The Watcher's Council Forum: Is America In Decline? Why Or Why Not?

Each week, the Watcher's Council hosts a forum, in addition to holding a weekly contest for best posts among the members of the Council. I have been kindly invited to respond to this week's question. Update: The forum is up, with several different answers to the question, all worth your read.

It is beyond question that our nation is in decline. We stand mired in historic levels of debt, yet massive deficit spending by Congress continues unabated. Regulations are being pumped out by unelected bureaucrats at record pace, working fundamental changes to our nation that could never pass Congress. Yet Congress sits by and the odd Congresscritter only occasionally impotently complains in speeches. Medicare and Social Security threaten to bankrupt our nation in the foreseeable future unless reformed, yet Congress does not just nothing, but manages to compound the problems with Obamacare. We have a tyrannical President who unconstitutionally threatens our country's make up by unilaterally legislating the legalization of millions of illegal aliens, while an utterly supine Congress with the sole Constitutional authority to legislate is allowing this to happen. It appears that elections for either party no longer matter to change our national trajectory.

Our Supreme Court today sits as a sort of unelected Politburo deciding that the Constitution means whatever five of them want it to mean based on their whim of the day. What was supposed to be the least dangerous of our co-equal branches of government is now arguably the most dangerous. The left is using our military as a laboratory for insane social experiments, the worst being to allow women into front line combat units, something that can only be accomplished in any number by lowering the physical standards. And that does not even begin to consider the impact on unit cohesion. Space exploration as well as virtually everything to do with space is without doubt of incredible importance to our future. Moreover, it is vital that we continue to develop space defense technology to protect our many satellites upon which modern life is dependant. Space technology is an area where we have still a distinct advantage, yet Obama has killed our nation's space program. Lastly, our national security posture hasn't been this bad since the 1930's.

I think it would be fair to say we are not merely in decline, but rapidly approaching key tests during our descent that will determine our future. It is hard to say which will be the first key test, whether it will come in the form of severe economic stress as the interest rates rise on our outrageous national debt, or whether it will come in the choking of our economy by ever more far reaching regulations by the EPA and FCC, or whether it will come from foreign countries energized by our growing weakness. The only sure lesson of history is that the tests will come.

Our nation has proven resilient in the past, but in the past, we've been much better positioned to respond to challenges. In the past hundred years, we've faced the Depression and come through. But that was at a time when our massive excess industrial capacity sat untapped and we started from a point with no major deficits. We faced WWII and came through. But that was at a time when the other allied nations had strong militaries of their own, not the empty shells that they now have. We faced down the Soviet Union, but that was at a time when our military was at the pinnacle of its strength, not now when Obama has starved our military for funding, going so far as to change our national security posture from being able to fight two simultaneous wars to one. That was a change not based on any threat assessment, but rather a desire to divert the savings to his various welfare programs. And he has likewise overseen the devolution of our nuclear capacity -- something that has maintained the peace in Europe for 75 years -- because of his insane, utopian vision of a world without nuclear weapons. Somebody, please inform the North Koreans, the Iranians, and the other Middle Eastern nations now initiating their own nuclear weapons programs.

Bookworm Room has added her own cogent thoughts to this list above. To paraphrase, in the past, when challenges faced our nation, we had a fundamental love of country to join us. Our immigrants once came for the freedom to seek wealth. Yet today, "our immigrants come for handouts that they then wire to the tyrannies back home." And worst of all:

Our young people once thought that we brought freedom to the world; our young people now believe that we are evil. When a nation's young people think that they and their country are unworthy, the ink is on the suicide pact. And when they've been trained to think of themselves as fragile victims, you can bet that the first drop of blood spilled will seal that pact.

It is hard for me to believe that America will retain a dominant position in the world beyond another decade or so. Perhaps this would not matter if America was intrinsically evil as the left seems to think, or if those who would replace us were benign. The reality is that no nation is strong enough to take our place at the moment, and those who will vie for influence do not have a history of rule by law or democracy. Nor do I believe there is any leader we could elect in 2016 that could restore the Constitutional systems that have allowed us to flourish for much of the past two centuries.

That said, perhaps in response to the key tests and trials foreseeable on our national horizon, things might change. My pessimism is moderated by the reality that history has few straight lines, and great nations have rarely gone gentle into that good night. But my pessimism is made worse by the knowledge that, with key tests and trials come great costs in gold and in blood. The question is not whether America is in decline, but how low we must fall before we even begin to recover, and at what cost?

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An Adult Conversation On Medicare?

This ad really sums up everything about the left's style of argument. One, it is a complete lie as, under Ryan's plan, senior's Medicare would remain untouched. Two, it is designed to appeal wholly to emotion rather than make any sort of intellectually honest argument. Three, it is designed to demonize the right for making any sort of serous effort to reform Medicare. When the left calls for an adult conversation, what they are really asking is that the right shut up and not push back against their scurrilous attacks. They could care less about anything other than gaining political power, whatever the cost to our nation. Worthless scum.

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Stopping The Tsunami Of Obamacare

On his first day as Speaker of the House, John Boehner received a letter from the CBO stating that "repealing health care reform will add $230 billion to the deficit over the next decade, leave 32 million fewer people with insurance and lead to higher costs for those who are covered." That was both a smart tactical ploy by the left and an utterly contemptible falsehood.

Responding to the left's disingenuous arguments, Charles Krauthammer weighs in today, explaining in a few short paragraphs the massive fraud of Obamacare:

Suppose someone - say, the president of United States - proposed the following: We are drowning in debt. More than $14 trillion right now. I've got a great idea for deficit reduction. It will yield a savings of $230 billion over the next 10 years: We increase spending by $540 billion while we increase taxes by $770 billion.

He'd be laughed out of town. And yet, this is precisely what the Democrats are claiming as a virtue of Obamacare. During the debate over Republican attempts to repeal it, one of the Democrats' major talking points has been that Obamacare reduces the deficit - and therefore repeal raises it - by $230 billion. Why, the Congressional Budget Office says exactly that.

Very true. And very convincing. Until you realize where that number comes from. Explains CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf in his "preliminary analysis of H.R. 2" (the Republican health-care repeal): "CBO anticipates that enacting H.R. 2 would probably yield, for the 2012-2021 period, a reduction in revenues in the neighborhood of $770 billion and a reduction in outlays in the vicinity of $540 billion."

As National Affairs editor Yuval Levin pointed out when mining this remarkable nugget, this is a hell of a way to do deficit reduction: a radical increase in spending, topped by an even more radical increase in taxes.

Of course, the very numbers that yield this $230 billion "deficit reduction" are phony to begin with. The CBO is required to accept every assumption, promise (of future spending cuts, for example) and chronological gimmick that Congress gives it. All the CBO then does is perform the calculation and spit out the result.

In fact, the whole Obamacare bill was gamed to produce a favorable CBO number. Most glaringly, the entitlement it creates - government-subsidized health insurance for 32 million Americans - doesn't kick in until 2014. That was deliberately designed so any projection for this decade would cover only six years of expenditures - while that same 10-year projection would capture 10 years of revenue. With 10 years of money inflow vs. six years of outflow, the result is a positive - i.e., deficit-reducing - number. Surprise.

If you think that's audacious, consider this: Obamacare does not create just one new entitlement (health insurance for everyone); it actually creates a second - long-term care insurance. With an aging population, and with long-term care becoming extraordinarily expensive, this promises to be the biggest budget buster in the history of the welfare state.

And yet, in the CBO calculation, this new entitlement to long-term care reduces the deficit over the next 10 years. By $70 billion, no less. How is this possible? By collecting premiums now, and paying out no benefits for the first 10 years. Presto: a (temporary) surplus. As former CBO director Douglas Holtz-Eakin and scholars Joseph Antos and James Capretta note, "Only in Washington could the creation of a reckless entitlement program be used as 'offset' to grease the way for another entitlement." I would note additionally that only in Washington could such a neat little swindle be titled the "CLASS Act" (for the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports Act).

That a health-care reform law of such enormous size and consequence, revolutionizing one-sixth of the U.S. economy, could be sold on such flimflammery is astonishing, even by Washington standards. . . .

(H/T Prarie Pundit)

And here was Paul Ryan making the same points on the House floor the other day, prior to the vote to repeal Obamacare:



(H/T Nice Deb)

At the WSJ several days ago, a former CBO Director and two former CBO Assistant Directors explained in some detail how and why the CBO came op with the numbers it did. The short version, false numbers in, false numbers out.

The left is now in an all-out push to protect Obamacare, willing to use the most ridiculous and scurrilous of lies to shape public opinion.

Rep. Steve Cohen equates Republicans with Nazis for their "lies" in support of repealing Obamacare. He gives no specifics, but then again, no specifics are required for left wing argument, just demonization.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee tells us that repealing Obamacare will "kill" people, and in particular, directs her arguments towards seniors, all of whom are actually covered by Medicare, the program raped to provide funding for Obamacare.

(/sarcasm on) Noted Constitutional scholars (/sarcasm off) Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee and Rep. John Lewis, between only a few working brain cells, tell us that to repeal Obamacare would be unconstitutional.

The left, in passing the nightmare for our country that is Obamacare, made the wildly ridiculous argument that Obamacare would create jobs. Well, the massive regulations will create more government jobs, but the regulations themselves would inevitably cost exponentially far more jobs in the private sector as the costs of compliance take hold. Apparently some on the left don't quite understand economics or much about the private sector, so when Eugene Robinson, appearing on MSNBC, called on Obama to now defend Obamacare by explaining to America how it would be a boon to employment, Rachel Maddow quickly switched him off that line of argument.

At any rate, expect to be inundated with emotion-heavy, fact-lite arguments from the left on Obamacare for the next two years. The single most important thing that Republicans can do is call the CBO Director in for hearings, have him explain both how the books are cooked on Obamacare and how the numbers change when the smoke and mirrors are removed. Then at the end of the hearing, the Republicans need to package it into a neat little sound bite summary, appropriate for use in one or two minute ads ripping the left for being dishonest and wildly reckless with Obamacare and our economy.

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Can I Have The BS On Rye, Hold The Mayo?

If you have never been over to visit Afrocity's blog at Augographed Letter Signed, you really ought to treat yourself. She describes herself as an "archivist, bibliophile, adjunct professor and historian" as well as "a 30 something professional who had been a “Good African American Democrat ” all of my life until the election of 2008." She only posts once a week on Sundays, but her essays are always thought provoking and, when dealing with issues in her personal life, invariably poignant. She is as interesting and as complex a person as you will meet on the internet.

Afrocity's post this week, Bullshit, It's Not Just For Republicans Anymore. Here is a snippet:

. . . But understand that bullshit is an acquired taste. That is to say, if someone feeds you crap election year in and election year out, you only know… well…crap. You become accustomed to the broken promises and pointing fingers game. You accept your permanent place in the war of America’s needy versus America’s greedy. Despite your inner brilliance- your wiser conscious plea to ask questions and get real answers, you continue to eat the plate of bullshit set before you. Some like myself ate with small spoonfuls -drinking huge glasses of water between each swallow. Others like my mother and most Obama supporters put the feedbag on with gusto.

The day I woke up and took a much needed shower, was the day the bullshit became not a meal for my liberal friends but something to throw at me.

Friend: Afrocity how can you turn your back on everything the Democrats have done for black people”

Afrocity: Like………….

You see Afrocity does not play the bullshit game anymore. Give the donkeys their breast cancer hued pink slip.

Heh. I really do like this woman. Do pay her a visit. And do read her post in conjunction with the post below, "Pre-Revolutionary America." It would seem that America as a whole is running out of patience with the bullshit.

Examples of bullshit being doled by the current administration out are everywhere. There is Obama's jobs saved or created canard. There is Obama's fiction that he is controlling our borders better than previous administrations - something with which virtually the entire membership of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office apparently disagrees. There is a gay federal judge ruling that seven million Californians were bigoted and irrational when they voted against gay marriage. And then there is the massive, potentially economy busting fiction that Obamacare is going to lower the cost of our entitlements. The Chief Actuary of Medicare has refused to sign onto the fiction. This from Q&O:

You remember last week when the supposed “good news” was released – Social Security wasn’t in as dire shape as we’d been told and Medicare was going to be fine too? Yeah, since ObamaCare passed and the doc fix was sure to be implemented, not to mention the half trillion in cuts to Medicare, why we were on the road not only to solvency but to deficit reduction.

And the yearly bit of political theater played out as planned:

The normal process with the annual Trustees’ Reports is for the Trustees to develop and publish the best available projections for the future finances of Social Security and Medicare. The respective Social Security and Medicare actuaries then sign a pro forma blessing of those projections, which is tacked to the back of the report when released to the public.

“Pro forma” is the key. Usually, whether they believe the rosy projections or not, their signatures appear on the report.

But this year, one of them just couldn’t do it in good conscience. The Medicare Chief Actuary just couldn’t sign his name to the fiction without adding a memo of his own.

The actuary’s alternative memo explains that “the projections in the report do not represent the ‘best estimate’ of actual future Medicare expenditures.” Worse than that, they are not even in the ballpark of reasonability. The official 2010 Trustees’ Report tells us that total Medicare expenses will be total 6.37% of GDP by 2080. The CMS actuary’s alternative memorandum explains that 10.70% of GDP is a more reasonable estimate for that year – though one that is roughly 68% higher.

The two reasons the actuary cites are the “doc fix” – a formula the actuary describes as "clearly unworkable and almost certain to be overridden by Congress” (both the Obama administration and leaders in Congress are on record opposing them – yet there they are in the report on the “plus” side of the ledger).

The other assumption the actuary dismisses as unrealistic is the assumption that future program cost will be contained by “downward adjustments in annual price updates reflecting in turn the assumption that health service productivity growth will parallel “economy-wide productivity.” The actuary flatly states there is no evidence to support this assumption and, on the contrary, much to call it deeply into question.

E21 notes:

This is a key point; the glowingly optimistic projections in the official Trustees’ Report assume that we as a nation will be content to have 40% of our medical facilities go under within the next 40 years, and that we will happily accept these severe constraints upon beneficiaries’ access to health care. If that is not in fact the societal will after the enactment of health care reform, then the official cost estimates should be tossed into the nearest receptacle.

Bad though all of this is, none of it is actually the worst gimmick in the official report’s advertised improvement in Medicare solvency. That involves the double-counting of Medicare savings. Earlier this year, Congress passed a health care bill containing various new Medicare taxes and constraints on program expenditures. Such savings are assumed in the official report to extend the solvency of Medicare. But Congress chose instead to spend the savings on a new health care entitlement.

Do read the entire post.

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Thug Throws Constitution & Transparency To The Wind Yet Again, Republicans Almost Respond

Obama's latest - a recess appointment of Dr. Donald Berwick to run Medicare and Medicaid. Do you think there might be a reason to vet this doctor on how he intends to run those organizations? Listen for yourself.



Once again, Obama has appointed a radical left wing ideologue to a position of significant importance to our country. Moreover, Obama completely bypassed Constitutionaly mandated hearings to do so by recess appointment. Obama justified his recess appointment of this doctor in a speech yesterday on the grounds of Republican obstructionism:

"It's unfortunate that at a time when our nation is facing enormous challenges, many in Congress have decided to delay critical nominations for political purposes. . . These recess appointments will allow three extremely qualified candidates to get to work on behalf of the American people right away."

This should have brought all Republicans running out of the woodwork to set the record straight in no uncertain terms. It did not.

The Constituion provides, at Art. II, Sec. II that the President "shall have Power . . . [to] nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint . . . all . . . Officers of the United States . . ." The Constitution further provides that the "President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session." This power to make recess appointments was important prior to the era of mass transportation as Congress could be out of session for months at a time. Today, it seemingly exists to act as an end run around Congress. The most controversial use of the authority during the Bush Administration was Bush's appointment of John Bolton as UN ambassador. But even that appointment occurred only after Senate hearings.

What our Thug In Chief has done is skip the entire process of having hearings, let alone seeking the advice and consent of the Senate. The reason he did so had nothing at all to do with Republican obstructionism. This from ABC correspondent Jake Tapper:

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., echoed the president's suggestion, saying that “Republican lockstep stalling of Don’s nomination was a case study in cynicism and one awful example of how not to govern.”

But Republicans were not delaying or stalling Berwick’s nomination.

Indeed, they were eager for his hearing, hoping to assail Berwick’s past statements about health care rationing and his praise for the British health care system.

“The nomination hasn’t been held up by Republicans in Congress and to say otherwise is misleading,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, which would have held Berwick’s hearing.

Ummm, no, Sen. Grassley, it is not "misleading." It is a "damned bald faced lie to the American people, not to mention a cynical abuse of the power of recess appointments." Do please get your terminology correct as it is important that Americans understand precisely what is occurring. To continue from Mr. Tapper:

Grassley said that he “requested that a hearing take place two weeks ago, before this recess.”

Berwick’s nomination was sent to the Senate in April, and his hearing had not been scheduled because he was participating in the “standard vetting process,” a Democratic aide on the Senate Finance Committee told ABC News.

But speaking not for attribution, Democratic officials say that neither Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., nor Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., the chair of the Senate Finance Committee, were eager for an ugly confirmation fight four months before the midterm elections. . . .

And there you have it. Our Thug In Chief and his fellow Congressional thugs did not want to have unpleasant questions asked of Dr. Berwick or about Obamacare. That is not Republican obstructionism. That is not remotely a legitimate use of the recess appointment authority. It is an incredibly cynical end run around Congress justified on a gross, bald faced lie to America.

Besides Sen. Grassley, responses to Obama's thuggery have come from Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnel and Democratic Senator Max Baucus:

Echoing Republicans, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) on Wednesday blasted the Obama administration for sidestepping Congress to install Donald Berwick atop the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

"Senate confirmation of presidential appointees is an essential process prescribed by the Constitution that serves as a check on executive power and protects Montanans and all Americans by ensuring that crucial questions are asked of the nominee — and answered," Baucus said in a statement.

Berwick had not been vetted by the Finance panel, nor had Baucus scheduled a hearing to examine the nominee.

Baucus's office did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday. Baucus is the first Democrat to criticize the recess appointment, which Republicans have blasted.

“As if shoving a trillion-dollar government takeover of healthcare down the throat of a disapproving American public wasn't enough, apparently the Obama administration intends to arrogantly circumvent the American people yet again by recess-appointing one of the most prominent advocates of rationed healthcare to implement their national plan," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said in a statement.

McConnell criticized Democrats for not holding a confirmation hearing for Berwick, and suggested the party was trying to avoid tough questions about the healthcare reform law.

"Democrats haven't scheduled so much as a committee hearing for Donald Berwick, but the mere possibility of allowing the American people the opportunity to hear what he intends to do with their healthcare is evidently reason enough for this administration to sneak him through without public scrutiny." . . .

Our Congressional Republicans simply don't understand how to communicate. Honesty and emotion - so long as it is justifiable and honest - are key to effective communications. While you should never overstate your case, understating is equally as harmful. So while McConnel's response is factually accurate, it lacks both the simple honesty and emotion to make it memorable and newsworthy. What should have happened is that McConnel, Grassley, and all Congressional Republicans should have held a news conference where their spokesman, with anger and contempt dripping from each word, should have said that "Obama is lying to America and he is a thug who is shredding the Constitution." Then an explanation should have followed.

I understand the desire to be tactful and respectful of the President. But respect is earned - and if there is a single Republican in office who, at this point, thinks that Obama has done anything worthy of their respect, they have to be drunk or on medication. If Obama is obviously lying to America - as he is in this case - then he must be called out on it in no uncertain terms. Likewise, if he is abusing his power - as he is in this case - that also must be made clear to America. Otherwise Obama controls the narrative and, as Lincoln famously said, "you can fool all of the people some of the time." There is no excuse for Obama fooling anyone on these facts.

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Obama Leads The Progressive Left Across The Rubicon (Updated)

Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

Sir Winston Churchill, Speech in November 1942

President Obama has crossed the Rubicon with the health care vote. The bill was not really about medicine; after all, a moderately priced, relatively small federal program could offer the poorer not now insured, presently not on Medicare or state programs like Medicaid or Medical, a basic medical plan.

We have no interest in stopping trial lawyers from milking the system for billions. And we don’t want to address in any meaningful way the individual’s responsibility in some cases (drink, drugs, violence, dangerous sex, bad diet, sloth, etc.) for costly and chronic health procedures.

No, instead, the bill was about assuming a massive portion of the private sector, hiring tens of thousands of loyal, compliant new employees, staffing new departments with new technocrats, and feeling wonderful that we “are leveling the playing field” and have achieved another Civil Rights landmark law . . .

Victor Davis Hanson, We've Crossed The Rubicon, PJM, 21 March, 2010

On Saturday night, we were a nation in deep trouble. We had a national debt of $12,676,374,186,522.00 - and were hemorrhaging billions in red ink daily. Unemployment/underemployment was well over 16% and was not forecast to get better during the coming year. We were still in the midst of the worst recession in our nation since the Great Depression - a recession itself brought on by Democrat social engineering of lending standards and a massive market distortion caused by Fannie and Freddie. (Update: The WSJ reports today that personal incomes contracted in the past year) Social Security, run as a ponzi scheme by a rapacious Congress for years and protected at all costs by Democrats, faced a huge problem of solvency (Update: with the insolvency starting this year) - dwarfed only by the massive unfunded liabilities looming in Medicare/Medicaid. And our ability to borrow to finance Obama's world record spending spree was rapidly deteriorating. Not only was our AAA rating for government securities in danger, but the market had already weighed in. "Two-year notes sold by the . . . Berkshire Hathaway Inc. in February yield 3.5 basis points less than Treasuries of similar maturity." Indeed, so serious are our economic woes that the "latest Fox News poll finds that 79 percent of voters think it’s possible the economy could collapse, including large majorities of Democrats (72 percent), Republicans (84 percent) and independents (80 percent)." Moreover, the same poll finds that three times as many individuals, some 64%, see our national debt as a greater threat to our nation than terrorism. In short, we were, on Saturday night, in a very bad situation. And then, Sunday night, Obama and the progressive left managed to make a bad situation exponentially worse.

On Sunday night, the progressive pulled out all of the stops to pass Obamacare, taking over, directly and indirectly, one sixth of our economy (voting roll here). Instead of addressing the looming disaster of Social Security and Medicare - indeed, instead of addressing unemployment and an economy in deep distress - Obama added on top of our failing entitlement programs the biggest entitlement program of them all. And Obamacare comes replete with massive new taxes, including taxes on investment income, unfunded state mandates that will mean higher state taxes, and the assurance of skyrocketing insurance premiums. As to our national debt, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former head of the CBO, explained the massive additions to our debt that we can expect as a result of this bill's passage.

The IRS will now expand massively as the designated arm of the state to enforce Obamacare. They will shortly begin hiring the 16,000 new agents needed to enforce the mandatory purchase of health insurance by all Americans. Over one hundred new bureaucratic offices are about to be created, all to oversee our Obamacare. As summed up by NRO, the vote last night “will increase taxes, increase premiums, and increase debt, while decreasing economic growth, job growth, and the quality of health care.” And the people are not fooled. When polled by CBS as to whether the health care plan pushed by Obama and the left was motivated by political concerns or actual concerns with health care - the majority, and even a majority of Democrats, 57%, answered that it was motivated by politics.

It is not enough to now simply say that our government runs our health care system. To give full credit where it is due, the Democrats now own it. Let's never let anyone forget that salient fact.

It looked for awhile like Bart Stupak and a handful of pro-life Democrats might hold out against language in the Senate bill that was so crafted as to allow for federal financing of abortions. Ultimately, Stupak caved in under intense pressure and with the promise that Obama would sign an executive order directing that no financing would go for abortions. An executive order does not trump the plain language of Congressional legislation. Indeed, a Court interpreting the law would likely only acknowledge the executive order in a footnote to its decision, if at all. You can bet your bottom dollar that, when the mandates become operative in a few years, there will be a law suit forcing the issue - and a court with any intellectual integrity will require that the government provide federal funding of abortion. The reality is that federal funding of abortion through Obamacare is now virtually inevitable.

Obama stated in remarks after the vote:

This is what change looks like. . . . We proved that this government — a government of the people and by the people — still works for the people.

Is Orwell now Obama's speechwriter? Health care played no role in causing our economic downturn - yet Obama pretended that it was at the heart of the problem. The plan designed by the progressive left does nothing to bend down the inflation of health care costs - yet it was sold on the basis of sound fiscal policy (Update: James Pethokoukis of Reuters no less calls it Faith Based Deficit Reduction; see also the post above, wherein Krauthammer forecasts an Obama attempt to impose a regressive VAT tax in order to fund Obamacare). Not a single poll showed that a majority of the people wanted this monstrosity - yet Obama claims a popular mandate. This was not a bill passed on its merits - it was progressive sausage made with toxic, backroom deals. All that last night proved was that the progressive left are power hungry statists willing to say and do anything in order to amass power. This is not a government that works for the people - it's a political elite that wants to control the people and punish wealth creation.

Megan McArdle, herself a throwback to old times - an intellectually honest, if a bit misguided, Democrat - summed up her thoughts at the Atlantic:

What I hope is that the Democrats take a beating at the ballot box and rethink their contempt for those mouth-breathing illiterates in the electorate. I hope Obama gets his wish to be a one-term president who passed health care. Not because I think I will like his opponent--I very much doubt that I will support much of anything Obama's opponent says. But because politicians shouldn't feel that the best route to electoral success is to lie to the voters, and then ignore them.

As Bill Kristol points out, this is by no means over, even now. Republicans are planning a series of parliamentary procedural moves that may yet impact final passage of proposed changes to the bill. But the real challenge lays in the upcoming elections. "[W]hat Republicans have to do is to make the 2010 and the 2012 elections referenda on Obamacare, win those elections, and then repeal Obamacare." Truer words were never spoken.

James Fallows, on the other hand, writing at the Atlantic thinks that "this will not seem anywhere near as poisonous seven months from now as it does today." He is living in a dream world if he thinks, after the election of Brown to Kennedy's seat in blue Mass., after the birth of the Tea Party movement so maligned out of fear by the left, this will all blow over. At the Politico, they speculate as to which Democrat seats are now in danger as a result of their vote last night on health care. No need to speculate. The answer is every damn one of them.

Even John McCain has put the left on notice that they should not expect any cooperation in Congress from the right after their actions of the past year:

"There will be no cooperation for the rest of the year," McCain said during an interview Monday on an Arizona radio affiliate. "They have poisoned the well in what they've done and how they've done it."

No, they didn't just poison the well, they urinated in it. And we really should go one further than McCain. If you hear anyone mention the word "bipartisan" again, in any suggesting that the Republicans should cooperate with the Obama administration, the only appropriate response is a swift and powerful kick to the groin. Repeat as necessary until the person expressing this obscenity has undergone a complete and permanent attitude adjustment.

While it will be several years before the full weight of Obamacare will be felt, some of the provisions, including ones directly attacking the health insurance industry, kick in immediately. One is a change to the acceptable ratio of payments to benefits that has long been the health insurance industry standard. The health care plan signed into law changes the acceptable ratio from 65/35 to to 85/15. In a stroke, Obama has destroyed the ability of health insurance companies to pay overhead, salaries and make a modicum of profit. In addition, the new health care bill includes a 40% rise in taxes on health insurance companies - which also must be paid from the 15. The net effect of this war on our health insurance industry will be a massive increase in premiums next January, when most plans renew, and a massive contraction of the health insurance industry as many, if not all, medium and small insurers, are forced from the market. This from a transcript of Rush Limbaugh's show on Tuesday, wherein a health insurance employee highlighted the impact of the newly passed bill:

. . .

CALLER: Okay. For time immemorial, both state and federal regulation -- and also just the industry standard -- has been a 65-45 percentage arrangement: 65 in claims payment and 45 for administration and claims expense. Withholding that you store for, you know, a major catastrophe or something.

RUSH: This is to pay your claims?

CALLER: No, 65% is to pay the claims. Thirty-five percent is for everything else.

RUSH: That means 35% is salaries, administration costs, and the offices, all the paperwork, that kind of thing?

CALLER: It's that as well as, you know, we are required to keep a certain amount of cash on hand as a percentage of our claims exposure to pay claims. . . .

RUSH: Now, I just want to make sure I understand here. State and federal regulations set those percentages?

CALLER: State and federal regulations, yes.

RUSH: So if you wanted to have 85% set aside for claims, you couldn't. You had to go at 65%?

CALLER: Exactly.

RUSH: If you wanted 30% set aside for claims and the rest were administration, you couldn't do it. It had to be 65%.

CALLER: That's illegal, yes. It has to be 65-35, and there's a couple of percentage either way, but generally when an insurance company falls outside of those guidelines, they are considered financially unstable.

RUSH: Well, who audits you all to make sure you are within the ratio?

CALLER: We're audited by the state insurance departments, primarily. There are some plans that are audited both state and federally, and then you have your private auditors who will come in as part of the stock market and that kind of thing. So we're audited often.
. . .
CALLER: . . . So what Obama just did an hour and a half ago is make every insurance company in the country financially unstable. Remember, the 15% that we are left has not only to pay salaries, maintenance, upkeep of buildings; it also has to pay the 40% increased taxes that we've got. I mean, there's just no way. You can't do it.

RUSH: Well, you're getting a little bit ahead of me here. What did Obama sign that changes this 65-45 split? In what way did Obama now sign you into permanent instability?

CALLER: The provision in the Senate bill requires that all insurance companies pay 85% of premiums collected every year in claims.

RUSH: So the 65 is now 85?

CALLER: Exactly. It doesn't matter how much we increase the premium, it won't matter.

. . .

Rush: . . . You originally thought that your industry would survive. You're speaking industry or just your particular company?

CALLER: I would say 99% of all insurance companies, health insurance companies in the country.

RUSH: Okay. So you originally thought you might have three to five years to stay in business under Obama. Now you said it's two to three. Why?

CALLER: Because of the 85-15. Plus the additional expenses were going to incur. Additionally, the mandates, what people don't understand when CMS (which is the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare) push a mandate down on insurance companies, we have to pay to complement those mandates. We don't know how many of those are in this monstrosity. So we can have our mandate budget doubled, our taxes already up 40% or whatever it is, and our cash flow immediately cut.

RUSH: Well, how can you know in advance of paying any claims? Because they've now shifted to 65% that you have to set aside for claims to 85%. How in the world can anybody know in advance of paying claims that it's going to amount to 85%?

CALLER: Well --

RUSH: Of course 65%? It seems to be like this is a ridiculous dictate made by people that have no clue how your business works.

CALLER: Well, they don't have a clue. But the way that that amount of money is calculated is you look at the past year, past five years, past ten years, and you see what your claims expense have been those years. Then based on your enrollment and your demographics you project forward into what you expect to be paying in the future, in the next year and the next five years. So you can do that. It's not precise to a dollar, but you usually get pretty close. What he's done is by saying, for example, the preventative services now --

RUSH: Those are free. Those are, quote, unquote, "free."

CALLER: Yeah, exactly.

RUSH: What the hell is a preventative service covered by an insurance company anyway?

CALLER: Well, that would be your colonoscopies, your mammograms, your yearly physicals, your lab work.

RUSH: Oh, so those are free now! So if I want to go get a colonoscopy today and I have an insurance policy, I'm not going to pay for it?

CALLER: Exactly.

RUSH: But you will.

CALLER: Well, we will. We'll pay out the nose for it.

RUSH: (laughing) Well...

CALLER: I know, bad analogy. I'm sorry.

RUSH: It is Christmas!

CALLER: But, Rush --

RUSH: Well, no, I don't look at a colonoscopy as Christmas. Don't misunderstand. . . . But it is Christmas in the sense that I'm not paying for it. I don't know how you can stay in business even two to three years with this kind of thing happening to you this year alone.

CALLER: I don't think we will and that's why I am seriously considering leaving this industry. I'm updating my resume. You know, people who I work with -- even people who voted for Obama and thought he was the greatest thing since sliced bread -- are shell-shocked.

RUSH: That just frustrates the hell out of me. Anybody with a brain has no reason to be shell-shocked about who this guy is, but it is what it is.
. . .
CALLER: And you know how many people are going to die in the interim, Rush? I say that in all sincerity, because come January 1st you're going to see 200, 300% increases in premiums and people are going to drop their coverage. So you've got the woman who isn't going to go get the mammogram or the man who's not going to get the prostate exam.

RUSH: Wait a minute!

CALLER: People are going to die.

RUSH: I thought the mammogram was free.

CALLER: Not when you drop the coverage because you can't afford three times the premium. Remember, the premiums are going up because of the government, and jobs are being lost because of the government. If you can't pay it, you can't pay it. So people are going to drop it. They're going to drop their insurance before they drop their mortgage.

RUSH: They're going to be clamoring to the government to fix the mean-spirited insurance companies for raising the prices so high and that's where Obama's going to step in and say, "You know what? We have no choice here but than to do it ourselves," and then you get dumped on again first and foremost with Obama portraying the government as the savior. . . .

Read the entire transcript.

When Julius Caseser crossed the Rubicon river in 49 B.C., entering into Roman territory, it marked both a crossing of the point of no return and a declaration of war on the Republic. The end result was ultimately the destruction of Rome's Republican form of government. I think the analogy here is apt. Obama has so polarized politics in our government, it is questionable when or if we will see a return to rational, measured politics until either conservatism or progressivism wins out and the other is pushed into the dustbin of history. We are, as I blogged here, in a zero sum ideological war today. Never in history has the political system been so manipulated and in such a highly partisan fashion. Its provisions, mandating each person purchase health insurance, if upheld, will represent a vast expansion of the government's power to control and direct our lives. But even beyond all of that, this bill threatens not merely our health care system, but it also poses a clear and present danger to the fiscal viability of our nation.

In the end, the right must not merely repeal Obamacare, but it must present a better alternative. In that respect, Paul Ryan may in fact have the answer to Obamacare, as well as the problems of Medicare and Social Security. His "Roadmap" is a very serious attempt to address the actual problems we face. Here is hoping that Congressman Ryan is a player in 2012.

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The First Real Obama Interview Since . . . Well, Ever

My hats off to Bret Baier of Fox News for conducting the first real interview of Obama since he entered the national stage as a Senator. Baier asked relevant questions and tough follow-ups, making it difficult for Obama to dodge the questions. Obama was on the defensive throughout, he was bobbing and weaving like a champion boxer on issues of process and his double accounting for savings in Medicare. Further, Obama tried to mount a new - and somewhat bizarre - defense of the indefensible Louisiana Purchase. All in all, Baer conducted a very professional interview. Obama did not come off well.

What I found most stunning about this interview - Obama's admission that his trillion (or more likely, multi-trillion) health care plan will do nothing to solve massive multi-trillion dollar Medicare insolvency. You can find the transcript of the interview here.





And then the Fox Panel analyzed the interview:



Responses to the Baier interview are all over the net:

NRO - Two thumbs up for a superb interview

Doug Ross - The President ducked, dodged, stammered and "did some his best fibbing ever."

Another Black Conservative - "Normally Obama is pretty good at giving non-answers, but under Baier's pressure, his non-answers were quite apparent."

Weekly Standard - "What tripped Obama up was the spinach. He found it hard to defend special deals like the Cornhusker Kickback, Gator Aid, and Louisiana Purchase. He gave a rambling and evasive answer when Baier asked why the bill double-counts Medicare "savings." He said health care reform would pass because "it's the right thing to do." Guess that settles it, then."

Hot Air - "This moment, from Bret Baier’s interview on Fox News with Obama, might just be one of the biggest “WTF?!” moments from Obama’s presidency yet. Obama is either completely making things up, living in an alternate reality, or really, really confused."

Sister Toldjah - "I don’t think I’ve ever seen the President so defensive. And, of course, he did not answer a single question. Very revealing – or, rather, 'transparent.'"

Jammie Wearing Fool - "I can't imagine even the most diehard Obama sycophant thought he came off looking good here. Petulant, whiny, unpresidential, not worthy of even being a community organizer."

Neo-Neocon - "Obama seemed clueless and meandering in the interview, repeating the same points over and over and unable to counter Baier in any effective way, resorting to what Holden Caulfield used to call “slinging the old bull” and bringing up strangely irrelevant stuff like the Hawaii earthquake."

Huffington Post, Newsweek, AP - How Dare Baier

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Portrait Of A Fiscal Hawk

Fortune Magazine has a good article on Rep. Paul Ryan - a Congressman who recently arrived on the national stage with his articulate criticism of Obama's health care plans. The article discusses Ryan's economic plans to put America back on a sound - and sane - fiscal footing.:

What is the Ryan plan , and why is the Obama administration seemingly obsessed with it? Ryan calls his proposal, published in January, the Roadmap for America's Future. It's a remarkably comprehensive, daring manifesto that tackles every part of the budget on a presidential scale, from Social Security to tax policy to health-care reform.

The goal is to eliminate the deficit, and eventually all federal debt, without any crippling tax increases. Under Ryan's plan, for example, federal spending would reach just 24% of GDP in 2035 and then fall, vs. the CBO's projection of 34% and rising from there. Ryan would make the deficit disappear by mid-century. . . .

Do read the whole article. Ryan, like Chris Christie, are people to watch as the Dems promise to lead us down an insane fiscal path - until 2012.

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Depressing (& Depression) News

The Great Depression began in June, 1929 and lasted until the early 1941. FDR didn't solve it with his "New Deal", WWII did. By 1933, unemployment had risen to 24.9%, average incomes contracted by 40%, global trade fell by half in volume, and millions lost their homes and farms. How do we compare to the Great Depression?

We are now running a budget deficit closing in on two trillion dollars. Unemployment is at 9.4% and seems headed only upward. Our bond rating is on the cusp of being downgraded - an occurrence that promises a whole host of problems. The fed is printing money as never before:



Even with no new deficit spending, new and heavy taxes seem inevitable to service this debt. Plus, with such an increase in the money supply, massive inflation and devaluation of the dollar seems inevitable.

But much more is waiting in the wings to hit, some sooner rather than later. Obama is doing nothing to rein in spending or to avoid taxation. Indeed, to the contrary, Obama has not even begun to tax and spend. In an Orwellian move, he is calling for institution of "pay as you go" legislation that will make future tax cuts next to impossible but will not apply to any of the massive new deficit spending he has planned in his pet projects.

Social Security - a massive ponzi scheme that the left utterly refused to attempt to reform during the Bush years, is now running in the red. Medicare isn't being fixed, its being subsumed in a plan that will only expand care to 1/3 of the uninsured, yet cost us trillions in extra dollars. Cap and Trade is another massive regressive tax.

We are on the cusp of an energy crisis that Obama is ignoring. The price of oil is set to skyrocket from a host of contributing causes. The green energy Obama has promised us is not even cost effective, nor can it possibly be scaled up as quickly as it would need to be to provide a realistic alternative to oil and coal.

Global trade, already under extreme stress, is set to experience far more stress. Some 80% of all goods traded internationally are shipped. David Smick, writing at the Washington Post, notes "[t]he U.N. agreement last October on sulfur-burning levels for ships . . . is expected to send shipping costs skyrocketing." Thus the price of the vast majority of goods traded internationally will be effected, all in the name of global warming.

Then to top it off, we have Obama, instead of fixing the issues that led to this global economic meltdown, proposing a massive new regulatory regime for our financial sector. This is precisely what the respected Harvard economist Niall Ferguson warned against a few weeks ago.

Could this news get any more dire? Well, . . . yes. We now have sufficient data to make a reasonable comparison of where we are as compared to the same time frame after the start of the Great Depression. And the news is depressing indeed. Even without this next round of price increases, massive spending and high taxation, we are at or below the same economic indicators in the same time frame as existed during the Great Depression. This from the Financial Times:

Green shoots are bursting out. Or so we are told. But before concluding that the recession will soon be over, we must ask what history tells us. It is one of the guides we have to our present predicament. Fortunately, we do have the data. Unfortunately, the story they tell is an unhappy one.

Two economic historians, Barry Eichengreen of the University of California at Berkeley . . . [document] that this recession fully matches the early part of the Great Depression. . . .

First, global industrial output tracks the decline in industrial output during the Great Depression horrifyingly closely. Within Europe, the decline in the industrial output of France and Italy has been worse than at this point in the 1930s, while that of the UK and Germany is much the same. The declines in the US and Canada are also close to those in the 1930s. But Japan’s industrial collapse has been far worse than in the 1930s, despite a very recent recovery.

Second, the collapse in the volume of world trade has been far worse than during the first year of the Great Depression. Indeed, the decline in world trade in the first year is equal to that in the first two years of the Great Depression. This is not because of protection, but because of collapsing demand for manufactures.

Third, despite the recent bounce, the decline in world stock markets is far bigger than in the corresponding period of the Great Depression.

The two authors sum up starkly: “Globally we are tracking or doing even worse than the Great Depression ... This is a Depression-sized event.” . . .

You can read the rest of the article here. The authors go on to discuss the fact that Obama is attempting to rely on both Keynes and Friedman to guide his acts. Keynes theorized that massive public spending could be used to stimulate an economy while Friedman concentrated on monetary supply. The authors conclude hopefully that this will stop the full spiral into depression.

What gives me great pause is that these authors give no consideration to all of the additional taxes and the rising costs that we are about to have imposed upon us, plus what looks like new draconian regulation of our financial sector. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke warned a few weeks ago that we needed to taking steps now to rein in spending and borrowing or we face severe problems in the foreseeable future. Obama is doing anything but that. I have never been so pessimistic about America's future. This could easilly go from bad to castrophically bad.

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By The Numbers

The following are from the Heritage Foundation. They require little commentary, beyond perhaps the old saying, "read 'em and weep."












More at the Heritage Foundation.


H/T Q&O

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Heading Towards A Self Inflicted Depression?

And to think that Obama ran against Bush on the charge that Republicans lacked fiscal responsibility.

The economic news gets progressively worse by the day. Obama has broken the bank with his profligate spending. Indeed, the borrowing for his spending has been so massive that Moodys is warning that it may have to downgrade federal government bonds - a move that would send us far deeper into debt. Further, this downturn is turning into a perfect storm, as it is merging into a crisis with social security and Medicaid. One would think all of that is more than enough, but no. Obama is pursuing plans for massive taxation through several vehicles, the sum total of which will massively burden every American and portends to derail any recovery. Then there is Obama's non-sequiter that in order to stem the bleeding from Medicare, we have to enact another trillion dollar program, universal health care. And lastly, from Carl at No Oil For Pacifists, a detailed review of Obama's economic programs to the present, set in an econ 101 grading scheme.

Economists debate whether FDR's massive "New Deal" spending was effective in combating the Great Depression. Given that the depression did not end until WWII, that is an open question. But Obama has bet the farm - and the second mortgage on the farm - on the theory that FDR had it right.

The national debt today is four times higher than it was just one year ago, standing at $1.84 trillion dollars. Of that, half has been borrowed. And that is a figure likely to rise as the year progresses both through increased allocations, increases in the cost of borrowing, and the failure of the Obama rosy predictions to fail to materialize. Just paying down that figure is daunting, if there was nothing more.

But we are in the midst of a near perfect economic storm. Democrat protests to the contrary, we have known for years that Social Security and Medicare were going to balloon in size - into the multi-trillions of dollars - as more baby boomers age. Democrats have run these plans as a ponzi scheme, and the scheme is being exposed by falling receipts. This will come to crisis proportions in a few years, if not sooner. But Obama has yet to say word one about how he will address social security. More on medicaid below.

Between Obama's profligate spending and our looming massive crisis in Social Security and Medicaid, we face yet another major obstacle. This from Financial Times:

Long before the current financial crisis, nearly two years ago, a little-noticed cloud darkened the horizon for the US government. It was ignored. But now that shadow, in the form of a warning from a top credit rating agency that the nation risked losing its triple A rating if it did not start putting its finances in order, is coming back to haunt us.

That warning from Moody’s focused on the exploding healthcare and Social Security costs that threaten to engulf the federal government in debt over coming decades. The facts show we’re in even worse shape now, and there are signs that confidence in America’s ability to control its finances is eroding.

Prices have risen on credit default insurance on US government bonds, meaning it costs investors more to protect their investment in Treasury bonds against default than before the crisis hit. It even, briefly, cost more to buy protection on US government debt than on debt issued by McDonald’s. Another warning sign has come from across the Pacific, where the Chinese premier and the head of the People’s Bank of China have expressed concern about America’s longer-term credit worthiness and the value of the dollar. . . .

The bottom line of all of this is that we are headed for far more difficult times if the cost of our ability to borrow rises significantly - as will assuredly happen if we lose our AAA rating.

One of the clear lessons that came out of the Great Depression was that increasing taxation can defeat a recovery. Obama is planning to do tax increases on steroids. Obama intends to fund his profligate spending on the backs of all Americans through massive direct and indirect taxes as well as a business tax that portends to drive multinational businesses from our shores. As discussed by Martin Feldstein in the WSJ:

The current outlook for an economic recovery remains precarious. Although the stimulus package will give a temporary boost to growth in the current quarter, it will not be enough to offset the combined effect of lower consumer spending, the decline in residential construction, the weakness of exports, the limited availability of bank credit and the downward spiral of house prices. A sustained economic upturn is far from a sure thing. This is no time for tax increases that will reduce spending by households and businesses.

Even if the proposed tax increases are not scheduled to take effect until 2011, households will recognize the permanent reduction in their future incomes and will reduce current spending accordingly. Higher future tax rates on capital gains and dividends will depress share prices immediately and the resulting fall in wealth will cut consumer spending further. Lower share prices will also raise the cost of equity capital, depressing business investment in plant and equipment.

The Obama budget calls for tax increases of more than $1.1 trillion over the next decade. . . .

Mr. Obama's biggest proposed tax increase is the cap-and-trade system of requiring businesses to buy carbon dioxide emission permits. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that the proposed permit auctions would raise about $80 billion a year and that these extra taxes would be passed along in higher prices to consumers. Anyone who drives a car, uses public transportation, consumes electricity or buys any product that involves creating CO2 in its production would face higher prices.

CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf testified before the Senate Finance Committee on May 7 that the cap-and-trade price increases resulting from a 15% cut in CO2 emissions would cost the average household roughly $1,600 a year, . . .

But while the cap-and-trade tax rises with income, the relative burden is greatest for low-income households. According to the CBO, households in the lowest-income quintile spend more than 20% of their income on energy intensive items (primarily fuels and electricity), while those in the highest-income quintile spend less than 5% on those products.

The CBO warns that the estimate of an $80 billion-a-year tax increase could be significantly higher or lower, depending on how the program is designed. The Waxman-Markey bill currently before Congress calls for reducing greenhouse gasses 20% by 2020 and by an incredible 83% by 2050. As the government reduces the amount of CO2 that is allowed, the price of the CO2 permits would rise and the pass-through to consumer prices would also increase.

The next-largest tax increase -- with a projected rise in revenue of more than $300 billion between 2011 and 2019 -- comes from increasing the tax rates on the very small number of taxpayers with incomes over $250,000. Because this revenue estimate doesn't take into account the extent to which the higher marginal tax rates would cause those taxpayers to reduce their taxable incomes -- by changing the way they are compensated, increasing deductible expenditures, or simply earning less -- it overstates the resulting increase in revenue.

This is a large part of the smoke and mirrors of the Obama unrealistic forecasts. If a 10% tax in place on $1000 of income brings in $100 today, raising the tax to 15% almost assuredly does not mean that tax receipts will rise to $150. The more confiscatory taxes become, the more people do what they can to lessen the burden. To continue with Mr. Feldstein:

Since the projected revenue from this source is already designated to be used for Mr. Obama's health plan, some other tax increases will be needed. Moreover, Mr. Obama's budget characterizes the projected $634 billion outlay for health-care reform as just a down payment on the program. The budget notes that there would be "additional resources and new benefits to be determined with Congress." Those additional resources would no doubt be even higher taxes.

The third major tax increase is the plan to raise $220 billion over the next nine years by changing the taxation of foreign-source income. While some extra revenue could no doubt come from ending the tax avoidance gimmicks that use dummy corporations in the Caribbean, most of the projected revenue comes from disallowing corporations to pay lower tax rates on their earnings in countries like Germany, Britain and Ireland. The purpose of the tax change is not just to raise revenue but also to shift overseas production by American firms back to the U.S. by reducing the tax advantage of earning profits abroad.

The administration is likely to be disappointed about its ability to achieve both goals. Bringing production back to be taxed at the higher U.S. tax rate would raise the cost of capital and make the products less competitive in global markets. American corporations would therefore have an incentive to sell their overseas subsidiaries to foreign firms. That would leave future profits overseas, denying the Treasury Department any claim on the resulting tax revenue. And new foreign owners would be more likely to use overseas suppliers than to rely on inputs from the U.S. The net result would be less revenue to the Treasury and fewer jobs in America. . . .

Read the entire article. To add to this list of proposed taxes, we find today that the Senate is looking into raising taxes on sin - specifically, alcohol, tobacco, chips and sodas. The bottom line, Obama's plans seem to be a clear path to a much weaker economy - and the people who are going to bear the biggest brunt are those in the lower and lower middle class.

As to Medicaid, that is clearly a plan that has to be addressed. But instead of trying to staunch the bleeding, Obama is making ridiculous claims that it can only be done as part of an incredibly expensive move to universal health care. As Megan McCardle points out:

Perhaps predictably, someone showed up in the comments to my post on Medicare and Social Security to argue that liberal analysts have very serious plans to cut Medicare's costs, which is why we need universal coverage, so that we can implement those very serious plans.

I hear this argument quite often, and it's gibberish in a prom dress. Any cost savings you want to wring out of Medicare can be wrung out of Medicare right now: the program is large and powerful enough, and costly enough, that they are worth doing without adding a single new person to the mix. Conversely, if there is some political or institutional barrier which is preventing you from controlling Medicare cost inflation, than that barrier probably is not going away merely because the program covers more people. Indeed, to the extent that seniors themselves are the people blocking change (as they often are), adding more users makes it harder, not easier, to get things done.

Lastly, in this whirlwind of bad news, Carl at No Oil For Pacifists has an exceptional post documenting Obama's economic moves over the past 100+ days:

What if the Presidency were a college course? Should Obama get good marks for making the first steps towards financial sanity? Imagine Obama's mid-semester report card from an ivy-covered academy . . .

Read it, and do hit all of the links. You will be amazed that Obama gets an A in econ 101.

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