Health Care crosses the finish line

He finally did it. Mr Obama has achieved his career ambition of passing the first installment of the U.S. Government takeover of the entire American economy. In an effort that began with the nationalization of General Motors and Chrysler and the bailouts of financial institutions that should have been allowed to fail, Mr. Obama can now claim to have his hands on another huge sector of the world's dominant economy: the one sixth of the economy that comprises the health care industry.

While democrats guzzle champagne and munch brie in celebration of their victory “for American families,” we now have to brace ourselves for the imposition of this massive extra-constitutional usurpation of power by the federal government. Thousands of new IRS agents will be hired to enforce the new “Health Care” legislation. They will be thousands of additional agents who will have more authority to intrude into our lives than ever before. Would any of those new agents be democrats? And would any of those new agents have a political impetus to the performance of their duties?

We can be sure that would never happen. No presidential administration would ever take advantage of government power to advance a political agenda, would it? Except maybe the Roosevelt Administration when it tried to pack the Supreme Court in the 1930’s. Oh, and also the Nixon Administration’s extra-legal activities during Watergate era? An enemies list? Does Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck have anything to fear from those new IRS agents? Hardly, the chances of a president abusing his authority for political purposes are too insignificant to consider. Or are they?That sort of thing just doesn’t happen here, does it?

But even if they do not abuse their new-found power, and manage their new duties with fairness and justice paramount in their thinking, what is the probability that the administration of health care in this country will improve as a result of Mr Obama’s victory? Perhaps we could look at the performance of some other federal programs and shed some light on that probability.

What about that old Department of Energy? A quick peek at the DoE reveals an agency that was established by the failing Carter Administration in 1977 to end U.S. dependence on foreign petroleum products following the mid-east oil embargo of earlier in that decade. At its inception, in August 1977, US oil imports totaled 2.4billion barrels per year. Now, 33 years later, the Department of Energy will spend $29 billion this year while not producing a single drop of oil. And for that $29 billion, the nation will still import 3.5 billion barrels of oil, an increase of 45% over the 1977 figure. Hmmm, that’s not working so well.

Well, maybe the War on Poverty is doing better. The program, begun by President Johnson in 1964, had resulted in a poverty rate of 11.1% after its first ten years. Now, 45 years later and after continuing to transfer trillions of US dollars from producers to the indigent, the poverty rate has fallen to 12.6%. Wait a second! We have spent trillions of dollars in the War on Poverty and have more of it now than we did in 1964. We’re losing the War on Poverty. Any good democrat should be calling for the government to cut and run from this war, like they do for all other wars.

Then there is the Postal Service and AMTRAK and Fannie Mae and Ginnie Mac, all of which continue to consume taxpayer money at enormous rates while providing marginal service to the American people.

Even a democrat should be able to look at history and determine that government solutions to social problems do not ever solve the problems they are intended to address. They do, however, inspire the mindless support of millions of beneficiaries of government largess, which is the real motive for Obama Care. The reality is that we have just bought a huge new federal Health Care beaurocracy that, like the energy produced by the Department of Energy, will produce zero health care but will cost trillions of dollars that we do not have.

The trouble is they are quickly killing the golden goose. As Lady Margaret Thatcher once brilliantly uttered, “The trouble with socialism is that pretty soon you run out of other people’s money.”

Campaigners unable to govern

It was hard to find fault with the political instincts of the Obama Campaign during its successful run for the Presidency in 2008. But it seems that actually governing is a bit more difficult than campaigning. Mr. Obama, and those around him in the White House have bungled their first year in office in a manner that may prevent them from ever being effective while they occupy the highest office in the land.

In their headlong lurch to hobble the nation with government health care, the president and his advisors have completely disregarded the one issue of the American people actually want action on, the economy. Instead they have embarked on a single-minded (some might say simple-minded) attempt to force Obama Care through Congress despite the overwhelming opposition of the American people.

Now, one year into the Obama Administration, the economy is terrible, the housing market has crashed, unemployment has reached 10% and the people are becoming enraged at the arrogance of Mr. Obama and his crew. The democrat party is in disarray with many members resigning rather than running for re-election, with those who remain in fear for their electoral chances because of the reckless pursuit of the dream of a (democrat) government takeover of the health care system.

We should be grateful for the incredible ineptitude demonstrated by Mr Obama and his administration in the past year. With a little patience and planning they could have simply run their signature piece of legislation through congress and become law.

The Obama Administration could have started slowly, modestly affecting the change they had promised during the campaign instead of breathlessly leaping off the cliff in an all-or-nothing bid to fundamentally change the American government. They could have acknowledged the crashing economy as the preeminent issue before the American people and taken steps to resurrect it.

What if the Obama crew looked to history and discovered that Presidents Kennedy, Reagan, and George W. Bush had had rousing success in reviving slumping economies through tax cuts. What if the Obama crew had agreed to extend the Bush tax cuts, reduce capital gains taxes to a piddling 10%, and to reduce the corporate income tax to a more reasonable 20% when they first arrived in the White House?

President Obama would have been free to travel the world, bowing and apologizing to any and all the world’s dictators; he could go on taxpayer sponsored dates with his wife to catch a Broadway show; he could go golfing in Hawaii while the incredible American economic engine began to roar once again. He could have sat on the sidelines as businesses felt free to expand, investors flocked back into the market, and the American people went happily back to work.

Then, after a year or so of economic progress and falling unemployment, Mr Obama and his crew would be rightly enjoying the political good will of people happy with their condition and largely indifferent to the usual malfeasance taking place in Washington. In such a condition, Mr Obama could have then introduced his hideous attempt to grab control of the health care system, and with it control of every aspect of our lives. He would have the good will of the people, the willing support of huge majorities in both the House and Senate, and of course the slavish support of the sock puppets in the derelict media. As a result, we would have been looking the other way, as most American were during the Clinton Administration, and would have been saddled with a European-styled Socialist economy for ever.

Then, with his health care takeover safely put to bed, and the American people still hard at work reviving the economy, Mr Obama would have been free to continue his plan to fundamentally change America. Instead, with the economy still in the tank the American people are paying rapt attention to every syllable uttered from Washington. Our attention is focused like a laser on every attempt to substitute government welfare for a little bit more of our freedom.

Mr Obama may yet succeed in ramming this terrible legislation through Congress. But instead of a racing across the finish line like a champion marathon runner breaking the tape with arms outstretched, Mr Obama is more like Jed Clampett coaxing his old jalopy up hill, lurching, sputtering, backfiring, and belching smoke. He may yet make it, but the results will not be pretty.

More importantly, the Obama Administration faces the certainty of landslide electoral defeats in the November congressional election. He will no longer enjoy the overwhelming majorities he now has (and with which he has accomplished nothing). He will have made himself a lame duck in his first year in office.
The Obama Administration is illustrating the difference between campaigning and actually governing.

Go For it Mr. President

President Obama was almost a comedic figure in his attempt to subjugate the Republican delegation to his so-called Health Care Summit on February 25th. The dog and pony show was obviously an attempt to embarrass the Republicans and reinforce Mr Obama’s claim that they are the “Party of No.”

Instead of actually listening to the substantive ideas the Republican delegation, presented in a thoughtful and respectful manner, the President continued to claim that we must act with haste to pass the hideous Senate Health Care Bill. The President, who in normal times would be exceedingly aware of the poll numbers on his favorite issues, continued to call for passage of the Health Care Power Grab despite the overwhelming opposition of the American people. That opposition has been expressed in virtually every poll taken recently.

One little fact that seems to have been neglected by the entire corps of media stenographers slavishly supporting (covering) the Obama Administration is that while Republicans do indeed oppose the ridiculous attempt to take control of the American Health Care system, their numbers are far too small to actually pose any meaningful opposition, let alone actually hold up passage of the measure. The only reason the President has not already signed a Health Care Takeover Bill is that there is not sufficient Democrat support to pass the bill in either chamber of the Congress.

But the President revealed his real objective at the end of the day. After sitting there feigning attention and interest in the input of the Republicans, he made a statement that completely exposed his intentions. Mr. Obama said, “We cannot have another year long debate about this. So the question I’m going to ask myself and I ask of all of you is: is there enough serious effort that in a month’s time or a few weeks’ time or six weeks’ time we could actually resolve something?

“And if we can’t then I think we need to go ahead and make some decisions and then that’s what elections are for. We have honest disagreements about the vision for the country and we’ll go ahead and test those out over the next several months until November.”

It was a naked threat to Republicans and Democrats to pass the Health Care “Reform” or else he would have his minion, the hapless, bumbling Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, ram the bill through the Senate using the reconciliation procedure, a strategy that would by-pass the 60 vote requirement currently used in that body.

But, for once in my life, I find myself in violent agreement with a democrat president. If they attempt to pass this bill using the reconciliation procedure, we will find out in November what elections are for. If they try to pass this bill in opposition to the will of the American people, we may see the end of the democrat party as a viable political entity for many years. If that is the case, I say “Go for it Mr. President, go for it all the way.”

Snowstorm Cancels Global Warming Hearing

NEWS FLASH

The Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works has just cancelled a hearing entitled, "Global Warming Impacts, Including Public Health, in the United States," due to the heavy snowfall in Washington, D.C.

Not laughing anymore

President Barak Obama has enjoyed the fawning attention of an adoring national press corps (not corpse) since being thrust upon the national scene in the 2004 Democrat National Convention. The support for the president continues to this day, despite mounting evidence that his policies are leading the economy of the United States to ruin.

That is as much because the members of the press refuse to accept that they could have been so horribly wrong about the candidate they guided into the White House as it is that they are profoundly ignorant about the subjects they report on.

Still, a story on the Politico website may indicate that the first cracks may have appeared in the castle walls. The Politico story, by Patrick Gavin,
reports that even while unemployment continues to climb, laughter in the White House press briefings is down 50%. The story did not relate who actually keeps such statistics, but reported that the White House press corps averaged 179 bouts of laughter per month during press briefings last summer, but can only muster about 80 such interruptions per month lately. See the Politico story at: http://www.politico.com/click/stories/1002/press_room_laughter_dies_down.html

Admittedly, the Obama White House has suffered some pretty disappointing months since last summer. It has seen its signature Health Care takeover bill utterly rejected by the American people. The rejection was so resounding that the White House could not complete the legislative process on either of the House or Senate bills with overwhelming majorities in both chambers.

The utter failure of the Health Care power grab was complimented by the string of electoral defeats suffered by the democrats in the fall. They lost governor’s seats in Virginia and New Jersey, replacing democrats in both states. However, these losses paled in comparison to the shattering news from the People’s Republic of Massachusetts, where the seat once occupied by the abundant behind of Ted Kennedy was lost to upstart republican state senator Scott Brown.

Add those calamities to staggering increases in federal expeditures, the massive growth of the budget deficits, and the prospect of equally massive tax increases that will be required to fund those deficits, it has not been a banner year for the Obama White House. But is that any reason to alter the hilarity of press briefings? Quoted in Gavin’s story in Politico, Washington Examiner White House correspondent Julie Mason said, “There definitely aren't a lot of laughs around the briefing room these days. Robert's little digs and evasions have lost their power to amuse.”

Of course she was referring to the digs of White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. Mr Gibbs is the former press secretary for the failed presidential bid of Senator John Kerry (D-MA), and the political consultant who has become Mr Obama’s mouthpiece. Unfortunately for Mr Gibbs, even the sycophantic Obama press corps does not seem to be able to crack a smile, given the incredibly inept performance of the hapless Robert Gibbs’ boss in his first year.

The wheels are coming off

A combination of issues ranging from foreign policy to domestic political failures have resulted in the wheels beginning to fall off the Obama Administration’s cart. The once-solid monolith of democrat power, including substantial majorities in the House and Senate and a democrat in the White House has been reduced to a fractured political party whose members are scurrying for political cover.

During his campaign for the White House, candidate Obama promised to fundamentally change America. While most Americans thought he meant that he would change whatever it was about the Bush Administration they themselves did not like, Mr Obama set out to cripple what was left of free market capitalism while instituting a broad socialist redistribution of wealth.

The first chinks in Mr Obama’s armor came during last summer’s discontent with the looming Heath Care takeover. But the building rage of the local town meetings and the budding Tea Party movement were dismissed as the irrelevant ravings of angry white voters upset that a black man was occupying the White House. Clearly, anyone opposing the programs of the new president must be motivated by racism.

Then came the smashing republican victories in the Virginia and New Jersey governor’s races, where conservative candidates handily dismissed democrat candidates, including the incumbent governor of New Jersey. Yet, even these victories were dismissed and explained away as simple aberrations by the relentless Obama sycophants in the American media. Only when a little-known state senator from Massachusetts defeated the democrat machine candidate for the seat once held by Ted Kennedy for more than 40 years did it become clear to anyone with a pulse that a political earthquake was beginning to rumble in Washington.

Following the Brown victory in Massachusetts, Senator James Webb (D-VA), who had voted in favor of the senate’s Health Care bill on Christmas Eve, called for a slowdown in the legislative process. Webb said, “I believe it would only be fair and prudent that we suspend further votes on health care legislation until Senator-elect Brown is seated.”

Senator Mary Landreau, (D-LA), who had been criticized for accepting “the Louisiana Purchase,” a $300 million federal payoff to Louisiana for Medicaid funds purportedly offered by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) in exchange for her vote for the senate health care bill passed in December, 2009, said “The loss in Massachusetts should serve as a wake-up call to the wing of the Democratic Party that wants the federal government to overreach and overspend.”

Recently, Senator Ben Nelson, (D-NE), stated that he will join the republican filibuster of President Obama’s nominee for the National Labor Relations Board, Craig Becker. Senator Nelson had come under fire recently for accepting another payoff from Majority Leader Reid in which the state of Nebraska would be totally compensated for Medicaid costs by the federal government in exchange for his vote in favor of the Senate Heath Care Bill. No other state would have received such a benefit, had the bill been successful.

And now Obama stalwart Senator Chuck Shumer, (D-NY), has joined a chorus of others and called for the president to cancel plans for the trial of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed in Federal District Court in New York City. This comes amid news stories indicating that even Shumer’s seat as the senior senator from New York could be in jeopardy in the 2010 elections.

But in a reversal to top all others, the Obama Girl, Amber Lee Ettinger, the 28 year old who portrayed Mr Obama biggest fan in a series of online videos that brought her instant fame during the 2008 election campaign, has lost some of her infatuation with the new president. "I'm not turning my back completely on him," Ettinger told reporters. "People might be saying that, but I gave him B-minus.”

With a rogue regime on the verge of developing nuclear capability in Iran, continuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, new terror camps springing up all over Yemen, and a rapidly failing domestic political agenda, how can the Obama Administration come back from the loss of support from the Obama Girl? The monolith is cracking and beginning to fall apart. Democrat politicians are polishing their resumes and wondering what their next career will be like once the voters go to the polls this November. We are witnessing a political failure so complete that it begins to take the breath away. This president cannot pass a single piece of his legislative agenda, despite overwhelming majorities in both houses of the congress.

With members of his own party defecting from the ideological monolith that once was the Obama-Congressional alliance, can it be very long before the members of the somnolent American Media start falling by the wayside. One by one, they could begin come around to actually doing their jobs once again. Once a few of the stalwarts leave the fold, it could become a landslide of disinterested journalists once again going to work.

Mr Obama is a product of the media. They made him a legitimate candidate for the most powerful elective office in the world, despite a paucity of qualifications that would have instantly disqualified anyone else. If he loses the press, and they actually begin reporting the facts behind the Obama Administration’s programs and intentions, they could break him as easily. So far, however, they continue to carry Mr Obama’s water, while yawning at the impending disaster.

Get your feet off the furniture, Mr President

The gang of juvenile delinquents now managing the nation’s business from the White House has come up with yet another offense to the sensibilities of the American people. Another photograph has appeared depicting President Obama reclining in his chair with his feet up on the “Resolute” desk in the Oval Office, attended by his senior advisors.

Mr. Obama has already been criticized by reporters (from Israel, certainly not from any American reporter) for a photograph of him in a similar posture while speaking on the phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Israeli press took great offense at the gesture, as showing the soles of the feet is considered offensive in much of the world, but especially in the Middle East.

But the recent picture indicates that this posture is the way Mr Obama conducts business in the Oval Office. Everyone knows the stories about Mr Clinton’s frolics with interns while conducting business in the Oval Office. While this level of informality appears to be fairly normal for recent democrat presidents, it is hard to imagine George W. Bush conducting any business in the Oval Office in such a manner. It has been said that Mr Bush never did any business in that office without a suit jacket. (Of course, as soon as that was reported, the Huffington Post found a picture of Mr. Bush chatting with an aide in shirt sleeves, calling for his immediate impeachment).

There is something decidedly un-presidential about Mr Obama conducting business in that office in that posture. The least he could do might be to shun photographers when posed in such an un-presidential posture. Then again, that might be the supreme sacrifice for an un-abashed narcissist like Mr. Obama.

Most of us have had the benefit of parents who spent a great deal of time and energy in instructing us not to place our feet upon the furniture of our homes. If I had assumed such a pose with my feet on the dining room table in my father’s house, I would have found myself escorted to the door with the admonition to remain away until I learned some manners. Perhaps Mr Obama did not have the benefit of parental guidance.

But what is the big deal about the president having his feet on a desk? Is it just a desk, or is it something more. The “Resolute” desk is a piece of furniture made from the best wood taken from the English warship HMS Resolute and presented to the President of the United States, Rutherford B. Hayes, in 1880. The HMS Resolute had been on an expedition in the arctic when it became ice-bound in 1854. The crew was removed in another vessel and the HMS Resolute abandoned.

In September, 1855, the HMS Resolute was found by an American whaler, the George Henry, and returned to the United States. The US government purchased the derelict ship and refitted it prior to returning it to the United Kingdom as a gift and gesture of friendship between the two nations. After serving the Royal Navy for several additional decades, the HMS Resolute left service and was broken up in 1879. But, remembering the gesture of the United States, Queen Victoria ordered an ornate desk be constructed from the best beams taken from the warship and sent to the President of the United States as a gift from the people of the United Kingdom.

The desk has been part of the White House furniture ever since. It is the desk in the famous picture of John F. Kennedy with his son, John Jr, peeking out of the cutout beneath the desk.

Mr Obama’s regard for the office of the presidency of the United States seems to be similar to his regard for the furniture in the Oval Office. He has trampled all over the Constitution he has sworn to defend and protect. He has disregarded that document’s legitimate limitations on his powers. He has begun acquiring ownership of previously private corporations that have been subject of his bailouts. He has castigated “special interests,” “Wall Street,” as well as insurance companies and banks, while rewarding his favored special interests of labor unions and trial lawyers. He has continued to push his favored Obama-care version of government health care, despite the overwhelming dissatisfaction of the American people.

Perhaps we were better off when democrat presidents were dishonoring the Oval Office simply by having sex with interns there.