Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it.

There are a few things [...]]]> Last week, with a clear majority of Democrats in the House, Pelosi was finally able to cajole enough of her own party members to vote for a 2700 page bill that, as she said, “we have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it…”

Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it.

There are a few things in the bill that are actually good.  But they are few and far between, easily outweighed by backroom deals (i.e., the sweetheart deals that Obama “promised” would not be in the bill or he wouldn’t sign it… oops, another promise he broke), unparalleled expansions of the federal government, and many other problems that I will describe below.

Before I begin, just a couple of facts:

• There are real and meaningful things that can be done to attack the costs we pay for our health care.  These are not new ideas, but things we have all been talking about.  Unfortunately, what was passed last week ignored almost all of them (check out the GOP plan).
• 55% of Americans are in favor of repealing this bill.  57% believe that this bill will raise the cost of health care; that’s almost 6 out of every 10 Americans.  Source: Rasmussen
• Specific language in the bill exempted all members of Congress, and even sone of their staff members, from Obamacare.  That sends a message clear as day that this legislation stinks, and they want no part of it.  As for the rest of us, they obviously couldn’t care less.
• 45 million Americans are not uninsured.  Remember when the Democrats kept touting that number?  That included illegal aliens (oh, by the way, amnesty for the 15 or so million illegal aliens is next).  So that leaves 30 million uninsured Americans, right?  Wrong.  That number includes all of the folks that got laid off, quit or were fired in the last 6 weeks.  And it includes the number of young people who choose not to buy insurance of their own free will.  Subtract those folks out, and you are left with about 12 to 15 million Americans that consistently over time cannot afford health insurance.  We can provide that to them by expanding Medicaid, a socialized health insurance program that already exists, but isn’t doing too well.  We don’t need 2,700 pages, months and months of debate, and a new tax burden to solve this problem.
• Socialism, by definition, reduces individual freedom and choice.  And it does this off the backs of hard working folks.  Paraphrasing Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.”
• Physicians against the Health Insurance bill: 62.7% (New England Journal of Medicine, read all of the results, they are eye-opening!)

Let’s Talk Insurance

Let’s start here, since this is probably close to the hearts of most of us.  What is health insurance?  Remember, this bill is not about health care.  We have the best health care in the world.  It is about health insurance.

And like car insurance and life insurance, health insurance is a gambling game.  The insurance companies use statistics and specific knowledge about you to assess how often and how much they will have to pay out on you, and then sets the premiums appropriately.  So to be 100% clear, these companies are not in the business of providing health care savings plans.  That is not their mission; that’s not how they’re setup.  For example, when I had a few speeding tickets (cough cough), my car insurance premiums went sky high.  I don’t blame the insurance company; I was a risky bet.  Now that my tickets have fallen off my record, my insurance premiums are thankfully back down where they belong (thank you radar detector).

But those with pre-existing conditions complain that their situation is not in their own control, and thus, they should not be punished with higher premiums.  And for those that cannot get coverage because of their pre-existing conditions, want someone (or some legislation) to force companies to cover them.  Well, speaking as one who has had a pre-existing condition (a rather painful one) for most of his life, I have to say, that’s the way the world works: it’s not fair.  The world, or our government, or any government for that matter, was not set up to swoop in like a superhero and cure you of all of the things in your life that you don’t like.  We are all dealt a hand, and unfortunately, some people get better cards than others.  It sucks, but that’s the way the world works.  And if you have a bad hand, you need to plan for it.  I wish I had the money of one of these over-hyped actors that we see speaking out in favor of Chavez or other cruel dictators.  But alas, I do not.  On the other hand, I do get to enjoy the smile on my daughter’s face, the touch of my wife, and the feeling that comes with hard work accomplished.

Let’s go back to the car insurance example.  Unlike health insurance, car insurance companies are allowed to compete for your business across the entire country.  Imagine that.  What this provides is strong competition among these companies.  And with competition, we, the customers, receive higher quality for lower prices.  Capitalism at work.  Hooray!  So imagine what our premiums would be if the same were true for health insurance companies.  Unfortunately, this is not anywhere in the 2,700 pages of Obamacare.

Instead, with the passage of this bill, we will be forced into purchasing some sort of health insurance.  As the growing number of states who have joined the suit against the federal government clearly attests, this is unconstitutional.  Our government can no more force us to buy Coca-Cola than it can to buy insurance (remember: driving a car is a privilege, not a right).  Going back in history, when FDR saw the depression in our economy as an opportunity to begin socializing this country, he pushed for Social Security.  Back then, it was a fund that we were forced to buy into.  Again, suits were made against this, but with a cowed Supreme Court, they changed the language so that Social Security became a tax.  Now, we all pay this tax into a fund run by the government that most of us reading this article will never see any benefit from.  Ever.  Another huge government entitlement that is unconstitutional, creates huge government agencies, and that ultimately fails.

I will discuss the problem with federal jobs below in a moment.

But back to the health insurance companies.  Once we have a government option, and believe me, we will all be paying into it one way or another, it will spell the end of free market competition among insurance companies.  And if we don’t pay into the public option, then we will pay IRS fines.

Let’s talk about this another way.  What if Obama decided to bail out, say Pepsi, not that it needs the government to bail it out, but let’s just say he wanted to socialize a soda company, he would provide us with a public soda company.  And, to complete the analogy, he would soon discover how hard it is to compete in a free market where people have choice.  To solve this little pesky problem, he will then force all of us to pay a small soda tax.

Oh wait, that’s already being considered.  That’s right, they believe we aren’t smart enough to stop drinking soda and other “sugary” drinks on our own, so the government is handling that for us.  Nah, we aren’t a socialized country at all.

Anyway, back to the example.  By forcing us to prop up yet another failing government entity, the new ObamaSoda company is able to lower its prices beyond what any profitable company is able to do.  Say good-bye to Dr. Pepper, Coca-Cola, or any of the other drinks out there.  Now, all we have is the public option: ObamaSoda.

And that’s how we get to a single-payer plan.  Don’t believe me?  Would you believe them?  They have already admitted it publicly: Obama, Frank, Sebelius, Emanuel, Schakowsky, Hacker and many others.  They are being open and honest about it.  As Schakowsky said, “this is not a principled fight.  This is a fight about strategy for getting there…”  In other words, get to single-pay any way you can, which includes lying, twisting House rules and regulations, and worst of all, ignoring the will of the American people.

The Problem with Government Jobs

Certainly, the federal government needs civilian employees.  There are specific duties outlined in our Constitution and the Federal Papers that describe the essential roles of the federal government.

Essential.  That’s an interesting word.

Having lived in and around D.C. for the majority of my life, I have seen a number of winter storms.  Now while I have since escaped the clutches of D.C., I could not escape the reports of the huge snow storms that befell the region this past winter (insert funny Al Gore Global Warming joke here).  When this occurs, notices, emails, local TV stations and local radio stations tell folks that only essential government employees should risk going to work.  Not being a government employee, I would often venture out to work.  Not too bright on my part, but it was extremely interesting to note that no one, and I mean almost zero, was on the road on during these times.  Now, if you have ever lived or worked around D.C., you will understand the percentage of people that work for the government in some capacity or another.  And you will also understand the horrendous D.C. traffic.  So when I say the roads were empty, it was an unbelievable sight.

So this begs the question: just how many people are there who work for the government and are non-essential?

Why is this important?  In a previous article, I describe briefly the difference between government jobs and private sector jobs.  Private sector jobs use natural resources to produce goods and services that are in demand.  People pay a fair market price for these goods and services; this money is then used to provide these employees with salaries.  Seems quite natural.

Government jobs, on the other hand, take that same story and turn it completely backwards, upside down, and inside out.  They begin by taking a portion of your hard earned wages which they use to pay the salaries of all of the government employees.  The government employees then provide us with something that most of us don’t want, can’t use, or doesn’t work right.  Think the USPS, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and on and on and on.

So to review, private sector jobs in a free market give us something of value, for which we pay a fair market price. Government jobs require some portion of our hard-earned wages, sucking away at the country’s overall wealth and health, and typically produce inferior quality goods and services that could not compete in a free market.

While, as I said at the top of this section, some government employees are crucial to the function of our government.  And I would guess that like private sector employees, they work hard and want to do a good job.  But by definition, they survive by our own sacrifice.  And more often than not, they often receive imbalanced perks that make no sense.  Refer to the New Jersey government employees that pay $124,000 into government pension and receive over $3,800,000 back when they retire.  This is not an isolated example.  I would suggest you do some research of your own to see just how bad it really is because you aren’t going to hear about it from the mainstream media.  And where does all that extra money come from?  You guessed it.  Your wallet.

And this is important because Obamacare outlines a huge expansion of our federal government.  That means thousands upon thousands of new federal employees, whose salaries we must now pay, and whose federal pensions we must now support.  Don’t believe me?  Then believe them.  This is their own chart:

Democrat's Health Plan Government Expansion

The Price Tag

The CBO placed a price tag of around $940 Billion dollars for all of this.  Of course, that number is basically a wild guess –a SWAG in business terms –because the bill is not completely defined.  That’s right: after months and months of debate, and over 2,700 pages, it’s still incomplete.  Please remind me –since these folks will be looking for jobs come November –not to hire them to do…well…anything.  I wouldn’t let them babysit a stuffed animal.

So, at the end of all this, we really have no idea how much this is going to cost us.  Only, we know it is going to cost us.  And based on what we have seen of government programs, they always exceed the expected budget, and always raise the bar to new levels for tax-dollar waste.  And as I just pointed out, let’s not forget all of the wages for the thousands and thousands of new federal employees that we will now have to pay for.

Conclusion

This monstrosity that is Obamacare does not help us in any of the ways that are important.  It does not attack the difficult but obvious things that have been shown to help people, like tort reform, allowing insurance companies to compete across the entire country, or providing catastrophic insurance options for the young and healthy.

What it does do is take us further down the road of socialism, and increases the government control over our lives.  It removes our choice.  And it turns its back on our Constitution and our Founding Fathers, and the very reason this country was created.

And finally, a note to Obama: if you want to spark job growth, don’t create federal jobs.  Instead, do what Ronald Reagan did.  Make it easier for businesses to hire folks, lower their tax burdens, and then, get out of the way.

This is a tactic used by the left-biased media as well.  For example, according to the media, who was it that duped us into entering a false war with Iraq?  [...]]]> Obama, Pelosi, Reid and the others continue to put forth lies, hoping that if they keep saying them, eventually we will just accept them as fact.

This is a tactic used by the left-biased media as well.  For example, according to the media, who was it that duped us into entering a false war with Iraq?  President Bush, of course!

Really?  This isn’t ancient history.  These events occurred just a few years ago, during a technological era that includes 24-hour cable news channels and the ubiquitous Web.  And yet, the truth is buried in an onslaught of repetitive accusations that Bush and  Cheney mislead us into a war with Iraq for:

• Revenge against making assassination attempt on George H. W. Bush
• Oil
• Lucrative contracts for Halliburton, a company Cheney was CEO and Chairman of until 2000

Hmmmm.  Let’s see if we can roll-back in time, back to the late 1990s and see what we find.  Year after year, during President Clinton’s second term, the U.N. passed security resolutions against Iraq for failing to cooperate with investigators from IAEA.

All the while, the U.N.’s “Oil for Food” program continued.  Remember that one?  The one that was found to be full of corruption?  And the evidence for this corruption came to light after the U.S. invaded Iraq.  But I digress…

So, U.N. resolution after U.N. resolution was passed by Russia, Germany, France, and the U.S. under President Clinton.  Finally, in 2002, the U.N. passed security resolution 1441that cited breaches related not only to Weapons of Mass Destruction (right on page one of the resolution), but to other violations as well.  The resolution passed unanimously, which included Arab states as well. Now remember, this is 2002, a year after 9/11.  President Clinton, Germany, Russia, France, et. al. had been all working off the same intel as President Bush.  And when Saddam Hussein chose to ignore 1441, Bush made the decision to go to war, citing the evidence for WMD in Iraq.  And with the approval of the Congress (Senate: 77-23 and House: 296-133), he did just that.

I hope that shines a light on how things get spun and twisted into lies to demonize those that oppose the liberal agenda.

So what are the current lies?

During President Obama’s recent SOTU address, had provided us with quite a few.  Besides sounding petulant, and once again blaming everything that’s going wrong on President Bush, he managed to throw out a few choice lies that cannot, and should not, be ignored.  My personal favorite:

“Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests – including foreign corporations – to spend without limit in our elections. Well I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people, and that’s why I’m urging Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps to right this wrong.”

–President Obama, January 27^th, 2010 SOTU

Ben Shapiro points out in his article that even the New York Times knew, as did Justice Alito, that Obama was lying.  As Ben put it, “When The New York Times is calling out a socialist president for lying, you know he’s in trouble.”

So what does the the mainstream media focus on?  The truth?  The Supreme Court decision?  The first amendment?  No, it distracts the public by repetitively attacking Justice Alito for mouthing the words, “That’s not true,” which leads people to believe that Obama was correct and the Supreme Court was wrong. Not only was Obama wrong, he had no right to attack the justices as they sat there mute in a State of the Union address.  There is a separation of powers for specific reasons, one of which is for checks and balances.  The SOTU was not the forum for this kind of behavior.

The Supreme Court made a careful decision, excluding foreign corporations or corporations owned by foreign corporations.  They were right on target with their interpretation of the first amendment.  The reality is, however, that Obama just plain didn’t like it.  And like a child, he pouted and bullied, using the SOTU to emasculate the justices sitting powerless before him.  He revealed more than lies in his SOTU speech.

Personally, I found his behavior appalling.

–This is part one of a series of articles.  Next up: How Obama lied about spending less.

“A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has [...]]]>

“Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.” –George Washington

“A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned – this is the sum of good government.” –Thomas Jefferson

Our founding fathers were trying to warn us, their words echoing into our present.  But are we listening?  We would be wise to heed what they said lest we be doomed to repeat the history of those that came before us.

The liberals in power today proselytize about minorities and the under-privileged.  They seek to resolve all of the wrongs of yesterday and today by creating government programs that, like Superman swooping in to save us all, will make everyone have the same opportunities.

In fact, their record shows just the opposite.  They are, in fact, more aligned with big banks and the upper echelons of the labor unions, and have no interest in really helping the underlings on whose shoulders they stride.  Their programs of welfare and handouts serve only to create a far larger group of people who will be more incentivized to suckle the government’s teats, whose milk comes from our hard work.  The more who are unemployed, the more who are benefiting from government programs, the more that will vote for liberals to institute new government programs.  All of this ensures that liberals will receive more and more votes.

They wish to eradicate the idea of “individual responsibility”, and along with it, “individual liberty”.  That is what is behind the health care bill, the cap and trade bill, the stimulus bill, and more to come.  They are trying to change our country as quickly as possible before they lose their majority, because they know that once a bill is passed into law, it is far harder, if not impossible, to undo it.  And the sooner this country becomes one large mass who is dependent on the government for everything from breakfast to dinner, diapers to coffins, the more entrenched their party will become, until we are a single party government.  A politburo, to be exact.

Allow me to show you, remembering all the while that it is small business that has been the backbone for our free market, introducing new ideas, new inventions, innovating past obstacles, and employing our workers:

• Health Insurance Bill.  Let’s start by making sure we are using the right terms.  This is not about health care reform.  All Americans have access to health care, some of the best health care in the world!  If the liberals were serious about this, they would ignore the money that was being jammed into their wallets by lobbyists working for the lawyers, and begin with something that really matters.  Talk to your doctor the next time you go in for a visit and say these two words: “tort reform.”  When you are done ducking, you will understand their pain.  Nor have the liberals addressed competition of insurance companies across all 50 states.  This bill will raise taxes on everyone, threaten fines and jail for those that do not pay into the system, and force small companies to lay off people, increasing unemployment.  Remember, small businesses will be the most hurt by this bill.  And the major piece, the real sticking point, is that it will put a bureaucrat between you and your own freedom of choice.  And yes, Wilson was right.  Obama lied.  The liberals want the illegal immigrants to be covered by this new health insurance bill.  Why?  That’s another piece to the puzzle, because by having this in the bill, illegals will continue to vote for liberals.
• Allowing Felons to vote.  Speaking of voting, several states, including Washington, are considering legislation that will let convicted felons vote.  Why?  Because these folks generally vote for liberals.
• Maxine Waters.  In 2008, Maxine Waters let slip what she is all about: socializing the oil companies (go to 1 minute into the video).  Taking over the energy companies is crucial to the liberals’ plans.  If we have to be dependent on the government for our own personal health and access to energy, we become slaves to the government.
• Pelosi.  Pelosi has become rather brazen lately.  She has openly attacked Americans, you and me, for exercising our right to question those that serve us in elected office, and our right to protest decisions we don’t like.  She might need to be reminded of what when on during Bush’s 8 years in office.  When she became Speaker, she committed to have an open House of Representatives, and to ending slimy politics and corruption.  Under her watch, sleazy deals have been negotiated for the health insurance bill.  And it has been anything but open, isolating Republicans, even changing the locks on doors.  Have you seen President Obama go to closed door meetings with the liberals.  Are any Republicans allowed in?  Any cameras?  And with Rangel as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, she looks silly.  After all, he is being investigated by the House Ethics Committee for failing to report hundreds of thousands of dollars.  How ironic?!  If he were a Republican, the press would be having a field day with this one.
• President Obama.  Where to begin?  He has endangered the security of this country.  When the Christmas Day Bomber incident broke, it took him three days before he addressed the nation.  Three days?!  And it took him 3 or 4 speeches before he found the right tone.  Closing Guantanamo Bay sends a strong signal to our enemies that we are weak.  Mirandizing them sends an even stronger message that we aren’t willing to fight.  Calling these attacks the work of ‘lone nuts’ and saying that we are not in a War against Terrorism defeats us before we even begin to fight.  But the absolute worst thing Obama is doing now, the thing that will weaken us the most, is giving Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others a criminal trial in New York City, costing that city hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars, insulting the innocent people that were killed on 9/11 and the families that survive them, and giving KSM a platform to voice his ridiculous propaganda.  Clearly, as Cheney says in this interview, we have a precedent for a military trial.  But no, instead we afford this horrible man, who admits to being the architect of 9/11, the rights reserved for our citizens, the very ones he plotted to kill.  And all the while a Navy SEAL, who was charged with allegedly punching a terrorist he captured, basically a national hero, is being sent to Iraq for a trial there.  How does this make any sense?  And no, there are zero witnesses to corroborate the terrorist’s claim he was punched, but his claim is however, straight out of Al-Qaeda’s playbook.
• President Obama Redux.  It doesn’t end with national security.  President Obama wants to pass a Cap and Trade Bill that will once again hit small businesses the hardest, and send millions of manufacturing jobs over to countries like India, Mexico and China, who have already said they will not follow Obama’s strict regulations on pollution.  So, we lose jobs to other countries creating more unemployment, Goldman Sachs and other ‘fat cats’ make money off of companies trading off their excess pollution, and the overall pollution of the earth is not changed one iota.  Hooray for Obama.

There’s more.  Lots more.  Tonight, I am hopeful that Scott Brown will be elected to Massachusetts’s open Senatorial seat, breaking the super-majority that the liberals have in the Congress.  That may be enough to stop this monstrous health insurance bill, and maybe even the cap and trade disaster too.

Obama, Pelosi, Reid, they want to create a country where a small political elite lives well off the backs of everyone else.  There will be no innovators.  No awe-inspiring agendas like going to the moon.  The U.S. dollar will descend into oblivion.  We will no longer be a super power.  With equal opportunity for everyone, comes equal results from all of us.  Equal results.  Nothing extraordinary.

We, all of us, need to take back this country.  I see artists, musicians and actors wearing “Che” t-shirts, and now even “Mao” t-shirts.  They clearly don’t know their history because both men would have these very same artists, musicians and actors be the first people executed if they were in power today.  What’s a few more to the slaughter when you have killed 10 times the number of men, women and children that Hitler did?

If we do not study history, if we do not learn from those before us, we have no one to blame but ourselves.