In announcing his intention not to run for re-election, Senator Evan Bayh cited the current partisan dynamic in Washington as the reason "Congress has created no jobs" in the last half-year. He said he plans to go into the business world and created jobs the old fashioned way.
Good for him - he definitely has the connections to be a successful business owner and create good jobs through private enterprise. Unfortunately, his reason for leaving is further evidence of the corruption of thought among liberal Democrats. Congress should not be in the business of creating jobs, but rather encouraging private business to expand operations and thereby increase the workforce. They can do this by creating business-friendly environments, and that means streamlining regulation, reducing taxes, and making it easier for firms that employ US workers to do business at home and abroad.
There's a term for a form of government that takes on the responsibility of managing the nation's workforce: Stalinism. That's what Bara Bama and democrats want for us.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
I Write On My Hand, Too
I have to admit Gibbsy's play on Sarah's handwriting today was really funny. Too bad it wasn't meant in good spirit, and that's the problem with these pompous asses who represent and speak for the ultimate pompous ass, our Campaigner-In-Chief Bara Bama. Even more unfortunate was Andrea Mitchell's rant on CNN yesterday. Is there anyone left in America who doesn't think she's a bitch?
It's amazing that they can be so tone-deaf to how people think. This reaction will only serve to boost Palin's support and popularity, and diminish their own.
It's amazing that they can be so tone-deaf to how people think. This reaction will only serve to boost Palin's support and popularity, and diminish their own.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Quick Hit: Jobs And Your Money
During the State of the Union address last week, Bama claimed his stimulus package saved or created "Nearly 2 million jobs." He exaggerates even his own numbers, estimated at 48,000 in October, revised to 600,000 in November, and revised again to 1.6 million in December. I'd call that fuzzy math.
But let's once again say for the sake of argument that the Campaigner-In-Chief's 2 million jobs number is accurate. The purpose of stimulus was to put Americans back to work, and it cost $800 Billion. That's $400,000 per job! And nobody is taking him to task for that. How long is it going to take for all those menial construction jobs to make up for what it cost to save or create them?
And we know he's just making shit up. There's no way to quantify "saved" jobs. And it's been well documented all the fraud in the reporting of these jobs. Yet we're supposed to believe him because he's the chosen one. Just ask him.
So where did all that money really go? The "Free Press" was keen to make big stories over the spending oversights in Iraq during the Bush years, especially when they got to print Haliburton. But they are totally silent, except for the last bastion of true journalism, Fox News, which today highlighted several abuses of stimulus funds where the money apparently disappeared in the bureaucratic process. Billions of dollars just gone without a trace.
Why would anyone trust the Federal government, especially when controlled by Democrats, to manage anything successfully and keep costs down. Hello? Seriously. These people can't get dressed in the morning without generating spending waste, and they want to run health care?
But let's once again say for the sake of argument that the Campaigner-In-Chief's 2 million jobs number is accurate. The purpose of stimulus was to put Americans back to work, and it cost $800 Billion. That's $400,000 per job! And nobody is taking him to task for that. How long is it going to take for all those menial construction jobs to make up for what it cost to save or create them?
And we know he's just making shit up. There's no way to quantify "saved" jobs. And it's been well documented all the fraud in the reporting of these jobs. Yet we're supposed to believe him because he's the chosen one. Just ask him.
So where did all that money really go? The "Free Press" was keen to make big stories over the spending oversights in Iraq during the Bush years, especially when they got to print Haliburton. But they are totally silent, except for the last bastion of true journalism, Fox News, which today highlighted several abuses of stimulus funds where the money apparently disappeared in the bureaucratic process. Billions of dollars just gone without a trace.
Why would anyone trust the Federal government, especially when controlled by Democrats, to manage anything successfully and keep costs down. Hello? Seriously. These people can't get dressed in the morning without generating spending waste, and they want to run health care?
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
The Most Important Essay Ever Written About Obama and Health Care
Bama clearly is not backing away from health care. In New Hampshire today he was emphatic that health care reform is the only solution to solving this nation's long-term economic woes.
He went so far as to say that almost all of the forecasted deficit is a result of the increasing cost of Medicare and Medicaid. This is sort of silly, as it implies our tax dollars are earmarked for everything but these two costly programs, which is untrue. To a different audience, Bama would be just as likely to claim Defense spending is the cause of the deficit, and I would be equally justified in claiming Social Security is the villain.
For the sake of argument let me take the Campaigner-In-Chief at his word. The first question that needs to be asked is, What are Medicare and Medicaid? The answer: Federal Health Insurance programs. In theory, Bama and his Democrats already own these programs, so if they are the problem, then he is justified in implementing his solutions. No other facet of health care needs to be touched. So what's the hold up? To use one of Bama's own arguments, why give someone a heart transplant if all they really need is a bypass?
Bama doesn't want to reform Medicare or Medicaid. He wants to expand them to include all Americans. He sells it using words like "free", and phrases like, "at no cost to you." He must have said each of these half a dozen times during a 5 minute response to a question after his speech. Bama is clever. He knows that these are terms his constituents want to hear, regardless of context. In fact, the context is only relevant as far as he can go back to it when arguing against critics, but, knowing people will hear only what they want to hear, he willfully and insidiously uses these tactics to make it seem to the public that he's giving everything to everyone, and at no cost!
It is critical to examine his substantive proposals in this light. How does he actually plan to reduce costs? His entire basis of cost savings relies on the idea that a "panel of experts" is necessary to review the basis for and plan for care for every patient. The rationale being that right now most patients in the health care system undergo tests they don't need ordered by specialists they didn't need to see in the first place. Under Bama's plan, patients will first be seen by a primary care physician who will then forward initial findings to a panel of experts for review and issuance of a plan for treatment. Only then might the patient be sent to a specialist.
Bama's "waste", which he estimates will be a Trillion dollars by 2020, is derived almost completely from these "needless" visits with specialists and costly tests, which today, he implies, are simply ways for hospitals to extort more money from its patients.
There are so many problems with his theory its hard to pick a starting point.
Let me start first with his "panel of experts" requirement. I hope it's obvious that introducing a bureaucratic layer between the primary care provider and the specialist that you accomplish two things with absolute certainty: 1)You increase the time it takes to provide care for a patient. 2)You create another layer of cost - someone has to pay for the expense of expertise and time for each member of the panel. You may be able to justify the 2nd absolute if the panel determines a specialist or expensive tests are not necessary, but only if you can prove unequivocally that they would have been ordered otherwise. The 1st absolute, however, can never be reclaimed. If someone dies because they had to wait for approval from a panel of experts, that person cannot be brought back from the dead.
Next, every American needs to be aware that this country is already facing a health care crisis more dire than escalating costs. It is a fact that there are simply not enough primary care physicians to see everyone who wants health care. In many areas of the country, clinics have one MD or even none, so all patients are served by PAs, and may receive a lesser quality of care as a result. It is common sense that if you increase the burden on primary care physicians, quality of care must suffer as a direct result. Either people will be forced to wait longer to see someone from the existing pool of physicians, or the bureaucracy will have to find a way to make more primary care personnel. How do you do that? By encouraging more young people to enter medicine, and since it's unlikely that one of those measures of encouragement is more pay, the only other options are fewer education and training requirements at lower cost. The inevitable result is less experienced, less qualified, and less competent primary care personnel. How can that be good for anyone? I believe this will shift the burden back toward specialists, so I don't see how this requirement saves any cost at all.
We must then consider human nature. If cars were free, wouldn't everyone want the most luxurious car possible? And you wouldn't bother getting it repaired if anything ever broke. You'd just trade it in for a brand new one, and you might do it every year anyway just to have it. After all, it's free! If we were to go with Bama's ultimate preference of a single-payer system, anyone with a sniffle would be in to see their primary care physician. Why suffer when you can get someone to check you out and give you drugs? And who's going to tell Americans they can't go to the doctor when they think they're not feeling well? Again we're presented with two realities. Either people will be willing to congest the system by waiting to get health care for every little thing they think is wrong with them, or the government will have to stop people at the door. Good luck with that.
Now think about the fact that by 2020, when Bama figures he'll have saved America through better, less costly health care, there will be 400 million perspective patients! Where on earth are we going to find doctors for 400 million people? How will the government possibly enlist qualified medical personnel to fill its "panels of experts" to review 400 million cases? We're staring down the gun barrel of the biggest bureaucracy in this country's history! Today, local hospitals review case studies and determine the course of care. In Bama's proposed system, all this would be fed into a nationalized system, which must continually be reviewed for consistency and uniformity of care. That might be ok if every case and every person was the same, but the reality is every patient must be evaluated individually with respect to their history and condition. Its obvious the federal government is in no way capable of conducting any such agency in a way that both reduces cost and improves quality of care. That is an impossibility of the first order.
Finally, health care is a self-perpetuating industry. You partake of health care so that you can live longer, which ultimately leads to you needing more health care the older you get. People should not be required to live to 100 just because technology may be able to keep them alive that long. This is where Sarah Palin was exactly right in labeling Bama's policy as "Death Panels." Because of the reasons enumerated above, the government will decide who can receive care and who can't, and to what extent. As a society we will have little choice in the matter. What is it called when the government decides who among its citizens lives or dies? I would call it a political oligarchy.
Since Bama has been so keen to blame Bush and Republicans for all of his woes, he should chew on this - it was Democrats that created Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security, three of the four biggest burdens on the Federal budget. Now propose real solutions, not just those that consolidate Federal power and create more Federal bureaucracy. Democrat proposals, if passed and unchecked, can only lead to a greater burden on the American taxpayer and an escalation of government spending and control. Believe me, Communism is not so absurd a future reality.
So what is the solution? How do we save America? It seems clear that Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid need to be abandoned. I propose a cutoff age, say 50 years old and older for those who can expect to get a check and receive care. Everyone else is on their own. I'm dead serious.
How can I say this? Because I believe in something Bama and Democrats do not - the ability of a free market economy to adapt to the consumer. If there is a demand for health care, truly free markets will generate industry to fulfill that demand. It is inevitable and absolute. The alternative - the path we're on now - is certain disaster for this country, and nothing they propose will do anything to stop it.
He went so far as to say that almost all of the forecasted deficit is a result of the increasing cost of Medicare and Medicaid. This is sort of silly, as it implies our tax dollars are earmarked for everything but these two costly programs, which is untrue. To a different audience, Bama would be just as likely to claim Defense spending is the cause of the deficit, and I would be equally justified in claiming Social Security is the villain.
For the sake of argument let me take the Campaigner-In-Chief at his word. The first question that needs to be asked is, What are Medicare and Medicaid? The answer: Federal Health Insurance programs. In theory, Bama and his Democrats already own these programs, so if they are the problem, then he is justified in implementing his solutions. No other facet of health care needs to be touched. So what's the hold up? To use one of Bama's own arguments, why give someone a heart transplant if all they really need is a bypass?
Bama doesn't want to reform Medicare or Medicaid. He wants to expand them to include all Americans. He sells it using words like "free", and phrases like, "at no cost to you." He must have said each of these half a dozen times during a 5 minute response to a question after his speech. Bama is clever. He knows that these are terms his constituents want to hear, regardless of context. In fact, the context is only relevant as far as he can go back to it when arguing against critics, but, knowing people will hear only what they want to hear, he willfully and insidiously uses these tactics to make it seem to the public that he's giving everything to everyone, and at no cost!
It is critical to examine his substantive proposals in this light. How does he actually plan to reduce costs? His entire basis of cost savings relies on the idea that a "panel of experts" is necessary to review the basis for and plan for care for every patient. The rationale being that right now most patients in the health care system undergo tests they don't need ordered by specialists they didn't need to see in the first place. Under Bama's plan, patients will first be seen by a primary care physician who will then forward initial findings to a panel of experts for review and issuance of a plan for treatment. Only then might the patient be sent to a specialist.
Bama's "waste", which he estimates will be a Trillion dollars by 2020, is derived almost completely from these "needless" visits with specialists and costly tests, which today, he implies, are simply ways for hospitals to extort more money from its patients.
There are so many problems with his theory its hard to pick a starting point.
Let me start first with his "panel of experts" requirement. I hope it's obvious that introducing a bureaucratic layer between the primary care provider and the specialist that you accomplish two things with absolute certainty: 1)You increase the time it takes to provide care for a patient. 2)You create another layer of cost - someone has to pay for the expense of expertise and time for each member of the panel. You may be able to justify the 2nd absolute if the panel determines a specialist or expensive tests are not necessary, but only if you can prove unequivocally that they would have been ordered otherwise. The 1st absolute, however, can never be reclaimed. If someone dies because they had to wait for approval from a panel of experts, that person cannot be brought back from the dead.
Next, every American needs to be aware that this country is already facing a health care crisis more dire than escalating costs. It is a fact that there are simply not enough primary care physicians to see everyone who wants health care. In many areas of the country, clinics have one MD or even none, so all patients are served by PAs, and may receive a lesser quality of care as a result. It is common sense that if you increase the burden on primary care physicians, quality of care must suffer as a direct result. Either people will be forced to wait longer to see someone from the existing pool of physicians, or the bureaucracy will have to find a way to make more primary care personnel. How do you do that? By encouraging more young people to enter medicine, and since it's unlikely that one of those measures of encouragement is more pay, the only other options are fewer education and training requirements at lower cost. The inevitable result is less experienced, less qualified, and less competent primary care personnel. How can that be good for anyone? I believe this will shift the burden back toward specialists, so I don't see how this requirement saves any cost at all.
We must then consider human nature. If cars were free, wouldn't everyone want the most luxurious car possible? And you wouldn't bother getting it repaired if anything ever broke. You'd just trade it in for a brand new one, and you might do it every year anyway just to have it. After all, it's free! If we were to go with Bama's ultimate preference of a single-payer system, anyone with a sniffle would be in to see their primary care physician. Why suffer when you can get someone to check you out and give you drugs? And who's going to tell Americans they can't go to the doctor when they think they're not feeling well? Again we're presented with two realities. Either people will be willing to congest the system by waiting to get health care for every little thing they think is wrong with them, or the government will have to stop people at the door. Good luck with that.
Now think about the fact that by 2020, when Bama figures he'll have saved America through better, less costly health care, there will be 400 million perspective patients! Where on earth are we going to find doctors for 400 million people? How will the government possibly enlist qualified medical personnel to fill its "panels of experts" to review 400 million cases? We're staring down the gun barrel of the biggest bureaucracy in this country's history! Today, local hospitals review case studies and determine the course of care. In Bama's proposed system, all this would be fed into a nationalized system, which must continually be reviewed for consistency and uniformity of care. That might be ok if every case and every person was the same, but the reality is every patient must be evaluated individually with respect to their history and condition. Its obvious the federal government is in no way capable of conducting any such agency in a way that both reduces cost and improves quality of care. That is an impossibility of the first order.
Finally, health care is a self-perpetuating industry. You partake of health care so that you can live longer, which ultimately leads to you needing more health care the older you get. People should not be required to live to 100 just because technology may be able to keep them alive that long. This is where Sarah Palin was exactly right in labeling Bama's policy as "Death Panels." Because of the reasons enumerated above, the government will decide who can receive care and who can't, and to what extent. As a society we will have little choice in the matter. What is it called when the government decides who among its citizens lives or dies? I would call it a political oligarchy.
Since Bama has been so keen to blame Bush and Republicans for all of his woes, he should chew on this - it was Democrats that created Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security, three of the four biggest burdens on the Federal budget. Now propose real solutions, not just those that consolidate Federal power and create more Federal bureaucracy. Democrat proposals, if passed and unchecked, can only lead to a greater burden on the American taxpayer and an escalation of government spending and control. Believe me, Communism is not so absurd a future reality.
So what is the solution? How do we save America? It seems clear that Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid need to be abandoned. I propose a cutoff age, say 50 years old and older for those who can expect to get a check and receive care. Everyone else is on their own. I'm dead serious.
How can I say this? Because I believe in something Bama and Democrats do not - the ability of a free market economy to adapt to the consumer. If there is a demand for health care, truly free markets will generate industry to fulfill that demand. It is inevitable and absolute. The alternative - the path we're on now - is certain disaster for this country, and nothing they propose will do anything to stop it.
Friday, January 29, 2010
Emperor Obama Speaks At Republicans
Reuters followed along as the Campaigner-In-Chief cut loose on Republic congressmen today at their annual retreat. His message was, "Let's work together," but only if that means voting for his crap and don't bother trying to promote any conservative ideas. Check it out:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60S5JY20100129?type=politicsNews?feedType=RSS&feedName=politicsNews&rpc=22&sp=true
At one point he even accuses someone of campaigning against him. God forbid, or at least, Obama forbid. The hypocrite-in-chief spoke from a giant screen. It's like 1984, seriously.
Remember in late July, I think it was, when Bama gave his nationally televised press conference on health care, and he praised Republicans for their contributions, including tort reform? Has anyone heard word one about tort reform in the last six months? Of course not, because only Republican votes are tolerated, not their ideas. He accuses them onf not working with Democrats. That's pretty hard to do when Harry Reid locks his office door and hashes out the entire bill without any Republican participation. If you jackasses can't stomach debate, then you don't get to blame us for not being part of the process when you lock us out of the decision-making!
So Bama wants Republicans to vote for his ideas, so that when they all fail he can't be held totally responsible, and he is apparently willing to blame Bush for everything for the entire length of his term in office.
Bara Bama is a true coward. He does not know the meaning of the word "compromise", yet he expects capitulation, and has made it clear that the media arm of the Democrat party will back him up. What a dirtbag, but then what would anyone expect from a Chicago politician. Same old politics as usual. Is this what you voted for, kids?
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60S5JY20100129?type=politicsNews?feedType=RSS&feedName=politicsNews&rpc=22&sp=true
At one point he even accuses someone of campaigning against him. God forbid, or at least, Obama forbid. The hypocrite-in-chief spoke from a giant screen. It's like 1984, seriously.
Remember in late July, I think it was, when Bama gave his nationally televised press conference on health care, and he praised Republicans for their contributions, including tort reform? Has anyone heard word one about tort reform in the last six months? Of course not, because only Republican votes are tolerated, not their ideas. He accuses them onf not working with Democrats. That's pretty hard to do when Harry Reid locks his office door and hashes out the entire bill without any Republican participation. If you jackasses can't stomach debate, then you don't get to blame us for not being part of the process when you lock us out of the decision-making!
So Bama wants Republicans to vote for his ideas, so that when they all fail he can't be held totally responsible, and he is apparently willing to blame Bush for everything for the entire length of his term in office.
Bara Bama is a true coward. He does not know the meaning of the word "compromise", yet he expects capitulation, and has made it clear that the media arm of the Democrat party will back him up. What a dirtbag, but then what would anyone expect from a Chicago politician. Same old politics as usual. Is this what you voted for, kids?
The Irony Of Good News
GDP rose at a greater rate than expected in Q4, and what lead that expansion? Corporations.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Economy-grows-at-57-pct-pace-apf-3028347842.html?x=0
It's amazing how Bama and Democrats can so vilify corporations, the engine of the economy, in one breath, and then go out and trumpet the turnaround in the economy under their leadership in the next.
Well guess what, you can't have it both ways. I work for a company that is incorporated outside the United States for tax purposes, and if Bama starts hammering corporations - he's already threatening to do it to banks - with more taxes or penalties or red tape, then more companies will incorporate somewhere else. This is the essence of globalization, and its why Democrats antiquated ways of thinking about tax revenues don't work. Unlike our bloated government, corporations need to reduce costs wherever possible - they can't just print money. And when the government increases the tax burden, a company in trouble can shed that cost by seeking greener pastures. That's why Bush' tax cuts worked in the last decade - Tax "revenues" were at all-time highs, and unemployment was at all-time lows. President Bush created a business-friendly environment at home. Democrats and the media have already deleted these facts from history and most of our minds with their endless war on Bush, which is still a key play in Bama's campaign, as evidenced Wednesday night.
By the way, how come we're not hearing anything about the Bush tax cuts which are set to expire this year? Democrats have no interest in extending them, instead offering credits to people who already don't pay taxes anyway. That's just more burden on the rest of us! I remember now - Bama gave us all a tax break of about $13 last year in the "stimulus". Great. That's meaningful change we can believe in. But it's not permanent, so they shouldn't call that "cutting taxes." Again, it's a one time credit, mostly to people who didn't pay any income taxes.
Anyway, the GDP is good news, but it will be sickening to watch Democrats spin it as a victory for their ideology when the opposite is true.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Economy-grows-at-57-pct-pace-apf-3028347842.html?x=0
It's amazing how Bama and Democrats can so vilify corporations, the engine of the economy, in one breath, and then go out and trumpet the turnaround in the economy under their leadership in the next.
Well guess what, you can't have it both ways. I work for a company that is incorporated outside the United States for tax purposes, and if Bama starts hammering corporations - he's already threatening to do it to banks - with more taxes or penalties or red tape, then more companies will incorporate somewhere else. This is the essence of globalization, and its why Democrats antiquated ways of thinking about tax revenues don't work. Unlike our bloated government, corporations need to reduce costs wherever possible - they can't just print money. And when the government increases the tax burden, a company in trouble can shed that cost by seeking greener pastures. That's why Bush' tax cuts worked in the last decade - Tax "revenues" were at all-time highs, and unemployment was at all-time lows. President Bush created a business-friendly environment at home. Democrats and the media have already deleted these facts from history and most of our minds with their endless war on Bush, which is still a key play in Bama's campaign, as evidenced Wednesday night.
By the way, how come we're not hearing anything about the Bush tax cuts which are set to expire this year? Democrats have no interest in extending them, instead offering credits to people who already don't pay taxes anyway. That's just more burden on the rest of us! I remember now - Bama gave us all a tax break of about $13 last year in the "stimulus". Great. That's meaningful change we can believe in. But it's not permanent, so they shouldn't call that "cutting taxes." Again, it's a one time credit, mostly to people who didn't pay any income taxes.
Anyway, the GDP is good news, but it will be sickening to watch Democrats spin it as a victory for their ideology when the opposite is true.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
And In This Corner...
Ok, less than 12 hours after Bama promised to freeze agency spending his cronies in the Senate killed a bill that would do essentially the same thing. That sets up a fight between the Campaigner-In-Chief and Congress over budgeting. Bama also promised to veto any bill where his proposal is exceeded, so lets see what he does when the paper hits his desk.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100128/D9DGRPQ80.html
My bet is he was never sincere in the first place, and will sign anything put in front of him. I can hardly wait for the litany of lies he tells in his next State of the Union.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100128/D9DGRPQ80.html
My bet is he was never sincere in the first place, and will sign anything put in front of him. I can hardly wait for the litany of lies he tells in his next State of the Union.
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