The Man of Change?

Well here we are just six days away from the much publicized summit on healthcare reform the President announced during the State of the Union Address. Some foolishly believed that his invitation to ranking Republican’s signaled his understanding of the message voters had sent in the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial elections and finally, the Massachusetts special election to fill Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat. Apparently that assumption was premature and the election of Republicans to all three of these vital races is being dismissed as easily as the town hall meetings and Tea Parties have been.

It is bizarre that the Democrats can be this blatant as to their intentions. Behind the scenes work to reconcile the Healthcare Bill is still progressing even as the President continues to at least say, that he wants the best ideas from both Parties. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have both signaled their intention to “go nuclear” and rely on a reconciliation tactic to pass the bill with a simple majority, causing reasonable people to ask what kind of summit can this be if these negotiation are till taking place in secret and these kind of plans are being made before Congressional Republicans are even given the opportunity to present their ideas and compromises?

Scott Brown was not simply a message for the Democrats. His campaign was centered on the promise that he would be the 41st vote that would stop the race to pass a healthcare reform bill that the majority of American’s do not want. As support for the President wanes, the trust the American people have in the Democrat’s healthcare plan evaporates at an astounding rate. In recent polls, most Americans would prefer that the plan be scrapped and that the government turn its attention to the economy and the faltering job market.

Regardless of the loud and clear voice of the people, Congressional Democrats are standing firm because their President said they must move forward and also because the Progressive movement has been holding the Democratic Party hostage for decades. That is why Indiana Democrat Evan Bayh decided to throw in the towel and refuse to run for another term. He was bitter in his statements about the ineffectiveness of Congress and said that he could accomplish more as a private citizen than he ever could as a member of the Senate. Alabama Congressman Parker Griffith recently switched Parties for much the same reason. He joined the Republican Party because the Democrats under the Progressive assault had lost their way. They were no longer the Party of the people but some weird group of far left elitists that no longer cared to hear the people. That is why the President’s agenda is being propelled forward as the economy continues to crumble; they have been in effect, deafened by their own rhetoric.

To continue their push for healthcare reform and cap and trade they must convince you that the economy is already in recovery. As the President and the DNC struggle to convince people that the Recovery Act (Stimulus Bill) is working fine and has “saved or created” two million jobs, the U.S. Department of Labor’s own website says the job loss average for the past month has been 467,500 jobs lost in each of the last four weeks. Of course “saved jobs” is the new catch phrase since it is as impossible to disprove as it is to quantify. You know, that we might have even begun to believe some of that if Joe Biden hadn’t spilled the beans in an interview on Wednesday. As he spouted the administration line of “saved jobs” he added that the Recovery Act is a two phase program with the money for actual job creation loaded in the second half of the program. He explained that most of the funds spent in phase one had been targeted to offset the cost of State unemployment benefits and to provide tax relief.

Ok, I admit I’m a little confused here. The job creation funds have not been disbursed yet but the Recovery Act has already saved or created two million jobs? “Most of the funds spent in phase one were to offset the cost of State unemployment benefits and to provide tax relief” but the Recovery Act has already saved or created two million jobs? Is Vice President Biden saying that the act of collecting unemployment insurance is now considered a job? If so, is it a created job or a saved job? Maybe it’s both. If you had already been collecting benefits and are now drawing on an emergency extension then it is clearly a saved job but if you are one of the unfortunate 467,500 that are still losing their jobs every week; well, then that must be a created job.

All of this nonsense of saved jobs and created jobs flies in the face of the statements made by White House Economic Advisor Christina Romer in a Congressional hearing in October of 2009. Romer testified “Most analysts predict that the fiscal stimulus will have its greatest impact on growth in the second and third quarters of 2009 and by mid-2010 fiscal stimulus will likely be contributing little to further growth.” Of course when the economy did not respond as hoped, Romer was obviously asked by the White House to revise her assessment. While recently appearing on the February 17th edition of Good Morning America, Romer said in response to questions about the economy that the greatest effects of the Stimulus Bill have yet to be realized.

The inconsistencies aren’t something shocking. In fact, this administration is amazingly consistent in its inconsistency. If you speak with five different people in this administration you will get five different numbers of the jobs the stimulus bill has “saved or created”. What doesn’t change is the mindless defense of the actions they have already taken or are hell bent on passing into law. Regardless of every possible economic index you can look at, the stimulus bill is not only a failure but has resulted in a “job deficit” as the economy fails to respond. What they absolutely refuse to see is that they can have another five stimulus bills of equal amount and still not create lasting private sector employment. Business is not responding because as this administration continues to apply its short term fiscal Band-Aid, the threat of future tax hikes and new regulations are still part of the overall plan.

The Healthcare Bill is just one of those black holes that are making businesses apprehensive. We still don’t know what is being crafted in the dark up on Capitol Hill. What will the tax liability be? At what income level does it begin? How many employees can I have before the mandate to provide coverage hits me? Will the plan I already provide have an additional tax levied against it? How can responsible business owners make a decision to hire additional employees until they know if they can even remain profitable after the Bush tax cuts expire and the capital gains tax go up in 2011?

Cap and trade, if passed, will increase energy costs by 65% in the first few years and more that 100% by 2015. The only thing that has allowed American businesses to remain even marginally competitive against nations that pay their employees five dollars a day is affordable and abundant energy. Proponents of cap and trade claim the difference is pennies a day but California has already installed Smart Meters, a major component of Smart Grid, the key to cap and trade. California energy costs to PS&G customers have skyrocketed and they are ready to revolt at the increases they are experiencing. Bear in mind that the cost of purchasing carbon credits to produce their electricity aren’t even part of that increase yet. That is where the real kick in the pants will come from. There are estimates that claim cap and trade will cost America five million jobs or two jobs for every so-called “green job” it creates. Looking at Spain, I think that estimate is conservative if not overly optimistic. Spain was suckered into the whole plan of creating a green economy that Obama is trying to sell us and unemployment in Spain has already passed 19%.

So where is the change? The actions of this administration are bordering on criminal; there is no transparency other than a few carefully orchestrated photo ops and the President has broken every promise he made during his campaign. The legislative process itself has been hijacked by Progressive radicals and special interests and even Obama’s friends in the Community Organizing business have been writing key parts of costly legislation that Congress won’t bother to read before passing. If Progressive Democrats continue to ignore the impact their plans are having on the economy and force healthcare through while unemployment is still close to 10%, the backlash will cost them both the House and the Senate in 2010. The damage they are doing now has already insured a long and hard road to recovery and the measures that will have to be taken to right the wrongs will be painful and unpopular. I can only hope that the American people will wean themselves from the public teat so we can actually address the spending problems in Congress before the world economy forces even more drastic change against our will.

Paul

Healthcare on C-Span? Not in this lifetime.

For a little comic relief, a reporter covering a press conference featuring Nancy Pelosi asked why the Healthcare conference committee is meeting behind closed door when the President promised total transparency during his campaign. He continued that he (Obama) had stated with clarity that the process would be open, involve both Parties and would appear on C-Span for all to see. Nancy chuckled and said “The President said a lot of things during the campaign.”

That tells me two things. Number one: Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid never had an intention of conducting the conference committee in public no matter what the President said and number two: that Nancy Pelosi is still peeved that Obama is willing to sacrifice the public option, coverage for illegal immigrants and public finding for abortion in order to strike a deal that will allow a bill to pass.

Coming from the Socialist stronghold of San Francisco, Nancy still believes that the healthcare bill will be nothing but an empty shell without these provisions and that the President should persuade if possible but drag if necessary; the Party, the Congress and the nation to accept these extremely liberal policies. Don’t forget, that in the Marxist philosophy, government must care for people for the good of the collective, and that only faithful socialists know what you need whether you like it or not. Nancy really didn’t want the public option; what she wanted was a government run universal care system identical to European models. She would have settled for the public option only because the way it was laced into the House bill it would have crippled the private health insurance industry allowing the public option to morph into a universal care system over time.

What is known is that the President is beginning to learn that D.C. is not Chicago and even though he has surrounded himself with the best political thugs that money can buy, his corrupt little circle of radical community organizers is no match for the real warlords of Washington, career politicians that have spent decades perfecting the art of torpedoing the aspirations of men with one hundred times the experience that the junior Senator from Illinois had. As Nancy Pelosi erupted into schoolgirl giggles at the mention of Obama’s promise to air the healthcare debate on C-Span it occurred to me that the “Big O” doesn’t have the sway over Congress that he thought he had.

Obama is so intent on getting this bill passed that he was willing to surrender key parts of the legislation that were of prime importance to the most liberal of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. He has been under heavy fire from Progressive Democrats for dealing away the public option and may lose moderate Democrats for not strengthening the language to prevent the public funding of abortion. Of course if he insisted on keeping the public option and caved on the abortion issue the Progressives would be sulking over abortion and the moderates would be furious over the public option. Now nearly every other state is angry about the deals that were given to Louisiana and Nebraska to secure the votes of Nelson and Landrieu and many of those states have their Attorneys General looking into the legality of those deals on the grounds that the Constitution requires that taxes are applied equally among the states.

In the end, I am sure that they will pass something if only to avoid the charge of failure in an election year. After all, Obama hung all his meat on this hook to the exclusion of everything else so not to bring this to fruition would cripple the rest of his agenda. Congressional Democrats are following him over the cliff hoping that since the bill prohibits insurance companies from having exclusions for pre-existing conditions or from dropping clients that have contracted a catastrophic illness, that Americans will view this as something positive that the Democrats have brought to the table.

Here lies the problem. The Bill enacts all of the tax increases and service cuts immediately but the most damaging (and expensive) parts of the bill do not begin to come into play before 2014. Those are also the parts of the bill that provide access to coverage through the government exchange or provide subsidies for people that cannot afford coverage so the uninsured will still be uninsured when Election Day comes around. Without the exchange and subsidies, what insurance will the unemployed have when companies begin laying off workers in response to the increased tax liabilities this bill will levy on business? If the business mandates begin with companies that have over fifty employees, companies with fifty-three can and will drop a few people to remain below the minimum. Companies with a hundred employees that do not currently offer health insurance may end up only being able to afford eighty with insurance.

The other problem for Democrats is that they continue to underestimate the real anger that has been fomenting in the general population. Sixty percent of Americans do not want this bill to pass and most believe that if the conversations must be hidden from the people, then the bill must be too horrible to risk making it public. Even more believe that if the Congressional leadership has to resort to outright bribery to buy the votes for passage, then this bill obviously cannot stand on its own merit and deserves to fall. Congresses refusal to deliver on Obama’s promise of transparency may, in the end, prove to be a larger liability than if they fail to deliver healthcare reform at all.

Democratic spokesmen and White House loyalists have a great strategy for combating the public demand that the President keep his promise and force the Congress to hold the conference hearings openly; they lie. Simple huh? They keep repeating that this administration has restored transparency to Washington and has maintained an openness that was totally absent during the Bush administration. Well actually, that was two lies and another stab at the previous administration. The truth is that during the Bush administration, Congress never held hearings on any bill of this magnitude in secret.

The Bush administration attempted to privatize Social Security and even though many recognized that as a sound move to help control the budget deficit, it was a very controversial subject. As heated as the debates were and as passionate as both sides of the argument were; it was widely recognized that is was an important issue with serious ramifications and that demanded a complete and very public debate. The measure failed in the end but what is the measure of success? Doing something at any cost just to say we’ve done it or doing it right?

No, the Obama administration does not want these hearings held in public because the American people would openly revolt not only if they knew the dirty details of the legislation but at the criminally corrupt Chicago style bribery that they are using to obtain the votes for passage. Those that are surprised that Obama would lie so boldly during the campaign had obviously read only the books written by Obama himself and not the ones written about him.

This administration is transparent? Obama has three dozen Czars holding positions of power that answer to no one; not even Congress. Not only have they refused to speak with Congress about their actions citing executive privilege but the most damaging bits of information about them is being sought out and expunged from the internet whenever it is found. Obama’s campaign spent over nine-hundred thousand dollars in legal fees to seal any personal information about him including school transcripts, thesis papers, business dealings, legal records and of course, the long form of his Hawaii birth certificate….you know, the one that would actually have a doctor’s signature and a state seal on it.

I suppose the case could be made that this administration is very transparent. After all, what is more transparent than the total absence of substance?

Paul

Ben Nelson takes to the air to calm angry Nebraskans

The Senate vote on Healthcare is over so let the backpedaling begin. Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska took to the air in his home state on Wednesday to try to defend his vote for the Healthcare reform bill. Even though he does not face reelection until 2012, his poll numbers are abysmal and show him losing by a 61 to 30 margin if the election were held today against an opponent who has not even said they are running. The poll also shows Nelson with a 55% generally unfavorable rating and the Democratic healthcare plan he voted for fairs even worse with 64% disapproving of the plan nationwide.

Unfortunately for Nelson, he made his stand on principals over his opposition to the use of public funds for abortion; that is he stood on principals until Harry Reid found out how much money it would take to buy his vote. At least when Mary Landrieu of Louisiana prostituted herself to Harry Reid, her original opposition to the bill was fiscal. Ben can buy all the air time they will give him but no one, particularly Nebraskans, will ever trust a man that can place his ethics up for sale.

When Nelson had stood his ground against the bill and said he would not vote for it unless there were iron-clad protections against the use of public funds for abortion, he had an enormous amount of support back home and many more around the nation lauded his firm stance on a moral issue. After he sold his vote along with his moral objection to abortion, his numbers plummeted. He couldn’t have possibly believed that this back room deal would have remained a secret after similar deals had been made public so why would he take the bait?

Not that I will defend Nelson’s decision for one moment; after all principals are only principals if you stand by them, but there is more to this story than meets the eye. An unnamed member of the White House called Ben Nelson’s office and threatened to have Nebraska’s Offutt Air Force Base placed on the base closure list if he didn’t play ball. While Nelson says that he knows of no such threat, credible sources say that the threat was indeed made. Nelson was probably faced with the limited options of either voting for the bill and receiving a cash benefit of reduced Medicaid liabilities for his State or voting against the bill and having major military installations in Nebraska shut down as well as being ostracized within the Democratic Party; never being able to advance another piece of legislation in the Senate again.

Even though Nelson will have to pay the price with his constituents for folding on his convictions, we should not forget the corrupt machine that threatened him to accept the bribe that bought his vote or else. The “horse trading”, as the Washington wonks like to call it, has been brought under extreme criticism of late for the shameless way it has been used to secure the votes of Congressmen that were not even given an opportunity to read the current version being crafted by Harry Reid and the White House. The argument that this is how business in Washington has always been done is only drawing heavier fire as many more demand the President keep his campaign promise that the days of “business as usual” would be over under his administration. He promised that as President, he would not sign any legislation that was laced with pork barrel spending. Well he has already signed a number of bills saturated with pork and every indication we have is that he intends to go right on signing them as long as he gets what he wants.

What the White House and the Democratic leadership fails to grasp is that Americans are not only unwilling to accept “business as usual” from their elected “agent of change” but that they are particularly disgusted with the heavy handed tactics that this administration has used to advance its agenda. What we have witnessed in the past few months of the healthcare debate is what we would have expected if America had lost its mind in the 1930’s and drafted Al Capone as President. The administration and the Democratic leadership have been caught telling outright lies about the insane costs and negative effects of the healthcare bill. Their only strategy is to silence their opposition by any means necessary and to continue to tell the same lies hoping that if people hear them often enough, they will begin to believe them. Did I say Al Capone? Maybe I should have said Adolf Hitler and his propaganda minister, Joe Goebbels.

I would almost bet that Ben Nelson is not airing his ads explaining his vote and boasting about the benefits of the healthcare bill to boost his own sagging poll numbers but rather it is probably part of the deal he cut with Harry Reid. It seems to me that Reid would have demanded that since Nelson voiced such serious concerns about the bill that he must now publically support the bill to counter that. I guess they haven’t seen one of the more recent polls that place America’s trust in Congress lower than that of used car salesmen. They can take out all the ads they want but it will not improve the poll numbers in support of healthcare reform because an overwhelming number of Americans no longer trust the messengers.

With Congressional approval flat at 25% and a staggering 69% saying that they overwhelmingly disapprove of the job Congress is doing, there doesn’t appear to be a lot that Congress has done to impress anyone. In fact, the healthcare bill has an awful lot to do with those numbers as the 64% of Americans that oppose the reform legislation racing through the Congress are angry at being ignored by the people that were elected to represent them. Congress had an opportunity to not only improve their standing with the American public but of the public perception of the Healthcare bill itself and they blew it. The forced votes and closed door meetings only reinforced the idea that the bill contains little that is not detrimental to the quality or cost of care for the average American or it would have been debated and amended in the kind of public process Obama promised us.

Let’s face it; they spent nearly two months arguing over how many Americans were actually uninsured. First it was forty-seven million but then we found out that figure included millions of illegal immigrants. Once the illegal immigrants were excluded because of a public outcry, it dropped to thirty million. Even then, there were a large number of people that had access to healthcare insurance that simply decided not to obtain insurance. Some because they were young and did not see the need for it and others because they made the choice to spend that money in other areas of their lives that were more important to them at that moment. To this day, the reported number of uninsured Americans fluctuates wildly between fifteen and fifty million which only adds to the uncertainty Americans have regarding the total cost of this monstrosity.

The proponents of healthcare reform said that all must be covered arguing that the uninsured simply use the emergency room system for care and then disappear, leaving the bills unpaid. They claimed that providing coverage for those people would drive the overall cost of care down for everyone. Really? That is like trying to say that it would be cheaper to buy an entire wardrobe for someone because once in a while they may shoplift a shirt or two. I’m just not sure how to make those numbers work? A $15 dollar shirt and maybe you can add another $3 to the cost for loss prevention weighed against an annual government expenditure of $500 to $1000 for a whole wardrobe paid for by the taxpayer. Hmmm…..I still don’t see where this strategy lowers cost for the people that actually buy their own clothes. It would seem to me that the tax liability for the average American would far outweigh the price increase the store would charge to absorb the loss of that $18 shirt.

I know healthcare is far more complex than that and I am not saying that the theft of healthcare services is not a major problem; I concede that it is. I just don’t think we are looking in the right places to find those creepy thieves. Overall, the largest thief of health services is perpetrated by the Federal government. The Federal government routinely short-pays doctors and hospitals to the point where it is increasingly difficult to find a doctor that will even accept Medicare or Medicaid patients. Sure there are some uninsured that seek services in a hospital emergency room and skip out on a bill of a few thousand dollars but turn that into the systematic looting of health services by cutting the reimbursement rates government is willing to pay for the care of millions and that represents a catastrophic loss that this bill only promises to exacerbate.

Go ahead Ben, air your ads and make your case. No one believes this bill will do any of what the President has promised it will do and Nebraskans will not believe that you affected any meaningful change to the bill that suddenly made it better for your State or for the nation as a whole. The only thing we know for certain is that you sold your vote to Harry Reid along with the few remaining scraps of your integrity that were left after spending two terms in the Senate Brothel

Paul.

Is Senate Prostitution Constitutional?

Now that we have had the opportunity to digest the magnitude of the Senate vote on Healthcare Reform taken in the early morning of December 24th, the television has been ablaze with heated debates between factions of both pro and con camps. I couldn’t help but notice how many Democratic Strategists appear on these programs and some shows have a new one every week. The problem with strategists is that their job is to advance an agenda; in essence, to create a winning strategy and not necessarily to tell the truth.

Of course winning is everything to a strategist and the truth tends to get lost if it is not complimentary to the strategy. Despite the authoritative assurances of the strategists, every independent review of the bill says the costs have been understated and that it will add to the deficit and the debt. Recently, even the CBO accused the Congress of showing the savings achieved from the cuts in Medicare twice; once to reduce the general cost of Medicare and then a second time, as a revenue source for a new entitlement to subsidize the purchase of health insurance for low income individuals and families.

When an average citizen writes two checks using the same money that is called check fraud and eventually, there are criminal charges levied for that. When the Congress does it, the strategists hit the news channels and tell us it is a misrepresentation of the facts by zealot Republicans. Well, the CBO is neither Republican nor Democrat; it is supposed to be a non-partisan arm of Congress. When the CBO showed the deficit reduction in the healthcare bill, the White House used that as proof positive of the financial benefit of the bill. When the CBO unveiled this corrupt scam of using the same money twice, the very same people in the administration said that was just ridiculous and unworthy of comment. Either the CBO is impartial and honest or not, they are going to have to pick one or the other.

Curiously, the main debate has now shifted to the means by which Congressional leadership secured the sixty votes they needed to move this bill forward. In a move now called “Cash for Cloture”, the leadership used your money to bribe Senate members into voting for a bill that 61% of Americans do not want. The out and out prostitution witnessed by America as one member after another sold their votes (Hi Mary!) to Harry Reid in exchange for some sizeable payoffs is just another example of the culture of corruption in Washington.

No less that ten States have their Attorney Generals looking into the legality of certain States being exempted from damaging increases in Medicaid liability promised by this bill, leaving the rest of the States to cover the full impact of the increases of not only their own state, but of the exempted states. The Constitutionality of which is brought into question by both Section eight of the Constitution as well as the fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.

Section 8 - Powers of Congress

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;


Amendment 14 - Citizenship Rights.

1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

It is clear that Section Eight, which grants Congress the authority to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, also states quite clearly that those Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States. But how can there be Constitutional required uniformity if certain States are exempt leaving the non-exempt States to carry the full burden?

The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees the people equal protection under the law but there is nothing equal about a Federal tax on one segment of the population that residents of a neighboring State do not bear. Additionally, the Fourteenth Amendment not only prevents the States from passing any legislation that would abridge the Constitutional rights of its citizens, but prevents them from enforcing Federal law if that law would abridge those same rights.

There are clear Constitutional issues with the deals that were cut to obtain passage of this bill. Perhaps some of our brilliant Constitutional lawyers in Congress would have realized this if they weren’t so insanely intent on achieving cloture before the Holiday break but Harry Reid was not going to risk giving the general public access to their Senators and upset the process. After all, if one of these sequestered Congressmen found out just how unpopular this bill is at home they might not have voted for it.

Unfortunately, there are many members of Congress that have seen the poll numbers on healthcare reform and thanks to our friends, the Democratic Strategists, they have dismissed the unpopularity of this bill as a result of the massive amounts of “disinformation” that has been distributed to the public by the opposition. It is not disinformation that has caused the loss of support for this bill; it is the actions of a Congress that seems determined to pass it at any cost that has given the public good cause to reject it.

The idea that the final Senate version was crafted behind closed doors with no Republican and very few Democrat Congressmen present is a point of concern. That Harry Reid negotiated with Senators to obtain a commitment on their vote before they were even allowed to read the final version sounds off alarms to any thinking person. Most disturbing is the disparity of claims among the supporters of the bill. This proves that the Senators that just voted for it have no idea what it says in its entirety.

What a difference a week makes. Now that they have concluded the vote in the Senate, the music has changed quite a bit. Just last week supporters of the bill said that it would reduce the cost of healthcare insurance by bringing much needed competition into the system. This week the “strategists” are saying that health insurance would climb even higher without the reforms in this bill. Last week they said that this bill will not destroy the private healthcare insurance system, this week they say that without reform your employers wouldn’t be able to afford the increases in cost and you would lose that insurance anyway. Last week anyone that said there would be care rationing and death panels was just plain crazy but this week they say that insurance companies have been making those life and death decisions for decades.

So what are they saying? Yes you will pay more but less than it would have been? Yes this bill will bring about the loss of your private coverage but at least it will provide you with an alternative? Yes there will be bureaucratic panels deciding what care you will and will not receive but at least it’s the government and not the evil insurance company making that choice?

Since this change in heart is only one week after the Senate vote, what will we find out in two or three or four weeks? This was the argument on the part of those that wanted the pace slowed so that everyone had a chance to read and understand what we were actually doing with one sixth of the United States economy. When you see the difference between what the proponents said last week compared to what they are saying this week, it is clear there was a lot of misinformation given to the public about healthcare reform. Unfortunately for the Democratic Strategists, it appears that the misinformation came from the President, his advisors, Democratic members of Congress and the cadre of special interests that stand to make billions after the passage of this national lie.

Paul

The Senate Brothel

Senator Ben Nelson is the latest member of Congress to sign on to Harry Reid’s suicide pact on healthcare and the final vote needed to achieve a vote on cloture. Nelson’s constituents are opposed to the current healthcare bill by a factor of two to one and in a recent poll, 61% said that they would vote against Ben Nelson in the 2012 election if he voted for the healthcare bill.

Ben Nelson had made many eloquent speeches that he could not support a bill that did not have iron clad protections against the use of public funds for abortion. He argued that the Hyde Amendment did not offer enough protection because it would not prevent federal subsidies from being used to purchase healthcare policies that included coverage for abortion. I am not even sure why abortion has become an issue; even pro-choice advocates should be able to admit that abortion is not a bona fide healthcare issue unless there are specific circumstances. In fact, if pre-choice advocates had an ounce of integrity, they should argue that real choice begins with prevention and focus on that. We must realize that abortion is an issue where compromise is impossible but I would gamble to say that the members of Congress that oppose abortion on moral grounds would have no problem including funds and coverage to prevent contraception to avoid the quagmire of publically funded abortion.

Abortions in the case of rape or to preserve the life of the mother are not in question and have never been excluded. While abortion is a medical procedure, just the title “pro-choice” says it is an elective procedure so unless pro-choice advocates are saying that hair weaves, breast implants and plastic surgery should be covered in a healthcare policy as well, they should drop the issue and let those that “choose” to have an abortion find a way to pay for it the same way those that “choose” these other elective procedures do.

Unfortunately, for those that supported Ben Nelson’s stance on abortion, Ben Nelson, the man-whore, belongs to the same Senate brothel that his colleague Mary Landrieu does (Hi Mary). Even Bernie Sanders, the self proclaimed socialist Senator from Vermont, gave up his demand for a single payer system in exchange for $10 billion dollars for community based health centers that will be written into the bill. Since Sanders is such a dawdling old fool I don’t think we can actually charge him with prostitution. In his case, I am guessing he just wanted to end the negotiations so he could slip into a fresh diaper. Nelson, on the other hand, prostituted himself as shamelessly as Mary Landrieu did; perhaps worse. After all, Mary Landrieu’s opposition to the bill was economic while Nelson claimed moral superiority on the issue of abortion and in the end; no one respects anyone that would place their morality up for sale.

Ignoring the demands of his fellow Nebraskans, Ben Nelson announced Saturday that he would support the current Senate healthcare bill after achieving major concessions from Sentate Pimp, Harry Reid, that would exempt Nebraska from the rise in the state share of Medicaid costs. These costs are expected to increase dramatically after 2016 as a result of healthcare reform. Louisiana’s exclusion from those increases will expire within a few years but Nelson’s deal has the Federal government picking up the tab for Nebraska’s share of the costs in perpetuity. All other states will see their Medicaid burden increase beginning in 2016 as a direct result of the passage of this bill and while they may still pass this monstrosity now, don’t think for a moment that Senators from each state will not demand similar relief as the timeline for the implementation marches forward.

Senator Tom Harkin not only intimated that Iowa would in fact, seek the same deal as 2016 draws near but in a bid to keep progressives on board after the loss of the public option, Harkin pleaded for patience saying this is a work in progress. He cautioned that the bill may not be a mansion, but is rather a starter home with plenty of room for future expansion. Harkin’s statement exposes the lie in the President’s assurances that this bill is not a Trojan Horse that will lead to a single payer European style healthcare system when in fact, that is exactly what Progressive Democrats are planning.

The other big lie is on the issue of budget neutrality. The bill is only budget neutral to the Federal government as much of the real costs of care are shifted to the States, deepening their budget issues. Think about it…the deal Mary Landrieu received for her vote only provides a relief from those increases for a few years yet she claims the benefit for her state is a whopping $300 million dollars. If a small state like Louisiana can save $100 million a year in this deal, what will the cost be to more populace states? Better still, where will they get the money from? There will be state tax increases on everyone to cover the gap and that is a guarantee. So; as long as we are talking about lies, here is a good question. If the President’s policies intentionally shift major costs to the states, forcing them to cut services and raise taxes for everyone, is that not an Obama middle class tax increase by proxy?

The CBO estimated price tag for this mess kept going down every time it was scored; even as Reid promised billions upon billions to gain the votes he needed for passage. The only way that could happen is if they are shifting these concessions out of the healthcare bill and plan to hide the expenses as earmarks in other pieces of legislation. I hate to be so blunt, but five pounds of crap is still five pounds of crap even if you put it in ten different bags.

Any fool can see that this entire process has been corrupt from the start and has gotten worse with each passing day. The promises Obama made during his campaign that the debates on healthcare would be viewed on C-Span have vanished as the process disappeared behind closed doors. At first it was only the Republicans that were barred from negotiation sessions then curiously, all but a handful of Democrats were barred from the discussions as well. In the end, Harry Reid, his staff and White House personnel have been writing the bill and although the final vote is still expected before the Christmas break, the people that will vote on it have no idea what changes have been made or when they will even see the completed bill.

What we do know is that when outright bribery could not buy the needed support, the evil emperor resorted to extortion and intimidation. As Senator Lieberman wavered in his support for the bill, he suddenly found his wife Hadassah under attack as the liberal machine set their sights on her. Jane Hamsher, liberal pit bull and founder of Firedoglake.blog, demanded that she be fired from her work to support breast cancer research as the Ambassador to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation claiming she has troublesome ties to the healthcare industry. Of course everyone denies that the attacks have anything to do with forcing Joe Lieberman’s hand but isn’t it curious that the assault began the same day that Joe said he couldn’t support a bill that contains a public option?

Representative Peter DeFazio (D-OR) knows firsthand how DC politics have taken a Chicago twist. “Don’t think we’re not keeping score, brother,” Obama told DeFazio during a closed-door meeting of the House Democratic Caucus, according to other members. About the only thing missing from that exchange was Luca Brazzi sporting a roll of piano wire. DeFazio maybe a progressive Democrat but for DeFazio, it is still a matter of beliefs. He will not support issues that are not consistent with his ideology regardless of the pressure brought to bear. When they yell, he simply yells back.

Before Ben Nelson caved on healthcare, the White House reportedly threatened to place an Air Force base in Nebraska on the closure list if he didn’t play ball. The base they threatened was not just any base, it was Offutt Air Force Base, a major asset in the strategic command network and vital to American national security. This was the base that secured President Bush during the brief period when the origin and scope of the 9-11 attacks were still unknown. If this is true, it represents a mindset so misguided that it would place politics ahead of national security. Is a victory on healthcare so important to the President that all other consideration are secondary, even the ability to defend our country?

Nelson was also told, as I am sure others were, if he voted against the Senate Healthcare Bill he would never get another piece of legislation through that body. What is going on here? This is no longer a Republic; at least not in the true sense of the word. I have often charged that “Progressive” is actually a code word for American Marxism. If you look at their ideology and litany of issues, it is a summary of Karl Marx’s writings. The only difference between Progressive Democrats and true Marxists is that the Marxists prefer radical change through revolution where the Progressives believe they can bring about the same changes through manipulation of the legislative process. Apparently they are right because each successive year brings us closer to the final plunge into the socialist abyss.

I warn you, my friends; if we do not return to the Constitution as it was written and contain the monster that the Federal government has become, there will be no Constitution to return to. Progressives have been writing legislation outside of their Constitutional authority for over a hundred years and it will not be long before they introduce legislation that will alter the definition of the Constitution so that our protections against their lust for power will be forever lost in the translation.

Paul

Mary Landrieu - Political Prostitute

Prostitute
Pronunciation [pros-ti-toot, -tyoot] verb, -tut⋅ed, -tut⋅ing.

–noun
1- A woman who engages in sexual intercourse for money; whore; harlot.
2- A man who engages in sexual acts for money.
3- A person who willingly uses his or her talent or ability in a base and unworthy way, usually for money.

In another Saturday night, special session of Congress (there seems to be a lot of those these days), the Senate voted to allow Harry Reid’s version of the healthcare bill to proceed to debate. For a President and Congress that promised unparalleled “transparency” in government, there have been far more closed door meetings and midnight votes than during any previous administration; essential requisites for “ladies and gentlemen of the evening”. That coupled with the fact that the healthcare bill is a staggering 2000 page document that the senate was given a mere 72 hours to digest before a vote was taken spells a total disconnect between the actions of government and the expectations of the governed.

By comparison, Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” is a mere 1275 pages, in hardcover, containing a total of more than 560,000 words. We are now being asked to believe that every one of our elected Congressmen possess the unique ability to be able to read the equivalent of “War and Peace” twice in a 72 hour period. In Senator Mary Landrieu’s speech, she made mention of the time she was granted to do just that. She applauded the work of Senator Blanche Lincoln in assuring that the Senate received the time required to read the legislation and to “attend the necessary meetings”.

We can now surmise that at least one of those meetings was with Harry Reid and the subject of that meeting was just how much taxpayer money it was going to take to purchase her vote to proceed. On page 432 of the Reid bill, there is a section increasing federal Medicaid subsidies for “certain states recovering from a major disaster.” The section spends two pages defining which “states” would qualify, saying, among other things, that it would be states that “during the preceding seven fiscal years” have been declared a “major disaster area.”

This section applies to exactly one state: Louisiana, the home of Democrat Mary Landrieu, who has been playing hard to get on the health care bill. In other words, the bill spends two pages describing what could be written with a single phrase: In exchange for Mary Landrieu’s vote, Louisiana will receive the equivalent of one-hundred million dollars in increased Medicaid subsidies. While she will claim this settlement is “doing the good work” for her home state, it is clear to us that this is only intended to strengthen her position in the 2010 election. Since hurricane Katrina devastated Louisiana in 2005, the payoff will expire in five years leaving her state, by 2015, to contend with the same increased financial mandates that the healthcare bill will impose on all other states.

There is no doubt that Mary Landrieu will deny that she personally gains from this “provision” and since the bribe was crafted in general language that provides relief to any state that has been declared a major disaster area, Harry Reid can and will deny that it had anything to do with Louisiana specifically, but words are words and deeds are deeds. The facts are that Mary Landrieu withheld her support of the healthcare bill knowing that her bid for re-election would be in jeopardy if she voted for the bill. The estimated one-hundred million dollars Louisiana will receive from the bill will go along way in mitigating the negative effects the rest of the states will suffer if this monstrosity passes, in effect, anesthetizing the voters in her state from the pain of the full effects of this bill until the elections are well over.

Mark my words; knowing the way that politics works in Washington, she will distance herself from this bill later. Reid needed 60 votes to bring the bill to the floor for debate but if he uses reconciliation, as has been threatened; he will only need 51 votes to pass the final version. All the Democratic Senators that are facing election difficulties in 2010 including Mary Landrieu, will be allowed to vote no on the final vote and it will squeak by with the minimum number of required votes just as it did in the House of Representatives.

John Kerry looked ridiculous when he made his famous “I voted for it before I voted against it” statement referencing the $87 billion dollar appropriation for the Iraq war. No one believed John Kerry and no one will believe Mary Landrieu either. It is obvious that the Democrats need some new strategists because they keep using the same idiotic plays over and over. We’ve seen this before and no one is buying it. Congress is at its lowest approval rating in decades and these deceitful tricks only serve to deepen our distrust and distain for career politicians. Mary Landrieu, Blanche Lincoln, George Voinovich, etc. can try the “Kerry Play” but who will believe them now?

What Mary Landrieu failed to anticipate was the degree of attention this “bribe” for her vote would receive. I’m sure she was aghast after she finally left the chamber and saw her name plastered all over the news. To the American people and to her constituency, she has been singled out in the press as the one Senator who prostituted herself by placing her vote on the auction block. That tells anyone that follows politics that she has no foundation; no fundamental beliefs. Even though I oppose this hideous government takeover of the American healthcare system, I wouldn’t have blamed her if she voted her conscience, stood proud of what she had done and could tell us why. The fact is you cannot publically place your vote up for sale and not be accused of being a political whore.

The funny part is that she believed the Senate “pimp” (Harry Reid) and signed her soul away for something that will probably not make it into the final bill anyway. If the Medicaid savings for Louisiana represents $100 million over the next five years, what costs will be forced on more populace states as this bill shifts more of the burden for Medicaid to them? Does Mary Landrieu not realize that her “spiff” will probably disappear in the final version as other Senators demand similar provisions because of the equally catastrophic fiscal disasters in their own states? Since the government cannot provide that relief for all states, it is doubtful they can honor the agreement to do it for only one.

Not possible? Well the House version only passed the vote because of the last minute passage of the Stupak amendment, eliminating any possible use of public funding for abortion. Nancy Pelosi agreed to allow that amendment to come to a vote to gain the support of pro-life Democrats. As a resolute pro-choice advocate, she only agreed to the Stupak Amendment because she knew the Reid bill would strip that protection and the final version will invariably not provide the iron clad prohibitions that the pro-life Democrats sought. In their haste to pass “something”, they missed the one opportunity they would get to stop this lousy bill in favor of legislation that guaranteed the prohibitions against public funding for abortion could not be removed at a later date.

I am making the prediction now that if the healthcare bill fails, Mary Landrieu only has a 50/50 chance of being re-elected in 2010 because of the publicity associated with selling her vote. Let’s face it. If she were actually representing the will of her constituents, their voices would have guided her vote and not what her pimp promised her. If the healthcare bill passes, her political career will go down in flames and she can spend the next couple of years trying to rebuild her law career in a nation that won’t have the money to hire her services. I intend to use this forum regularly so that we do not forget those members of Congress that are so blatantly corrupt that they would sell their vote for another shot at being reelected. On the bright side, Mary won’t be homeless…ACORN still offers some fantastic housing options for “Ladies of the Evening”.

Paul

Reid pushes for early passage of healthcare bill

Here we go again! Harry Reid is waiting for the CBO score on the new, new, new healthcare bill so he can force this matter to the floor before the Christmas break. I know, Congress calls it the Holiday break but here on the Vigilance Project, Christmas is still Christmas. Mr. Reid’s fear is that not proceeding with the bill now would allow the Senators to face their constituents in a repeat of the summer town hall meetings and that is something he cannot allow.

If this healthcare bill is so damaging to the nation, why then would Reid and Pelosi want it to pass so badly that they would risk what little of their political capital that have left to move it forward? It is still a matter of power. As it stands now, 47% of Americans pay no taxes and some of that 47% actually receive tax money in the form of earned income credits and other public assistance programs. We are dangerously close to tipping that balance and once a minor majority of Americans move from the taxpayer column to the recipient column, there will never be another fair election in this country.

Outspoken Congressional progressives have already admitted that they intend to use the public option to move healthcare from the private sector into a universal government run system much like we see in Canada and England. A victory for the healthcare bill would be a devastating blow to personal freedoms and to the health of the Republic. Universal care will, for the first time in our history, make a majority of Americans dependents of the State and insure the electability of those candidates that promise to keep public money flowing into the Federal entitlement machine.

Medicare was suppose to provide basic health services for those senior citizens that found themselves without care and without the means to pay for care after retirement. Who could argue with that? It was a reasonable plan supported by a compassionate nation. Over the years it became an entitlement program available to anyone over the age of 65, whether you actually needed it or not. Estimates at the time of passage were that Medicare would cost the taxpayers $9 billion dollars a year by 1990 when the actual figure would swell to $65 billion dollars, a 700% miscalculation. Now Medicare has become a sacred cow and any discussion of cuts or means testing the recipients is met with angry mobs of seniors and their advocacy groups.

Social Security was enacted during FDR’s early years in office and promised to offer a safety net to seniors that never had the opportunity to provide for their own retirement. When Social Security was enacted, it was a trust fund. People would contribute to the fund and be able to withdraw an annuity upon retirement. A great idea right? Well, after only three years, Medicare and Medicaid were in serous trouble and the Federal government raided that trust fund to offset the shortages in those programs. Social Security was added as a new line to the Federal budget as another liability for the American taxpayer. In the biggest “double dip” in history, we now have the privilege of continuing our mandatory “contributions” to the Social Security system as well as paying ever-increasing taxes to cover the government’s budget problems wrought by exploding entitlement disbursements.

Social Security has changed too. 40% of recipients are not of retirement age and recent disclosures have shown that even illegal immigrants are drawing from this fund through one abuse or another. The entitlement programs of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are rife with fraud and abuse, so much so that even organized crime has found it much easier to defraud the federal government than it is to defraud banks and credit card companies. In fact, the President claims that he can pay for a large part of the healthcare bill by eliminating fraud and abuse. Unfortunately, President Clinton said the same thing back in 1993 during his push for universal healthcare.

In the sixteen years since President Clinton made his healthcare speech identifying the fraud and abuse in the healthcare system, not one bill has passed through Congress to attempt to eliminate the billions of taxpayer dollars lost to Medicare and Medicaid fraud. That leaves two possibilities. Either the Federal government is incapable of combating the fraud in which case, the cost of this legislation is going to balloon the federal deficit and explode the National Debt or the proponents of universal care needed that fraud as a tool to pass a healthcare bill when the power in congress had shifted in which case, those that willingly turned a blind eye to allow the fraud to continue for political purposes should be charged as co-conspirators. No matter what the truth is…are these the people you want to trust with your healthcare?

Curiously enough, members of Congress have no skin in the game. They have the best healthcare plan in history of man. It is free to them and they get to keep it for as long as they live no matter how long they have served in Congress. They will not add language to any of the bills going through Congress that would force them to participate in the same plan that they will force you to take and since their care is provided for them at no charge, they will not be subject to that nasty little 40% tax on “Cadillac” plans proposed in the Baucus bill. If that doesn’t insult you, I don’t know what will.

The bill that is currently under consideration does not lower your healthcare costs. In fact, independent estimates say that premiums for private healthcare insurance will triple under this bill. The same studies say that more than five million jobs will be lost as small business attempts to cope with the new taxes and mandates. Medicare will be cut by five-hundred billion dollars and even though the CBO scored the bill at $1.2 trillion dollars, their past cost evaluations of other spending bills has been historically wrong and has cost taxpayers seven to ten times that amount.

This bill doesn’t do any of the things that experts say would actually result in the healthcare cost savings that is one of the President’s highest goals. Even his primary goal of providing care for the uninsured is not met as this bill still leaves twenty five million people uninsured and they will continue to test the financial stability of our hospitals and clinics.

Over all, this is not a bad bill; it is a rotten bill and the notion that it might not be great but “we have to do something” is an idiotic statement worthy of ridicule. Throwing buckets if gasoline at a burning building is “doing something”…it just doesn’t help the goal of putting the fire out.

Paul

SAY NO TO OBAMACARE

The Vigilance Project is taking the day to communicate with Senators to voice our opposition to the healthcare bill. We urge you to do the same. This is far too important to leave to a handful of people behind closed doors and the idea that the Senate will be forced to vote on a massive 2000 page bill without having been given sufficient time to read it is not the will of the American people.

Congress must read and understand legislation before a vote or we have no representation. Please contact your Senators and tell them to do their job. Read the bill and vote no on any proposal that does not serve the interests and will of the American people.

The Vigilance Project will continue tomorrow as usual.

Paul

Damn the Republic, Full Speed Ahead

The following information is an article written by Brain Darling as it appeared in Human Events Newsletter (http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=33740). It is a clear indication that the President, the Democratic leadership and progressive Democrats have absolutely no regard for the Republic and intend to pass damaging and unpopular legislation in the face of clear opposition by the American public.

Since one of the founding principals of this nation was that there would be no taxation without representation one must ask what the legality of a strategy is that would allow a handful of legislators to ram massive spending bills through congress by any means necessary just to fulfill their own warped view of how wonderful America would look like if we had just a little more socialism. Unfortunately, Socialism is like pregnancy in that there is no such thing as being a “little Socialist”. The article below explains this strategy.

Congress’s Secret Plan to Pass Obamacare
Brian Darling, Human Events

President Obama and liberals in Congress seem intent on passing comprehensive health care reform, even though polls suggest it is unpopular with the American people. And despite the potential political risks to moderate Democrats, the President and left-wing leadership in Congress are determined to pass the measure using a rare parliamentary procedure.

The Senate plans to attach Obamacare to a House-passed non-healthcare bill. Ironically, nobody knows what that legislation looks like, because it has not yet been written. Yet many members plan to rubber-stamp Obamacare without reading or understanding the bill.

The Senate Finance Committee worked furiously last week to mark up a “conceptual framework” of health care reform. The committee actually rejected an amendment by Sen. Jim Bunning (R.-Ky.) to mandate that the bill text and a final cost analysis by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) be publicly available at least 72 hours before the Finance Committee votes on final passage.

The following four-step scenario describes one way liberals plan to work the rules in their favor to get Obamacare through the Senate:

Step 1: The Senate Finance Committee must first approve the marked-up version of Sen. Max Baucus’ (D.-Mont.) conceptual framework. Then Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D.-Nev.) can say that two Senate Committees have passed a health care bill, which will allow him to take extraordinary steps to get the bill on the Senate floor.

During the mark-up last week, members had difficulty offering amendments and trying to make constructive changed because they lacked actual legislative text and Baucus made unilateral last minute changes. For example, the AP reported that “under pressure from fellow Democrats, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee decided to commit an additional $50 billion over a decade toward making insurance more affordable for working-class families.”

Step 2: Sen. Reid will take the final product of the Senate Finance Committee and merge it with the product of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, which passed on a party-line vote in July.

Usually, a bill is voted out of committee, and then the Senate takes up the final product of the committee so that all 100 senators can have a hand in the process. With some help from the Obama administration, Reid will decide what aspects of the HELP and Finance Committee bills to keep.

Step 3: Now, Obamacare will be ready to hitch a ride on an unrelated bill from the House. Sen. Reid will move to proceed to H.R. 1586, a bill to impose a tax on bonuses received by certain TARP recipients. This bill was passed by the House in the wake of the AIG bonus controversy and is currently sitting on the Senate Legislative Calendar.

The move to proceed needs 60 votes to start debate. After the motion is approved, Sen. Reid will offer Obamacare as a complete substitute to the unrelated House-passed bill. This means that the entire healthcare reform effort will be included as an amendment to a TARP bill that has been collecting dust in the Senate for months.

Step 4: For this strategy to work, the proponents would need to hold together the liberal caucus of 58 Democrats (including Paul Kirk who was named last Thursday to replace Sen. Kennedy), and the two Independent senators (Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Bernie Sanders of Vermont). These members will have to all hold hands and vote against any filibuster. Once the Senate takes up the bill, only a simple majority of members will be needed for passage. It’s possible one of the endangered moderate Democrats, such as Sen. Blanche Lincoln (Ark.), could vote to stop a filibuster then vote against Obamacare so as not to offend angry constituents.

Once the Senate passes a bill and sends it to the House, all the House would have to do is pass the bill without changes and President Obama will be presented with his health care reform measure. If this plan does not work, the Senate and House leadership may go back to considering using reconciliation to pass the legislation.

Adopting this secret plan will not strike most Americans as a transparent, bipartisan, effective way to change how millions of Americans get their health care.