Free Cough Drops vs. Strangling Taxation

From Thomas Sowell comes this tidbit of reason:

"Any one of us can reduce medical costs by refusing to pay them. In our own lives, we recognize the consequences. But when someone with a gift for rhetoric tells us that the government can reduce the costs without consequences, we are ready to believe in such political miracles.


"There are some ways in which the real costs of medical care can be reduced but the people who are leading the charge for a government takeover of medical care are not the least bit interested in actually reducing those costs, as distinguished from shifting the costs around or just refusing to pay them."

Now seriously think about this: would you really prefer to lower your medical costs by shifting their expense (and control over them) to the government while you pay higher taxes and make do with whatever level of health care government bureaucrats deem best for you? If so, support the "worst bill ever."

What More to Say?

TEAPARTY,   FALLON, NV

Da Data Obfuscates

A "Beer Tax Won't Reduce the Clap"...well, this is just a caution from Forbes.com for lefty loonies public health luminaries and a plug for the condom industry.

Cheers!

Salud!

In trying to get the college students in my remedial English classes to understand pronoun "voice," I'd point out that the first person voice is the one most important to everyone: me, myself, and I. Next important is the second person: you (or the archaic, but descriptive thee... with whom I am most familiar). At the bottom of the totem pole is the third person: they and them (can you hear the curl of the lip?).

There are of course some economic and political corollaries here: foremost for me is good for me, second good for thee, and after that good for her or him or them...way over there. It is human nature to seek our own good first of all. Of course that's selfish, so in our better moments we strive to be altruistic, and that's when we mess up.

We err because, as economic guru Thomas Sowell explains so logically: everything is connected to everything else (even ice cream and catchers' mitts), so "it makes no sense to declare some given goal a 'good thing,' without regard to the [economic] repercussions, which spread out in all directions..." His example is the "good" of home ownership, which brought about the [bad] financial repercussions, including job losses, we suffer today.

Repercussions are something to think about now that the Obama administration has declared health insurance for all Americans a "good." The administration claims its interference in 17 or so percent of our economy can be done painlessly...without increasing the tax burden of average, middle class Americans a dime or reducing existing coverage or hampering medical innovation  or souring doctor/patient relationships or increasing the national debt... or falling victim to any of the multiple dislocations suffered by any of the existing national health plans in other nations. These claims are incredible.

But the political corollary may well be that national health care is a political boon for Democrat politicians...perhaps lasting just long enough for Obama to maintain his current (somewhat depressed) popularity and even to insure his reelection in 2012  before the full catastrophe becomes apparent to the least informed citizen. In that case, our only hope may be to drink to our health.

Waltz Me Around Again, Willie!

It's so much fun being courted. Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME) kept mum until the last minute today before casting her vote with the Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee in support of the still-to-be-written Baucus health bill.

BUT, it was just her vote for today and today only, she said. There will be many more days when the attention craven apostate Republican will drag her feet before crossing the aisle to vote with the opposition once again. Why not just switch parties? Well, who would fawn over her then?

Choose to Lose?

Here's some serious, and therefore a little long (8 printed pages), reading for the day for those whose attention span was forged without the impediment of electronic media. Writing in The Weekly Standard, the inimitable Charles Krauthammer points out that if America is in decline, it isn't because there's a "post-American" world out there cutting our hamstrings, "decline is a choice."

Unfortunately, decline is a choice the left and the Obama administration want to make. From Obama's inability to understand American exceptionalism (NB his idiotic response that everyone is exceptional) through his apology tours to his acceptance of a peace prize for diminishing US leadership, the president displays a willful ignorance of international politics, coupled on the home front with policies that weaken the nation's defenses and undermine the national economy...all to the cheers of our enemies and the consternation of our allies.

Krauthammer believes this nation should accept its role as hegemon, "as benign a hegemon as the world has ever seen." Resistance to falling to the status of a "normal" nation among nations (say, Italy or Lichtenstein) means having "moral confidence" and also a big wallet.  Krauthammer points out that we are not in "inherent" economic decline...we can choose to end the slow suicidal bleed of deficit spending. We can  strengthen the dollar not by protecting unskilled labor but by continuing to champion the technological innovation and new industries of the information age and by responding seriously to our energy crisis with drilling offshore and in the Arctic and moving to nuclear energy.

Brass Brains and This Isn't Fiction

Here's a story of your stimulus money in action...meet Benny, De'Andre, and Jesus, Chicago scholars in "Walk Fast" from American Thinker.

Left Speechless!

Barack Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize...to the gasps of those present at the announcement, gasps now echoing around the world. "For What?" asks the Drudge Report...a comment also echoing around the world.


Comments The London Times: "Absurd decision...makes a mockery of the Nobel Peace Prize": "Rarely has an award had such an obvious political and partisan intent. It was clearly seen by the Norwegian Nobel committee as a way of expressing European gratitude for an end to the Bush Administration, approval for the election of America’s first black president and hope that Washington will honour its promise to re-engage with the world.
"Instead, the prize risks looking preposterous in its claims, patronising in its intentions and demeaning in its attempt to build up a man who has barely begun his period in office, let alone achieved any tangible outcome for peace."

Even The Washington Post registered puzzlement: "Obama is the third sitting U.S. president--and the first in 90 years--to win the coveted peace prize. His predecessors won during their second White House terms, however, and after significant diplomatic achievements. Woodrow Wilson was awarded the price in 1919, after helping to found the League of Nations and shaping the Treaty of Versailles; and Theodore Roosevelt was the recipient in 1906 for his work to negotiate an end to the Russo-Japanese war.

"In contrast, Obama is struggling with two wars -- weighing whether to increase the number of U.S. troops fighting to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan and overseeing the withdrawal of American combat troops from Iraq. He is mired in domestic struggles over healthcare reform and economic recovery efforts, and searching for ways to build momentum to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and to assemble an international effort to stop Iran's nuclear program." 


(You can vote in the Post's poll on the subject here.)


Within this country reaction will probably turn on ideological lines, with those of us who support a strong foreign policy wondering if "peace maker" will translate to "appeaser," i.e. to a continual erosion of US support for allies in Central Europe and Israel and a weakening of our commitment to defeat the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Pakistan along with placid acceptance of the spread of nuclear weapons to rogue states such as Iran. Will this prize further heighten Obama's savior conceit or honestly "humble" him to see the world as the world is rather than he wishes it to be?

Safe Stimulation

The left is turning in new directions, apparently: liberal commentator E.J. Dionne proposes "Stimulation Without the S-Word" today, but no, that's not "sex"; it's a look at creating jobs the Republican way with tax credits and tax cuts for businesses.

Way to go Dems...it may not be erotic, but it works!

New Math and the Pig in a Poke

The Wall Street Journal reports with a touch of cynicism today that "new math" boosts the Democrat health care plan. According to the Journal, "The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found the sweeping measure will cover 94% of nonelderly legal U.S. residents, up from about 83% currently. The bill will cut the deficit by $81 billion over the 10-year period, owing to trims in Medicare spending and new taxes."


To parse this, begin with "legal" U.S. residents and ask if there will  be a provision to demand proof of legal status (House Democrats have already vetoes this) and question if there will be an amnesty expanding the number of "legal" residents and thus jacking up costs significantly. Move on to "trims" in Medicare spending and insert "cuts" in programs (i.e. Medicare Advantage) that will effectively ration services to the elderly, and then don't forget to stumble to a stop on "new taxes." New taxis will affect everyone (young and old) even if masked as taxes on health insurance providers because these will be passed on to those insured (and those soon to be required by law to be insured). This burden will be far from insignificant, and those expecting to get something for nothing will be grievously disappointed. Obama promises pie in the sky...and that's where it will remain.


Remember that Medicare costs expanded 90% above original estimates...and you can see where "health reform" is heading. And don't fail to note that the Democrat "plan" is not yet a plan; it's a conceptual outline from the Senate Finance Committee to which the House and Senate will add billions more on the floor and in conference (for example, three versions of reform in the House exceed a trillion dollars in cost). What is most likely to emerge is the perennial pig in a poke. Oink! Oink!

Plagiarist in Chief?

There's been a lot of speculation, particularly by Jack Cashill on The American Thinker web site, that Barack Obama's acclaimed Dreams from My Father is actually the work of his good friend, former Weatherman terrorist Bill Ayers. The speculation gathered steam recently when Christopher Andersen revealed in Barack and Michelle that Michelle sent Bill Ayers the notes and family recordings from which Dreams from My Father emerged. Now Chicago blogger (Backyard Conservative) Anne Leary reports that in a chance meeting at Reagan International Airport in Washington D.C. yesterday, Ayers admitted his authorship to her:

"Then, unprompted he said--I wrote Dreams From My Father. I said, oh, so you admit it. He said--Michelle asked me to. I looked at him. He seemed eager. He's about my height, short. He went on to say--and if you can prove it, we can split the royalties. So I said, stop pulling my leg. Horrible thought. But he came again--I really wrote it, the wording was similar. I said I believe you probably heavily edited it. He said--I wrote it. I said--why would I believe you, you're a liar.

He had no answer to that. Just looked at me. Then he turned and walked off, and said again his bit about my proving it and splitting the proceeds."

Is Ayers a liar?...most likely, but liars sometimes speak the truth. Is Obama a plagiarist? The evidence certainly points in that direction. And that puts the president in the congenial company of his vice-president...and the late Senator Edward Kennedy.

Out Damn Spot [of Truth]! Out, I say.

I subscribe to the liberal website Truthout even though Truthout in its supreme ideological complacency does not publish my extremely polite comments, and I noticed a parallel today, thanks to commentary in Investor's Business Daily (http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=508150), with the way President Macbeth Obama handles truth: "Out damn spot...What needs we fear who knows it, when none can [or will] call our power to account?"

Tough Love

Erick Erickson of Red State (http://www.redstate.com) has a challenge for conservatives: to read "A Message to Garcia" by Elbert Hubbard (1891) this week. The short tract is available here: http://images.redstate.com/message_to_garcia.pdf.

Those of you left senseless would also benefit from reconsidering your "maudlin sympathy" for "the downtrodden denizen of the sweatshop" and the "homeless wanderer searching for honest employment" and consider instead "this incapacity for independent action, this moral stupidity, this infirmity of the will, this unwillingness to cheerfully catch hold and lift, [which] are the things that put pure Socialism so far into the future. If men will not act for themselves, what will they do when the benefit of their effort is for all? A first-mate with knotted club seems necessary..."

Tough love, indeed, and the reason socialism never survives trial!

I,I,I,I...in Obamaland the Personal Pronoun Rules!

"Vain" Obama? If the president doesn't look into every mirror and like what he sees, he apparently likes every replay of his rhetoric that he hears. Not so does George Will, who punctures the balloon of our charming and coherent president in this put down on Real Clear Politics: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/10/06/olympic_gold_for_narcissism_98591.html

Certified Mind Dead: the University Professoriate

If you fall into the professoriate category, there's probably little hope for recovery. Still, some escape, and here's the testimony of one from today's AmericanThinker (http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/10/swimming_upstream_the_life_of.html). To increase your chance of recovery, be sure to read the comments.

Parents need also pay attention to this man's story: do you really want to give your child an expensive indoctrination? I spent 12 years as an adjunct instructor at a local community college and can attest that political correctness also runs amok within the minds and actions of much of the instructional staff (especially full time and tenured) and of the administration. However, at a community college there's also a good chance that your student may draw a class with a lowly part timer who is less likely to be infected by the liberal or progressive mind numbing virus. Honestly, that virus is more insidious than swine flu.

Like Tin Soldiers...all in a row!

From today's New York Post: "A sea of 150 white-coated doctors, all enthusiastically supportive of the president and representing all 50 states, looked as if they were at a costume party as they posed in the Rose Garden before hearing Obama's pitch for the Democratic overhaul bills moving through Congress.

The physicians, all invited guests, were told to bring their white lab coats to make sure that TV cameras captured the image. But some docs apparently forgot, failing to meet the White House dress code by showing up in business suits or dresses.So the White House rustled up white coats for them and handed them to the suited physicians who had taken seats in the sun-splashed lawn area.

All this to provide a visual counter to complaints from other doctors that pending legislation is bad news for the medical profession."

Of course, pictures and propaganda trump cold hard facts for this administration. On September 15, Investor's Business Daily reported its IBD/TIPP poll of 1,376 physicians found the following:

1. 65% opposed Obama's proposed expansion of government into medicine.

2. 45% said they would consider quitting medical practice if the plan is implemented.

3. 71% said they did not believe the government could provide health insurance for 47 million additional people at lower cost while not affecting the quality of care.

So that's it, folks. It's as simple as 1,2,3...government health care is a loser. Doctors know it. Seniors know it....and the administration knows it. That's why it stoops to video games to make a hard sell to the ignorant.

Locking Up Latinos

Liberal blogger Mad Kane has a jingle knocking Newt Gingrich for a Spanish-language outreach to Hispanics:http://www.madkane.com/madness/2009/09/29/gingrich-bilingualism/. Apparently such outreach is hypocritical because Gingrich has opposed bilingual education, but, of course, Mad Kane is also hypocritical as well as cute-sy because there is a difference between not learning English in a bilingual classroom and being bilingual. This is a distinction that wasn't lost to Hispanic parents who in 1998 joined the vote dumping the "bilingual" education in California that left many of their children speaking Spanish only. There's no doubt being bilingual is a big plus on anyone's resume, but not knowing English in the U.S. remains a dead weight to advancement.

But of course, according to liberal cant Newt should realize Hispanics are the property of the Democrat Party and confine Republican recruitment to WASPs...while Latinos remain locked in the Democrat ghetto against their better economic interests.