Alice in Health Care

Alice in Health Care
Thomas Sowell
Tuesday, March 02, 2010

Most discussions of health care are like something out of Alice in Wonderland.

What is the biggest complaint about the current medical care situation? "It costs too much." Yet one looks in vain for anything in the pending legislation that will lower those costs.

One of the biggest reasons for higher medical costs is that somebody else is paying those costs, whether an insurance company or the government. What is the politicians' answer? To have more costs paid by insurance companies and the government.

Back when the "single payer" was the patient, people were more selective in what they spent their own money on. You went to a doctor when you had a broken leg but not necessarily every time you had the sniffles or a skin rash. But, when someone else is paying, that is when medical care gets over-used -- and bureaucratic rationing is then imposed, to replace self-rationing.

Money is just one of the costs of people seeking more medical care than they would if they were paying for it with their own money. Both waiting lines and waiting lists grow longer when people with sniffles and minor skin rashes take up the time of doctors, while people with cancer are waiting.

In country after country, the original estimates of government medical care costs almost always turn out to be gross under-estimates of what it ultimately turns out to cost.

Even when the estimates are done honestly, they are based on how much medical care people use when they are paying for it themselves. But having someone else pay for medical care virtually guarantees that a lot more of it will be used.

Nothing would lower costs more than having each patient pay those costs. And nothing is less likely to happen.

One of the big costs that have actually forced some hospitals to close is the federal mandate that hospitals treat everyone who comes to an emergency room, whether they pay or not. But those who talk about "bringing down the cost of medical care" are not about to repeal that mandate. Often they want to add more mandates.

The most fundamental issue is not whether treating everyone who comes to an emergency room is a good policy or a bad policy in itself. If it is a good policy, then the federal government should pay for what it wants done, not force other institutions to pay for it. Then let the voters decide at the next election whether that is what they want their tax money spent for.

Confusion between costs and prices add to the Alice in Wonderland sense of unreality.

What is called lowering the costs is simply refusing to pay all the costs, by having the government set lower prices, whether for doctors' fees, hospital reimbursements or other charges. Surely no one believes that there will be no repercussions from refusing to pay for what we want. Some doctors are already refusing to accept Medicare or Medicaid patients because the government's reimbursement levels are so low.

Similarly, if it costs a billion dollars to create one new pharmaceutical drug, then either we are going to pay the billion dollars or we are not going to keep on getting new pharmaceutical drugs produced. There is no free lunch.

Virtually everything that is proposed by those who are talking about bringing down the costs of medical care will in fact raise those costs. Mandates on insurance companies? Why are insurance companies not already doing those things that new mandates would require? Because those things raise costs by an amount that people are unwilling to pay to get those benefits.

If not, it would be a slam dunk for the insurance companies to add those benefits to the policies and raise the premiums to cover them. What politicians want to do is look good by imposing mandates, and then let the insurance companies look bad by raising the premiums to cover the additional costs.

It is a great political game, but it does nothing to lower medical costs.

Politicians who want a government monopoly on health insurance can easily get it, just by making it impossible for private insurance companies to charge enough to cover the costs mandated by politicians. The "public option" will then be the only option -- which is to say, we will no longer have any real option.
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Alice in Health Care: Part II
Thomas Sowell
Wednesday, March 03, 2010

What is most like Alice in Wonderland is discussing medical care reform in the abstract, as if there are not already government-run medical care systems in this country and elsewhere.

Yet there seems to be remarkably little interest in examining how government-run medical care actually turns out-- medically and financially-- whether in Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans Administration hospitals in this country, or in government-run medical systems in other countries.

We are repeatedly being told that we need to have a government-controlled medical care system, because other countries have it-- as if our policies on something as serious as medical care should be based on the principle of monkey see, monkey do.

By all means look at other countries, but not just to see what to imitate. See how it actually turns out. Yet there seems to be an amazing lack of interest in examining what government-controlled medical care produces.

While our so-called health care "summit" last week was going on, British newspapers were carrying exposes of terrible, and often deadly, conditions in British hospitals under that country's National Health Service. But this has not become part of our debate on what to expect from government-controlled medical care.

Such scandals are an old story under the National Health Service in Britain, one repeatedly producing fresh scandals that their newspapers carry, but ours ignore.

In addition to a whole series of National Health Service scandals in Britain over the years, the government-run medical system in Britain has far less high-tech medical equipment than there is in the United States. Neither in Britain, Canada, nor in other countries with government-run medical care systems can people get to see doctors, especially surgeons, in as short a time as in the United States.

It is not uncommon for patients in those countries to have to wait for months before getting operations that Americans get within weeks, or even days, after being diagnosed with a condition that requires surgery. You can always "bring down the cost of medical care" by having a lower level of quality or availability.

But, again, you may never learn any of this by following most of the American mainstream media. It is not that they don't make comparisons between medical care in different countries. But they tend to feature news that will promote government-controlled care.

One of the statistics they spin endlessly is that life expectancy in some countries with government-controlled medical care is higher than in the United States. What they don't tell you is that, in some of these countries, all the infants that die are not included in infant mortality statistics, as they are in the United States.

More important, both political and media supporters of government-controlled medical care consistently confuse medical care with health care.

Much, if not most, of health care depends on what individuals do in the way they live their own lives-- including eating habits, alcohol intake, exercise, narcotics and homicide. A study some years ago found that Mormons live a decade longer than other Americans. But nobody believes that Mormons' doctors are that much better than other doctors. When you don't do a lot of things that shorten your life, you live longer. That is not rocket science.

Americans tend to have higher rates of obesity, narcotics use and homicide than people in some other countries. And there is not much that doctors can do about that.

If those who make international comparisons were serious, instead of clever, they would compare the things that medical science can have a great effect on-- cancer survival rates, for example. Americans have some of the highest cancer survival rates in the world, and for some particular cancers, the highest.

When you can get to see a doctor faster, and get treatments underway without waiting for months, while the cancer grows and spreads, you have a better chance of surviving. That, too, is not rocket science. But it is also something that you are not likely to see featured in most of the media, where people are promoting their own pet notions and agendas, instead of giving you the facts on which you can make up your own mind.
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To read more articles by Thomas Sowell, click here.

Who Poses the Greater Threat?

Who Poses the Greater Threat?
Walter E. Williams
Tuesday, March 02, 2010

Bill Gates is the world's richest person, but what kind of power does he have over you? Can he force your kid to go to a school you do not want him to attend? Can he deny you the right to braid hair in your home for a living? It turns out that a local politician, who might deny us the right to earn a living and dictates which school our kid attends, has far greater power over our lives than any rich person. Rich people can gain power over us, but to do so, they must get permission from our elected representatives at the federal, state or local levels. For example, I might wish to purchase sugar from a Caribbean producer, but America's sugar lobby pays congressmen hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions to impose sugar import tariffs and quotas, forcing me and every other American to purchase their more expensive sugar.

Politicians love pitting us against the rich. All by themselves, the rich have absolutely no power over us. To rip us off, they need the might of Congress to rig the economic game. It's a slick political sleight-of-hand where politicians and their allies amongst the intellectuals, talking heads and the news media get us caught up in the politics of envy as part of their agenda for greater control over our lives.

The sugar lobby is just one example among thousands. Just ask yourself: Who were the major recipients of the billions of taxpayer bailout dollars, the so-called Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)? The top recipients of TARP handouts included companies such as Citibank, AIG, Goldman Sachs and General Motors. Their top management are paid tens of millions dollars to run companies that were on the verge of bankruptcy, were it not for billions of dollars in taxpayer money. Politicians preach the politics of envy whilst reaching into the ordinary man's pockets, through the IRS, and handing it over to their favorite rich people and others who make large contributions to their election efforts.

The bottom line is that it is politicians first and their supporters amongst intellectuals who pose the greatest threat to liberty. Dr. Thomas Sowell amply demonstrates this in his brand-new book, "Intellectuals and Society," in which he points out that: "Scarcely a mass-murdering dictator of the twentieth century was without his intellectual supporters, not simply in his own country, but also in foreign democracies ... Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Hitler all had their admirers, defenders and apologists among the intelligentsia in Western democratic nations, despite the fact that these dictators each ended up killing people of their own country on a scale unprecedented even by despotic regimes that preceded them."

While American politicians and intellectuals have not reached the depths of tyrants such as Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Hitler, they share a common vision. Tyrants denounce free markets and voluntary exchange. They are the chief supporters of reduced private property rights, reduced rights to profits, and they are anti-competition and pro-monopoly. They are pro-control and coercion, by the state. These Americans who run Washington, and their intellectual supporters, believe they have superior wisdom and greater intelligence than the masses. They believe they have been ordained to forcibly impose that wisdom on the rest of us. Like any other tyrant, they have what they consider good reasons for restricting the freedom of others. A tyrant's primary agenda calls for the elimination or attenuation of the market. Why? Markets imply voluntary exchange and tyrants do trust that people behaving voluntarily will do what the tyrant thinks they should do. Therefore, they seek to replace the market with economic planning and regulation, which is little more than the forcible superseding of other people's plans by the powerful elite.

We Americans have forgotten founder Thomas Paine's warning that "Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one."

Health Care Summit Charade

Health Care Summit Charade -- A Clinic in Obama Partisanship
David Limbaugh
Tuesday, March 02, 2010

For a guy who touts himself as bipartisan and demands bipartisanship from Republicans, President Barack Obama had a funny way of showing his bipartisanship during last week's health care summit.

Obama has repeatedly promised an open, honest and bipartisan process on health care reform, but from the beginning, he has quarterbacked a highly partisan, closed-door and dishonest campaign.

In his opening remarks at the "summit," he said he wanted to make sure the participants didn't just trade "talking points" or engage in "political theater." He said, "If we've got an open mind, if we're listening to each other, if we're not engaging in sort of the tit for tat trying to score political points during the next several hours ... we might be able to make some progress."

He then proceeded to a) open the curtains for his own political theater, with one anecdotal Democratic sob story after another about the horrors of American health care; b) deliver his own talking points throughout the day, including his obligatory "tit for tat" following almost every Republican speaker; and c) demonstrate his own partisanship through (i) patronizing dismissals of the Republicans' substantive contributions as "talking points"; (ii) volleying partisan barbs at Republicans; (iii) mischaracterizing his positions and those of the Republicans; and (iv) accusing Republicans of not showing a good-faith willingness to make any movement in his direction when he made no effort to compromise with them.

To invoke my own anecdotal experience here, I have worked with people like Obama before, those who sanctimoniously demand collegiality and compromise while exhibiting no willingness to compromise themselves and then -- wholly blind to their own dogmatism -- castigate you for not "meeting them halfway" (meaning: wholly embracing their proposals).

This summit was an orchestrated setup for Obama to showcase himself as bipartisan, reasonable and, above all, motivated by compassion to improve health care for all Americans and demonize the Republicans as partisan, obstructionist and heartless. With this predicate, he would appear justified in imposing, unilaterally, his Obamacare monstrosity.

But what struck me even more than Obama's unfairness, pettiness and partisanship was his acutely self-absorbed performance throughout the day. His well-known narcissism was on full display, the most telling evidence of which was that he was so hopelessly immersed in satisfying his own hierarchy of ideological needs that he obviously had no idea he was coming off that way.

He advertised the conference as a balanced exchange between the two sides, setting himself up as the referee in chief who would enforce impartiality and fairness. Instead, he injected himself at every interval, using almost as much time as all the Republicans combined, saying his time didn't count because he is president, and never offering Republicans any opportunity to rebut his endless soliloquies.

When Republicans were scoring heavily, Obama revealed his displeasure with his facial expressions and body language. When he couldn't refute their arguments, he degenerated to "the election is over," exposing his real attitude about working toward a joint solution.

If there was any doubt about Obama's blinding egotism and dripping arrogance, he removed it with his snarky remark that if he were to adopt John Boehner's bill, "we'd get a whole bunch of Republican votes" -- as if that proved that Republicans were the problem and as if he was willing to move an inch from his position.

If there was any doubt Obama was not in good faith, he removed it when he characterized Republicans as being unconcerned about the alleged 30 million uninsured and philosophically unwilling to embrace reform addressing this issue. Well, he's already been forced off his bogus 47 million figure, presumably because it included illegal aliens and other illegitimate groups, but his 30 million is no less misleading. He intentionally fails to mention that his figure includes millions who are already entitled to government benefits but don't avail themselves of it and tens of millions who can afford insurance but choose not to buy it.

But the worst thing about his false accusation is that it implies that unless Republicans are willing to agree to socialized medicine, they oppose care for those who actually do fall through the cracks. First, all Americans are already entitled to emergency room care. Plus, Republicans believe that if their ideas were implemented, medical costs would decrease and fewer people would fall through the cracks. But they don't oppose benefits for those who do fall through, provided it doesn't entail a complete restructuring of the best health care system in the world.

The real philosophical difference between the parties is not about whether to help the truly needy, but whether government is the solution or the culprit.

Just in case any doubt remained about Obama's partisan mindset, he removed that, too, when he made clear that "procedure" (and the U.S. Constitution) be damned, he is going to cram this down our throats.

Patent Reform Is a Patent Giveaway

Patent Reform Is a Patent Giveaway
Phyllis Schlafly
Tuesday, March 02, 2010

Americans should beware when members of Congress talk about "reform" and "comprehensive" because those words usually cover a lot of mischief. The latest example of this legerdemain is the so-called Patent Reform now aggressively pushed by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.

Since we've outsourced millions of well-paying American jobs overseas, the one asset we have to maintain our American standard of living is innovation superiority. The United States is the world's leader in technology innovation, which is due to our private enterprise economic system, our constitutional protections of private property and most especially our unique system of granting patents to inventors.

Other countries can produce things we invent more cheaply because of the pitiful wages they pay, but they have a dismal record of inventing anything. Lacking expertise in innovation, some foreign countries concentrate on stealing ours.

Communist China is the world's top producer of illegal copies of music, movies, software, designer apparel, medicines and other U.S. products. Chinese agents stole or illegally purchased high-tech machines and systems, restricted electronic components, embargoed components for military weapons and communications systems in order to copy them.

Now that communist China has become America's banker, China is flexing its muscles in a new way that threatens our economy and our jobs. The buzzword is "indigenous innovation."

China has promulgated new anti-American trade rules that prohibit imports of our products unless they are based on intellectual property that is developed and/or owned in China, and associated trademarks are originally registered in China.

These rules mean that U.S. products cannot be sold in China unless the U.S. companies give China their current patents plus their research and development of new products. This targets our most innovative manufacturing and service industries, including computers, software and telecommunications.

The Chinese government has issued a catalog of products that are subject to this obnoxious rule, and the list is expected to be expanded soon to other industries. China's "indigenous innovation" rule will exclude many major U.S. firms from the Chinese market or require them to give China their patents and advanced technology.

Yongshun Cheng, former senior judge and deputy director of the Intellectual Property Division of Beijing High People's Court, stated bluntly that the proposed U.S. patent bill is bad news for American innovation and good news for foreign infringers. He pointed out that the bill "is friendlier to the infringers than to the patentees in general, as it will make the patent less reliable, easier to be challenged and cheaper to be infringed."

President Obama has promised that exports are the key to our recovery from the current recession. But China's "China First" policy drives a dagger into our hope for more exports. Free trade now means free to China.

Nineteen U.S. trade associations, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and the Business Roundtable, signed a joint letter to six Obama administration agencies calling China's behavior "alarming." The letter warns that this rule poses "an immediate danger to U.S. companies" and to their "ability to create jobs here at home."

The longtime consensus among government and business elites has been that as China became richer, its interests would become more like ours. It didn't work out that way because China is a communist totalitarian country striving for military and economic superiority.

Our American patent system is a precious American property right that the Founding Fathers put into the U.S. Constitution even before they added freedom of religion and speech. The inventor's exclusive right to his discovery for limited times was unique in 1787 -- it still is unique, and 220 years of experience have proved it is the world's best system because the overwhelming majority of great inventions are American.

Our successful system is under attack not only by the foreigners who want to steal our innovations, but also by some big corporations. Most of our breakthrough inventions have come not from big corporations, but from independent inventors and small companies.

The big corporations, however, have the lobbyists and the lawyers, and they are breathing hard on Congress to change our patent law to make it easier to challenge the patents granted to small inventors. The big corporations want to challenge a patent after it is issued (known as post-grant review), thereby delaying for many years the inventor's ability to use his own invention and forcing him to spend a fortune on litigation.

Congress should hold a new hearing to listen to the views of real inventors. We also want to hear what the Obama administration and Congress will do to protect U.S. innovation, inventors and small businesses from Chinese theft and arrogant attempts to force us to give away all our patents.

Obama vs. the 10th Amendment

Obama vs. the 10th Amendment
Chuck Norris
Tuesday, March 02, 2010

Not surprisingly, a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released last Friday revealed that 56 percent of Americans think the federal government has become so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to their rights and freedoms.

Particularly apropos here is the feds' health care violation of the 10th Amendment, which is part of our Bill of Rights and was ratified Dec. 15, 1791. The amendment says, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Thomas Jefferson explained the pre-eminence of this amendment in 1791: "I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That 'all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people.' To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition."

The point is that based on the 10th Amendment, when it comes to legislating and controlling our health care, the federal government doesn't have a constitutional leg to stand on. And even its past violations of the 10th Amendment by implementing government health care services have proved to break more national legs than they have to mend them. The proof is in the pudding. How many times does it have to be pointed out to Washington? Medicare is going bankrupt. Medicaid is going bankrupt. Case closed.

The government is inept to run America's health care system. And now it wants to expand its programs (its health care business) to oversee what equates to one-sixth of the gross national product? What rational board anywhere in the world would rightly appoint a CEO who had a string of miserable business failures and major corporate bankruptcies in his dossier?

I agree with Dr. Scott W. Atlas, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a professor at Stanford University Medical Center, and South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, who put it best in their article a few months back, titled "Alternatives to government health takeover." They said this: "We think it's critical that power shifts to the American consumer and away from government, employers and insurers, as evidence shows medical care prices come down when patients pay directly. Government should offer tax relief, such as refundable tax credits, to encourage private health insurance purchasing -- especially for low-income families. Similar ideas, like those in the Patients' Choice Act ... are important for Americans to consider. We would do well also to consider creative ideas such as changing federal payments to state-based medicaid plans to individual vouchers or expanding health savings accounts, as has been done in South Carolina."

Returning the onus of solving health care issues to families, local communities and states would not only return a balance of power to our federal government but also help with America's economic recovery and build up communities at the same time.

The abuse of federal political power to intervene in areas such as Americans' private health care could exist only in a nation that no longer holds its leaders accountable to its constitution and that has governmental leadership that regards itself as above its people and its constitution. Sadly, I was listening to an interview the other day in which President Barack Obama described the U.S. Constitution as "an imperfect document ... a document that reflects some deep flaws ... (and) an enormous blind spot." He also said, "The Framers had that same blind spot."

In so doing, the president established a rationale and justification for disregarding the Constitution. Even worse, he placed himself above the Constitution and those "blind Framers," who just couldn't see the big picture as he does today. After all, he's the constitutional scholar, and the Framers were just, well, the creators of the document!

Our 44th president would do well to learn from America's third president, Thomas Jefferson, himself a source greater than any living constitutional lawyer. Imagine Jefferson sitting there at the health care summit, a ripe sage at roughly 80 years of age. After listening to all the clamoring of both Republicans and Democrats, he politely but sternly utters these words, which he also wrote to Supreme Court Justice William Johnson in 1823: "The States supposed that by their tenth amendment, they had secured themselves against constructive powers. They (did not learn from the past), nor (were they) aware of the slipperiness of the eels of the law. I ask for no straining of words against the General Government, nor yet against the States. I believe the States can best govern our home concerns, and the General Government our foreign ones. I wish, therefore, to see maintained that wholesome distribution of powers established by the constitution for the limitation of both; and never to see all offices transferred to Washington, where, further withdrawn from the eyes of the people, they may more secretly be bought and sold as at market."

It couldn't be any clearer or wiser than that.

I encourage you to go to TenthAmendmentCenter.com and learn more about your 10th Amendment rights, and then fight for those rights by holding all your representatives accountable to them.

Profit Over Principles

Profit Over Principles
Cal Thomas
Tuesday, March 02, 2010

When Toyota President Akio Toyoda testified last week before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, an attitude was exposed that Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) correctly characterized as fostering a "cutthroat corporate" environment that placed costs ahead of quality and safety. Such a priority would have been anathema to Toyoda's grandfather, Kiichiro Toyoda, who founded the company and turned it into an automotive juggernaut thanks to a business philosophy created by an American named W. Edwards Deming.

Deming believed in a business model that puts product quality and company relationships between workers and management first, favoring continual and systematic improvements of staff and of work processes. His philosophy dominated Toyota for more than 50 years. Quality products followed. Profit was the inevitable result.

Longtime Toyota observer H. Thomas Johnson, a professor of business at Portland State University, has written that Toyota's current quality crisis "reflects disastrous policies adopted after 2000, when top management's thinking changed sharply in a direction that, while consistent with that of most other Western companies, would never have been tolerated at Toyota in the past."

That change came when Toyota management decided to overtake General Motors as the world's largest carmaker and placed immediate financial gain over quality and safety. As a result, quality and safety suffered and Toyota now risks losing market share and profits. It is a flawed model, one that affects governments as well as companies. A major reason for America's rising national debt is that our government has not focused on systems that produce the best results, but on political strategies that provide short-term benefits to politicians. We observe this most glaringly in the debate over health care "reform." The Obama administration and the congressional Democratic leadership focuses on sob stories and calls for "fairness," instead of on proposals that will produce results that benefit a majority of the nation.

There is plenty of recent history where management (and government) reversed sound priorities and proven results leading to dysfunction in both.

In 1982, following the deaths of seven people in the Chicago area who had taken Tylenol laced with cyanide, Johnson and Johnson put the welfare of doctors, nurses and patients first, fixing the problem with tamper-proof bottles.

In 1990, Perrier recalled its bottled water after benzene was discovered in some bottles sold in North Carolina. Even though the Food and Drug Administration said there was no danger, the company recalled its entire inventory, thus preserving the purity of its reputation, along with the quality of its water.

An example of the wrong response to a quality control issue occurred with Ford's Pinto whose gas tanks ruptured and caught fire in rear-end collisions. In 1968, the Ford Motor Company, adopting a recommendation made by then vice-president Lee Iacocca, introduced a domestically produced subcompact car. Hoping to gain a large market share, Pinto was designed and developed on an accelerated schedule. While profits became supreme, quality began to suffer. After lawsuits were filed by victims and their families, Ford management appeared to prefer the advice of their attorneys who said it was less expensive to pay off lawsuits than to fix the gas tank problem. Ford's image (and sales) suffered. Management eventually got the message and started producing better cars, announcing in a media campaign, "At Ford, Quality is Job 1."

Like Ford, Toyota can restore its tarnished image if it reverts to its previous business model, which proved hugely successful throughout most of the company's existence.

It would be nice if the U.S. government adopted the earlier Toyota model and embraced those principles. Focusing on excellence before outcome produces the desired outcome. It works in health, education, automobiles, government and virtually anything else to which it is applied. We know what works. Why must so many of our leaders keep relearning the same lesson?

Obama, Free Markets, And Lots Of Pretending

Obama, Free Markets, And Lots Of Pretending
Austin Hill
Sunday, February 28, 2010

“...Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, and some of the editorial pages, I am an ardent believer in the free market. I believe businesses like yours are the engines of economic growth in this country. You create jobs, you develop new products and cutting-edge technologies, and you create the supply chains that make it possible for small businesses to open their doors…”

Thus did President Barack Obama begin an address last Wednesday to the Business Rountable, the most influential business-based lobbying organization in Washington.

Given that the President has, by his own doing, become a de facto CEO of huge segments of our economy, has hired and fired executives, has imposed salary limitations on corporate leaders, and has spent months claiming to have “saved or created” jobs, it’s likely that there were some skeptics in the audience as he tried to convince the crowd of his respect for the free market. But try, he did, to offer a persuasive argument on this possibility.

And then, less than thirty-six hours later, yet another Obama contradiction popped-up. According to reports Thursday night, the President was considering the use of executive power to essentially “ban” home foreclosures, yet another egregious assault on the very economic system for which he claimed to have oh-so-much respect the day before.

The President’s speech to the Business Roundtable was terrific. And losing one’s home is terrible. Yet when borrowers fail to uphold their debt repayment obligations, private lenders must be free to protect their assets (which is precisely what a mortgage foreclosure is about). To deny lenders this most basic right does a grave injustice to people who have their money invested in banks, and harms our entire economic system.

So why the contradictions from President Obama? Despite his claims about wanting to “create jobs,” his economic policies and proposals seem to have far more to do with consolidating his control over the economy, than they do with growing it. What is causing this tremendous disconnect between his stated objectives, and his actual behavior? And how much longer can the Congress (especially those congressional members who are in the President’s party) continue to ignore Barack Obama’s preferences for control, over growth?

One possible answer to the first question (“why the disconnect?”) is simply that Barack Obama is smarter than everybody else. What appear to the rest of us to be obvious shortfalls and injustices in his economic plans, are not as they appear. We are simply not intelligent enough to understand the greatness of Obamanomics.

This is an idea that the Obama Administration has actually sought to perpetuate. It frequently emerges in discussions about President Obama’s alleged “communication problem” over health care (as in “President Obama hasn’t communicated his healthcare plan clearly”). Yet underlying the concerns about communication is the assumption that Barack Obama’s mind operates on a higher level than everyone else’s, and consequently, we are simply not able to comprehend the greatness of his ideas.

This notion became painfully apparent during a February 19th speech at Harvard University from Obama Senior Adviser Valerie Jarrett. As she fielded questions from the audience, a man took to the microphone and suggested to Ms. Jarrett that many Americans are fearful and rejecting of the President’s ideas simply because they can’t comprehend them (might he have been a “plant?”).

Yet in previous decades, so the man reasoned, the great minds of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were able to overcome people’s fears and apprehensions of personal computers by writing how-to manuals and brochures, and explaining their high-tech inventions in everyday language. And if President Obama were to write his own how-to manuals and pamphlets that explained his brilliant ideas in terms we could all grasp (think “Understanding Obama For Dummies”), then, the man surmised, we would be more supportive of the President’s agenda.

Ms. Jarrett thanked the man for his recommendation, and assured him that President Obama was searching for ways to communicate better. Yet she also reiterated the theme of superior intellect, explaining that “there is nobody more self- critical than President Obama – part of the burden of being so bright is that he sees his error immediately…”

Of course, those of us who are just so un-enlightened and antiquated in our thinking as to actually still believe in the founding principles of our country, and the virtues of free market economics, are also not content to watch our personal freedoms slip away while we are treated to eloquent speeches from our President and claims of brilliance from his adoring and worshipful inner-circle. We want and need economic growth, and the President is working against us.

Currently, Americans need banks to lend more. Yet if presidential power is used to deny banks the right to secure their own assets when borrowers abandon their obligations, then banks will inevitably want to lend less. And thus we see the beginnings of another Obama contradiction: the President’s effort to control economic outcomes will likely produce the outcome that nobody actually wants.

Why the “disconnect?” And how much longer can the Congress pretend?

Why Obama's Great Bet Will Fail

Why Obama's Great Bet Will Fail
Kevin McCullough
Sunday, February 28, 2010

This week when President Obama concluded the seven-hour, made-for-television faux summit on health reform, and more or less announced his intention to cram his signature bill through the Senate in the form of reconciliation, he sealed his choice in moving forward with a great wager. This is a bet that he is hedging to see if the electorate will be more forgiving of him once he's able to claim that he's accomplished something--anything--in his first two years in office. As I was the first person in American punditry to predict this President's success to elected office, let me again go out on the prediction limb to say on this, "he will fail."

I'm basing my gut feeling on two polls recently released by a news organization.

And nope, it's not Fox News. It's CNN!

The CNN/Opinion Research poll released the middle of this last week was the first shocking poll. Only 25% of Americans want the current Obamacare bills (either one of them) to be passed and turned into law.

The Republicans attempted to point this out to the President, the Vice President, the Speaker of the House, and the Senate Majority leader. They attempted to point it out to the minority leader and to the remainder of the Democrats gathered who were supposedly called there to "listen" to the Republicans share their health care ideas. "Supposedly listen" because the Republicans were given less than two full hours, of the seven and a half the event took to actually speak.

Maybe it's just me, but five and a half hours for one side and one hour and fifty-four minutes for the other doesn't seem like much "listening."

But I digress...

The CNN poll also showed that 48% of Americans wished the President and Congress would scrap the current bills and start the discussion and process on health care reform all over again. Something else Senators Lamar Alexander and Tom Coburn were particularly skilled at pointing out. The Democrats, however, acted as though they could not hear them.

The same CNN poll showed that another 25% of Americans wished the federal government would drop health care reform for the time being--altogether. My hunch is that these are folks who believe, like most of us, that if you fix the jobs problem, then more people will automatically get health care.

Since it is unlikely that the jobs numbers will change anytime soon, the President chose to double down and go for the jugular on health care. In a sense, he's sort of backed into a corner. He hasn't improved the economy, the unemployment situation has not stabilized--much less improved, Gitmo is still open, four terror attacks against the U.S. have happened on his watch, and people are tired of all of his speeches--while seeing no results.

He's also created another monumental issue that he will have a hard time overcoming if he does push health care forward, and even blinks in the direction of cap and trade legislation.

According to another CNN/Opinion Research poll out towards the end of this past week, a majority of Americans now feel like the government cannot be trusted. Specifically 56% of the American people believe the government is intruding upon the basic rights of its citizens. The survey shows that 4 in 10 democrats feel that way as well as 6 in 10 independents.

The entire debate around the cronyism of the stimulus bills, the takeover of private enterprise in the bailout programs, the usurpation of the free market on the health care debate, and the desire to raise the most punitive taxes against consumers ever imagined in the cap and trade legislation all contribute to this feeling.

The youth vote, the vote that gave Obama his 4% win in the electorate (beating McCain by 40% in the demographic), feel this "intrusion" effect most acutely. That's why the actor Stephen Baldwin, my media company partner, and myself founded the XPAC experience at CPAC this year. We sensed this restlessness coming on.

That's why CPAC had an 11% increase in attendance this year, nearly 61%, by people who were under 30 years of age.

That's why the state Republican party in California has asked us to bring the XPAC experience to their state-wide convention in San Diego this August.

The American people are telling CNN, not Fox News, that they do not like the President's priorities, nor his policies. The young Americans that are being asked to shoulder these nightmarish realities for their future are agitated. And the voters in America are more aware of the legislative score than Obama lets on.

So, if he pushes reconciliation to pass a bill that 75% of the nation does not want just to get it through the Senate, what will his trick be when he gets it in front of the House where Nancy Pelosi is now 21 votes short of passage?

Meanwhile the 2010 election clock is ticking...

Change, loose change, spare change, and crooks

Change, loose change, spare change, and crooks
Paul Jacob
Sunday, February 28, 2010

It’s hard to fathom, but 10 percent of Americans believe Congress is doing a good or excellent job. That high, eh? The recent Rasmussen Reports survey also reveals that 71 percent of us rate Congress’s job performance as poor.

Additionally, the firm’s polling found that only 9 percent of us think “most members of Congress are sincerely interested in helping people,” while 81 percent feel they are “more interested in their own careers.”

Thus, one percent approve of Congress not helping people, but instead pursuing their own careers. It seems odd, until one realizes that this one percent must be made up of the congressmen and the lucky recipients of their earmarks.

Democrats won back Congress with the vow to end the Republican “culture of corruption." Instead, the Donkeys merely replaced Elephants as the leaders of the criminal gang we know as Congress.

The nation remains on fire for change. The change promised last election and not delivered. Or the change promised and undelivered from the election before that . . . or the one before that. Or — well, you know what I’m talking about.

Last week brought us more logs to toss on the fire of our discontent. First, House Ways & Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (D-NY) was admonished by the House ethics committee for accepting travel to the Caribbean paid for by corporations.

Rangel claims he was ignorant of corporate involvement, but the committee found several instances where the congressman was notified of the precise nature of the sponsorships.

Rangel also faces inquiries into his failure to disclose rental income and hundreds of thousands in other wealth on his congressional financial forms, as well as for using his congressional office to raise funds for a center at City College of New York bearing his name. Rangel also violated rent control laws in New York City. He’s a busy guy.

Republicans have, of course, long demanded that Rangel resign his powerful committee chairmanship. After the ethics decision, several Democrats joined the call for him to step down.

How did Rangel respond? “Clearly the wording exonerates me,” he said. Rangel’s thin reed is the fact that the ethics committee accepted his claim that he was unaware of what the committee determined he should have been aware, namely the illegal corporate funding of his trip, and thus the committee only admonished him rather than taking more serious action. Ignorance is shaping up to be a very effective defense for Mr. Rangel.

Asked by reporters if he would resign his chairmanship, Rangel ever-so-contritely replied, “Why don’t you ask me am I going to stay chairman of the committee in light of the fact that we’re expecting heavy snow in New York?”

I’ll bet you’re not even surprised that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is standing behind Rangel’s continued rule — regardless of his growing list of unethical and even illegal actions.

Last week, the House ethics committee released a 305-page report on its investigation into seven congressmen — Norm Dicks (D-Wash.), Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), James Moran (D-Va.), Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.), Peter Visclosky (D-Ind.), Bill Young (R-Fla.), and the late John Murtha (D-Pa.) — suspected of trading earmarks for campaign contributions. In 2008, these congressmen provided various interests $112 million worth of federal funding and received over $350,000 back in campaign contributions.

But the report exonerated “the Earmark 7,” determining that legislators are absolutely free to raise money from interests to which they are shoveling gobs of our tax dollars. As the report stated, “Simply because a member sponsors an earmark for an entity that also happens to be a campaign contributor does not, on these two facts alone, support a claim that a member’s actions are being influenced by campaign contributions.”

Aren’t you glad they cleared that up?

Congressmen have always been allowed to rake in campaign contributions from the industries and unions they directly regulate. Now it’s been made clear that congressmen can legally and ethically (according to the congressional version of ethics) hand-deliver our tax dollars to those who will or have already supplied them campaign contributions.

After all, that’s the whole point of earmarks.

Some will call for more regulation of congressional behavior, or demand stepped-up enforcement by the ethics committees. They miss the point. Why pass new regulations and expect them to be more zealously obeyed than the old regulations that have been so cavalierly ignored? Why expect the foxes guarding our coop (co-op) to behave any differently in the future than they have in the past?

No, what’s needed is more direct. And it’s as simple as two little words: term limits.

Don’t allow politicians in Congress to entrench themselves in office. Keep a consistent flow of new blood into the system. Then, maybe Congress could find the courage to flat-out abolish earmarks. And create more ethical standards across the board, too.

Maybe with term limits Congress would begin to represent the American people, instead of only representing themselves.

The Presidential Blame Game

Running Against Hooverville—The Presidential Blame Game
David R. Stokes
Sunday, February 28, 2010

In the immediate aftermath of the Bay of Pigs fiasco in 1961, President John F. Kennedy stood before the nation accepting the total blame for what had happened. He referred to an old saying about victory having a thousand fathers, but defeat being an orphan, and identified himself as the responsible officer in the government. Even though the whole initiative had been first devised and planned by the Eisenhower administration.

JFK’s poll numbers moved dramatically—up. There is something refreshing—though sadly rare—about a political leader saying “My bad.”

In the 19th century, a British politician stood in Parliament and remarked that trying to get his particular point across was akin to flogging a dead horse to make it pull a load. We call this beating a dead horse today. And every time President Obama or a member of his administration plays the blame Bush card, he is beating that proverbial dead horse. It is also getting really old.

Everyone on Facebook has an information page and there is an entry labeled “relationship status.” Some mark “married” or “in a relationship,” others say “single.” Then there are those who put: “It’s complicated.” When it comes to Presidents and those who come before or after, it’s really complicated. Some chief executives have managed to rise above the propensity for personal paltriness—others, not so much.

And it goes way back.

Thomas Jefferson, who ran a particularly aggressive campaign against former-and-would-be-again-much-later friend, John Adams, in the 1800 race, continued the attack on his predecessor well into his own presidency. He regularly smeared Mr. Adams for maladministration of presidential powers, though apparently willing to benefit from things Adams had done that he had opposed at the time. The anti-military, anti-big government Jefferson, had no qualms about using navy Adams had built (opposed by TJ) to deal with the Barbary Pirates; nor did he hesitate to use broad executive powers in the whole matter of the Louisiana Purchase—the kind of action candidate Jefferson would have likely decried as tyrannical.

Democrat Andrew Jackson wouldn’t even pay a courtesy call on outgoing President John Quincy Adams. Mr. Adams then refused to attend his successor’s inauguration. Jackson spent significant time in office tearing down his predecessor—blaming Adams and the whole fierce campaign for his wife’s death after the election. That one was very complicated.

Speaking of Presidents and courtesy calls, Dwight Eisenhower and his wife, Mamie, sat famously in the car under the White House portico, snubbing the Trumans. But when it came to blaming his predecessor for the mess he inherited, he chose the path of just ignoring and dismissing Mr. Truman like the junior military officer he saw him to be.

Abraham Lincoln had great reasons and resonant issues to use to place blame for the country on the verge of disintegration he inherited in 1861 because his predecessor, James Buchanan, did virtually nothing to deal with the brewing national disaster. But Mr. Lincoln seemed to have a capacity to rise above cheap politics—dealings with his own Cabinet-made-of-would-be-rivals also demonstrated the 16th President’s ego tempering skills.

Of course, many times Presidents have succeeded men from the same party and, though they might have wanted to really make the guy before look bad, they realized that it was political suicide. Martin Van Buren could certainly have blamed the panic of 1837 on Andrew Jackson, who destroyed the National Bank, but party realities forbade it.

Warren Harding didn’t spend a lot of time or energy blaming Woodrow Wilson for the nation’s woes in the early 1920s. Ronald Reagan used Jimmy Carter as a punching bag for a short while, but quickly moved on. Even Richard Nixon didn’t waste time passing the buck back to LBJ. In fact, their relationship was remarkably good, considering their history.

Now, Franklin Roosevelt—well that’s another story. He used predecessor Herbert Hoover as his whipping boy for at least a decade—and one wonders if this example is the one that resonates with the current administration.

FDR ran a skillful campaign against Hoover in 1932, allied with the forces of economics and history in play at the time. Hoover was an unpopular president as a result of the onset of the Great Depression. Once hailed for his genius at organization and engineering, his name was even part of the vocabulary signifying good economy, as in the popular 1920 Valentine’s Day card:

“I’ll Hooverize on dinner, On fuel and tires too, But I’ll never learn to Hooverize When it comes to loving you.”

By 1932, however, his star had fallen and shantytowns across America were dubbed, “Hoovervilles.” However, today’s prevalent narrative that Hoover was a do-nothing president and then the great activist Roosevelt rode to the White House on a white horse, is at best an apocryphal exaggeration—at worst, it’s a lie.

In fact, Mr. Roosevelt, famous smile and all, was simply an effective and cynical politician who knew how to practice demagoguery with the best of them. He was also a very petty man. One example is in the naming—better, renaming—of the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River. It had been named for Herbert Hoover in 1931 not just because he was the President at the time (there were already dams named for Calvin Coolidge and Theodore Roosevelt extant), but also because he had been a major driving force in the project since the early 1920s during his highly successful tenure as Secretary of Commerce. He, being an engineer by training and trade, even played a crucial role in how it would work and be constructed—effectuating something called the Hoover Compromise allowing the project to go forward at a critical juncture.

After his humiliating defeat by the Roosevelt juggernaut in November of 1932, Mr. Hoover stopped at the construction site of the dam and remarked for the press:

“It does give me extraordinary pleasure to see the great dream I have so long held taking form in actual reality of stone and cement. It is now ten years since I became chairman of the Colorado River Commission—This dam is the greatest engineering work of its character ever attempted by the hand of man—I hope to be present at its final completion as a bystander. Even so, I shall feel a special personal satisfaction.”

But by the time the project was completed in 1936, it had been renamed by the Roosevelt administration as the Boulder Dam and Hoover was never invited to be part of any festivities. Of course, by that time Mr. Roosevelt was running for reelection against Republican nominee Alf Landon of Kansas.

But FDR was really running against Hoover one more time.

The other day, during that good-for-nothing White House meeting on health care, there was a telling exchange between President Obama and Senator John McCain. He told McCain that the campaign was over. He meant their campaign.

The battle against all things George W. Bush, however, still rages. And most likely this will continue through the 2012 campaign. After all, if you can’t run on a record of accomplishment—find a dead horse to beat and hope the people are dumb enough not to notice the abuse and absurdity.

The big question is: Will George W. Bush be as durable a whipping boy as was Herbert Hoover—or better yet—is Barack Obama as arrogant, cynically petty, or politically cunning as was Franklin D. Roosevelt?

Dems' Health Strategy Doesn't Add Up to a Win

Dems' Health Strategy Doesn't Add Up to a Win
Michael Barone
Monday, March 01, 2010

"More talk, no deal" was The Wall Street Journal's headline on Thursday's Blair House health care summit. "After summit flop, Democrats prepare to go it alone on Obamacare," proclaimed the headline here at The Washington Examiner. These were appropriate verdicts if you viewed the summit as an attempt to reach bipartisan agreement or even a limited consensus.

But that of course was not why Barack Obama convened this unique colloquy. He did so as part of an attempt to pass some Democratic health care bill, somehow, through both houses of Congress -- and to discredit the Republicans who opposed the bills passed by the House in November and the Senate in December.

In that he seems to have failed. The Atlantic's Clive Crook, who supports the Democratic bills, concluded that "the Republicans did not come across as the party of no. They looked well-informed, pragmatic and engaged in the discussion. It was the Democrats who leaned more heavily on talking points, and seemed evasive and unspecific."

Kevin Drum, blogging for the left-wing Mother Jones, agreed. "My take is that the summit was basically a draw, but with a slight edge to the Republicans. They didn't have to win, after all. They just had to seem non-insane, and for the most part they did. What's more, Obama missed a chance to provide a punchy 60-second sales pitch for the Democratic plan."

Obama and the Democrats face problems with both public opinion -- their bills are hugely unpopular -- and with legislative procedure. The problem with public opinion has been undeniable since Republican Sen. Scott Brown's victory five weeks ago in Massachusetts. The problem with legislative procedure is more complex.

Democrats could theoretically solve that problem by having the House pass the Senate bill in toto, ready for Obama's signature. But Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has proved herself a fine vote-counter, doesn't have the votes. Last month, she said "unease would be the gentlest word" to describe House Democrats' resistance. They understandably don't want to cast votes for the Senate's Cornhusker Kickback and Louisiana Purchase.

In November, Pelosi had 220 votes for the House bill. The one Republican is now a no, one Democrat has died, one resigned last month, and another turned in his resignation Friday. That leaves her with 216, one less than the 217 she needs.

There is another problem. The Senate bill lacks the amendment sponsored by House Democrat Bart Stupak banning abortion coverage, and Stupak says that he and about 10 other Democrats will accordingly vote no. That leaves Pelosi around 205. She may have commitments from former no voters to switch to yes (especially from three who've announced they're retiring), but she doesn't have more than 10 other votes in her pocket -- or she wouldn't have accepted the Stupak amendment.

So the House wants the Senate to go first and pass changes to its bill through the reconciliation process that requires 51 rather than 60 votes. But Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad says that you can't use reconciliation on a bill that hasn't already become law. And reconciliation is probably not available on abortion issues.

All of which reminds me of Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens' attempt to allow oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reservation in 2005. Stevens got it in the reconciliation process in the Senate, where it had 51 but not 60 votes. But House Republicans couldn't get it into reconciliation, even though a majority of House members were for it. The Senate could pass it by reconciliation but not regular order; the House could pass it by regular order but not reconciliation. Result: It never passed.

There are two differences here. ANWR drilling would have little effect on most Americans. The health care bill would affect almost everybody -- by raising taxes, cutting Medicare spending, abolishing current insurance -- as Republicans pointed out in Blair House.

The second difference is that ANWR drilling was reasonably popular with the public, and there were majorities in both houses for it. Neither is true of the Democrats' health care bills today.

Last month, we were told that Obama would switch his focus from health care to jobs. But Democrats have spent February and seem about to spend March focusing on health care. It's hard to see how they can navigate the legislative process successfully -- and even harder to see how they turn around public opinion. Summit flop indeed.

American Optimism Based on People not Politicians

American Optimism Based on People not Politicians
Terry Paulson
Monday, March 01, 2010

The basic assumption in Washington seems to be that politicians must do something—pass a bill, add a new regulation or create a new entitlement—in order for America to get better. President Obama agonizes, “I spend every waking hour, when I’m talking to my economic team, about how we are going to put people back to work.”

What if government leaving people alone is better than doing something that just makes matters worse? What if letting Americans be free to handle their own problems and earn their own rewards is better than watching government politicians micromanage something they know nothing about?

Congress recently passed legislation to fine airlines for leaving people on runways too long, only to find that now airlines prematurely cancel more flights in the face of pending bad weather to avoid possible fines. Cancelations leave more flyers stranded with no plane to fly in. Congress “cares” enough to make matters worse.

Give me a “Do Nothing…Get Out of the Way” Congress! There has never been a major government entitlement that has cut costs or cost anywhere near what politicians said it would cost. The unintended consequences of bigger government are more complexity, more regulations, more rules, more bureaucracy, more taxes, more uncertainty, and less motivation to take responsibility for one’s own life.

Politicians pass a stimulus package to kick start the economy and create jobs, but confess that identifying the jobs created and saved is an “inexact science.” Jobs are obviously a very “lagging indicator.” President Obama may look good telling people the wonderful things he’s doing to fix things, but his results are a clear disaster—the 3 million jobs lost since he took office are hard to hide.

In trying to make capitalism “fairer,” liberals are destroying what makes free-enterprise work. Taking risks and earning rewards drives economic progress and job creation. Government is taking away risk by funding the failure of companies “too big to fail,” taking away the risk of becoming obsolete by paying for extended unemployment benefits. Such “caring” stalls progress. Why run a company well when the government will cover for your mistakes? Why learn a new skill when someone else will pay you for not working?

For government to “create” jobs, it confiscates taxpayer money, siphons off funds to sustain its growing, parasitic bureaucracy, and gives back a few “very expensive” jobs. As Dr. Kenneth McFarland used to say, “Government aid is much like giving yourself a blood transfusion by taking blood from your right arm and putting it back in your left while watching half of your blood leak out in between.”

Such excessive spending has side effects—a jobless recovery, exploding deficits, and anticipated devaluation and inflation. Why? The taxes paid and the debt created takes needed money out of the private sector. The resulting uncertainty in the cost of doing business keeps businesses on the sidelines, afraid to hire or expand. The only thing that is growing is our government.

President Obama’s preoccupation with Washington “fixing” the economy and healthcare is standing in the way of unleashing America’s collective ingenuity and entrepreneurship. America’s strength is its people. The last, best hope of this nation is its people, not our politicians and president. You want a real stimulus? Cut the capital gains taxes, get rid of the death tax, and cut payroll taxes. Give people more control over their own earned money and let small businesses do what they do best—react to their markets and create what customers want…not what government mandates!

There is some hope that more and more Americans are beginning to understand where true hope and change come from. According to USA Today’s optimism survey, what makes Americans optimistic about our country’s long-term future is our belief in the strength and will of our people. That belief outweighs our confidence in President Obama, 35% to 5%. Our belief in the American Dream anchors our culture in true hope and change.

Both Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama came to the Presidency in a time of economic distress on the wings of a message of optimism. One man chose to believe in the American people, limited spending, cut taxes and unleashed the power and potential of American capitalism that helped usher in over twenty years of prosperity and pride. The other came to power promising hope and change, but his optimism was based on a belief in government’s ability to meet the needs of citizens with stimulus packages, bailouts, jobs bills, and cash for clunkers. The result—we face the biggest deficit and debt in history, sustained unemployment and the promise of stagflation looming on the horizon.

Ronald Reagan had no stimulus packages. He gave us his secret in 1992: “I appealed to your best hopes, not your worst fears, to your confidence, rather than your doubts.” President Obama doesn’t understand that America’s strength comes not from politicians but from workers, leaders and private sector entrepreneurs who keep the dream alive. We don’t need another jobs bill or entitlement program; we need a president who still believes in Americans.

Saving the Soul of the Religious Left

Saving the Soul of the Religious Left
Joseph C. Phillips
Monday, March 01, 2010

A reader recently sent me an email admonishing me for not being more supportive of President Obama. For reasons that were not immediately clear, he also raised the issue of my confessed Christianity. The “aha” moment came when he asked, “Do you pray for your leader like you’re instructed in the good book?” I responded that while I have prayed for the president, I do not do so regularly. That, in his mind, was evidence of my Christian hypocrisy.

This is an elementary school argument, but sadly one that is far too commonly made by the religious left and their secular allies. All Christian stumbling is demonstration of falsity; individual failure to practice principles is ipso facto proof of the bankruptcy of those principles. Sophistry of this sort allows the new left to dismiss ideas they disagree with and evidence they find inconvenient with a simple label: “religious right-wing extremist.” That sure beats actually having to make a substantive argument. What remains unclear is why the regular and unabashed support the religious left offers candidates whose policies are incompatible with or in direct contradiction to Christian principles is not more damning evidence of their Christian hypocrisy.

Aside from the fact that the left takes it as a given that they are both smarter and morally superior-- one answer might be that the religious left now preaches moral relativism as opposed to the objective truth of God.

Not long ago I asked a black clergyman about his (and so many others) support for candidates that write and support policy inconsistent with the tenants of Christianity. He responded by asking me, “what are Christian beliefs?” His question was neither rhetorical nor was it an invitation for my definition. Sadly it was his serious contention that the “Bible is not a unitary document but a collection of books. Which one you choose to quote and live by is a result of interpretative choice.” Alas, his explanation seems inconsistent with a Christianity that worships a unified father, son and Holy Spirit; that accepts the bible as the inspired and living word of God; that views the individual books as part of a greater whole with a unity of theme and purpose and that believes the risen Christ is the fulfillment of ALL scripture. To hold that there are no true Christian beliefs just individual opinions--and all of those equally valid—leads me to guess he purchased his diploma cheaply and on-line.

Of course this pastor is only one of many claiming to be independent – choosing their candidates on “the basis of intellect, moral compass, life experiences, sensitivity to ethnic diversity and a commitment to expanding the blessings of liberty" and yet somehow always votes for a Democrat.

The excuse is that the hypocritical religious right – those that pray for his happy retirement and not his political success -- are too busy talking about family values and not dealing with the broader moral issues of poverty, injustice and more recently healthcare. Significantly, this has led the religious left away from preaching virtue as the way in which God empowers individuals and towards locking arms with secular leftists that preach the administrative state as the anecdote to man’s falling. For the left, redemption is to be had not through personal sacrifice and struggle, but through the redistribution of resources; not through personal discipline but through mandates for equality. It is not enough to save our neighbor we must work to save the planet.

And yet both spiritual redemption and political liberty are secured through individual virtue. The most important thing Christians can do is influence behavior. To be baptized is to recognize both the truth of the example and the veracity of the instruction book. Whether of the right or left if you are not talking about moral behavior -- that is to say behavior that is objectively right or wrong -- then you are not going to impact social issues like poverty and injustice.

This is where the religious lefts relativism fails them and those they purport to champion. Issues of personal morality are important not because some of us want to limit others fun, but because some behavior – like some ideas – both undermine those institutions that shelter our liberty, and ultimately (and most importantly) move us further away from the Lord.

And here ultimately is the greatest question the religious left must be prepared to answer. Do we walk by faith in the administrative state? Or do we believe in mans capacity to change his life through the grace and mercy of God?

Bank Reform We Can All Agree On

Bank Reform We Can All Agree On
Bruce Bialosky
Monday, March 01, 2010

One thing on which there seems to be universal agreement is the need for redesigning our banking laws to adapt to the realities of the 21st century. We have had only minor changes, some of them harmful, since enactment of the Depression-era laws that still govern a large part of our system. Henry Paulson, Secretary of the Treasury under George W. Bush, was working on a modernization plan when the market cratered at the end of Bush’s second term. Now the question is what should we do?

Paul Volcker, former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, has been appointed as the point man for the Obama Administration. The appointment of Mr. Volcker as Chairman of the Fed may be Jimmy Carter’s single greatest accomplishment, even though his most significant work came during the first term of Ronald Reagan. His success at helping to reverse the economic problems that Reagan inherited has established him as a near-legendary figure.

Mr. Volcker expressed his thoughts about what needs to be done in a lengthy article published January 31st in the New York Times. While he proposed many fine ideas to modernize our policies for today’s financial world, even the brilliant Mr. Volcker unfortunately falls way short in defining the underlying problem and how to resolve it.

The first area of concern is the “too big to fail” issue. Part of the problem that Secretary Paulson faced was whether to allow a company to fail, and/or whether that failure would cause an avalanche crushing the rest of the banking system. Mr. Paulson admits he was flying blind as he had no prior experiences to reference. Yet the fact that he and his successor, Timothy Geithner, made enough correct decisions to place us in a stable situation was part luck and lot based on their lifelong careers.

Unfortunately, as part of this realignment they have consolidated the banking industry even more. Four banks, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citibank and Chase, were asked to absorb several failing enterprises and did so to salvage the day. They now have well over 50% of the bank deposits in the country and they are truly too big to fail. In addition, they were asked to absorb failing investment firms like Merrill Lynch and Wachovia.

However Democrats are now saying these operations are too big and they should not be taking investment risks. The government has already forced the resignation of Ken Lewis, former CEO of Bank of America, regarding supposed misdeeds related to the acquisition of Merrill Lynch. He stepped in to save a failing Merrill Lynch at the government’s behest and then gets blamed when the losses of Merrill Lynch turned out to be worse than anyone estimated. Now they don’t want Bank of America to benefit from the some of the assets that Merrill brought to the table.

In another recent Times article, Mr. Paulson states that the proposals by the Obama Administration barring banks from trading activity would not have prevented the collapse of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers, AIG, Washington Mutual, or Wachovia. In other words: thanks for saving the economy in 2008 but now we need a whipping boy, so bankers – you are it. No wonder few people trust politicians.

Mr. Volcker never mentions reform of governmental entities and laws that were central to the crisis that came to a head in 2008 and still lives with us. There is no suggestion of revamping the Community Reinvestment Act that requires banks to make risky investments, and the words Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are nowhere to be found in his article. It was as if all problems were created by private industry, with none of it created by naïve and dangerous government policies.

A perfect example of the denial of government responsibility centers on Andrew Cuomo, currently Attorney General of New York and gubernatorial hopeful, who has sued Bank of America. While Secretary of Housing and Urban Development from 1997-2001, in an attempt to encourage more home ownership, he directed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to increase the percentage of loans they issued to low and moderate income homeowners over a 10-year period. The targeted numbers were 28.1 million loans valued at $2.4 TRILLION.

This caused Fannie and Freddie to increase their purchase of subprime and poorly-documented loans to meet the direction of their overseers. Yet, Mr. Cuomo still doesn’t accept blame for his actions, and even has the gall to sue Bank of America and ask the people of New York to promote him to Governor. Is it any wonder our banking system still has challenges? Is there any surprise that people question the wisdom of their political leaders?

Mr. Volcker may be the best person to shepherd effective banking reform through Congress. He has immense skills and brain power. But he will never succeed unless he admits that government and Congress are the root causes of the problem. Like a 12-step program, government needs to admit they are at the core of the problem before they can seek redemption.

We Are Not Ashamed; Are You?

We Are Not Ashamed; Are You?
Nathan Tabor
Monday, March 01, 2010

School administrators in Texas face a federal lawsuit filed on behalf of three students, accusing the school district of refusing to allow children to carry or read the Bible.

The lawsuit, filed in Houston, alleges that a teacher pulled two sisters from class after discovering that they were carrying Bibles and threatened to have them picked up by child-welfare authorities.

Another teacher told a pupil he was not allowed to read the Bible during free reading time and forced him to put it away, the lawsuit alleges. The boy also was required to remove a Ten Commandments book cover from another book, the lawsuit states.

"My daughters called me, were hysterical, and said, 'Mama, they took our Bibles and called them garbage and threw them in the garbage and then threatened to call Child Protective Services,' " said Deborah Bedenbender, 37, a Willis homemaker.

Not only do actions by teachers and administrators described above hurt Christians, they also send a message to non-believing children and parents that there is something wrong with believing in a saving Jesus Christ, and that such expressions of faith should be hidden from public view. In essence, these government officials are telling Christians that they should be ashamed of their beliefs and they should cower in their homes secretly reading Scripture. However, there is a new movement within the Body of Jesus that couples Bible-reading Christianity with modern communications. Beginning Monday, March 1, individuals from the United States and the world can participate in the first-ever online video Bible. They can simply film themselves reading or quoting Scripture passages and then upload their videos to the new “I Am Not Ashamed” campaign web site, (www.iamnotashamed.org).

The campaign launches simultaneously on the Internet and on television, with commercial spots featuring participants quoting Bible verses. These individuals come from all walks of life – different backgrounds, nationalities, political affiliations, ages, gender and culture – but hold in common a respect and appreciation for the relevance of God’s Word in today’s culture. These commercial spots will run nationally on the Fox News Channel, FoxNews.com, and MSNBC.com March 1 – April 25.

Iamnotshamed.org is an evangelistic arm of the successful AnswersInGenesis.org, an organization that strives to carry the word of God to every corner of the earth.

"To facilitate our desires and goals, we have chosen the top 12 spoken languages in the world, and we are traveling with Ken Ham to translate his most relevant talks into those languages. The top 12 languages are Chinese, English, Spanish, Hindi, Arabic, Bengali, Russian, Portuguese, Japanese, German, French and Punjabi," state their officials who include Dr. David Crandall and Diana Crandall.

"Since our early days, Ken Ham’s presentations have been available in the English language. We then traveled to Mexico to translate into International Spanish and then Taipan for the Chinese translations. In 2008 we will travel to India to translate into Hindi and in 2009 to Tokyo, Japan, to translate into Japanese. In 2010 we will journey to a Russian speaking country. Each year we will add one more new language. These DVDs will be provided free of charge on the mission field to the people who speak that language," say the Crandalls.

Their latest project will include a national print and billboard component of the campaign that will quote specific Bible verses that address the issues of the day. These will begin running in the national newspaper “USA Today” on March 1. Stand-alone Scriptures on the topics of abortion, marriage, and the place of faith in God in the public sphere will be quoted following the introduction, “The Bible speaks for itself . . ., “ concluding with a link to the campaign’s Web site for more information.

The theme for the campaign is “I am not ashamed of the Word of God” (2 Timothy 2:15; Romans 1:16). The focus will be on the authority of the Bible, which speaks for itself. The campaign will highlight the mutual respect and appreciation that the large majority of the public has for the Bible as the Word of God. Participants will read from the NASB version of the Scriptures to create the world’s first online video Bible in a very clear and understandable format.

Drawing on the promise in Isaiah 55:11 that God’s Word won’t return void, iamnotashamed.org hopes to renew Americans’ trust in Scripture as a foundation for their lives. Built around a common belief in the Bible, the campaign is designed to promote grassroots participation in the social media space. More information and instructions for participating are available online at iamnotashamed.org.

Credit Culture: Incentivizing Greed and Irresponsibility

Credit Culture: Incentivizing Greed and Irresponsibility
Ken Connor
Sunday, February 28, 2010

On February 22, 2010, nine months after President Obama signed the legislation, new credit card rules designed to protect consumers from the unscrupulous and manipulative tactics of credit card companies went into effect. The legislative momentum that led to the passage of the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure Act (Credit CARD) has been building for years, and was thrown into overdrive by the economic meltdown of 2008. Countless Americans who felt they had been duped by greedy mortgage brokers and cheated by reckless Wall Street fat cats were only too happy at the prospect of throwing the legislative book at the corporate moguls who profit from our nation’s dependency on credit cards.

And throw the book we did.

Designed to put an end to many of the predatory practices that cost consumers up to $15 billion in late fees and other penalties each year, the Credit CARD Act will free millions of credit card users from retroactive interest rate increases on existing card balances and will give them more time to pay their monthly bills, greater advance notice of changes in credit card terms, and the right to opt out of significant changes in terms on their accounts. Senator Chris Dodd, the author of the Credit CARD Act, celebrated the passage of the new law:

“Gone are the days of gouging hardworking families with ‘any time, any reason’ rate increases and unreasonable fees and penalties. With the signing of this bill, President Obama has ushered in a new era where consumer protections will be strong and reliable, rules transparent and fair, and statements clear and informative . . . Today is the day we finally make credit card companies accountable to their customers and responsible for their actions.”

There’s no denying that credit card companies have employed shady tactics in pursuit of maximizing profits. And, much like their brethren at the big banks and on Wall Street, their failure to behave ethically has given the government an excuse to interfere in yet another corner of the free market. It didn’t take long, however, for consumer advocacy groups and others to point out that, in addition to making it more difficult for card companies to gouge their customers, the Credit CARD Act will make it a lot more difficult and a lot more expensive for everyday Americans to get, and keep, a credit card.

In short, since credit card companies are no longer able to pad their profits by exploiting those least capable of managing their credit responsibly, the companies are going to have to adjust their business and marketing model to reflect this new reality. This includes restricting the amount of business they are willing to do with “risky” customers. For the first time in years, sub-prime borrowers, college students, and other “vulnerable” segments of society will find their access to easy credit significantly curtailed.

While some may view this as an unjust response on the part of the credit card companies, responsible measures that push Americans to break their addiction to credit cards are a good thing. As a nation and as individuals, we’ve gotten to the point where we can hardly conceive of living life without access to an endless line of credit. Convinced that we can “have it all and have it now,” we’ve leveraged ourselves to the hilt, financing our food, clothing, shelter, transportation, entertainment – heck, even our government – with credit!

Not surprisingly, our lenders recognize the power they have over us and have used that power to keep us in bondage. This is not something new. The Old Testament Book of Proverbs cautions against the kind of recklessness and greed that leads to financial indebtedness, reminding us that “the rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is the slave of the lender.”

The average American – identified by the multiple credit cards in his wallet, the home mortgaged thrice-over, and the two cars in the driveway being paid for “on time” – has ignored the wisdom of these words for far too long, and the credit card companies have profited hand over fist.

For the time being, it appears that the playing field has been leveled. Because credit card companies are no longer permitted to load up the fine print with predatory and exploitative terms, irresponsible and ignorant consumers will be forced to reduce their dependency on credit as a means of living beyond their means.

It will be a painful lesson for consumers, but one we’re desperately in need of learning.
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Good Intentions Do Not Always Make for Good Results
Sarah Longwell
Monday, March 01, 2010

Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) is likely to unveil highly-anticipated financial reform legislation in the coming week. This news comes a few days after Republican Senator Bob Corker announced his plan to partner with Dodd on financial reform. Until that point, the two political parties had been unable to see eye-to-eye on this topic. A bi-partisan agreement would likely include stronger government oversight of Wall Street, but not a new financial protection agency for consumers (a sticking point for Senator Corker).

But in their efforts to hammer out a compromise and gird our country against future financial crises, our representatives should be mindful of the history of unintended consequences that resulted from poorly thought-out government financial intervention.

One consequence reared its head late last year, following the passage of the Credit CARD Act of 2009. Among other provisions, this legislation placed limits on the fees that some card providers could charge to their customers, capping them at 25 percent of the card’s total credit line. Fees like this were targeted because they were considerably higher than normal card fees, and sometimes “hidden” in the small print of a card’s agreement.

Congress’ actions may sound reasonable, until you consider that many consumers with poor credit histories relied on these high-fee cards as their only source of credit.

For the majority of Americans who don’t have a spotty credit history, getting a credit line with few fees attached is no big deal. However, for those who have made poor spending decisions in the past, a card provider generally charges a higher up-front fee to compensate for the higher risk that the borrower will skip out on the bill.

But with those fees capped, the card companies have two options: they can stop providing cards to customers with lower credit scores, or they can raise interest rates. One card issuer, called First Premier, chose the latter option: they lowered their annual fee to $75 (from a previous $256), and raised interest rates to an unheard-of 79.9 percent. That’s nearly seven times the APR of an average credit card.

Some news stories blamed First Premier for bilking consumers, but this ire is misdirected. A credit company can’t remain in business long if they’re always lending and never being repaid. Whether it’s through higher fees or higher interest rates, the company has to be compensated for the greater risk of lending to those with poor credit histories. And if well-intentioned legislators decided to cap both fees and rates, companies like First Premier would find themselves out of business – and many Americans would find themselves out of any credit at all.

You can see another example of regulation-run-amok in our storied “laboratories of democracy” across the nation. Many state legislators have voted to limit short-term (or “payday”) lenders, either through an outright ban or through caps on the interest rates the lenders can charge. This industry has no shortage of critics, and new regulations have been popping up all over the country.

But, again, legislators have neglected to consider unintended consequences. “Payday” lenders play an important role for millions of people who may not have access to a traditional line of credit. If, for instance, a prohibitive rate cap forces these lenders out of a state, consumers in need of credit seek funds from riskier sources (e.g. loan sharks) or end up defaulting on their financial obligations. It’s no surprise that a study by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that states that have banned payday lenders – including Georgia and North Carolina – saw an increase in bounced checks and higher rates of bankruptcy.

The moral of the story isn’t that every government regulation is bad; it just means that the world isn’t as cut-and-dried as our political talking points make it out to be. Corruption on Wall Street and spiraling consumer debt are both serious problems that need real solutions. But if policy decisions are based on emotional arguments instead of economic facts, ham-fisted government interventions are more likely to create new problems than to fix the old ones.

GUN CONTROL - Dems are at it again!

Democrats must be watched like a HAWK - they attack our freedoms at every turn...

Iowa Gun Owners E-mail Alert
February 24, 2010
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Dear Members and Friends of Iowa Gun Owners,
Your emails and phone calls into the Capitol have been taking a toll on the anti-gunners in the Capitol as many elected officials have told us. We are writing you now to urge you to stand up for your gun rights again.

The Senate bill that we asked you to oppose last week, Senate File 2357, was brought up on the Senate floor yesterday evening with an amendment being offered. Both the bill and the amendment are overtly hostile to your gun rights. The bill, Senate File 2357 and its Amendment, S-5126 are set to receive a vote as early as this morning!

It is vital that you act today and contact your State Senator and demand that he or she oppose this legislation.

Allow us to briefly review what this legislation would do. If passed this bill would:

* Allow virtually anyone who knows you to apply to the court for a no-contact order - even if no physical contact has ever occurred between the two of you. As condition of this no-contact order you would be required to hand over all of your firearms and ammunition.

* Not require that you even be present at the court hearing. This bill does not even ensure that you have the right to even have legal counsel present or a chance to confront your accusers in a court of law.

* Allow an anti-gun court to decide who is qualified to take possession of your firearms should they decide to take them from you.

* Allow this same court to decide that no one is qualified to take your guns and order the sheriff's department to seize them, and make you pay the sheriff for the right to lose your guns! Yeah, you get to pay the government $50 per gun that they seize from you!

* Declare you a felon, and unable to ever own guns again, if you fail to turn over so much as a single .22 cartridge.

There is more but I am sure you get the idea.

Even as amended this bill is very dangerous. Don't let them fool you by saying 'all we are doing is making Iowa code mirror federal code.' That is not true! Even federal language, as bad as it is on this issue, provides for some standard of due process. The amended version of this bill simply states that 'Upon the issuance of a protective order...the court shall inform the person who is the subject of such order or conviction that the person shall not possess, ship, transport, or receive a firearm..." Just like that, you are done owning firearms. Also, there is no mention, in either the bill or the amendment, of how or if you can get your guns back. The amendment talks about the protective order being lifted but there is no requirement for the state to return your guns to you! This has the appearance of a lifetime gun ban - all because some ex-girlfriend went to the court saying that she is afraid. It is vital that you send out the pre-written email below to your State Senator immediately as the vote could happen at any time.

In addition, Iowa Gun Owners would like to call special attention to State Senator Keith Kreiman (D-47). Senator Kreiman has refused to move the REAL Right-to-Carry bill out of his sub-committee and onto the Floor for a vote all session. He is aggressively opposed to your right to keep and bear arms. Care to guess who is sponsoring the bill we are discussing above? That's right - Senator Keith Kreiman. Sarah Brady of Handgun Control Inc. would certainly be proud of Senator Kreiman.