Is Heathcare Reform a Bolshevik Plot?

I was watching video of the speech the President gave on the economy that sparked his argument with Las Vegas. He began by saying “When times are tough, you tighten your belt. You don’t go buying a boat when you can barely pay your mortgage. You don’t blow a bunch of cash in Vegas when you’re trying to save for college.” I’m not sure why Las Vegas was so upset with that. I’m sure even the Mayor of Las Vegas would agree you spend vacation money in Las Vegas and not your kid’s college savings; but my interest really isn’t on his fight with Vegas. My interest is in the idea behind that paragraph and how it was directed at the American people.

The United States now has a National Debt of over twelve trillion dollars and the White House’s own budget estimate shows a doubling of that debt over the next decade. When times are tough, you tighten your belt, you don’t jump into an ideological frenzy to pass sweeping reforms that will change the banking, healthcare and energy industries; especially when those changes will add trillions more in debt to the current estimates. Oh sure the CBO says the healthcare plan is budget neutral and the President claims it actually brings deficit reduction, but the CBO estimates are based on ten years of spending cuts and tax increases while only counting six years of expenditures. Great idea! I’m sure I could show some incredible savings if I could collect ten years worth of income and only pay six years worth of bills but I doubt I could sell that idea to the utilities, the supermarket or my mortgage company.

The primary reason why America is not buying the President’s healthcare plan is because we know it doesn’t make sense. We see past the shady accounting and know it’s not going to reduce the deficit. We know you cannot provide health insurance for thirty million more Americans, most of which would need subsidies, and still lower healthcare costs. We especially know that you can’t mandate new and expensive benefits that health insurers will have to provide, cap their rate increases and expect them to remain in business for very long. No, it doesn’t make sense unless that is the goal. It is no secret that Progressives have long wanted America to shift to a single payer, Universal healthcare system. Now it has even become an imperative for more moderate politicians as Medicare and Medicaid are about to bankrupt the Federal government. It is especially appetizing for States that have tried to enact public health insurance on their own like Massachusetts, Tennessee and Oregon.

No, healthcare reform isn’t about making health insurance more affordable for average Americans; it is about making healthcare more affordable for the Federal government and for the States that have tried to make it a local entitlement. While we are not currently discussing a Universal, single payer healthcare system or for that matter, a public option; this plan is crafted to bring us to that point in time. As health care insurers are driven out of business, the Federal government will “have to” step in and offer a public option to shore up the exchange. Of course, since the public option is the only one that will be federally funded, it will be the only one that survives the mandates and price controls leaving us with a single payer system by default. With all Americans forced to buy into the government plan every penny that America spends on healthcare will be funneled into the Federal entitlement machine for distribution. With all that money I’ll bet they can keep the new system afloat for twenty years before they have to start rationing care or denying services.

I am sick to death of hearing the President and his Progressive friends talk about how health care is now a right. Food is a far more basic need but somehow, we are not all being forced to buy into a government food plan. The same can be said for clothes, housing and utilities but somehow we have avoided all but meager assistance programs for the very poorest. If you live in a rural community without mass transit, couldn’t a car be considered a basic need and therefore, a right? I am dead set against the Federal government, or any government providing “rights” for me. The Constitution was not meant to provide my rights; it was meant to protect my rights from government interference. The founders understood that any rights created by law could be as easily taken away by the same legal process.

The President stood before the cameras at his January meeting with Congressional Republicans, criticizing them for portraying his health-care plan as “some Bolshevik plot” and telling the public that he is “doing all sorts of crazy stuff that is going to destroy America.” Obama also refutes the charges that he is a Socialist but the one thing I’ve learned about the man is that he is not so much a liar as he tells selective snippets of the truth. For instance; just before the election he declared that we were “five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States.” While some would think that this was simply campaign rhetoric, I knew that he not only meant what he was saying but since he never mentioned his views of “fundamental transformation”, people would not be getting what they thought they were voting for. Never having mentioned what the transformation would consist of, he neatly avoided a debate on the substance of change.

I believe Obama when he stands tall and says he’s not a Socialist and that his healthcare plan is not a Bolshevik plot. Obama is a Progressive but if you have read anything about Progressive goals, they are identical to that of Socialists. The major difference between Socialists and Progressives is that Socialists force change through revolution while Progressives use subterfuge and strategy to bring about an incremental, evolutionary change in the political structure. If the strategy is properly applied, the changes cannot be reversed without causing severe hardship to those who benefit from the programs; creating what is in essence, a sacred cow that no politician would dare challenge. Does that sound like Social Security or Medicare? You bet it does. The transformation of those programs into the leviathan they now are was gradual and intentional. Now that so many rely on them there can be no conversation on whether or not they should exist. The only conversation we are allowed to have is on how to sustain them.

Healthcare a Bolshevik plot? This was a clever method of defining and directing the argument by the President. He didn’t deny it was a plot; he intentionally said it wasn’t a Bolshevik plot knowing that Stalin had essentially declared that the Bolshevik Party no longer existed in 1952. It’s not even a Communist plot. It is a Progressive plot based on the strategies of Saul Alinsky. In Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” he cautioned that revolutionaries don’t stand out and scream about their plans…they wear suits and ties, speaking in a voice and in terms that would be accepted by the middle class. They don’t engage in a battle over agenda, they control the terms of the discussion so they can extract the answers they need to move forward. Most importantly, that the end goals are never disclosed, only the incremental steps that must be accepted by the public to achieve those goals. You have to admit; that sounds like a brief summary of the healthcare debate that has been raging for over a year.

Only the radical lefts like Van Jones, George Soros, Bill Ayers and Andy Stern have been shouting from the roof tops. They feel the time for extreme change is now; that the President should abandon Alinsky theory and force the agenda through while he has the votes and momentum to get it passed. They all know what the goal posts are and since the Democratic Party is already controlled by Progressives, they believe the President should forget about making short strides and just go for the touchdown before America has the chance to elect the road blocks to stop it.

Paul

Dollars, Debt and Dingbats - Should We Change Our Money?

On March 3, 2009, Representative Patrick McHenry (R-NC) proposed legislation that if adopted, would replace the image of Ulysses S. Grant with Ronald Reagan on the fifty dollar bill. After all, both of these Presidents represented the strength and resolve of the United States and both presided over periods of great economic expansion after overcoming the devastating affects of particularly unprofitable wars. Admittedly, I have always admired Ronald Reagan as a President and as a man. I think he reflected the highest examples American ideals and brought the United States out of the despair and embarrassment of the Carter years. Reagan instilled a new sense of dignity for America and a feeling of pride in our accomplishments and what his economic policies did not do, this new pride in being American did.

While Conservatives immediately joined the chorus call to immortalize Reagan, the Progressive left burst out in a cry of frustration. Representative Brad Sherman (D-CA) dismissed the idea and noted that the place of honor on American currency should be reserved for figures in American history that are well known for their contributions to the nation and unfortunately, many of Reagan’s policies are still considered far too controversial to consider this legislation seriously.

Well, that really doesn’t surprise me; especially in a day and age when White House advisors like Anita Dunn (former Obama communications director) and Ron Bloom (Obama’s current manufacturing Czar) don’t think it’s particularly controversial to quote the deadly Chinese dictator, Mao Zedong. In fact, I would suspect that Brad Sherman doesn’t have nearly as much of a problem with the policies of Zedong as he does with Reagan’s but then again, when was the last time California actually acted like part of the United States instead of a foreign irritant?

Truthfully, I oppose this legislation. Not because Ronald Reagan was controversial or undeserving, but because of the state of our economy. Considering the twelve trillion dollar National debt that President Obama says he will double in ten years, the face of United States currency isn’t the place of honor that it once was. In fact, I believe that if our former Presidents could communicate from beyond the grave, most would have already sued to have their names and images removed from the paper currency that may very well spell the end of America or at the very least, a free America.

Out of all the Presidents gracing the face of our money I found it funny that one is a perfect match while yet another is wholly inappropriate. The largest denomination ever printed for U.S. currency was the one-hundred thousand dollar bill. Issued in 1929, the $100,000 bill had borne the image of Woodrow Wilson who was not the first Progressive President but he is certainly the one that did the most damage to our nation. We can thank Wilson for the Progressive income tax that would become the foundation of power for future Progressives. That tax would allow Progressives to expand the scope and power of the Federal government beyond what is allowable in the Constitution; giving them limitless funds to create the political machines to do so. The $100,000 bill did not represent the vigor of Capitalism but rather, it was representative of the abstract views Progressives held on the economy as well as the amount of money they felt would be needed to fulfill their vision of government control. I can think of no better President to place on the $100,000 bill than Woodrow Wilson. Not as a place of honor but in recognition of how little that $100,000 is worth after a hundred years of Progressivism.

A bust of Franklin Delano Roosevelt appears on the face of the American dime, or ten cent coin. The ten cent denomination was first authorized by the coinage act of 1792 and would be minted in six previous styles before we would arrive at the familiar Roosevelt dime in 1946. At first I considered FDR appropriate for the face of the dime since the Tin Pan Alley song “Brother, can you spare a dime” written by Yip Harburg and Jay Gorney in 1931, was synonymous with the Great Depression; a Depression used by FDR as a lever to drive the nation further into the socialist morass of Progressive ideology.

For decades, Liberal college Professors have been teaching that FDR led us out of the Depression through a myriad of social programs and public works projects; making this the accepted theory of what ended the Great Depression. Now that their students have become teachers as well, this popular myth is currently being spread in elementary, intermediate and high schools across America to continue the indoctrination of our youth into the Progressive mindset. Unfortunately, the social programs FDR encouraged with the passage of Social Security are in the process of bankrupting America and his public works programs had as much effect on the Depression as Obama’s stimulus bill has been having on the current recession.

What actually ended the Depression was World War Two. America’s industries mobilized to provide war goods, the armies of the unemployed were now the armies of the American Republic and once the industrial centers of Europe and Asia were destroyed, it would be twenty years before you could buy anything from anywhere but America. Let us not forget the 406,000 brave Americans killed during the war and the more than 600,000 that were wounded. These men would not be returning to work and would never again, be counted among the unemployed. To praise FDR for ending the Depression ignores the bravery and sacrifice of those that shed their blood for democracy; negating their contribution to the end of one of America’s greatest financial crises. In short, Franklin Roosevelt’s contributions to America, to use another popular phrase from history, “weren’t worth a dime”.

In 1969, Richard Nixon signed an executive order that would cease the printing of high denomination bills leaving the one-hundred dollar bill as the most valuable United States paper currency still in print. The Federal Reserve began retiring the large bills and today, relatively few remain in circulation. Nixon ended the printing of high denomination bills to thwart organized crime’s efforts in counterfeiting and to complicate the use of cash in the illegal drug trade. Modern electronic money transfers and the abandonment of the gold standard eliminated the need for large denomination bills for banking and corporate transactions.

There are currently no plans to deviate from the seven denominations still in print making the face of these bills a rare place with which we can honor only the most notable people in American history. In that light, I understand Representative McHenry’s desire to replace Grant with Reagan as an example of an American legend that more people could remember and relate to. However, the value of American currency continues to decline in relation to the policies of the current administration. So where is the honor now that America’s currency is considered by the world market as a symbol of America’s folly? The things that Ronald Reagan held dearest cannot be found on the face of the injured currency of a demoralized nation. The hard work, perseverance and strength of convictions that he believed in have been diluted by the current course taken by an out of control government to seize power from a frightened people.

Washington, Lincoln, Franklin, etc.; we should probably removing the images of these revered men from all of our currency and replacing them with something a little more representative of reality. As long as the Federal Reserve is printing cash as if it were play money, perhaps the picture of that little old man and his top hat found on Monopoly money would be more appropriate. Better still, since the Obama administration plans on doubling our national debt over the next decade further crippling the dollar, maybe we should just use his picture on all of it. After all, Obama really loves the look of his own image and since his advisors already like to quote Mao, it wouldn’t hurt to have money that looks a little more Chinese.

Paul

2010 - Can Republicans Win?

Now that 2010 is finally here, the Republicans would do well to remember the age old adage that there is no such thing as a free lunch. The public rejection of a liberal agenda proposed by an unpopular President is not a guarantee that Republicans will sweep the mid-term elections. As unpopular as Barack Obama is, his poll numbers are still double that of Congress and the anger that meant victory for Chris Christie, Bob McDonnell and Scott Brown was not just meant as a message to Washington, but was also the leading edge of an anti-incumbent wave.

Neither Party has secured the faith of the American people and most view Congressional Democrats and Republicans as two pictures of the same dog. Both have a history of corrupt cronyism; both are guilty of broken promises; both have shown an unwillingness to reduce the size of government and neither has taken any steps towards reducing the levels of deficit spending let alone any real attempt to reduce the National Debt. Democrats have recently argued that Bill Clinton substantially reduced the deficit under his administration at the current spending deficits are only needed because of the damage that George Bush inflicted on the economy.

While it is true that the deficit was drastically reduced while Bill Clinton was President, the notions that his policies had anything to do with that reduction are strictly nonsense. Bill Clinton enjoyed a spill-over affect from Alan Greenspan’s reduction of interest rates. The lower interest rates reduced the interest we paid on the National Debt and that represented a roughly $200 billion dollar savings for the Federal government.

Washington has a far worse deficit than money. There is a deficit of trust and an overwhelming number of people have no faith in Congress at all. The recent accounts of back room deals and the selling of votes for the healthcare bill have severely hurt Democrats so they will have a difficult time in the fight to regain that trust. Some realize that there may be no way around the prevalent anti-incumbent sentiment and have already decided that the best opportunity to retain Democratic control is in not running. This will allow a new face to challenge the Republican candidates instead of an incumbent damaged by his association with a radioactive Congress.

Democrat strategists are deathly afraid of the new wave of conservatism sweeping the country and are doing their level best to see that if Republicans must win, that the candidates at least have a moderate philosophy. They have begun their assault on Conservatives, painting them as neo-Nazis and something to be feared. The attempt is to create fear among independent voters and to force the hand of local Republican Parties to moderate their choice of candidates. Since the healthcare debate began, they have been accusing the Republicans of obstruction and partisan politics that has stood in the way of critical legislation. Of course that is ridiculous. Before the election of Scott Brown this January, the Democrats enjoyed a filibuster proof Congress and could have passed any piece of legislation without a single Republican vote. It was the divisions among Congressional Democrats that have stalled the healthcare bill and that is because no matter what the President or Rahm Emmanuel want, it is a bad bill and some Democrats are just not biting.

Republicans can not simply run for election on the notion that they are not Democrats. They must bring about a renewal of the Party and clearly state the ideals and promises that set them apart from Democrats. They must develop a positive message of how they would deal with America’s most critical challenges. People are disillusioned and disheartened and there is no belief that the Government can be restored and that the debt that has made us slaves to China and other nations can be brought under control. Congress must be willing to reign in the super-agencies within the Federal government. The notion that agency chiefs and special advisors have regulatory powers outside of the control of the elected officials in Congress has upset the balance of power in Washington and has given the White House unconstitutional control over the nation. This is witnessed in the EPA’s threat to implement carbon restrictions by fiat if the Congress does not pass the President’s energy bill (cap and trade).

Special advisors were created to allow a fast response and specialist analysis in times of crisis. They should never have been allowed to become permanent positions and most should have been eliminated after the immediate crisis was over or in the case of a long term problem, should have been used to shape long term policy within the responsible agency and then eliminated. A “special” advisor isn’t all that special if they never go away. The President has the power to fill cabinet positions with Congressional oversight but many of these special advisors have been given real power without being required to answer to Congress. Legislation should be written that would require all special advisors to pass the same confirmation process as cabinet level appointees, or to have special advisors appointed by Congress at the President’s request for special assistance.

Social Security should be privatized and placed under the control of a congressionally appointed fiduciary. The Federal government raided those funds to support Johnson’s “great society” back in 1968 and has been liberally using the SS funds collected from working Americans ever since.

The current healthcare bill should be scrapped and the Federal government should eliminate the restrictions that have prevented insurers from competing across state lines and allow the same tax credits for small business owners that provide health benefits that the larger business and unions enjoy. Legislation to protect doctors against frivolous law suits is a must and the requirement to prevent insurers from dropping clients once they become ill is an easy remedy that does not require 2000 pages to address. Similarly, measures that allow portability of insurance while changing jobs and a common sense approach to pre-existent conditions should be sought. Pre-existent conditions will be the tricky one to get right. The only reasons insurers exclude pre-existing conditions for a set period of time is to prevent people that never had insurance in the past from jumping into a policy after they become sick. Take your pick…health, auto, homeowner, boat, travel…no insurance companies cover pre-existing conditions for all the obvious reasons.

Energy should be declared a vital strategic interest of the United States and the development of domestic resources should be exempt from regulation by the EPA. Additonally, energy development should not be subject to nuisance law suits by environmental extremists because it is a strategic concern. On the subject of strategic interests, it is foolish that our defence industry relies heavily on foreign made components. Any component used in the manufacture of military equipment should be required to be a domestic product.

The Republicans must embrace their conservative roots and commit to restoring the limits on Federal power written into the Constitution. The enumerated powers deny the Federal government the power to interfere in education, health and a myriad of other issues that are supposed to be under the authority of the individual States. If the Federal government has no Constitutional authority in these matters, then the corresponding agencies should be disbanded, returning those powers back to the States where they belong.

They must reduce taxes and make the reductions permanent to spawn true growth in the economy. They must eliminate the estate tax which has had a devastating effect on the family succession of ownership of small businesses. They must address the sacred cows of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid which is the real crisis. The unfunded liabilities of these programs have exceeded $100 trillion dollars, overshadowing the National Debt by a factor of ten to one.

Most importantly, they must resist the rhetoric on the left that restoring Conservative values to the Republican Part will drive moderates and independents out of the so-called “big tent”. Big tents are for circuses and the Progressive Republicans like Lindsey Graham and John McCain have done more to damage the focus of the Party than anything the Democrats have done. These men may be strong on defense but they are every bit as fiscally irresponsible as Barack Obama is. If they were really serious about reform they would also begin the battle to bring about a Constitutional amendment that will finally impose term limits on Congress. The biggest reason that Congress is so disconnected from Main Street America is that many of them haven’t seen Main Street in thirty, forty and even fifty years.

Paul

Foreign Aid and American Debt

In breaking news on Sunday, we learned that an American citizen had been arrested on December 5th in Cuba. The yet, unnamed detainee is described as a “development worker” employed by Development Alternatives, a company under contract to the United States Agency of International Development. Curiously, this development worker was engaged in his mission of giving away lap top computers and cell phones when he was apprehended. The Cuban government says he was giving the devices to “activists” which is a pretty loose term in Cuba to define anyone that the government isn’t quite sure about.

It is apparent that the State Department hasn’t gotten the memo yet that we are in debt up to our eye-balls and I find it very curious that we are giving electronics away in a country where we have no diplomatic mission while the schools in this country are facing major budget cuts that will impact the amount of teachers, let alone computers that are available to American students.

The United States Agency of International Development is a throwback to the post World War II Marshall Plan and the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961. Created in 1961, the US Agency of International Development or “USAID” has a current annual budget of roughly $39.5 billion dollars for foreign aid and foreign development projects. While forty-billion dollars does not seem like a lot of money in the context of a $3.6 trillion dollar Federal Budget, remember that FY2009 saw a Federal deficit of $1.4 trillion dollars so this agency, in essence is borrowing from China only to give it away to other nations.

The Marshall Plan sounded like a great idea in the days after World War II since many blamed the dismal conditions after World War I for the ascendancy of Adolph Hitler. The rationale was that rebuilding war-torn nations and encouraging economic development would create positive conditions and prevent the acts of desperation that directly lead to the carnage of the second world war; or at least, this is how it was sold. What we now know is that the Marshall Plan was not so much about the philanthropic efforts of a benevolent United States as it was about early developments and the first shots of the cold war with Soviet Russia. The infusion of American cash into Western Europe was intended to build a bulwark against communist advances. I believe that if that money had never been spent, we would be looking at a totally different and unrecognizable political landscape today so I don't particularly have a problem with that; at least in that context.

Having said that; the Soviet Union was dissolved in 1991 and with their dissolution, the need for the Marshall Plan and the Foreign Assistance Act should have faded away as well. Reagan had warned that the closest thing to eternity that man would ever see was a government program. Some programs defy logic but are so bloated with heavily connected bureaucrats that they have Congressional assistance in guaranteeing their existence in perpetuity. On this particular program, foreign aid became a distasteful word when American businesses began downsizing or moving manufacturing operations overseas. The people began to demand that the interest of Congress should be on the plight of suffering Americans and that foreign aid was money best spent right here at home.

There were three possibilities. One- Continue foreign aid and hope you can find a good reason to sell it to the American people before Election Day. Two- End foreign aid and use the funds to reduce the budget deficit or to fund essential programs within the United States. Then there was number three and the one that Congress opted to adopt….change the name. There are dozens of agencies and administrations in the Federal government all designed to give taxpayer money away; the USAID being just one. The curious part of this is that with all the money the United States has distributed in aid and assistance to foreign countries, we have never bought one friend. So why do we keep doing this especially when our own financial security is in question? It’s still politics but now it is a completely different ideology.

There are many within the progressive movements that believe that capitalism is evil and consumerism promotes greed. These are the same people that drank the socialist Kool-Aid back in the ‘60’s and fervently believe that the key to a utopian society, free from war and capitalist greed is the institution of a single world government Many of the more radical activists have taken control of the environmental movement which is why their focus has shifted from responsible conservation to international government control with the UN as the base of operations. Even the progressives in our own Congress are in on this and that is why we see this massive attempt to hand over the sovereignty of the United States to a climate panel in the UN that would ultimately determine our industrial might and standard of living.

Without the knowledge of the American people, we have been using taxpayer money to fund transportation projects in foreign nations while our own infrastructure is collapsing. We have massive programs to feed famine stricken nations while churches and private charities operate food banks to feed our own poor. We are funding economic development and green initiatives in foreign lands while we allow our own business to shrivel and die under the economic weight of trying to compete with foreign companies that are not burdened with the government restrictions or taxes that we impose on our businesses at home.

I will go even further. I would say that there is sufficient waste in the Federal government to warrant a radical move to impose responsibility. We have all seen these enormous bills pass through Congress with billions of unnecessary expenditures added just to buy the votes of those that play hard to get. Congress is rife with political whores that sell their votes as long as they can show a little sugar to the voters back home. Our recent favorite is Senator Mary Landrieu, (D-LA); she peddled her vote on healthcare to Harry Reid for a measly $300 million dollars (Hi Mary!) How can we begin to solve our financial woes when every unpopular bill that passes through Congress contains bribes to obtain votes to guarantee passage?

Well if this is the “horse-trading” as they love to call it, maybe that is what needs to be capped. Demand that the Federal budget be cut by 50% and tell them this is your allowance. This is all you get so make it work. No? The banks were collapsing and needed nearly a trillion dollars or our financial system would crash. Isn’t it amazing how many of those banks are finding the resources to pay back TARP money ever since the Fed began discussing the moral necessity of capping CEO salaries of the companies that took bailout money? The salary of government workers are nearly double the national average thanks to union influence. We have had a nasty habit of funding idiotic studies because the research labs are located in states where key votes have to be “purchased”. In essence, if we actually need two billion dollars to purchase body armor to protect our soldiers in battle, we have to pay an additional million or two for a study of the sex habits of Asian transgender prostitutes in order to get the appropriations bill passed.

Now a Federal Judge in New York said it was unconstitutional for Congress to cut funds to ACORN because it was a punitive act against one group taken without due process. Excuse me? Are you saying we have to continue funding an organization that a Congressional committee identified as a criminal enterprise until we have an administration that is willing to investigate them? Can we not use the same “due process” the IRS uses against the citizens of the United States? Due process in tax cases is to freeze the assets of the accused until they can prove they are innocent so the subjects of tax inquiries are not afforded the “due process” required everywhere else in our legal system. If defunding ACORN is unconstitutional, then how is it constitutional for the IRS to ignore the presumption of innocence and force the burden of proof onto the accused? Something is very wrong.

The only research program I am willing to fund at this point is a complete and independent audit of the Federal Government. The IRS can dive back seven years into your past if they see a “red flag” on your return. I think that a $12 trillion dollars debt is a sufficiently large red flag to warrant a complete examination of what they have been doing with our money.

Paul