Heh. There is a story over on Politico by Andie Collier about Obama's favorite phrase: "Let me be clear...."
In the story, there is a dissection of what it really means. It is a pretty interesting story, with a number of ideas about what he is meaning to say.
My view: when I hear him say that, I think of the phrase "I'm not lying to you" that is heard just before a big one.
Mr. Obama is anything but clear on most things, mostly because he doesn't know anything about that of which he speaks.
This includes the contents of his health care initiative, or the cap and trade disaster, or his foreign policy.
Clear, indeed. That makes me laugh. Sadly.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Friday, July 31, 2009
Waste of Time
I see from U. S. News and World Report that Americans spent 9.9 billion hours doing government paperwork last years, a waste of $460 Billion of costs.
The time spent was a 25% increase from 2004.
Just think what Obama's programs are going to add.
A crushing blow to the economy.
Who really believes the government can do anything right? Or efficiently?
Anybody?
A hat tip to Hotair.
The time spent was a 25% increase from 2004.
Just think what Obama's programs are going to add.
A crushing blow to the economy.
Who really believes the government can do anything right? Or efficiently?
Anybody?
A hat tip to Hotair.
Good Enough For Us, But Not For Them
The Great, Fabulous health care bill that will have deep and lasting effects upon all of us, has been determined by the House Energy and Commerce Committee to be not good enough for the President and the Congress.
I see this over at Redstate in a post by Jeff Emmanuel.
The committee site is here, but it is not functioning because of the high traffic, and has not kept up with the voting.
The first vote was on an amendment to permit all Americans to share the same medical plan that Congress has. That was voted down by the Democrats by 31-28.
The second would have required all Members of Congress and Federal public officials to be automatically enrolled in the so-called public plan.
This was ruled not germane by Democratic Chairman Waxman, saving the Democrats from having to vote on it.
Surprise, surprise.
Who would have thought that we would see Congress feeling that their plan was too good for us peons, and their plan for us was not good enough for them?
That is precisely what they have done.
Outrageous.
But what can we expect from that den of thieves?
Will Rogers was right:
"The only native criminal class in America is Congress."
And the worst are Democrats.
I see this over at Redstate in a post by Jeff Emmanuel.
The committee site is here, but it is not functioning because of the high traffic, and has not kept up with the voting.
The first vote was on an amendment to permit all Americans to share the same medical plan that Congress has. That was voted down by the Democrats by 31-28.
The second would have required all Members of Congress and Federal public officials to be automatically enrolled in the so-called public plan.
This was ruled not germane by Democratic Chairman Waxman, saving the Democrats from having to vote on it.
Surprise, surprise.
Who would have thought that we would see Congress feeling that their plan was too good for us peons, and their plan for us was not good enough for them?
That is precisely what they have done.
Outrageous.
But what can we expect from that den of thieves?
Will Rogers was right:
"The only native criminal class in America is Congress."
And the worst are Democrats.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Who do they work for?
Daniel Henninger over at the Wall Street Journal has a piece about the Blue Dogs where he asks the title question.:
"....The issue is: Do they work for us, or do we work for them? "
That is a question we can ask about all of our folks in the Federal Government including all of Congress, the Executive and the Judiciary.
Who is the master, and who is the slave?
If you explore almost any issue, it comes down to this: one group up there is pro government, and wants the government to make sure we are led down the "correct" paths. These are mostly Democrats. Another group mostly favors (they say) having the private sector do the leading. These are mostly Republicans. The last group is on the fence. They cannot decide who to favor, the government or the people. This includes the Blue Dogs and so-called "moderate" Republicans.
The problem we have is that when the pro-private sector folks have gotten in charge, they have joined the pro government group.
The result has been an unprecedented growth in government the last 80 years. This has left us all less free and less well off than we otherwise would be.
Our government has gotten to the point that it serves the special interests that feed it, and not the people who, through their taxes, are required to support it.
Just look at the absolutely huge sums expended by lobbyists and other big special interests to support the power and elections of the politicians. Is it any wonder that the whole system has become so corrupt?
We all need to send a message to the politicians: you represent us, or you are gone.
Actually, we just need to throw all the bums out and start over.
Read all of Henninger's article here.
"....The issue is: Do they work for us, or do we work for them? "
That is a question we can ask about all of our folks in the Federal Government including all of Congress, the Executive and the Judiciary.
Who is the master, and who is the slave?
If you explore almost any issue, it comes down to this: one group up there is pro government, and wants the government to make sure we are led down the "correct" paths. These are mostly Democrats. Another group mostly favors (they say) having the private sector do the leading. These are mostly Republicans. The last group is on the fence. They cannot decide who to favor, the government or the people. This includes the Blue Dogs and so-called "moderate" Republicans.
The problem we have is that when the pro-private sector folks have gotten in charge, they have joined the pro government group.
The result has been an unprecedented growth in government the last 80 years. This has left us all less free and less well off than we otherwise would be.
Our government has gotten to the point that it serves the special interests that feed it, and not the people who, through their taxes, are required to support it.
Just look at the absolutely huge sums expended by lobbyists and other big special interests to support the power and elections of the politicians. Is it any wonder that the whole system has become so corrupt?
We all need to send a message to the politicians: you represent us, or you are gone.
Actually, we just need to throw all the bums out and start over.
Read all of Henninger's article here.
Big Bankers Legally Steal Public Funds
New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, doing a job that apparently nobody else wants, has blown the whistle on the Treasury and the large financial institutions that the Treasury has been bailing out.
Nine big banks which received $175 Billion in TARP funds from the Treasury paid a total of $32.6 Billion in bonuses to their employees.
Anyone that is not outraged at this must be living in a cave in Afghanistan.
These people steered their companies into the greatest bust since the Great Depression, and they get bonuses like that for their performance? With our tax money?
Something is very rotten here.
And why are not the politicians that supposedly are representing the people not doing something?
Follow the money.
Lots of campaign contributions, and lots of lobbyist money.
Stories on this are here, and here.
Nine big banks which received $175 Billion in TARP funds from the Treasury paid a total of $32.6 Billion in bonuses to their employees.
Anyone that is not outraged at this must be living in a cave in Afghanistan.
These people steered their companies into the greatest bust since the Great Depression, and they get bonuses like that for their performance? With our tax money?
Something is very rotten here.
And why are not the politicians that supposedly are representing the people not doing something?
Follow the money.
Lots of campaign contributions, and lots of lobbyist money.
Stories on this are here, and here.
The Pelosi Payroll Tax; UPDATE:Demo says even they don't understand the bill
The Wall Street Journal today points out that there is more than one tax in the proposed health care reform bill.
Its an up to 10% payroll tax on workers whose employers don't provide health insurance. Now it is in the bill as a tax on employers, but it is no secret that such taxes will result in lower pay and benefits for the workers.
"To put this in actual dollars, a worker earning, say, $70,000 a year could lose some $5,600 in take home pay to cover the costs of ObamaCare. And, by the way, this is in addition to the 2.5% tax that the individual worker would have to pay on gross income, if he doesn’t buy the high-priced health insurance that the government will mandate. In sum, that’s a near 10-percentage point tax on wages and salaries on top of the 15% that already hits workers to finance Medicare and Social Security."
This is just one of the things that would not be discussed if the bill had been hurried through like she tried to do.
The four Blue Dogs who caved in yesterday at least give us some time to carefully go through this bill, something we were not able to do with the cap and trade bill.
It will be interesting to discover what else is hidden in the legislation.
Isn't it nice to have such open and transparent processes in the Democrat Congress?
Criminal, at best.
UPDATE: According to Politico, even Democrats in Congress don't understand the health care reform:
"A Democratic lawmaker, Rep. Collin Peterson of Minnesota, agrees. “The members don’t even understand what’s in it,” he confessed of the legislation. As for his constituents? They are “not exactly sure what this is about, and they’re not really sure whether they like it or not.” "
What does that say about them and their haste to rush it through? Transparency? Hope and change? Tyranny of the majority?
Its an up to 10% payroll tax on workers whose employers don't provide health insurance. Now it is in the bill as a tax on employers, but it is no secret that such taxes will result in lower pay and benefits for the workers.
"To put this in actual dollars, a worker earning, say, $70,000 a year could lose some $5,600 in take home pay to cover the costs of ObamaCare. And, by the way, this is in addition to the 2.5% tax that the individual worker would have to pay on gross income, if he doesn’t buy the high-priced health insurance that the government will mandate. In sum, that’s a near 10-percentage point tax on wages and salaries on top of the 15% that already hits workers to finance Medicare and Social Security."
This is just one of the things that would not be discussed if the bill had been hurried through like she tried to do.
The four Blue Dogs who caved in yesterday at least give us some time to carefully go through this bill, something we were not able to do with the cap and trade bill.
It will be interesting to discover what else is hidden in the legislation.
Isn't it nice to have such open and transparent processes in the Democrat Congress?
Criminal, at best.
UPDATE: According to Politico, even Democrats in Congress don't understand the health care reform:
"A Democratic lawmaker, Rep. Collin Peterson of Minnesota, agrees. “The members don’t even understand what’s in it,” he confessed of the legislation. As for his constituents? They are “not exactly sure what this is about, and they’re not really sure whether they like it or not.” "
What does that say about them and their haste to rush it through? Transparency? Hope and change? Tyranny of the majority?
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Blue Dogs Cave on Health Care Reform; Updated: No vote until late September or later: Obama
There are reports out this afternoon that the Blue Dog Democrats have compromised with the "yellow dog" Democrats, and have agreed on an outline of a bill that would radically change health care in the United States.
Given that the Congressional Budget Office has cited the huge costs of the bill...over one trillion dollars..... the Blue Dogs could be said to have caved in by agreeing to reduce the costs by only an estimated one hundred billion dollars. That is a lot of money, but only a drop in the bucket.
So, what else did they get? Well, they didn't get the national insurance out of the provisions, but they did require that government insurance company negotiate fees with doctors rather than unilaterally set them like it does with Medicare. But that still gets the government's nose under the tent, and we all know where that will go.
They did get a increase in the ceiling for mandatory insurance, doubling it to payrolls of $500,000 or less. That is still too low by far.
There is no mention of Medicare.
It seems a lot of the savings will come from two places, as reported by the New York Times:
"¶ Medicaid would be expanded, as under the original bill, but states would have to pay a small share of the additional costs, perhaps 7 percent. The federal government would have paid the entire cost under the original bill.
"¶ Workers would have to pay slightly more of their income on premiums for employer-sponsored insurance — 12 percent, rather than 11 percent — before they could qualify for federal subsidies."
So savings would come from charging workers more money, and putting additional costs on the states. Isn't that nice? Guess who still pays?
What do we have at the end of the day? The best part of it is that they delayed the bill from coming up for a vote until after Labor Day.
That will at least mean that someone will have a chance to read the bill after it is marked up in committee, and before it is presented to the House for a vote.
That is a change. Celebrate the small things.
They won't be able to change that sow's ear into a silk purse during the recess. But they will try to sell it as one.
And the so-called "conservative" Democrats, the Blue Dogs, showed their true colors once again.
The term "conservative" Democrat is an oxymoron, by the way. If they were conservative, they would not be Democrats. It has been thirty years since there was a real live conservative in the Democratic Party. We all left back then.
UPDATE: Obama is quoted this evening as saying there will not be a vote on the Health Care Reform Bill until late September or mid-October.
This is a major defeat for Obama and Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic leadership.
Given that the Congressional Budget Office has cited the huge costs of the bill...over one trillion dollars..... the Blue Dogs could be said to have caved in by agreeing to reduce the costs by only an estimated one hundred billion dollars. That is a lot of money, but only a drop in the bucket.
So, what else did they get? Well, they didn't get the national insurance out of the provisions, but they did require that government insurance company negotiate fees with doctors rather than unilaterally set them like it does with Medicare. But that still gets the government's nose under the tent, and we all know where that will go.
They did get a increase in the ceiling for mandatory insurance, doubling it to payrolls of $500,000 or less. That is still too low by far.
There is no mention of Medicare.
It seems a lot of the savings will come from two places, as reported by the New York Times:
"¶ Medicaid would be expanded, as under the original bill, but states would have to pay a small share of the additional costs, perhaps 7 percent. The federal government would have paid the entire cost under the original bill.
"¶ Workers would have to pay slightly more of their income on premiums for employer-sponsored insurance — 12 percent, rather than 11 percent — before they could qualify for federal subsidies."
So savings would come from charging workers more money, and putting additional costs on the states. Isn't that nice? Guess who still pays?
What do we have at the end of the day? The best part of it is that they delayed the bill from coming up for a vote until after Labor Day.
That will at least mean that someone will have a chance to read the bill after it is marked up in committee, and before it is presented to the House for a vote.
That is a change. Celebrate the small things.
They won't be able to change that sow's ear into a silk purse during the recess. But they will try to sell it as one.
And the so-called "conservative" Democrats, the Blue Dogs, showed their true colors once again.
The term "conservative" Democrat is an oxymoron, by the way. If they were conservative, they would not be Democrats. It has been thirty years since there was a real live conservative in the Democratic Party. We all left back then.
UPDATE: Obama is quoted this evening as saying there will not be a vote on the Health Care Reform Bill until late September or mid-October.
This is a major defeat for Obama and Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic leadership.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
"End of Life" Counselling
There was too much work yesterday to post, but here goes one for today.
At the beginning, please understand that I am opposed to the health care reform being proposed in Congress. There are many, many aspects of it that I find deeply troubling.
There is one that is being used by opponents to scare senior citizens in the same way the Democrats have always done on Social Security reform. That strategy has been very effective for the Democrats, of course, but that doesn't make it right.
There is a provision in the bill that amends the Social Security Act (the part that applies to Medicare reimbursements) to provide for payment for end of life counselling for seniors every five years, and more frequently if the senior has a terminal illness.
I have read the two bills, and there is no requirement that anyone have the counselling as the fearmongers say. It just permits them to have it, and be covered by Medicare.
My view is that every senior should have the counselling provided for in the bill whether or not the bill is passed with that in it. The last couple of times I have gone to the hospital, I have been asked if I had a directive to physicians and a medical power of attorney. I have, and so should everyone if you want your wishes to be honored.
There is, in fact, another provision that provides for such counselling already in the Medicare Act.
There are a lot of reasons to oppose the bills before Congress, but this is not one of them.
You may find the provision at issue here.
The part of the Social Security Act being amended is here.
At the beginning, please understand that I am opposed to the health care reform being proposed in Congress. There are many, many aspects of it that I find deeply troubling.
There is one that is being used by opponents to scare senior citizens in the same way the Democrats have always done on Social Security reform. That strategy has been very effective for the Democrats, of course, but that doesn't make it right.
There is a provision in the bill that amends the Social Security Act (the part that applies to Medicare reimbursements) to provide for payment for end of life counselling for seniors every five years, and more frequently if the senior has a terminal illness.
I have read the two bills, and there is no requirement that anyone have the counselling as the fearmongers say. It just permits them to have it, and be covered by Medicare.
My view is that every senior should have the counselling provided for in the bill whether or not the bill is passed with that in it. The last couple of times I have gone to the hospital, I have been asked if I had a directive to physicians and a medical power of attorney. I have, and so should everyone if you want your wishes to be honored.
There is, in fact, another provision that provides for such counselling already in the Medicare Act.
There are a lot of reasons to oppose the bills before Congress, but this is not one of them.
You may find the provision at issue here.
The part of the Social Security Act being amended is here.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Defend Your Health Care
In trying to research the health care matters before Congress one particular website stands out. Its called Defend Your Health Care. It is run by Betsy McCaughey, PhD, a former Lt. Governor of the State of New York.
You can hear an interview with her at this site.
Everyone should go to the web site and check it out. The first thing you will see is something I have also pointed out in an earlier post:
"Whatever health insurance bill is passed in Congress MUST apply to members of Congress and other federal employees. No Exceptions.
If it isn't good enough for them, it isn't good enough for us.
We are calling on members of Congress to propose an amendment to the Kennedy Health Bill requiring all federal employees to enroll in a "qualified" health plan just like the rest of us. "
The only way for us to get the scheming politicians in DC to pass anything reasonably fair is to require that they be subject to the same provisions.
The fact that they choose to exempt themselves is certain evidence that they know its a bad bill.
This whole matter is outrageous.
The politicians, particularly those on the left, are trying to steal our country.
Between the health "reform," the cap and trade bill, the huge deficit spending, and a whole big bunch of other things, they will destroy our freedom if we permit them to do it.
A political revolution is needed.
Who will lead it?
You can hear an interview with her at this site.
Everyone should go to the web site and check it out. The first thing you will see is something I have also pointed out in an earlier post:
"Whatever health insurance bill is passed in Congress MUST apply to members of Congress and other federal employees. No Exceptions.
If it isn't good enough for them, it isn't good enough for us.
We are calling on members of Congress to propose an amendment to the Kennedy Health Bill requiring all federal employees to enroll in a "qualified" health plan just like the rest of us. "
The only way for us to get the scheming politicians in DC to pass anything reasonably fair is to require that they be subject to the same provisions.
The fact that they choose to exempt themselves is certain evidence that they know its a bad bill.
This whole matter is outrageous.
The politicians, particularly those on the left, are trying to steal our country.
Between the health "reform," the cap and trade bill, the huge deficit spending, and a whole big bunch of other things, they will destroy our freedom if we permit them to do it.
A political revolution is needed.
Who will lead it?
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