knows -- is to protect other drivers from injuries or damage you may cause, not to protect you. If you want to protect yourself, you need to buy collision insurance, too. So if the only insurance Mr. Obama had on his beat up old car was liability insurance, it's no wonder his insurance company "laughed at me over the phone" when he asked them to pay for repairs to his car.
If you only pay for liability insurance, you only get liability insurance. If Mr. Obama had gone into a restaurant and ordered a hamburger, he shouldn't be indignant because he wasn't served filet mignon.
The anecdote suggests Mr. Obama didn't know what kind of insurance he had, which reflects more poorly on him than it does on his insurance company. Just how dumb is this guy?
The health care summit was supposed to jump start a final push for Obamacare. It didn't work out that way, because the conception was flawed.
The major Democrat talking point has been that Republicans are abominable "no" men -- obstructionists with no reform ideas of their own.
This line of attack was working, despite the fact that Republicans have plenty of ideas, because the news media didn't report them. The health care summit provided Republicans with a much larger audience for their ideas than they'd ever had before.
"We had a chance on Thursday actually to display some of our brightest, most knowledgeable Republicans," Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell told CNN Sunday. "It was actually very good for us because it certainly refuted the notion that Republicans are not interested in this subject and not knowledgeable about it and don't have alternatives."
With the health care summit a fizzle, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi went on the talk shows Sunday (2/28) to rally the troops. This turned out to be as poor an idea as the health care summit, because she said some amazing things.
On CNN's "State of the Union" program, the Speaker said Obamacare is "bipartisan" even if no Republican votes for it. She actually said - this is a direct quote - "A bill can be bipartisan without bipartisan votes."
Obamacare is so important that if a few pawns must be sacrificed in order to get it enacted, so be it, Ms. Pelosi said on ABC's "This Week" program.
"We're not here just to self perpetuate our service in Congress," Ms. Pelosi said after reporter Elizabeth Vargas had noted Obamacare's unpopularity.
The pawns may not share her enthusiasm.
"It's unclear whether Pelosi's remarks will embolden or chill dozens of moderate House Democrats who face withering criticism of the health care proposal in visits with constituents and in national polls," said the Associated Press.
"Blue dogs want health care to come up again," a long time veteran of the House told Clark Judge of the White House Writers Group, "so they can vote against it."
Jack Kelly is a former Marine and Green Beret and a former deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan administration. He is national security writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
3.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/03/obama_seeking_unilateral_nucle.html
Obama seeking unilateral nuclear disarmament
Rick Moran
They won't call what they're doing disarmament, of course. We will still have a couple of thousand nuclear weapons once Obama is through cutting them.
But what the Obama administration is discussing internally with regard to our nuclear policy will have the same effect; a dramatic, radical departure from past US policy that gives our potential nuclear foes everything they can dream of without Obama asking one, single thing in return.
I would love to play poker with this guy. He likes to surrender advantages without getting anything in return. Note our Iran policy where we have guaranteed the sovereignty of the Iranian regime by giving a virtual "no attack" pledge. And his constant moving of nuclear goalposts, as the "deadline" for Iranian compliance with UN resolution somehow keeps slipping. What, pray tell, have the mullahs vouchsafed us in return?
Time after time during his first year in office, President Obama gave our foes little signals by unilaterally giving them what they want without asking for anything in return. It is madness, of course. Anyone with any awareness of how our opponents have been acting the last decade or so would have been able to tell the president (and the idiots at the State Department who never met a unilateral gesture they didn't approve of) that such a policy was doomed to make the US look weak in the eyes of our adversaries. Ahmadinejad mocks us. Chavez laughs at us. Putin is agog at Obama's naiveté. Yes, but it sure makes Obama's far left base feel real good about themselves, doesn't it?
Now the administration is talking about scrapping "thousands" of our warheads in an effort to convince our adversaries that we are serious about building a world with no nukes. David Sanger and Thom Shanker in the New York Times flesh out Obama's deep thoughts on how to make the world a more dangerous place:
Mr. Obama's new strategy - which would annul or reverse several initiatives by the Bush administration - will be contained in a nearly completed document called the Nuclear Posture Review, which all presidents undertake. Aides said Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates will present Mr. Obama with several options on Monday to address unresolved issues in that document, which have been hotly debated within the administration.
First among them is the question of whether, and how, to narrow the circumstances under which the United States will declare it might use nuclear weapons - a key element of nuclear deterrence since the cold war.
Thankfully, Obama isn't stupid enough to forswear the first use of nuclear weapons. Since the start of the nuclear age we have never done so and for several good reasons, not the least of which is that a mass casualty attack using non nuclear WMD might necessitate a nuclear response. Or will it?
Mr. Obama's decisions on nuclear weapons come as conflicting pressures in his defense policy are intensifying. His critics argue that his embrace of a new movement to eliminate nuclear weapons around the world is naïve and dangerous, especially at a time of new nuclear threats, particularly from Iran and North Korea. But many of his supporters fear that over the past year he has moved too cautiously, and worry that he will retain the existing American policy by leaving open the possibility that the United States might use nuclear weapons in response to a biological or chemical attack, perhaps against a nation that does not possess a nuclear arsenal.
That is one of the central debates Mr. Obama must resolve in the next few weeks, his aides say.
Despite the fact that we are currently negotiating a replacement to the START II treaty with the Russians where we will pledge to reduce our nuclear arsenal by about 1500 warheads, the administration may seek to further reductions without any corresponding reductions from Russia or China. Those reductions would be in our tactical nuclear stockpile, guaranteeing that any nuclear crisis would automatically escalate to the use of ICBM's:
As President Obama begins making final decisions on a broad new nuclear strategy for the United States, senior aides say he will permanently reduce America's arsenal by thousands of weapons.
No new designs for nuclear weapons. A changed policy that may include a declaration that we would not respond with nukes if attacked by chemical or biological weapons. A unilateral cut of thousands of weapons. A new nuclear posture in Europe where we would remove our tactical weapons. A pie in the sky reliance on the good intentions of nations like Russia, China, and even North Korea and Iran. A naive belief that if we don't build any new nukes, other nations will follow.
And a plan to substitute nuclear warheads for conventional explosives on ICBM's:
Mr. Obama's reliance on new, non-nuclear Prompt Global Strike weapons is bound to be contentious. As described by advocates within the Pentagon and in the military, the new weapons could achieve the effects of a nuclear weapon, without turning a conventional war into a nuclear one. As a result, the administration believes it could create a new form of deterrence - a way to contain countries that possess or hope to develop nuclear, biological or chemical weapons, without resorting to a nuclear option.
Let's call this policy "The Non-deterrence, Deterrence" policy. I'll bet the mullahs and NoKo's are quaking in their jackboots.
I suppose we shouldn't be surprised given the president's statements as a candidate. In fact, we have a lot more of the same to look forward to with our conventional forces. The president has made it absolutely clear he thinks our military is too big and too effective - it's just not fair that we have such a qualitative and quantitative lead relative to our adversaries and potential opponents.
As with everything else in his presidency, Obama is seeking to level the playing field and redistribute wealth. In this case, it is our sizable advantage in nuclear weaponry.
The different world our president envisions with this new policy will be more dangerous because it will be more uncertain. It makes it more likely that nuclear war will break out, not less. Meanwhile, our naive president continues with developing a policy the consequences of which cannot even be guessed.
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