Obamacare...really?

With the continuing controversy about the "Affordable Care Act," (I used quotation marks on purpose) these seemed timely.  What an enormous, money-sucking hole it is.  I hope my almost 83-year-old mother doesn't have her insurance rates double to cover somebody who has never managed to keep a job.  The most amazing to me is the number of people who actually believed that an insurance program could magically cover everyone for everything--for nothing.  Wow, our gene pool is getting shallow.

Heaven help us.  Our government won't.

President or King?

Our President has decided he doesn't like being President; he would rather be king.

He disdains all those pesky constitutional limits, because he alone knows what is best.  He is a frightening man.

That is certainly how I feel about the government.  Something seems to happen when people get elected (or maybe before that--when they decide to run).  They forget that they are supposed to be working for the people they represent, and begin to think only of themselves.  I read that there are those in Congress suggesting that they be exempted from participation in the "Affordable Care Act" (I tried to be nice).  Wouldn't that be something?  Another rule that everyone else has to follow, but members of Congress do not.

It is depressing.

This is how I feel on this tax day.  We are people who have worked most of our lives, paid our bills, budgeted consistently, put money away for emergencies, invested carefully, and taken care of ourselves.  Because of our situation, even though we are retired, we have a hefty tax bill.  It wouldn't be so bad if it were going to a government that would spend it wisely.  It's not.  It's going to a bloated bureaucracy whose only interest seems to be the buying of votes.  It's downright depressing.

Wise Words about Fear Mongering

Charles Krauthammer is an intelligent, articulate writer who often makes lots of sense.  I'm putting his latest piece here in its entirety.

Deseret News Metro 03/03/2013, Page G02

Obama making sequester look like Armageddon WASHINGTON — “ T HE WORST-CASE SCENARIO for us,” a leading anti-budget-cuts lobbyist told The Washington Post, “is the sequester hits and nothing bad really happens.” Think about that. Worst case? That a government drowning in debt should cut back by 2.2 percent — and the country survives. That a government now borrowing 35 cents of every dollar it spends reduces that borrowing by two cents “and nothing bad really happens.” Oh, the humanity! A normal citizen might think this a good thing. For reactionary liberalism, however, whatever sum our ever-inflating government happens to spend today (now double what Bill Clinton spent in his last year) is the Platonic ideal — the reduction of which, however minuscule, is a national calamity. Or certainly should be. Otherwise, people might get the idea that we can shrink government, and live on. Hence the president’s message. If the “sequestration” — automatic spending cuts — goes into effect, the skies will fall. Plane travel jeopardized, carrier groups beached, teachers furloughed. The administration has every incentive to make the sky fall, lest we suffer that terrible calamity — cuts the nation survives. Are they threatening to pare back consultants, conferences, travel and other nonessential fluff? Hardly. It shall be air-traffic control. Meat inspection. Weather forecasting. A 2011 GAO report gave a sampling of the vastness of what could be cut, consolidated and rationalized in Washington: 44 overlapping job training programs, 18 for nutrition assistance, 82 on teacher quality, 56 dealing with financial literacy, more than 20 for homelessness, etc. Total annual cost: $100-$200 billion, about two to five times the entire domestic sequester. Are these on the chopping block? No sir. It’s firemen first. That’s the phrase coined in 1976 by legendary Washington Monthly Editor Charlie Peters to describe the way government functionaries beat back budget cuts. Dare suggest a nick in the city budget and the mayor immediately shuts down the firehouse. The DMV back office stacked with nepotistic incompetents remains intact. Shrink it and no one would notice. Sell the firetruck — the people scream and the city council falls silent about any future cuts. After all, the sequester is just one-half of 1 percent of GDP. It amounts to 1.4 cents on the dollar of nondefense spending, 2 cents overall. Because of this year’s payroll tax increase, millions of American workers have had to tighten their belts by precisely 2 percent. They found a way. Washington, spending $3.8 trillion, cannot? If so, we might as well declare bankruptcy now and save the attorneys’ fees. The problem with sequestration, of course, is that the cuts are across the board and do not allow money to move between accounts. It’s dumb because it doesn’t discriminate. Fine. Then change the law. That’s why we have a Congress. Discriminate. Prioritize. That’s why we have budgets. Except that the Democratic Senate hasn’t passed one in four years. And the White House, which proposed the sequester in the first place, had 18 months to establish rational priorities among accounts — and did nothing. When the GOP House passed an alternative that cut where the real money is — entitlement spending — President Obama threatened a veto. Meaning, he would have insisted that the sequester go into effect — the very same sequester he now tells us will bring on Armageddon. Good grief. The entire sequester would have reduced last year’s deficit from $1.33 trillion to $1.24 trillion. A fraction of a fraction. Nonetheless, insists Obama, such a cut is intolerable. It has to be “balanced” — i.e., largely replaced — by yet more taxes. Which demonstrates that, for Obama, this is not about deficit reduction, which interests him not at all. The purpose is purely political: to complete his Election Day victory by breaking the Republican opposition. At the fiscal cliff, Obama broke — and split — the Republicans on taxes. With the sequester, he intends to break them on spending. Make the cuts as painful as possible, and watch the Republicans come crawling for a “balanced” (i.e., tax hiking) deal. In the past two years, House Republicans stopped cold Obama’s left-liberal agenda. Break them now and the road is open to resume enactment of the expansive, entitlement-state liberalism that Obama proclaimed in his second inaugural address. But he cannot win if “nothing bad really happens.” Indeed, he’d look both foolish and cynical for having cried wolf. His incentive to deliberately make the most painful and socially disruptive cuts possible (say, oh, releasing illegal immigrants from detention) is enormous. And alarming. Hail Armageddon.

Passing along good information

Took this from a longer article, but thought it important enough to repeat.

Obama and fiscal cliffs

I don't know if anyone much reads this, but it makes me feel better to put it out there.  Obviously, there are some political cartoonists whose work I enjoy.  I'm sharing a few of those today.

I have wondered if President Obama really had an idea what his policies were doing to regular people.  I know he considers himself far about the average citizen.

He makes noises in speeches about how Congress wouldn't work with him.  Even his own party couldn't support some of his ideas, and he has never offered a budget that Congress could take seriously.

I think we are in for a bad ride, and if President Obama gets reelected, our country is in some very deep trouble.

Business and Obama

President Obama has had few real jobs.  He was a professor for a short time, but I know of no other real jobs.  Being a Senator or Representative is supposed to be a public service job, but it is not full time (unless you count all the time spent working to get reelected).  Community Organizing is not a job one sees advertised in the classifieds.  If he has actually worked somewhere else, no one talks about it.

So, admittedly, he knows nothing about the difficulties and rewards of creating and maintaining a business--accounts payable, receivable, capital, tax accounting, personnel, materials, organization, etc.

Even ignorance is no excuse, these same entrepreneurs paid the taxes that made everything possible.  Many of them probably worked on some of these things too.

This last comic really sums it up.  

War on Women?

A short time ago, an old acquaintance wanted my support on a social site against what she called the Republican War on Women.  I respectfully declined, saying that there was no such "war," and it was just another attempt by the left to divide us.  I was supported by comments of others who I didn't even know.  This acquaintance had fallen victim to the media sound bites without doing any fact checking.  I'm afraid that happens to lots of people.


Soon thereafter, I read a piece by Charles Krauthammer that explained this divisive strategy.  It is too well-written to pick apart, so I'm posting almost all of it.  

The entire Obama campaign is a slice-and-dice operation, pandering to one group after another, particularly those that elected Obama in 2008 — blacks, Hispanics, women, young people — and for whom the thrill is now gone.

What to do? Try fear. Create division, stir resentment, by whatever means necessary — bogus court challenges, dead-end Senate bills and a forest of straw men.

Why else would the Justice Department challenge the photo ID law in Texas? To charge Republicans with seeking to disenfranchise Hispanics and blacks, of course. But in 2008 the Supreme Court upheld a similar law from Indiana. And it wasn’t close: 6-3, the majority including that venerated liberal, John Paul Stevens.

Moreover, photo IDs were recommended by the 2005 Commission on Federal Election Reform, cochaired by Jimmy Carter. And you surely can’t get into the attorney general’s building without one. Are Stevens, Carter and Eric Holder anti-Hispanic and anti-black?

The ethnic bases covered, we proceed to the “war on women.”

It sprang to public notice when a 30-year-old student at an elite law school (starting private-sector salary upon graduation: $160,000) was denied the inalienable right to have the rest of the citizenry (as coinsured and/or taxpayers — median household income: $52,000) pay for her contraception.

Despite a temporary setback — Hilary Rosen’s hastily surrendered war on moms — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will resume the battle with a Paycheck Fairness Act that practically encourages frivolous lawsuits and has zero chance of passage.No matter. Its sole purpose is to keep the war-on-women theme going, while the equally just-for-show Buffett Rule, nicely pitting the 99 percent versus the 1 percent, is a clever bit of class warfare designed to let Democrats play tribune of the middle class.

Ethnicity, race, gender, class. One more box to check: the young. Just four years ago, they swooned in the aisles for Obama. No longer. Not when 54 percent of college graduates under 25 are unemployed or underemployed.

How to shake them from their lethargy? Fear again. Tell them, as Obama repeatedly does, that Paul Ryan’s budget would cut Pell Grants by $1,000 each, if his domestic cuts were evenly distributed. (They are not evenly distributed, making the charge a fabrication. But a great applause line.) Then warn that Republicans would double the interest rate on student loans. Well, first, Mitt Romney has said he would keep them right where they are. Second, as The Washington Post points out, this is nothing but a recycled campaign gimmick from 2006 when Democrats advocated (and later passed) a 50 percent rate cut that gratuitously squanders student aid by subsidizing the wealthy as well as the needy. For Obama, what’s not to like?

More beneficiaries, more votes.

What else to run on with 1.7 percent GDP growth (2011), record long-term joblessness and record 8 percent-plus unemployment (38 consecutive months, as of this writing)? Slice and dice, group against group.

There is a problem, however. It makes a mockery of Obama’s pose as the great transcender, uniter, healer of divisions. This is the man who sprang from nowhere with that thrilling 2004 convention speech declaring that there is “not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there’s the United States of America.”

That was then. Today, we are just sects with quarrels — to be exploited for political advantage. And Obama is just the man to fulfill Al Gore’s famous mistranslation of our national motto: Out of one, many. 

Thinking about taxes

Thinking about taxes.  After all, it's April.  I heard someone suggest once that every citizen should get a vote in an election, but in addition, those who pay income taxes should get an additional vote for each specified amount of taxes paid.  I think it's an idea that has value.  But then, I'm one of those people who also thinks voters should have to show proper identification too.

There was a good article about the economics of our current level of deficit spending.  The last few paragraphs are worth reading.  Especially since the President is trying so hard to make people angry with those who have managed to be successful.



There are far too many people who don't want their handouts to stop.  Having a job is much harder.

Hating the coming year

In a way, I wish the elections were tomorrow. I think another year is going to be torturous! The Republican candidates will be trying to be conservative enough, while explaining that they can be moderate and work with Democrats. Democrats seem to want to seed fear, envy, and name-calling without giving any indication they are willing to work with anyone for a solution to the impending melt-down.

Charles Krauthammer describes President Obama's strategy:

"What do you do if you can't run on your record--on 9 percent unemployment, stagnant growth and ruinous deficits as far as the eye can see? How to run when you are asked whether Americans are better off than they were four years ago and you are compelled to answer no?

Play the outsider. Declare yourself the underdog. Denounce Washington as if the electorate hasn't noticed that you've been in charge of it for nearly three years.

But above all: Find villains."

A couple of months ago Obama tried excuses: blaming Japanese supply-chain interruptions, the Arab Spring, European debt, and various acts of God. Those didn't work. So the new strategy, as stated by Mr. Krauthammer is: "Don't whine, blame. Attack. Indict. Accuse. Who? The rich--and their Republican protectors--for wrecking America."

"In Obama's telling, it's the refusal of the rich to 'pay their fair share' that jeopardizes Medicare. If millionaires don't pony up, schools will crumble. Oil-drilling tax breaks are costing teachers their jobs. Corporate loopholes will gut medical research.

It's crude. It's Manichaean. And the left loves it. As a matter of math and logic, however, it's ridiculous."

I've blogged before about the weakness of that argument. Charles Krauthammer raises several more examples of Obama's taking the low road. "...this kind of populist demagoguery is more than intellectually dishonest. It's dangerous. Popular resentment, easily stoked, is less easily controlled, especially when the basest of instincts are granted legitimacy by the nation's leader."

Oh I'm going to dislike the games being played before November 2012.

Obama failures just keep coming.

President Obama continues to pander to his radically liberal base while showing little concern about the welfare of the people of the United States. His focus is solidly in promoting sound bites of policies with no real substance and trying mightily to incite the class envy the believes will get him reelected. A couple of recent articles in the Morning Bell highlight some very real concerns.

But, as with so many other ideas, the song changed once he was elected.

David Brooks, a columnist for the notoriously liberal New York Times, wrote a piece calling himself an "Obama Sap." He mentioned the many times he had high hopes for something President Obama said or did, only to be disappointed in the truth of the man's actions. I wonder if there are other Obama saps out there. I'll bet there are.

Borrowing a good comic strip

This Non Sequitur comic appealed to me because of the liberals in government and their continued belief that increasing taxes will provide them with money to solve problems.

An op ed piece in the newspaper today made this even clearer:

Government intervention may look good to the media but its actual track record-- both today and in the 1930s--is far worse than the track record of letting the economy recover on its own.

Americans today are alarmed that unemployment has stayed around 9 percent for so long. But such unemployment rates have been common for years in Western European welfare states that have followed policies similar to policies being followed currently by the Obama Administration.

These European welfare states have not only used the taxpayers' money to hand out "free" benefits to particular groups, they have mandated that employers do the same. Faced with higher labor costs, employers have hired less labor.

Thomas Sowell, Hoover Institute, Stanford University

Taking money from people who earned it, filtered through the government, to give to those who have done nothing to earn it does not work. Never has, never will. But apparently it is a theory that liberals are not willing to give up on.

Wisdom from Abraham Lincoln

I found a paper with quotes from Abraham Lincoln, and I think they are very applicable today. I also believe that President Obama and the liberals in power are trying to do exactly what Lincoln warned against.

You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.

You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.

You cannot help the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.

You cannot further the brotherhood of man by encouraging class hatred.

You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.

You cannot establish sound security on borrowed money.

You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn.

You cannot build character and courage by taking away initiative and independence.

You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.

Abraham Lincoln

Disregard reality

The main stream media's reporting about the on-going budget "talks" in Washington is canted toward the left, so it is important to find articles that lean the other direction. Thomas Sowell makes some valuable points:

So much of the political candidates are about the quick and easy slogans, whether or not the candidate even means or believes them. President Obama himself was a master in 2008. Let's try and find some truth.

Wait, the government got less tax money when the top income tax bracket was 73 percent? Why confuse the voters with truth? Talking points are used in discussions of government-controlled health care, gun control, rent control, welfare, and many other programs while reality is ignored.

Budgets, Presidents, and big debt.

Budgets have been in the news for months, and while regular folks continue to wrestle with their own finances, our President just pretends he understands the concepts. He and the liberal progressives seem to believe that everything will be fixed by more money--other people's money.

There was an excellent op-ed piece written nearly two months ago by Jay Ambrose. President Obama had just given a speech. I may have to copy nearly all of it, since I can't decide what to leave out. The title is "Obama's speech was Hyperbolic, Irresponsible." In his words, the speech "...was nastily, absurdly partisan..." He said it was "...irresponsible, dishonest, ideologically nutty..." Wasn't Obama supposed to be better than this?

It is an old trick. There aren't enough of the very well-off to make a difference in the polls or voting, and since many other voters resent their wealth it's easy to pick on them. But beware, when enough has been taken from those who invest and operate businesses that their growth stops, the middle class is next.

That is not the county I grew up in. I miss it.

No progress

I want to carry on today about the liberal Democrats and their pursuit of a "progressive" society. The election results seemed to show that most Americans were not pleased with the direction President Obama (and Pelosi, Reid, etc.) was taking us. Funny, but the liberal leaders could not accept that premise. George Will made some extremely interesting observations:

Speaking specifically about President Obama, Mr. Will continues:

Progressives believe that people must be pulled toward correct knowledge by a government run by the enlightened. Moving "up" from the rigid constraints of the Constitution is their very definition of progress. George Mason University economist Don Boudreaux stated that such liberal ideas "are almost exclusively about how other people should live their lives."

George Will continues:

What happened at the November election was an alarmed and rational American majority disagreed.

Election Day!

With increasing concern about the upcoming election results, the liberal Democrats have tried some of the very tactics they have for years accused the Right of using: paranoia, conspiracies, big corporation influence, etc. When these ideas haven't worked, Charles Krauthammer has noticed a new theory.

Faced with the fact that the electorate has not been excited about his more regulated, socially engineered, humane society, President Obama is befuddled.

President Obama does not want to understand that this country does not skew to the far left--it never has. Many of the European countries that Obama would like to emulate are in danger of collapse. What makes him think that the very same thing could not happen here?

Beyond the President's obvious lack of understanding, is his blatant (and frequent) disregard for honesty or integrity. In a more recent piece, Mr. Krauthammer exposes the President's true nature.

Mr. Krauthammer, I'm with you.

What can I say?

Elections are important!

I think the upcoming election is vitally important. I doubt that our founding fathers ever envisioned career politicians. The author of a novel I read explained it so well and I thought I had marked and saved the place. Unfortunately, I'm not very proficient with my newest Kindle yet. As I remember, his premise was that the country's ideal leaders were statesmen, temporary volunteers doing their duty as needed by the public--and only as needed.

I have also noticed lately the truth of this comic. Many of the liberal candidates are avoiding that title, as well as the credit for the extremely unpopular bills they have helped pass. What is truly frightening is that so many will say whatever they need to in order to get elected, then disregard their campaign promises. I guess if the President can get away with it.....