It’s becoming clearer by the day that the “public option” for health care is just rhetorical cover for kicking out free enterprise.
The latest evidence is the strategy to attack and condemn private insurance. Speaker Nancy Pelosi calls the industry “immoral villains.” President Obama told the press, “If you take some of the profit motive out . . . you can get an even better deal.” He also told NBC, “People are having bad experiences because they know that recommendations are coming from people who have a profit motive.”
The head of the House’s ultra-liberal 80-member Progressive Caucus, Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), told reporters that the number of uninsured is a symptom that private insurance is a failure and must be replaced with a single-payer government system.
How absurd. Why blame companies because not everybody has bought their product? Why not blame government for passing the laws and the over-regulation that designed our current flawed system?
Pelosi and friends also claim insurance companies are out of control because they’re too big. Their answer? Something even bigger and less accountable—a government-run plan.
The new strategy of the left is actually an echo of what then-First Lady Hillary Clinton told an audience when pushing HillaryCare. She proclaimed that it’s wrong for anyone to make a profit by treating or insuring the sick.
So is it also evil to make money by providing necessities like food, clothing, and a place to live? Is it only acceptable to make a profit if you’re selling whatever government deems is okay?
And if health insurance is immoral, what about life insurance, auto insurance, property insurance, etc.? Will government also “help us” by taking them over to drive out the evil profit motive?
The Left has launched a dangerous debate on health care, but it’s actually an extension of their attacks on Wall Street, banking, mortgage brokers, and others. They believe the bad mistakes made by business are an opportunity for more government control, which means more power for the political elite.
Yes, we have problems in health care and in other areas, too. But the proposed cures are worse than the disease. Besides, free enterprise has created an American standard of living that’s still the envy of the world. Fixing its problems is no excuse to tarnish its successes.
From "The Foundry" at www.heritage.org.
America's Left Is Attacking Free Enterprise
What Obama Doesn't Know Can Hurt Us!
America has a major problem because President Obama admits he doesn't know what he's talking about.
It's not just his uninformed statement that police "acted stupidly" by arresting his friend, a noted black scholar. The President also admitted last week that he doesn't know the details of the legislation that he's promoting for a big-government overhaul of our health care system.
Salesmen are supposed to know their product. Misrepresenting what you sell is fraud.
The fact that Obama hasn't read all 1,018 pages of the massive bill is not shameful. But he told a blogger news conference that he's even unaware of what's at the very start of the bill--the provisions that would squeeze 88-million Americans out of their private insurance coverage and into a government-run plan.
Details about Obama and about what IS in the bill are here in Ernest's latest column at Human Events.
Can the Left Dictate to Democrats in Congress?
Even as most Americans grow more concerned about federal overspending—including our first-ever trillion-dollar deficit—left-wing pressure groups are pushing harder than ever for more government and more spending. They’re spending millions on TV and radio barrages because they don’t believe President Obama and the liberals in Congress have gone far enough. Like the Energizer Bunny, these groups keep going and going and going.
Read about "The Overstimulated Left," which won't slow down its demands despite public opposition to their overspending and big government plans. Plus the "Blue Dog Democrats" are the targets of a massive ad campaign from their own liberal party leaders, as the Democratic National Committee tries to push relucant Democrats into voting for Obama's massive health care overhaul.
"Gender Identity" laws lead to mischief
This week I've hosted Mark Shannon's afternoon drive radio talk show on KTOK in Oklahoma City, while he takes time off.
With "hate crimes" legislation moving through Congress, I asked Oklahoma State Rep. Al McCaffrey to be a guest on the program, since he has sponsored bills to add "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" as protected groups under Oklahoma law.
I quickly understood that he had a different understanding of some of the goals and the terms that homosexual rights groups want to place into our laws. The term "gender identity" in particular is not the innocent term it may appear to be.
The website of the Transgender Law Center is a major and extensive resource for what is being advocated, and is quite revealing about the agenda. For example, here is part of what it states about school restrooms:
All students have a right to safe and appropriate restroom facilities. This includes the right to use a restroom that corresponds to the student’s gender identity, regardless of the student’s sex assigned at birth.[4] Requiring the student to ‘prove’ their gender (by requiring a doctor’s letter, identity documents, etc.) is not acceptable. The student’s self-identification is the sole measure of the student’s gender.
The same page has many more incredible details about the agenda. And what IS "gender identity?" To be succinct, it means cross-dressing. This does not involve persons who have undergone sex-change surgery. "Gender identity" means whatever a person chooses to claim at the moment. Here is the definition that advocates created and was adopted by the public school system for Los Angeles, California:
"Gender identity" refers to one’s understanding, interests, outlook, and feelings about whether one is female or male, or both, or neither, regardless of one’s biological sex.
"Gender expression" refers to the way a person expresses her or his gender, through gestures, movement, dress and grooming.
The school systems' reference guide is online here. It includes these definitions and much more. Approval of cross-dressing is already the policy in Los Angeles public schools. Parents are not to be told if their child cross-dresses at school, and teachers must let each student decide whether they want to be called a "him" or a "her."
The Transgender Law Center also proclaims that, thanks to its efforts and that of others, "267 Colleges and Universities Have Non-Discrimination Policies that Include Gendeer Identity/Expression." Their list of those schools is online here.
The term "gender identity" promises to be an endless source of mischief, letting persons remove privacy barriers at will. New York City last fall gave cross-dressers the right to use the public restroom of their choice in its transit system, after one of many lawsuits filed since the city added "gender identity" to its human rights law in 2002. One department store has been forced to let men who dress as women use its restrooms and its fitting rooms. Controversies over the term are afoot in many states and communities where activists are pushing adoption of that term in hate crimes laws, employment laws, school codes and more, with the same zeal as the Greeks pushed their Trojan Horse.
With their "gender identity" foot-in-the-door approach, homosexual rights activists are creating enormous problems. The terminology is dizzying as various subgroups seek recognition. Acronyms that began with "Gay and Lesbian" have expanded to GLBT (adding bisexual and transgendered) and LGBTQ (adding either "questioning" or "queer") to LGBTQIA (adding intersex and allies). This is sure to be an incomplete list.
We who are concerned with traditional values should remember that each step taken will lead to another. A major example was when California's State Supreme Court declared same-sex marriage a constitutional right (which voters later overturned). The court's decision concluded that once California had created "civil unions" for persons of the same sex, the state had triggered the constitutional requirement for equal protection of the laws, and therefore must convert civil unions into actual marriages.
Unfortunately for those who argue for moderate or compromise solutions, each supposed halfway measure leads us further away from traditional values. Recognition of "gender identity" opens an enormous Pandora's box of problems.
Sneak Peek at New "Government-Built" Car!!
Since the U.S. government has taken over General Motors, everyone has wondered what type of car it wants to build. Here's a sneak peek from a hidden camera that caught the first glimpse of the new vehicle.
Government's Comedy of Errors
Giant Numbers Are Bad for Your Health
Defense Shrinks While Rest of Government Grows
Saving us from ourselves . . .
We all know the phrase: “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help you.” Perhaps someday they’ll change the national motto from e pluribus unum to est pro vestri own beneficium—“It’s for your own good.”
Regular superheroes save us from villains. Liberal superheroes save us from ourselves.
Today’s federal government doesn’t stop with taking over big things like General Motors and health care, but also wants to govern little things in our lives. They’re talking about new gun controls; a federal ban on smoking in public places; controls on advertising, to make sweets as verboten as cigarettes; even sin taxes on whatever fizzes or appeals to a sweet tooth.
Congress vs The Economy!
The biggest show in Washington resembles “Let’s Make A Deal,” as an enormous tax on energy starts moving through committee in the U.S. House. But it could become “Apocalypse Now” because the bill will kill 2.5-million jobs and its $9.6-trillion price tag could wreck the economy.
What do we gain? Supposedly global warming will be reduced by two-tenths of one degree by the end of the century. That’s it. Americans will adjust their thermostats by far more due to skyrocketing electric bills that President Obama predicts will be caused by this legislation. So we’ll be hotter in the summer and colder in the winter.
The annual price tag for a family of four? It’s projected to be $4,000 a year! The higher electric bills alone will average about $1,500 a year.
So why do so many in Congress support this cap-and-tax approach despite the absence of public support? Many have been bought off by sweetheart deals that are spread throughout the bill. More details are in Ernest Istook’s column at Human Events.
Could 2010 Census Include Make-Believe People?
Left-leaning groups want to include millions of pretend people in the real-life 2010 Census. It almost happened in 2000. This time, they might get their way.
The administration claims it has “no plans” to use statistical sampling to augment the actual headcount next year by adding millions of fictitious people.
Conservatives worry that, having learned from the failure of Bill Clinton’s high-profile push for census sampling, the administration has adopted a stealth approach.
Here are the details from Ernest.
Federal Budget Is Like Swine Flue
Talking about the federal budget causes dizziness, headaches and confusion. That’s why many Americans mistake it for the swine flu and try to avoid it.
Likewise, the just-adopted budget can also be dangerous. One threat has been dodged, though. The threat that the budget would give favored treatment to new energy taxes has dissolved, although plans for those taxes are still being pushed actively.
The new budget gives an advantage to plans for nationalizing health care and for greater federal intervention in education, however.
Ernest Istook explains in his column at http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=31698
A Kitchen Table Agenda
National Review posed these questions to me and to others such as Newt Gingrich and Dr. Ed Feulner: Has the conservative movement begun to fight? Facing the specter of increasing Democratic majorities in Congress, can it rebuild? What should the Right be doing right now? Is it doing it?
You can read all the responses at their website, including mine. Here's what I proposed:
Conservatives are fighting but not persuading. We must reeducate a nation whose core principles have been eroded by left-leaning media, Hollywood, political correctness, and conservative misbehavior.
Liberal ascendance reflects American attitudes more than we like to admit, in a country where only 53 percent say capitalism beats socialism.
Simply promoting lower taxes and smaller government won’t resonate with millions who enjoy zero income-tax liability or who receive government benefits. We must explain that they still have a personal pocketbook stake.
How? With a kitchen-table agenda. In a single word: Consumerism — the belief that the free choice of consumers should dictate society’s economic structure.
Washington mandates have pushed up prices on everything that’s important. Some examples:
- The 2007 energy bill will raise car prices by $5,000 to $7,000 per vehicle.
- Health-care costs reflect 135,000 pages of regulations.
- Ethanol mandates have fueled soaring food prices.
- New light bulbs cost 5 times more than the old.
- How about the economy-wrecking mortgage meltdown? A HUD regulation created a quota (28 percent last year) for how many Fannie and Freddie mortgages must go to those with the poorest incomes.
And the red tape and mandates just keep on coming. Cap-and-trade will be the granddaddy of them all. As candidate Barack Obama said, “Under my [energy] plan . . . electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.”
Congressionally engineered hikes in the cost of everything should be discussed as families sit around the kitchen table. The full cost goes beyond regulations and taxes; it’s also an issue of freedom.
Big government remains the cause of big problems, not the solution. We know the message can work when delivered well. Ronald Reagan proved it.
Who Can Afford to Go All-Green?
Politicians claim they will boost the economy with green jobs. They don't mention that their legislation will destroy more existing jobs than it ever creates with new green jobs that often pay less than the jobs they kill. Other nations have learned this fact from sad experience with their environmental laws; can't we learn a lesson from them?
Read Ernest's article: Green Jobs? Or Gangrene?
Another overlooked fact about the new energy and environmental proposals is the cost to everyday Americans. Are you ready for skyrocketing energy bills? And higher taxes as well, also from the same proposals? As even The New York Times now admits, alternative energy sources such as wind and solar power are far more expensive ways to generate electricity than by using fossil fuels or nuclear energy.
Ernest exposes this in Green Agenda Soaks Taxpayers
You should also read "Seven Myths of Green Jobs," which has just been released by several academics.
The Few. The Proud. The Taxpayers.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg let the cat out of the bag when he announced that half the city’s income comes from 42,000 of its residents. So in a city of 8.2 million, less than half of one percent of the people carry 50 percent of the tax burden.
On the national scale, the top 10% of income tax filers pay 70% of the taxes and earned 47% of the income.
The Tax Foundation reports that the top 1% of American tax filers paid more taxes in 2006 than the bottom 90%. The numbers were $408-billion paid compared to $299-billion. Of 136 million returns filed that year, a mere 1.4 million Americans paid more than this other 122 million combined.
And 23-million Americans who paid zero in income taxes still received federal “refunds” of $46 billion last year.
Is this what passes for fairness today? Is this why some have Tea Parties to protest, while millions don’t care because they are paying nothing?
Read more here.
