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Monday, August 31, 2009

Why Don't We Teach Civics Anymore?

Today we are embarking on an entirely new path. Not that the healthcare debate isn’t important, but what good is discussing healthcare when the nation is facing a crisis of far more serious consequence. When I went to school a million years ago, we not only learned about American History but we also took the required civics classes that taught us about our Constitution and how our government is supposed to work. Today, civics is no longer taught in grade schools and American History, in fact, all of history, seems to be under a constant state of revision with the passing of each successive year. As George Orwell said “He who controls the present controls the past and he who controls the past controls the future.” That lesson was not lost on the new generation of progressives.

Colleges focus on political science studies which for the most part, spend their days dissecting and interpreting the Constitution through the lens of social change. Even though the Federalist papers tell us the exact intent of the founding fathers, weaving them into the studies would deny the social architects that teach these courses the ability to convince the students that the Constitution is dynamic and should be interpreted to meet modern political conditions. Let’s not forget that a good number of today’s college professors were the same people that “turned on, tuned in and dropped out” back in the 60’s; never having left their beliefs that America could in fact, become a social utopia if only the right people were in charge.

Considering today’s political climate I feel it would be beneficial to revisit the documents that founded this country and the principals of the men who drafted them. Only through a complete understanding of the times in which they were written and the true intentions of the founders of this nation can we begin to steer the ship of state safely back to her intended course.

Why go so far back in time? After all, this is the twenty-first century. Because it was the genius of men like Thomas Jefferson, John Addams and Benjamin Franklin to name just a few, that created a completely new promise of a fair and just government. A nation, self-governed by its own citizens and not by a monarch or an emperor; a nation where free men wrote the laws that guaranteed the liberties of all and for the first time, imposed those laws on their own leaders so that no man would be exempt.

Agreeably, there were times in our history that were not quite so idealistic. The men that wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were aware that grave social issues such as slavery, had to be addressed for this nation to aspire to the goals they had set for themselves. They met fierce opposition from the Southern states who would kill the motion for independence if the document dared interfere with their sovereignty on such issues. Rather than lose the moment, they yielded to the Southern states so that the nation could be formed knowing that they could revisit the issue at a later date once the United States was actually united.

We must go back in time today, because those laws and principals are being tested by an administration that believes the Constitution is an inconvenience to the “work” they insist needs to be done and they have already taken steps to alter the understanding of that precious document until it resembles something that is convenient to their cause.

You know, I won’t apologize. I voted for McCain. Not because I thought he was some blazing example of what I wanted to see in a President, but honestly, I felt he was the lesser of two evils and none of the independent candidates were in a position to be considered serious contenders. When Obama won, I threw my hands up and said “Oh well, here comes another four years, or eight years of tax and spend policies, especially with the Democrats controlling both houses of Congress. At that moment, I had no idea what this election really meant.

This President has been engaged in the business of cultivating powers within the White House that have provided him the means to elude Congressional oversight. Of the dozens of “Special Advisors” (Czars) that he has appointed, to date only one has been vetted by Congress through the required Senate Confirmation Process. The Czars have been given powers to act without Congressional direction and have even been accused of withholding information from Congress in what some critics have begun to call a “Shadow Government”.

There are wide and disturbing connections between the President, his advisors and people outside of the Federal Government that have a long history of affiliations with radical organizations and groups that can only be described as domestic terror cells. At least one of the President’s closest advisors is a self-avowed communist and many more are radical social engineers, some with ties to groups that in the past actively sought to cripple the government in favor of a Marxist regime.

One of those “affiliates” is Jeff Jones. Jeff Jones was one of the co-founders of the Weather Underground, a domestic terror group. Mr. Jones, having served his debt to society now sits as the NY Chairman of the Apollo Alliance. This is the group that has been credited for writing key parts of the stimulus bill that earmarked nearly eight-hundred billion dollars to revive the economy. $5.2 billion dollars of that money is scheduled to be distributed to non-profit community based organizations such as ACORN and The Apollo Alliance. Van Jones, the self proclaimed communist and “green jobs” Czar is also a member of the board of the Apollo Alliance. That is quite a coincidence and one of those things that just makes you go Hmmmmm?

Jeff Immelt is the CEO of General Electric, a company that stands to make billions by providing smart grid technology that is a key infrastructure component of the climate bill. As it turns out, Mr. Immelt, who was recently appointed by President Obama to the board of the NY Federal Reserve, also wrote parts of both the healthcare and the climate bill.

Excuse me? Since when do we allow private citizens to take part in the writing of legislation, especially when they stand to profit from the provisions contained in that legislation? That used to be called a conflict of interest when I was growing up. When you look at the enormity of the bills and the trillions of dollars these will cost the American tax payer I have a far better name for it. It is nothing less than the wholesale looting of the United States Treasury.

Senator John Conyers (D-MI) was quoted talking about the people that are shouting "read the bill, read the bill" at the town hall meetings and said they make him laugh; then added "What good is reading the bill if it's a thousand pages and you don't have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the bill?" Well Senator, if Congress is not writing the bills, and Congress is not reading the bills then how can you claim to honor the oath you took to support and defend the Constitution when you blindly vote on the bills with little or no understanding of what is in them?

Fortunately, the Constitution is still intact at least for the time being, so the ship of state still has a rudder. However, the wrong hands are now holding the wheel. This is a rare opportunity that we have been given. If reasonable people shed the light of truth on this assault on our Republic, we can bring our nation together again. The factions that seek to dilute the Constitution and usurp power from the American people are a dangerous and focused group but they are still small in number. Our Constitution is still the supreme law of the land. Speak boldly and demand answers while we still have our authority as citizens of a nation that is of, by and for the people. Do it now, while the Congress is still required to answer to us and while the President is still required to answer to Congress.

The petty partisanship that has kept the political parties at each other’s throats needs to end if we are to face this crisis and endure. We must all realize that disagreements on policy are the discussions that take place in any democracy and those discussions are far different than the “change” these people are trying to slip in under the radar. This is an insidious and vile attack at the very core of our country and should be treated no differently than if it were a direct assault on our land by a belligerent nation. We must unify to possess the strength to defeat them. Our nation, like an oak tree, can withstand nearly any assault from the outside. It is when disease penetrates the bark and rot takes hold from within that the mighty oak falls.

Tomorrow, we will begin at the beginning with the document that announced the birth of our nation; The Declaration of Independence. Please join me as we trace history for the roots of that Declaration and reaffirm our status as a liberated people, free of the bonds of tyranny.

Paul

Friday, August 28, 2009

Is There Privacy in Universal Care?

In a free society, one of our most closely guarded principals is the right to privacy. The founding fathers must have viewed this right as critically important to a free society because of the frequency with which it is referred to within the U.S. Constitution. Constitutional scholars recognize that the right to privacy is implied in the first, third, fourth and ninth amendments. They also state that the right to privacy was implied, and therefore, reaffirmed in the fourteenth amendment adopted in 1868; subsequent to the Dred Scott decision.

The ninth amendment is probably the most important of those listed because that is the amendment that guarantees the basic personal freedoms that have not been enumerated or specifically named within the bill of rights, thus prohibiting the Federal Government from restricting any personal freedom simply because it has not been specifically listed. I believe that the men that wrote the Constitution were not only geniuses, but that they possessed a rare ability to glimpse into the future.

They recognized that as the creativity of man evolves over time, there will be new thoughts, abilities and technologies that could simply not be taken into account at that moment in time. For example, the Constitution in its original form provided us with the architecture to protect not only speech and the printed word, but with the language that would allow us to protect the electronic transfer of information in the future by providing protection of unnamed rights under the ninth amendment. To provide us with such timeless protections, I fear they must have also seen the future of politics and the evil that would eventually reside there.

As much as the Constitution has implied our right to the freedom of privacy, the healthcare bill has implied the dilution of that right. Medical records that are now privileged information would, under the auspices of a government controlled healthcare system, become part of a Federal healthcare record system.

Yes, I know that the President has said this is not a plan that would eliminate private care in this country but if you refer to my previous post “The Trojan Horse of Healthcare”, I can only conclude that this is an empty promise and the course this administration is setting is a direct path to a massive, government controlled, single payer healthcare system. Of course, when that happens, I’m sure there will be more promises that the records will be safe and secure so why worry?

When I began this project I promised to embark on a search for truth in defense of our freedoms. What I have discovered has me truly frightened about the direction this country is taking and I am uncertain whether the Congress has the will or the power to fight it. Mr. Obama has made several curious appointments to key positions within the government and has surrounded himself with a host of special advisors that openly seek to radicalize the United States.

Even members of Congress have expressed grave concerns that the current administration has been using special advisors to circumvent Congressional oversight and has seriously jeopardized the separation of powers directed by the Constitution. No other President has ever ventured this far from the accepted structure of the three branches of government.

When Mr. Obama said in a speech prior to the election that “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming America…” his supporters cheered. I wonder if they realized at that moment that this was not the usual campaign rhetoric but a promise that we would eventually have to struggle to see the remnants of an America we once knew.

I have looked at several of these advisors in previous installments so let’s continue with more illuminating quotes from the people that the President has chosen as his circle of advisors:

Cass Sunstein, the “Regulatory Czar” says “Without taxes there is no liberty” and “There is no liberty without dependency…we should celebrate tax day.” An animal rights advocate, he also suggested we should “grant animals the right to bring suit” in a court of law.

Mark Lloyd, appointed by Mr. Obama as the Chief Diversity Officer, a newly created position in the FCC says that “…freedom of speech and of the press has become a distraction…” Mr. Lloyd is currently driving a program that will effectively shut down privately owned radio and television stations that do not pass his “diversity equation” by requiring fees (let’s just call it what it is, a conservative talk tax) equal to 100% of their operating budget. In the interest of fairness and diversity, those fees will be used to fund public broadcasting. Stations that cannot pay the fee will have their broadcast license withdrawn and sold to minority interests that better reflect his idea of diversity.

Rahm Emanuel, former DNC chairman and current White House Chief of Staff said “You never want a serious crisis go to waste.” This implies to me that this administration intentionally exploits the fears of the public to forward their agenda.

I really didn't understand the implications of his "crisis" remark until I heard of the "Cloward-Piven Strategy" which we will discuss later. However, you can certainly read the pricipals of Cloward-Pivens yourself to get a jump start in the discussion.

http://cloward-piven.com/

To continue, these are the people that the President has named as his advisors. We have to guess at whom else may be deeply involved in constructing policy because the White House refuses to release the list of visitors that every other President was more than happy to publish. It thought this President promised us greater transparency in government? That is obviously another broken promise because this is the most secretive President in the history of the United States.

The President has also tried to distance himself from his associations with other radicals in his circle such Bill Ayers and Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Regardless of their beliefs, it was Mr. Obama that was quoted as saying “the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties — says what the states can’t do to you — says what the Federal government can’t do to you — but it doesn’t say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf.”

I apologize for the intensity of this article. This is by far the most negative piece I have ever written and it has disturbed me deeply that no matter how much I tried, I cannot look at these quotes and these people without harboring a deep and abiding fear of them and their intentions.

The President is just plain wrong about the Constitution. The powers that the founding father intended the Federal government to hold are clearly enumerated within the document. The powers that the President is now seeking to usurp were clearly reserved for the States and the people as stated by the Tenth Amendment. The “negative language” to which the President refers was carefully crafted to keep a potentially corruptible strong central government neatly in its place. We know this is true. Since the inception of this country, the rights of the people were clearly proclaimed to have existed without the consent of government. As such, the bill of rights is not a document that grants our rights, it is a document designed to deny the Federal Government the power to restrict those rights.

The Firearms Freedom Act recently passed into law in Tennessee to preempt Federal firearms legislation under consideration. In response, the ATF issued a letter informing Tennessee officials that “Federal law supersedes State law”, which renders the Firearms Freedom act inconsequential. This is only the first shot in the assault on our Second Amendment rights. The same Constitutional scholars that recognize the implied right of privacy within the Constitution also agree that the Second Amendment was included in the Constitution as the guarantor and guardian of all other rights in that precious document. Without the means to defend those rights, they will simply cease to exist.

Rep. Henry Waxman of California is quoted as saying "If someone is so fearful that they are going to start using their weapons to protect their rights, it makes me very nervous that these people have weapons at all." Let’s face it; only someone that intends to deny us our rights and freedoms would be fearful of the people that would stand to defend them. By the way, Henry Waxman is one of the crafters of the climate bill that promises to deny us our rights and freedoms in the area of energy consumption and energy choices. Now that’s interesting.

If Liberal Congressmen, the President, and the President’s advisors have so little regard for the rights that are named and enumerated, how do you think they feel about the ones that are only implied and left up to the honest interpretation of law?

So, how could medical records be used once they are Federalized? Well considering the radical nature of the people involved anything is possible. Maybe your payments under Universal care would go up a few dollars for every five pounds you are above the accepted height to weight ratio. Perhaps they would be used to force behavioral changes that the Healthcare Advisory Board deems in your best interest. They could even be used to prioritize your position in the waiting lines for health services based upon your value to society once Ezekiel Emanuel’s “Complete Lives” system has finally been implemented. Since I do not possess the mystical foresight that the founding fathers had at their disposal, I’m sure there are even darker possibilities that I just don’t see.

There is not doubt that Mr. Obama is keeping good on at least one promise; that he is fundamentally changing America. There are even those that are still cheering to spite all of the ominous warnings. It is because of them that I will use a quote from my grandson’s favorite movie “Star Wars”.

“So this is how liberty dies; to thunderous applause.”
Senator Padmé Amidala

Thursday, August 27, 2009

There is Always Death and Taxes

"There is always death and taxes; however, death doesn't get worse every year."
~Author Unknown

Nothing has been more controversial in the healthcare debate than the question of whether or not so-called “death panels” actually exist within the structure of the healthcare bill. Those that have expressed concern about this have been dismissed as crazy and denigrated by the proponents of healthcare reform. As I stated in previous posts, what makes me concerned about the healthcare bill is not what it says, but what it does not say.

I have received many e-mails citing provisions in the bill for “End of life counseling” (H.R. 3200, page 425-427) through which the authors claim that this is the smoking gun of the death panel. If I had merely skimmed through the table of contents I might have jumped to the same conclusion. Fortunately, I’m one of those silly people with too much time on my hands so I actually read the provisions.

“End of life counseling” is simply not a dark attempt on the part of government to convince people that should choose death over treatment. It is not the means whereby government will hasten the demise of the elderly nor will it direct doctor’s to deny care for aging patients. The counseling is designed to provide people over 65 with a complete understanding of their rights and meant to allow them to make rational decisions about writing a living will that states what their desires are and how to appoint a family member as a proxy to insure those desires are carried out. The pages in question also contain specific instructions that spell out the doctor’s responsibility to adhere to those provisions.

While the “end of life counseling” directives are benign by themselves, there are real hidden dangers within the healthcare bill. First of all, the actual benefit packages are not clearly defined. The benefits will be decided and administered through a “Health Benefits Advisory Committee” (H.R. 3200, page 30 line 11, through page 32, line 25).

The committee, as proposed, will be comprised of the Surgeon General as Chair (an appointee of the President), nine non-government employees that are to be appointed by the president, nine non-government employees that are to be appointed by the Comptroller General (who by the way, is also a Presidential appointee) and no more than eight government employees that are to be appointed by the President. Does anyone see a trend here?

But wait! There’s more! Descriptions of the required qualifications of those appointed to the committee are also spelled out. The actual language of the bill states:

“The membership of the Health Benefits Advisory Committee shall at least reflect providers, consumer representatives, employers, labor, health insurance issuers, experts in healthcare financing and delivery, experts in racial and ethnic disparities, experts in care for those with disabilities, representatives of relevant governmental agencies. and at least one practicing physician or other health professional and an expert on children’s health and shall represent a balance among various sectors of the health care system so that no single sector unduly influences the recommendations of such Committee.”

I suppose we can take solace that there is a requirement that there must be at least one doctor out of the twenty-seven people that will decide our fates but I suspect that the Surgeon General already fulfills that requirement. There are no provisions within the bill that would require the appointees to present their qualifications to the American people or that they will fall under the rules of “Advise and Consent” that would require Senate confirmation but then again, this administration was never really that big on the Senate confirmation process.

If we are left to imagine what our benefits will look like if this bill is passed as written, then is fair to examine the ideology of the individuals that the President has already appointed. Let’s start with the ones that will most likely influence the formation of benefits under the new healthcare plan.

Ezekiel Emanuel, currently acting as Special Advisor for Health Policy to Peter Orszag, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget is a graduate of Harvard University, University of Oxford and Amherst College. He has a history of statements reflecting a belief that when resources are limited, that healthcare must be administrated to focus care on the individuals that represent the greatest contribution to society. In his own words: "When implemented, the complete lives system produces a priority curve on which individuals aged between roughly 15 and 40 years get the most substantial chance, whereas the youngest and oldest people get chances that are attenuated."

John Holdren, the President’s special advisor for science and technology (the Science Czar) is a graduate of MIT and Stanford University. He previously taught at UCLA Berkley and was chairman of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Holdren is an environmental activist that believes the foundation of environmental science must begin with a drive to reduce population numbers. In 1977, he co-authored a book, “Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment” which proposed radical solutions to population growth including coercive government sterilization programs for families with more than two children, the mandatory sterilization of “undesirables” and even the introduction of sterilizing agents into public water supplies.

I am sure you realize that if we are racing headlong towards healthcare reform to avert financial ruin that we are entering the arena with limited resources. It will be up to the twenty-six new Presidential appointees required by this legislation to determine how those resources will be managed. Based on the President’s current appointments, are you comfortable allowing this new committee to determine how much care you will actually receive?

The annual benefit limits spelled out on pages 29 and 30 of the healthcare bill are already ludicrous and anyone that has been to the hospital in the past few years can easily see the danger. That passage says:

(2) ANNUAL LIMITATION.—

(A) ANNUAL LIMITATION.—The cost-sharing incurred under the essential benefits package with respect to an individual (or family) for a year does not exceed the applicable level specified in subparagraph (B).

(B) APPLICABLE LEVEL.—The applicable level specified in this subparagraph for Y1 is $5,000 for an individual and $10,000 for a family. Such levels shall be increased (rounded to the nearest $100) for each subsequent year by the annual percentage increase in the Consumer Price Index (United States city average) applicable to such year.

Cost sharing annual limitation is what would be considered your deductible under private healthcare insurance. Even though this deducible is extraordinarily high, the worse news is that it represents thirty percent (30%) of the estimated benefit level. If you run the numbers based on a 30/70 split, that estimate represents a total investment of roughly $17,000 per individual and $34,000 for a family per year.

If AARP thought they would sell more supplemental care policies under this plan then they haven’t read the passage on co-payments either. That one says:

(C) USE OF COPAYMENTS.—
In establishing cost-sharing levels for basic, enhanced, and premium plans under this subsection, the Secretary shall, to the maximum extent possible, use only copayments and not coinsurance.

Currently, private healthcare insurers routinely make decisions to deny certain care options for a myriad of reasons. As long as private care is available, the patient then has the option to pursue those treatment options outside of the insurance plan and pay directly for those services. In England, private care has been replaced by a government controlled system and those options are simply not available for any amount of money. That is why so many people from countries that already have socialized medicine flock here for medical treatment.

We have already concluded that the healthcare bill is, in fact, a Trojan horse that over time will decimate private insurance and bring us to a single payer, government controlled healthcare system. When that happens, the letter of denial you receive from the U.S. healthcare plan will be the final word and you had better make sure you have enough saved to seek treatment in a country where it is still for sale. That is unless the “death panel” takes over control of the visa process too.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

The Trojan Horse of Healthcare

The legend of the Trojan horse was brought to life in Homer’s “Iliad”. The Mycenaean Greeks laid siege to the City of Troy to reclaim the wife of Menelaus of Sparta who had been abducted by Paris of Troy. Troy was surrounded by an impenetrable wall that resisted all attempts by the Greeks to force entry into the city. In the tenth year of the siege, the Greeks constructed a large hollow statue of a horse and feigned a retreat, leaving the horse in plain view of the city. The horse, being a sacred symbol to the Trojans, was retrieved and brought within the city in celebration of their triumph over the Greek army.

What the Trojans did not know was that a small contingent of Greek soldiers lie hidden within the wooden horse. As night fell and the celebrations continued, the Greek soldiers crept from their hiding place and opened the gates of the walled city. The waiting Greek army poured through the open gates By morning, the city had been looted and razed to the ground. Since then, the Trojan horse has been symbolic of any attempt to achieve a hidden goal through subterfuge.

So is the public option or what is now being called, healthcare cooperative, a Trojan horse to trick an unwilling nation onto a path that will eventually lead to socialized healthcare? That is not something you will find written into the pages of the healthcare bill nor is it something that government officials will willingly admit. After all, it wouldn’t be much of a Trojan horse if the ultimate goals were actually made public.

At this point, all we can do is look at the motives of the individuals that are driving this legislation. The President has made many conflicting statements on the subject of Universal Healthcare which raises the question “What are you actually saying?” Let’s examine his quotes. During a town hall meeting in August of 2009 the President said "I have not said that I was a single payer supporter." In a number of appearances he repeatedly assured Americans that if they have a healthcare plan that they like, under this bill they will be able to keep that plan; that the healthcare bill is not a Trojan horse that will bring about a massive government takeover of healthcare.

Curiously, when he spoke at an AFL-CIO function in 2003 he said “I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal health care program. I see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, spending 14 percent of its gross national product on health care, cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody. And that’s what Jim is talking about when he says everybody in, nobody out. A single payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. That’s what I’d like to see. But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately. Because first we’ve got to take back the White House, we’ve got to take back the Senate, and we’ve got to take back the House.”

Ok, even though that was a pretty clear statement of his goals, in all fairness; that was a long time ago and maybe he changed his mind. Maybe he’s refined his position as he gained experience in what the nation actually requires from its healthcare system.

Well, in 2007, during an interview taped during his Presidential campaign he also said "...but I don't think we are going to be able to eliminate employer coverage immediately. There's gonna be potentially some transition process, I can envision a decade out or 15 years out or 20 years out..."

Recently, Senator Barney Frank was approached by advocates of a single payer healthcare system (socialized medicine) and was asked why the single payer system was “off the table”. His reply was “I wish it wasn’t but we don’t have the votes…. I think if we get a good public option it could lead to single payer and that’s the best way to get to single payer.”

In my opinion, the most disturbing quote I’ve found on the issue comes from Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives. She said “I think it is pretty clear that we want a strong public option in the legislation. Insurance companies full force carpet-bombing and shock and awe against the public option — so much so that the American people doubt the plan or are uncertain about it, until you tell them what is in it.”

Let’s play connect the dots. The President that says “he never said he supported a single payer system” is caught on film saying he supports a single payer system.

The same President that assures the American people that under this plan they will be able to retain their current healthcare insurance is then caught on camera saying that there will be a transition period before employer coverage can be eliminated in favor of a single payer healthcare system.

Barney Frank is at least honest about his support for the single payer system and his intention to use the public option to eventually get there whether you like it or not. If the other players in this argument were as honest as Mr. Frank is, there would be no mystery surrounding what this bill actually represents. It still wouldn’t pass muster with the American public but at least we would possess the clear reasons why.

Nancy Pelosi? I’m not even sure where to being on that. Those evil insurance companies have ruined everything because thanks to their negative ads, the American people are demanding to know what’s in the bill before it’s passed. I’m sorry to disturb your musings Ms. Pelosi but it didn’t take a television ad to convince me that I needed to know what is (and is not) in this bill before it is passed into law.

Call me silly but I like to know what I am getting before I buy anything. The statements regarding healthcare made by the President are full of conflicts and do not inspire me to believe that he is being at all honest about his intentions or his ultimate goal.

Regardless of what has been said or promised by this administration, the bare facts are that the Federal government is in deep financial trouble and their plan to fix it does not include scaling back any of the programs currently draining the budget. That thought process can only lead to one thing; a single payer, government controlled healthcare system.

I’ve laid out all of these facts and quotes, connected the dots and all I ended up with is one giant question mark. So I guess in the end, I really have only one question. Mr. President, please tell me that we are not using an endangered wood species to build your “Trojan horse”?

Tomorrow....Are there really "death panels" in the bill?

See you then,
Paul

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Heath Care - Can You Handle the Truth?

Most people rate health services in this country fairly high. Many people from other countries rate our system even higher than we do because the system in their own countries does not offer the access or flexibility of services that we do. Ok, if it’s not broken then what are we fixing? Some would say fair access for American’s below the poverty level. Well, we already have that in Medicaid. Some would say the expansion of services into underserved areas. Hmmm? Texas recently passed legal reforms that would protect doctors from frivolous law suits and doctors are now flocking to Texas in record numbers to practice medicine and that includes traditionally underserved areas. Well, then what does this bill do that these things do not?

Truthfully, there are very few absolutes in the health care bill currently under discussion. It is not about you or me or the purported 47 million uninsured in this country (That number is hotly debated because it includes not only those who choose not to insure, but a number of illegal immigrants as well). So if there is no actual “coverage crisis” then why is Congress and the president so adamant that something must be done immediately? There are several reasons.

The impending crisis they are most worried about is not what the costs are for the average American for health care. Of course we have all seen rising costs for insurance but this bill will not lower those costs, it will simply shift them to your personal income taxes and add new tax burdens for corporate America to deal with.

Since nobody likes new taxes, the language in the bill has taken that backlash into consideration and cleverly states that the funds collected under this plan will not be considered a tax (HR3200, page 203, lines 14 and 15). Well a rose by any other name still costs money. It doesn't matter what you call it, it is still money taken directly from the hands of the consumers and business owners that keep our economic engine running.

Think about something for a moment. When business taxes go up, who pays them? We do in the form of lost jobs and higher costs for their services and products. Business never pays taxes...they pass them on to you. I don’t know why that simple fact eludes so many people. Social reformers salivate at the thought of making those evil business owners fund more and more social programs because their income statement shows millions. The truth is most businesses in this country are lucky to be able to put three cents in the bank for each dollar they earn in gross income. The rest is eaten by the costs for labor, materials and doing business in America; but enough about taxes. If it is not the cost of private insurance then what is driving this frenzy for reform? Let’s take a brief trip through history.

Social Security was created as part of the "New Deal" under FDR in the 1930's. It did really well since it was only the largest Ponzi scheme ever perpetrated on the American public. It was constructed so that the required age for retirement was one year less than the average life span of Americans at that moment in time...a no-brainer for a politician seeking to secure his place in history. After all, if it only looks like I am giving you something then what are the consequences? Who knew that by 2009, we would be active through our 80’s and live to 100?

As a note, there are still people that claim the halcyon days of economic expansion after World War Two was a direct benefit of FDR’s social programs and civil projects. Nothing is further from the truth. The economic expansion we saw in those days only happened in America because nearly every industrial manufacturing center in the world had been destroyed during the war except for those safely located within the United States. If you wanted to buy anything, you had to buy it here.

Thirty years later, President Johnson decided to unleash his "Great Society" concept; which is not a surprise since socialism and society are words with the same root and Johnson was a socialist of the first order of magnitude. Johnson oversaw the creation of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965 much in the same way that Obama is pursuing Health Care Reform today. Johnson’s opponents claimed that this plan would bankrupt America and by 1968 it was already in crisis; but once you give something away, it is nearly impossible to take it back so the government did the next best thing.

Remember Social Security? By 1968 The Social Security Trust Fund had accumulated over 30 years of "contributions" to guarantee a modest retirement fund for the participants. The Federal Government raped the funds, placed Social Security as a new line on the Federal Budget and stuffed it full of IOU's.

Now that the "baby boomers" have reached retirement age, those IOU's are due and the Federal Government is in debt up to their, well lets say an unsustainable amount. The government announced this past Friday that for the first time since COLA was enacted, there will be no cost of living adjustments for Social Security recipients. Medicare and Medicaid are still the budget busters they were since their day of inception so the logic now is let's get the rest of the country sewn up in this so we can generate the new revenues needed to “pay for” (hide) this mess; but how long will that last?

If it was Medicare/Medicaid that bankrupted not only itself but Social Security too, how long after this "fix" for the health care system do you think it will be before there is another health care "crisis"? It only took three years for Medicare and Medicaid to implode all by itself. Since Social Security is already an empty shell will they raid private retirement accounts to fund that “correction”?

Don’t kid yourself; back in the 1990’s, Jessie Jackson suggested ithat the Federal Government “borrow” private retirement funds to pay for a whole host of new social programs. It didn’t happen then but now the government is in financial trouble so that hare-brained scheme may eventually resurface and do for your IRA and 401K what it did for Social Security.

There are some states that have already “road-tested” a basic form of universal health care for us, Massachusetts and Tennessee. Both are already suffering from financial arterial bleeding and the plans have been severely criticized.

The Massachusetts plan has been called a dismal failure. First of all, it is hardly universal. It is employer based and even though you are required by state law to carry insurance, you must be employed by someone to have access to it which is the real trick in a recession. It is also not-transferrable if you lose or leave your job.

The Tennessee plan has been plagued with financial troubles and officials are currently under fire for slashing benefits. They have recently dropped over 200,000 people from the system to help contain costs. The Federal government has been criminally silent on the status of these two models of government administrated health care.

The Federal Government has thoroughly bungled every attempt at becoming a healthcare provider and has left us, our children, our grandchildren and probably their children holding the bill. Are we seriously supposed to trust them with the entire health care industry; one sixth of the U.S. Economy? No, they made enough of a mess just dabbling around the edges and now they are looking to trick us into believing that this plan will cure all of our problems. The health care system is not sick; the massive social programs already under government control are what is terminally ill.

Why does the AARP, the MDA, the Hospital Association, etc, etc, believe that something must be done? Because a scaled back Medicare plan is better than nothing at all and without a huge infusion of money it cannot be sustained; even at reduced levels. The AARP especially, has become an insurer itself and is the largest provider of supplemental coverage for Medicare patients. The passage of a bill that would expand the number of people on a public plan, would expand the number of supplemental policies they can sell as well. If they were in public service, they would have to withhold their support or face accusations of a conflict of interest.

The president says this plan will not cut Medicare benefits. He's right; the plan does not contain language that will cut approved benefits. But to contain costs it will cut the reimbursement rate to the hospitals and providers. When certain tests and treatments are no longer profitable, they simply will not be prescribed. The result? Look at other nations with socialized medicine.

Senator Chris Dodd was recently diagnosed with prostate cancer. In America the 5 year survival rate for this type of cancer is 100%. In Canada it is 85% and in England it is a paltry 77%. But don't worry...the proposed plan has money set aside for hospice care so that you will have plenty of pain killers and a comfortable bed to lie in while you wait your turn for treatment....if you live that long.

If you think that could never happen, it is already happening in Oregon where they have a State healthcare plan and have passed legislation that allows doctor assisted suicide. Barbara Wagner, a cancer patient, was recently prescribed Tarceva as part of her chemotherapy regimen. She received a letter from the Oregon health care plan that stated they could not approve payments for this medication but they would provide funds for “comfort care” and “Doctor aid-in-dying”. Dr. Som Saha, the plan administrator said they unfortunately have to make choices that best utilize their limited resources. This is a fine example of the “death boards” and “rationed care” that the opposition to this bill claim must become the norm when private insurance disappears and the public option becomes the only option.

By now you all know I am a cynic but it seems to me that the push for a nationalized social healthcare system is simply designed to restore balance to the original Ponzi scheme of Social Security by lowering the average lifespan in America to something the government can take financial advantage of and the savings from that can then be dumped into Medicare and Medicaid.

Don't take my word for it. Look up the facts for yourself and demand that your representatives in Congress finally tell you the truth….if you can handle it.

Monday, August 24, 2009

Is Healthcare Sick?

Recent events demand that our focus is now placed on the “America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009” or H.R. 3200. As in my dissection of Cap and Trade, this piece is merely an introduction to the discussion and I will cover the various concerns and provisions in separate articles during the course of this week. As I did with the climate bill, I will use excerpts from the actual healthcare bill to punctuate my comments as well as quotes from both advocates and opponents of the bill.

There is a noticeable uproar over this bill that has been publically aired on network news coverage of the recent town hall meetings. The thousands that have attended these meetings are visibly frightened and upset that the Congress not only appears prepared to pass this legislation regardless of public opposition but that the public opposition itself has become the focus and not the provisions or intent of the bill itself

The protestors have been called crazy, false and manufactured by the Democratic leadership with one Congressman, Rep. Brian Baird (D-Wash.) actually referring to his anti-healthcare reform constituents as “Nazi Brown Shirts”. What is going on here? Since when has the voice of the American people become a threat to democracy? Apparently, that has only happened since the voice of the people now disagrees with the intentions of Congress.

It seems that none of the people that want to see this bill pass are willing to discuss the merits of the bill nor are they are prepared to answer the hard questions posed by Americans that are afraid that the level of care they currently receive will be diminished and that the Federal Budget and deficit will explode.

Undeniably there are myths and untruths that are being promulgated about what is contained in the bill that range from the dismantling of the private health insurance system to the establishment of a “death panel” that will determine care based upon the value of the person seeking it. These are serious charges that should be answered.

I will be the first to admit that the bill contains no language that will outlaw private care in favor of a national healthcare system nor does it contain language that calculates care levels based on the worth of the patient. However, the dangers that people fear the most are not what the bill says, but what it doesn’t say.

The bill for the most part is an open framework of goals with many of the details for care and how that care will be administrated left to a committee that will be formed by the legislation. That sounds too much like a blank check for my taste. “Let’s pass this thing first and then I’ll tell you what it will do for you later.”

The first myth I wish to dispel is that our healthcare system is broken and in dire need of reform. The portion of healthcare that is seriously in jeopardy is the part that the Federal Government already controls; Medicare and Medicaid. These programs have been broadened since their inception to cover people outside of the intent of the original legislation. As the cost for care climbs, the Federal Government assesses the overall cost of the program and must increase funding levels or adjust the reimbursement rate for healthcare providers. In essence, dictate what these doctors will be paid for their services regardless of the value of that treatment.

That has affected the cost of private insurance. As the Feds reduce their rates for reimbursement for services, the losses that the hospitals and doctors realize after treating patients under Medicare and Medicaid must be passed on to other people that possess private insurance or pay directly for services.

The other loss that is passed on to privately insured patients covers the cost of government mandated indigent care for which there is no Federal reimbursement. Indigent care was originally seen as a matter of conscience, prohibiting hospitals from denying critical services until the patient’s ability to pay was verified. I agree that our society should never be comfortable with anything so barbaric as to deny life saving care. However, this mandate has serious consequences for a nation that refuses to secure its borders. The people that abuse this mandate of mercy are overwhelmingly illegal immigrants to this country and have developed a culture of using the emergency room in place of a primary care physician because they can get the care they need and fade back into the shadows of society while the bills are still being printed.

Before anyone has the chance to comment on that, I want to make it clear that I do not oppose immigration. This nation was made great by the diversity of cultures that call this land their home. I do however, oppose criminal activity at any level and that includes those that would cross our borders by eluding the mechanism already in place that allows them to do so lawfully. Those individuals exploit our nation’s generosity with impunity.

One week may not be enough to cover all the aspects of this bill let alone the reasons the Federal Government is so adamant that it must be passed or the reasons that the public overwhelmingly rejects it. I will play the timeline by ear as the news will undoubtedly add new issues to discuss in the coming days.

What I do plan to address are the questions on everyone’s mind.
1- What is really broken and why?
2- Is the public option (or whatever they are calling it now) a Trojan horse to Universal care?
3- Are there “Death Panels” within the plan?
4- How does this affect my privacy?
5- Will this plan really reduce healthcare costs and if so, how?

I have agreed to take on the single most important event on the political horizon for years to come. All that I ask of you is not to take my word for any of it. In fact, take no one’s word for it. Uncover the facts for yourself with a clear and open mind and form your own opinions based on the truths you discover. The truths are harsh so make sure you can handle the truth before you dare ask the questions.

See you tomorrow,
Paul

Saturday, August 22, 2009

***NEWSFLASH***

No death panel in Healthcare? It's already happening in Oregon. Apparently Sarah Palin is not the “nut” that our government officials claim she is. If healthcare reform passes with the provision that the President is seeking for a public option, this will be the logical conclusion for healthcare in this nation as the public option becomes the only option. Well, almost the only option. You could become a member of Congress and be enrolled in their plan….for life.

Watch this video from KATU TV http://bit.ly/2mgQ88

For those that believe the President’s most recent statement that the public option is not a “Trojan Horse” to bring us to universal healthcare, I have another video for you. This is a montage of video clips of the principal players describing their plans in their own words. Very powerful

Watch the video and decide who is telling the truth: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-bY92mcOdk

Paul

Friday, August 21, 2009

Break Out the Gold Card, This is Going to Hurt

In the past few days we have looked at most of the essential components of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, otherwise known as the climate bill. There are other things in the bill that we did not discuss such as developing the infrastructure to support electric vehicles and the promoting the growth of the electric vehicle market itself, all of which I would consider sensible items for inclusion in any legislation meant to improve the environment. What I find unreasonable is the cost of this massive bill and how it will impact every person and business in this country.

We focused on the issues that I felt would negatively impact our nation and intrude upon our personal freedoms. We are currently in a recession and there is no doubt that our nation is fighting for her economic survival. The national debt is currently approaching 12 trillion dollars ($12,000,000,000,000.00) and is growing at roughly One million dollars per minute. The debt was over 70% of our gross domestic product (GDP) in 2008. Estimates place the national debt at 90% of the GDP by 2009 and a staggering 101% of GDP by 2011. That means as a nation, we will owe more in debt that the entire annual economic capacity of the country. As our economy continues to recede, these estimates may very well prove to be conservative and the debt to GDP ratio may very well be higher than the estimated levels.

Any reasonable person would look at the situation and realize that these spending practices are unsustainable. The budget must be brought under control and the government’s priority should be to revitalize the strength of American businesses and restore purchasing power to the average American household. None of that will be accomplished through this legislation. In fact, this is nothing more than a hidden tax that provides little or no benefit to the environment.

The government number whizzes claim that this bill will only raise the cost of household energy twenty-three cents per day. However, those figures are connected to the reduction in your personal energy consumption that are calculated in their estimates and do not take into account that the consumer will see an increase in the cost of nearly everything they buy as production and transportation costs that are driven up by this bill are passed on to you.

Ben Lieberman, the Senior Policy Analyst for Energy and Environment in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation prepared a report that was submitted as testimony before the House and Senate Western Caucus on July 30, 2009. According to that report the “higher energy costs kick in as soon as the bill's provisions take effect in 2012. For a household of four, energy costs go up $436 that year, and they eventually reach $1,241 in 2035 and average $829 annually over that span. Electricity costs go up 90 percent by 2035, gasoline by 58 percent, and natural gas by 55 percent by 2035. The cumulative higher energy costs for a family of four by then will be nearly $20,000.”

The report continues, “But direct energy costs are only part of the consumer impact. Nearly everything goes up, since higher energy costs raise production costs. If you look at the total cost of Waxman-Markey, it works out to an average of $2,979 annually from 2012-2035 for a household of four. By 2035 alone, the total cost is over $4,600.”

If the government is confident that the energy costs will only rise about $175 per year, per household, then one must question the provision in this bill to create an “Energy Refund Program to give low-income households a monthly cash energy refund equal to the estimated loss in purchasing power resulting from this Act.” I doubt that would be necessary if the cost impact on American families will be as minimal as the proponents claim they are.

Of course Henry Waxman and Ed Markey couldn’t keep their 90+ grade on the socialist scorecard if there wasn’t some hidden attempt at more redistribution of wealth. The bill will also establishes a rebate program to assist low-income households residing in pre-1976 manufactured homes in purchasing new Energy Star qualified manufactured homes. Oh good! A new “Cash for Clunkers” program only this time it’s for houses. Don’t you just love giving your money away! When it was for cars, the government blew through one billion of your dollars in a single week. I can’t even begin to imagine what this will cost us.

There will also be standards established to create energy efficient building codes for new homes and to rate the efficiency of existing homes. The reason to rate existing homes is to establish the criteria for a home retrofit program with goals to reduce the energy each home uses by 20% and to reduce potable water use. The retrofit program (REEP) has not been written yet so it is hard to say exactly what it will consist of but there will be approved retrofits, home inspections and of course, loans available to facilitate the retrofit. Some critics claim that the stick that goes with this carrot is that you will not be able to sell your home until it complies with the standards written into this act however, I have not found that stated in any of the documents I have reviewed.

The economic impact of the Waxman-Markey bill as stated in Mr. Lieberman’s report, will reduce the economic activity in this country resulting in a loss of $393 billion dollars a year to the GDP. It will also cause a decrease in farm profits of 28% by 2012 and as much as 57% through 2035. And while America suffers, this act will pass out billions to "emerging" nations to help them develop and deploy environmentally friendly technologies. Since the first days of the Monroe Doctrine, this country has never gained one friend through the disbursement of foreign aid or cash assistance. When will we learn?

The bare fact is that the major polluters on this planet; China and India have already stated that they will not agree to impose similar carbon dioxide restrictions within their nations. The U.N. treaty on climate will have no effect on South Korea, Mexico or Saudi Arabia. As I said yesterday, 60 German scientists have issued a joint letter to their President asking that he not sign any tready of this magnitude. Without those nations, the Waxman-Markey bill will have no net effect on global warming and will do little but further burden the American tax payer.

There are some people that will profit though. The “inconvenient truth” for Al Gore is that it has become public knowledge that he has invested $6 million dollars with Hara Software, a firm that makes the monitoring software that will be needed to comply with this legislation. Mr. Gore will be a billionaire through that investment if this bill passes as this $2.5 billion dollar industry swells to ten times that amount if the forecasts are correct.

Nancy Pelosi is also heavily invested in Clean Energy Fuels (CLNE). The exact amount of her investment has not been disclosed but she is reported to hold shares of this company valued between $50,000 and $100,000. Her investment would be more than safe since this bill also places an emphasis on clean and renewable fuels like natural gas and methane.

The bottom line is Waxman-Markey is an expensive, intrusive, bloated, candy-coated energy tax that provides no benefit to the environment. It will fundamentally disrupt economic activity in this nation and place one and a half million people on the unemployment line. But don’t worry, by then Al Gore and Nancy Pelosi will probably be hiring chauffeurs, gardeners and chefs; as they spend the windfall profits they will accrue because of their wise investments. Gee, I wish I could make an investment and then be able to write legislation that sends it through the roof. What lucky people!

Thursday, August 20, 2009

It's Not Easy Being Green

Ok I give up…what is a “green” job? As the Federal government tries to emphasize the need to clean up our act and be more environmentally responsible, green jobs would be a spin off benefit of that. Theoretically, since we are embarking on the use of new technologies to take better care of our planet, jobs will be crated within these emerging technologies to offset the job loss in other more environmentally damaging industries.

I have a hard time believing the Federal government understands what a job is let alone how to create one. Case in point is the stimulus plan. The administration claimed that the stimulus was a success, creating over 3,200 jobs in three months. Last month alone they cheered that the recession was easing since there were “only” about a quarter of a million new applications for unemployment, down from over 300,000 in the previous month. All I can say is Huh? Just the notion that they can claim success in either of these things sounds more like a Yogi Berra quote than a triumph for the economy.

There is even worse news. Most of the 3,200 jobs they claimed were a direct result of stimulus money were short term projects that provided 35 of hours of employment before the lucky individuals that held those positions were unemployed again.

Washington is full of numbers people, not jobs people. If you are displaced from your current job as a result of the Climate Bill, the folks in Washington will find a way to make the numbers work so they can claim yet another triumph. The proponents of the Waxman-Markey Bill claim that millions of green jobs will be created through this legislation. Don’t believe it.

These are the same people that claim that consumers will save hundreds of billions of dollars in energy costs as a result of the passage of this bill. As we discussed yesterday the savings are not a result of lower cost but rather through the forced self denial of services. The smart grid will turn your smart appliances off for you or charge such an outrageous price for energy that you will be forced to turn them off yourself. The net result is hundreds of billions of dollars of energy that you simply couldn’t afford to use as you sit in the dark fanning yourself with a newspaper.

There go those numbers people again. If you don’t use energy because you can’t afford to, just think of how much money you are saving as a result of the passage of this bill! Why it’s….uh….hundreds of billions of dollars! What they don’t tell you is if you have already turned off your air conditioners, your televisions and your lights, the energy you cannot live without (your refrigerator for example) will cost nearly as much as what you are paying today to live comfortably. The “savings” they are claiming is the difference between what you will be paying and what you would then have to pay to live your life as you did before.

Back to green jobs. As the limits for compliance become more difficult to meet and as the cost of purchasing the carbon credits become more expensive, some industries will simply close up and outsource their manufacturing to nations with less stringent and costly restrictions such as China and India. Hey! There’s no carbon reduction in that! Don’t worry; the Washington number whizzes can still show you how much this is helping the planet by quoting our own carbon emission data! See? This stuff is easy!

However, actually finding the “green” jobs in this is more like playing a game of “Where’s Waldo”. The companies that cannot relocate, like the utilities, will have to track and report their carbon dioxide emissions. Each of them will have to have at least one person to do that. Wow, that is at least a thousand green jobs right there. The reality is that companies are streamlining and still laying people off so that duty will probably be an added responsibility of someone that already works there. Even still, its green and it’s a new responsibility created by this bill so it counts. Many of the green jobs the proponents claim will be created by this legislation will be created in that way. A title change for an existing employee and not a real bona fide new position added to the roster.

The bill provides educational grant and loan money so that the people that lose their jobs as a result of this legislation can go back to school and train for a new and more environmentally friendly job. Of course if you’ve already had a job before you probably have all those middle class luxuries like a house and a car so you probably won’t meet the criteria to qualify for a grant. If you wish to avail yourself of this provision you will most likely have to take the loan and agree to pay it back later.

Conservative estimates state that as a result of the passage of this bill, the loss of jobs will average 1,145,000 between the years 2012 and 2035. Note: that this figure is after the green jobs created under this bill have already been deducted from the total number of jobs lost.

But why worry….we have a “Green Jobs Czar” now! Mr. Van Jones, whose official title is the Special Advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation at the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). Mr. Jones earned his B.A. from the University of Tennessee at Martin. While attending Yale law school, Jones served as an intern at the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights in San Francisco, acting as one of a number of observers on the trial of the assailants of Rodney King. In 1993, Jones earned his J.D. and moved to San Francisco. Mr. Jones is an environmental activist that sees an opportunity to use the transition to a green economy to lift the poor out of poverty.

While acting as an observer during the Rodney King riots in 1992, Mr. Jones was arrested along with other legal monitors and protestors. His arrest was deemed illegal and he was released and cleared of all charges. But it was during his time in jail that he met some very special people.

In his own words: "I met all these young radical people of color -- I mean really radical, communists and anarchists. And it was, like, 'This is what I need to be a part of.' I spent the next ten years of my life working with a lot of those people I met in jail, trying to be a revolutionary. I was a rowdy nationalist on April 28th, and then the verdicts came down on April 29th. By August, I was a communist."

To my knowledge Mr. Jones has never created a job, green or otherwise. While he does possess knowledge of the inner workings of environmental advocacy, he certainly lacks the credentials that would establish him as a liaison between those that create jobs and those that need them.

I’m afraid that the green job czar is just another political commentary on the ultimate goals of this administration and the green job claims of the proponents of this bill are simply another “red herring” topped with a very sour sauce.

Tomorrow…..How much is this going to cost me?

Paul

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Power to the People? The "Smart Grid"

Anyone that has ever experienced a power outage is familiar with the general definition of a power grid. I lived in New York City for one of the two major blackouts affecting the entire north east area. While the two blackouts had different root causes, they both resulted in a cascading failure where the load from a failed section was transferred to another. As each transfer occurred, the new line was quickly overloaded shifting that load to yet another line. In the end, nearly the entire northeastern section of America and parts of Canada were affected plunging millions into darkness.

After the 2003 blackout, critics claimed that America was a “Superpower with a third world power grid”. European newspapers noted that America would benefit from a European style system with tighter, safer controls and superior interconnectivity even though that system suffered a similar failure only six weeks later.

The European grid system was the old “new” answer. The new “new” answer is Smart Grid. Smart sounds good. After all, who wants a “dumb” grid system? American’s love smart stuff. The smarter our devices become the dumber we can afford to be and that equals leisure time…maybe.

Smart grid is an interactive, interconnected system that allows for immediate changes in response to load factors. The proponents claim that smart grid will allow us to reduce our dependency on emergency generators needed to augment the available power at peak load periods by better managing the loads themselves, reduce outages through the robust and redundant interconnectivity of the system and reduce the need to expand the existing grid by adding new transmission lines or generating plants. The smart grid will also allow easier integration of alternate energy sources such as wind, solar, tidal and geothermal generating capabilities. This will aid in the reduction of greenhouse gases as we shift from fossil fuels to environmentally friendlier power sources.

Smart grid is a major undertaking. A key component of the system is the household power meter; that friendly little device that measures how much power you use so you can get your billing statement from your equally friendly local utility company. The smart meter would communicate with whatever “smart appliances” you have in your home. We don’t have any of those yet but knowing our even friendlier Federal government, that will probably end up being the only kind of appliance that will be available when this plan is in full swing. The microprocessor driven heart of a smart appliance will undoubtedly add hundreds to the purchase cost of a new appliance. The good news is that no additional wiring will be needed since the communication data can be transmitted digitally as an encoded pulse right through the electrical wiring already in your home where it will be interpreted by the microprocessor in the appliance.

The smart meters communicate peak load information with the utilities and in turn, communicate with any smart appliances in your home causing them to help shed that load by turning off. For instance, during times of peak demand, your smart clothes dryer may react to a request from your smart meter by turning itself off a few minutes earlier. Your smart dishwasher may complete the wash cycle but not engage the heated drying cycle until the network demand is lower. Your smart refrigerator may leave the compressor off a little longer raising the temperature in the refrigerator slightly but still well below safe levels. In commercial applications, smart meters can even be used to dim the lights at the supermarket if the system demands a reduction in load.

So what is the benefit of having a smart meter if you do not have any smart appliances yet? Let’s face it; nobody replaces a refrigerator if it’s not broken and if you have already bought one in the past five years, you are hoping it will outlive you before going through that expense again. This is where the smart meter comes into its own. If the machines are not able to turn themselves off they will give you the tools and the economic incentive to turn them off yourself. Part of smart meter technology will allow utility companies to shift away from having a set fee for power and be able to increase or decrease the price of the power you use at any given moment.

There will be no more “off-peak” hours because the price that you pay will be dependent upon the actual load experienced by the entire system. Of course there will be a monitor in your home that will allow you to see at a glance, just how much you are spending for a kilowatt hour every minute of every day. One thing that is not clear is that since the smart grid has a level of interconnectivity that has never before been achieved in the United States, will peak load be determined locally or as an aggregate figure extracted from the entire system? Will there ever be reduced loads or affordable energy costs if it is always five o’clock somewhere?

The smart meters will not only receive load communications from the utilities to be used to instruct your smart appliances and adjust your billing levels. It will also send communications from your home to the utility companies. This was one of the criteria established for smart grid technology in the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. Another unknown is the exact nature of the information that the grid will collect from your home, who will receive it and how it will ultimately be used. It could be something as simple as monitoring power usage trends or something as nefarious as using that information to establish personal energy use standards and a penalty structure for non-compliance. No, that is not in the bill; but we have many such standards and corresponding penalties that evolved well after seemingly harmless legislation had already been enacted.

I’m sure you are wondering what this will mean in dollars and cents to you. My comments on the costs associated with this bill in its entirety will be covered in a later post but I will tell you that I have in my possession a very illuminating report prepared by the Senior Policy Analyst for Energy and Environment at the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies. This report was submitted as testimony before the House and Senate Western Caucus on July 30, 2009 that will answer all of those questions and more. It is the key part of this analysis and something you will not want to miss.

Next up…….What is a “Green Job”?

Paul

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Carbon, Cap and Trade

I will apologize in advance for the length of this post. This is an extremely complex bill and even this one portion of it requires a great deal of time to properly address. I promise though, that it is well worth the read since there is so little being said about it elsewhere.

The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 also known as the Waxman-Markey Bill, has more than a few other names. The climate bill, cap and trade and most recently, the largest tax grab in the history of America. Truthfully, I prefer cap and trade. That sounds so harmless, almost like we’re talking about baseball cards. I wonder if we’ll get gum with it!

Today, the focus is on Cap and Trade. The name is a simplification of the process whereby Government will establish a cap on the gross emission of carbon dioxide and allow companies the ability to buy licenses, or credits, to produce the gas as a by product of their individual manufacturing processes. The credits can be transferred from one company to another through an exchange created by the bill. London already has such an exchange and is poised to be the leading trader of this commodity trade in Europe.

The transfer option of the bill will allow companies that have exceeded their carbon dioxide production allotment to purchase the right to continue production from credits that have not been used. In theory, if the available credits reflect the Federal goal for total tonnage for that year, then the trading of those credits will allow companies to continue to operate and still remain below the total goal levels. Additionally, as each transaction to transfer credits takes place, a portion of the credits will be retired and no longer available.

The cap is the upper level of that goal tonnage and is set to incrementally decrease with each year. There are very stringent goals written within the bill and the first tier is a 97% reduction in the 2005 level of Carbon Dioxide production by 2012 with ever decreasing amounts in increments beyond that. It is a very aggressive schedule.

As with any commodity, the potential for greed is ever present and the possibility that the value of this commodity will be severely inflated as the rarity of available credits force the price skyward. The owners of these credits have the option to hold credits until the price is “right”, driving the costs even higher. You already know since your last trip to the store that any increase in the cost of manufacture will be passed directly on to you where you then experience the double insult of paying an even higher sales tax on that item.

There is also the possibility that extremist environmental groups will band together and purchase a portion of these credits for the purpose of retiring them early to accelerate the reduction in greenhouse gas production. That will make the available credits even rarer and more costly.

Since greenhouse gas is a by product of the commercial generation of electricity, utility companies will be affected by this as well. The bill will establish a combined efficiency and renewable electricity standard that requires utilities to supply an increasing percentage of their demand from a combination of energy efficiency savings and renewable energy. These standards also have incremental adjustments that reflect the ultimate goal of the legislation by the year 2050.

Carbon Dioxide has been the main culprit in the debate of global warming simply because the amount that we generate in any given year, but is not by any means, the only greenhouse gas (GHG) that is under scrutiny. The bill will also establish the means to classify these other gasses by their carbon dioxide equivalent. That is to allow control of the production of these gasses utilizing a single comprehensive scale rather than overcomplicating the process with a separate scale for each. After all, if one ton of methane possesses the same potential for global warming as eight tons of carbon dioxide, then let’s just call it eight tons on the equivalent scale and measure apples to apples.

International climate conferences have already concluded that the trends in global warming indicate that this is a man made event. Although they agree it is man made, the timeline regarding the impact of global warming is still under debate and ranges from decades to centuries. There are also scientists that argue that these findings are based on bad science and filtered facts; that the trends we see today are a natural phenomenon caused by cycles in both the output of the sun and the earth’s oceanic and atmospheric currents. Those scientists are generally ridiculed for their views and their colleagues claim they are a minority of the total body of scientists looking at the issue. The scientists that oppose the man made global warming theory have accused that their findings have been summarily dismissed for political reasons and their reports have been dissected with only minor portions of the data ever allowed into the discussion.

With the United States embarking on the road to a massive comprehensive environmental policy it begs to ask, what is the rest of the world doing? Sixty of Germany’s leading scientists have written a joint open letter to the German President urging that Germany not sign into an agreement of this magnitude. The largest emerging industrial nations, China and India, have already stated that will not agree to any climate treaty that will alter the strength or potential of their economy and without these nations; the effort, pain and financial burden the United States will bear will be meaningless in the aggregate and result, if the science is correct, in only a .5 degree Celsius reduction in global temperatures by 2050.

Tomorrow I will take on the “Smart grid”. It is an integral part of the plan to cap the demand of electricity and the part of this bill that will have the most apparent and immediate affect on you, the American citizen.

See you tomorrow,

Paul

Monday, August 17, 2009

The Magician and his Hat

The debate over the proposed healthcare bill is at fever pitch and one need not look far to read about the anger being displayed by the people attending the town hall meetings currently being held in every Congressional district. Some insist these are average American’s in fear of loosing the quality and quantity of their health coverage while others insist that this is manufactured rage perpetrated by political groups designed to disrupt the meetings.

If you read the news flash that immediately preceded this, then you already know that it is the proponents of this bill that are mobilizing to manufacture fraudulent rage. They have been caught red-handed posting ads actually offering salaries for those that are loud enough to drown out the voices of the people opposed to this bill. Or is it meant to intimidate their opponents until they no longer attend the meetings? You decide.

I’ve only attended one town hall so far and the meeting was spirited but not disruptive. The people I saw seemed sincere and did not appear to be organized other than in their common opposition to the provisions that they believe are hidden in the bill. What I saw was fear and not anger. I was not at any of the meetings that appeared on the news so it would be inappropriate for me to comment on the intent or the origin of the people that attended those.

I will say that the response from Congressional leadership to the anger shown in those meetings has done more to alienate Congress from their constituents than anything I have ever seen before. They have since toned down their rhetoric and today call the protestors “a loosely organized group of individuals”. While they apparently have abandoned their stance that these people were acting under the orders of big business and political parties, they are still seeking to dilute what these people are saying. How foolish. Actually, I think it’s a little too foolish not to have been by design. It seems that they desperately want to keep this debate alive and angry.

So why do I feel as though I am watching a magician waving a handkerchief in his right hand while his left hand is neatly hidden from view? Since they want to discuss health care reform so badly, I think I’ll talk about the Climate Bill.

If you recall, the American Clean Energy and Security Act narrowly passed the house on June 26, 2009 by a vote of 219 to 212. This bill is also going to the Senate after the summer break and though there were articles stating that this bill faces an uncertain future in the Senate, Mr. Obama is curiously silent about something he claimed was so critical to the planet. To a cynic like me, silence equals sneaky. There was a great deal of opposition to this that the timely appearance of the health care debate has effectively silenced. Is it possible I have found what the magician has hidden in his hat?

The American Clean Energy and Security Act is lauded as an important milestone in environmental legislation that promises to reduce the production of Carbon Dioxide, a greenhouse gas and the accused culprit in the crime of global warming. Unfortunately, scientists at MIT (The Massachusetts Institute of Technology) recently announced that they are confused by the test data they have accumulated which shows an increase in atmospheric methane sufficient to raise the question of whether it is methane rather than carbon dioxide that is the actual suspect. That is very disturbing now that we are prepared to pass legislation that will drastically challenge the financial stability of this nation and the personal freedom of the American people.

This is an enormous bill that requires megabytes of computer storage just for the PDF version of the summary. Big bills frighten me not only because there is a lot of room to hide the dirty little details, but because it is almost guaranteed that the people voting on this probably did not read it themselves but instead, have relied on an army of staffers with limited experience in law to provide them with a “Reader’s Digest” version that summarizes the major points.

Since Congress found this too big too read, the last thing I want to do is to crowd this site with a massive tome about any piece of legislation. I’ll resort to that if and when I feel it is time to retire this project because that would be a great way to make sure that you will find something else to read. Instead, I will dissect the bill and cover the major points as objectively as humanly possible. The areas of the bill that I feel are most important to for all of us are Cap and Trade, The Smart Grid, “Green” Jobs and the Forecasts of Economic Impact.

Why is the Climate Bill a subject for The Vigilance Project? There are portions of this legislation that will fundamentally expand the reach of government into our homes and into our daily lives. There are also truths about this bill hidden under the “green” blanket of environmental activism that must be uncovered.

Coming Tuesday. Carbon, Cap and Trade.

Paul

Sunday, August 16, 2009

NEWSFLASH


Liberal activist groups CALPIRG and Fund for the Public Interest have both posted ads in Craig’s list to recruit paid protestors that are meant to “out-shout’ the opponents of healthcare reform and the climate bill.

Since the Government has revised it’s characterization of healthcare opponents to that of “a loosely organized group of individuals” it is safe to say that they have backed away from their initial claims that this was manufactured anger brought about by special interest or the Republican Party and have acknowledged the legitimacy of their concerns and comments.

Now the real manufactured anger is entering the field and has blatantly posted ads promising salaries for those that would protest loudly in favor of these two major pieces of legislation. This is an open attempt to silence the voices of the people airing their legitimate concerns before their own legislators by infiltrating these meetings with paid participants that are not citizens within the districts where these protests will be launched.

The ads can be viewed at”
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/scz/npo/1323127000.html
(Los Angeles Area)

Just in case these ads curiously dissappear once the light of day has illuminated their intent, I have taken the precaution of copying them to a word file and I have them safely archived. This my friends, is vigilance in action.
Paul


Welcome to the Project

Since the age of the first petroglyphs, it has been the desire of humans to express themselves and to be understood. Those primitive rock drawings would evolve over the millennia into the cultured languages of modern man but it was only after the birth of this nation that the right to freely use the gift of language had been guaranteed in one the most extraordinary works of literary genius ever crafted by human hands - The United States Constitution.

The rights and freedoms enumerated in the Constitution will only survive as long as people remain vigilant and aware of the efforts under way to restrict them. This is not a Republican blog nor is it Democrat. It is neither Conservative nor Liberal. This is about the pursuit of truth in the defense of freedom.

I intend to espouse the truth, expose the myths and embrace my guaranteed right to speak freely and without fear. The subjects will be topical and timely. Because of the diversity of the American public, I can be certain that what is contained in these posts will be supported by some and met with deep disapproval by others. It is my intent and desire that these differences are discussed rationally and respectfully and that the controversy will spark real dialogue that will help all of us draw a roadmap to the truth together.

Recently the right to free speech has been under attack. The people engaged in spirited debates surrounding the health care town hall meetings have been denigrated by those that are sworn to support and defend the Constitution. That deeply concerns me. Yes some have been a bit too loud and some have been a bit too ugly but the First Amendment applies to them too. There are no qualifying requirements before you can gain the protection of free speech under the Constitution. That protection is afforded to the public regardless if they are loud or quite, right or wrong, rude or polite and most especially whether you agree with the current administration or not.

When Maureen Dowd of the New York Times suggests that Mr. Obama use his position to “Squash” the people speaking out at the town hall meetings one has to question what the state of the First Amendment will soon be if a member of the press is actually advocating the suppression of free speech.

Just to open this with a bang, here are some worthy quotes on the subject of free speech. I hope you consider them carefully and keep them in mind as this site takes form.

See you soon!
Paul


“The only valid censorship of ideas is the right of people not to listen.”
~Tommy Smothers

“Censorship reflects society's lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime.”
~Potter Stewart

“We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.”
~John F. Kennedy

“Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings.”
~Heinrich Heine

“The test of democracy is freedom of criticism.”
~David Ben-Gurion