An Apple A Day Takes Your Rights Away

President Obama this morning unveiled his new! improved! shiny! version of health care reform. The rumor that has circulated for the past week is that the President, through Sen. Reid, will try to force the bill through using the budget reconciliation process. I won’t bore you with Senate procedural details; the heart of the matter is that there aren’t enough votes to make the current Senate version agree with the current House version of the bill. So, the President and Senator Reid, as Majority Leader of the Senate, will try a new “strategery”. I hope for the country’s sake they fail. I also hope for the country’s sake they succeed- because there is no surer way to guarantee landslide losses for incumbents come November. This bill is reviled by sane Americans, and rightly so.

Here is the text of the new bill: http://www.whitehouse.gov/health-care-meeting/proposal
Courtesy of the on-the-ball folks at Congress.org here are the salient bits:

Cadillac tax change. Under the Obama plan, the tax on expensive health insurance plans won't kick in until 2018 and would affect fewer people.
This is still class warfare John Edwards style. They are taking from people who can pay for health insurance to pay for those who cannot. We already do this with Medicare and Medicaid. This is yet another government entitlement program of wealth re-distribution.

Payroll tax expansion. To make up for the lost revenue from the Cadillac tax, the President has proposed increasing the payroll tax employers pay for Medicare.
Because with a 90% GDP to debt ratio and a ballooning national debt, during a recession, the thing we really need is to take more money from those folks still able to offer good paying jobs to people. (Excuse me, my sarcasm leaked onto the keyboard)

Expanded coverage. The officials added that 31 million more Americans will be insured under the plan, which expands federal subsidies for low-income Americans.
There is nothing wrong with helping those truly in need to receive health care. The problem I have with this plan, and all others like it, is that it is run by the notoriously inefficient and, by definition, out-of-touch federal government. This leads to fraud and waste and, again, adds one more entitlement to the American way of life.

State subsidies. The plan offers full federal support for four years to expand Medicaid in all 50 states, not just Nebraska as proposed in the Senate plan.
Left to their own devices, without Federal hands in their pockets and the coffers of their local employers, States could manage Medicaid on their own. If we have a federally guaranteed health plan, then why do we still need Medicaid? If we still have Medicaid regulated by the states, why do we need federal programs to back it up? Am I the only one scratching my head over this?

Denials and mandate. Insurance companies would no longer be able to deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions. To balance the cost of this, the President's plan penalizes people without insurance to encourage them to buy a plan.
Oh for fraks sake people. I’m all for reasonable restrictions on what health insurance companies can and cannot define as pre-existing conditions, but penalizing people without health insurance? That means that those of us in the work force for years who have found jobs with “Cadillac plans” will be taxed, that those young folks just entering the workforce who haven’t found a job with health insurance will be fined for not having insurance, and employers will be taxed… just to be fair!

Premium hike controls. Federal regulators would have more power to stop insurance companies from increasing health insurance premiums, traditionally the realm of state governments.
Did we repeal the 10th amendment while I was asleep? The more responsibilities you remove from the purview of state governments, the more rights you strip from the people.

We are citizens of a Federal Republic. We have elected representatives at the local, state and national level responsible for Constitutionally out-lined areas of responsibility. Your Federal representatives are, with this plan, saying that your local and state governments no longer have the authority, and by extension the knowledge, to protect the health care of their constituents.

Let me put this another way: The President’s health care plan, if it passes as is, negates all your recent votes for local and state officials. He, and the Congress, will have stripped away rights from the states and you, the people. He’s saying your state and city officials cannot be trusted to run things effectively. The federal government will tell you what health insurance means, what kind you can have, and how much you have to pay for it. You are not adult enough to choose your own plan. Your elected representatives are not adult enough to do their jobs- but you don’t get to decide that through impeachment or voting procedures. Federal big-brother has decided what is best for you.

The President of the United States and Senator Harry Reid have just proposed disenfranchising you.

Mt. Vernon, Tea Parties, and parties

Yesterday, conservative leaders and activists from around the country signed a document called the Mt. Vernon Statement. It outlines what the writers feel are the keystones of the conservative movement. I won’t waste column space here repeating the whole document verbatim, please read it for yourself. (Also, isn’t it amazing how the page font, layout, and colors are so similar to this blog? Pure coincidence!)

The Mt. Vernon statement has been praised as “an elegant tribute to limited government and the Founding Fathers” by Michelle Malkin. Senator DeMint (R-SC) called for the replacement of any member of Congress who did not sign the statement. It, the Mt. Vernon Statement, is being hailed as the Sharon Statement and Contract with America of the new century.

CPAC also begins today along with warnings from political strategists, most notably Karl Rove, that the tea party movement must not try to re-invent itself as a third party option for the upcoming election cycle.

It is important to pause and consider that while conservatives and tea party activists seem to have a great deal in common right now, they- we- are not identical faces of the political coin.

Broader conservatives principles, as outlined multiple times and constantly revised for political necessity or pure sound-bite palatability, encompass social as well as fiscal issues. My own statement of conservative principles can be found here. Put one hundred conservative activists in a room and you’ll come out with 75 different variations of what it means to be a conservative. If you doubt me on this, spend a few days at CPAC. I’ve seen it happen, in living color so to speak.

The Tea Party movement, however, is not about social conservatism, or even Republican social issues. The broad appeal of the Tea Party is that it appeals to a vast swath of Americans tired of having to tighten their own belts while the government continues to spend our money as if it is a never-ending well of goodies. The Tea Party-goers who staged such loud and vociferous protests over the health care reform bill were not united about the social implications regarding national health care- they were protesting the astounding, bankruptcy inducing, costs of the measure.

Parties like to define themselves. It is part of the political process. “We stand for this while those guys over there are against it!” Just as human beings instinctively seek someone or something to blame for hardships and misfortunes, we also seek to define the world around us. All too often we broaden party definitions in order to garner more support- the “Big Tent” phenomenon. After a few years that party is so inclusive of different ideas that it no longer resembles the original. The backlash is often punctuated by a watershed document, statement, or referendum outlining the “true” platform of the party. We see this happening now in the Republican party as the conservative base of the party re-assert their political, and literary, muscle.

The Tea Party movement, and the country, cannot afford to engage in the cycle of inclusiveness and contraction that our political parties endure. Fiscal responsibility and reform are unifying issues that can, and rightly should, garner support from Democrats, Republicans, conservatives, liberals, libertarians and independents.

We should not be appointing leaders of the Tea Party, signing broader conservative mandates, or demanding loyalty to a specific establishment party platform.

We should be electing leaders who agree with what members of the Tea Party are saying, signing laws reducing spending and the role of government, and demanding loyalty to the Constitution.

Scarlett Says: The Constitution is the ultimate manifesto of American politics. It is the only one with which elected officials and the American people, need to adhere.

Tough Choices Now for a Fiscally Stable Future

The Tea Party movement, rank and file Republicans, Libertarians, conservatives and even, shockingly, Democrats are united behind one rallying cry: fiscal responsibility. Of course, it’s easy to pay lip service to such a nebulous concept. What Joe from Mississippi calls fiscal responsibility isn’t necessarily going to match how Bob from Vermont defines the term. And we really don’t even want to know what Cindy from California thinks about the whole thing! (Relax Californians, I know there’s a great many of you with sound financial sense. Sadly, you never seem to elect a majority of like-minded people to state or federal office.) The real test of a party, politician, or voter’s dedication to reducing the national debt and moving toward a balanced budget is: how much pain are you willing to suffer? Are YOU willing to give up YOUR pet project?

There are items in the Federal budget- and just as many in the oft overlooked state budgets- that any reasonable person can agree do not belong. The so-called “bridge to nowhere”, funding for a Coca Cola museum, and the proposed purchase of a National Historic Park in the US Virgin Islands, are just a few examples of well publicized “pork”. There are literally hundreds of such projects in the federal budget every year and more are added into individual spending bills before they are passed by Congress.

The pain in balancing the budget, and reducing spending, comes not from elimination of such easy to spot luxuries, but in the elimination of all those pet projects and earmarks that can realistically be justified by someone, somewhere. There are things we do absolutely need in our Federal budget. There are many more things that we would very much like to have funded. Congress and the President are all too willing to play the over-indulgent parent and give in to voter’s repeated pleading for cookies. The Cato Institute’s Liberty blog recently reported on our supposedly conservative representatives and Tea Party activists who asked for stimulus funds.

Given that those responsible for managing our money are doing such a bad job of actually being responsible, the voters have to take charge and put our collective foot down. We have to be the adults in this situation and stop asking for that tantalizing piece of the pie.

We have to fund our military so that they can continue to fight the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, patrol the world’s oceans, and secure the airways. We have to fund and support the services that aid our military families, veterans and disabled veterans. We have to provide money for border security, air marshals, federal law enforcement and immigration enforcement. We have to provide funds to maintain and protect interstate trade routes: railroads, waterways and roads.

We do NOT have to fund the following items from the President’s proposed 2011 Budget:

Build on the historic $8 billion Recovery Act down payment for high-speed rail with another $1 billion, creating jobs and sparking transportation innovation across the country. When we aren’t facing double digit unemployment and a debt to GDP ratio of 90%, then we can talk about spending billions of dollars on shiny new trains. Put this in household economic terms: You cannot go out and buy a brand new car when your old car works perfectly well and you already have $43,00 in credit card debt.

$5.1 billion for the Department of Energ's Office of Science, including $1.8 billion for basic energy sciences to discover novel ways to produce, store, and use energy. You aren’t going to go out and buy a windmill for you backyard to see if you can generate wind energy while your house is being foreclosed on- are you?

$73 million – a $14 million increase – to build agency capacity to review and permit renewable energy projects on federal lands. The Interior Department has set a goal to permit at least 9,000 megawatts of new solar, wind, and geothermal electricity generation capacity on Interior-managed lands by the end of 2011. I hate to belabor an allegory, but really: your house is facing foreclosure and you have all this land available. A cattle baron comes to you and offers to rent your land if you’ll let him raise cows on it. Would you spend money hiring people to review the plan, or, worse, say “No, no, let me pay YOU to see if my land works out for you!”?

In barely an hour’s research I found dozens more examples of spending that makes no economic sense. If you stop and think abou the politically active organizations you are a part of I’m sure you can think of projects they have asked to be funded recently, or in the future, which we just can not afford. Think about this: the national debt translates into roughly $40,000 for each person in this country. That is not each tax payer or each worker- that’s every single person from the newborn infants to those lucky few who have supassed 110 years in age. Take your household budget and add $40,000 in the debt column for each person in your house. Can you reasonably say that you will EVER be able to pay off that amount of debt?

We cannot afford new tax cuts. We cannot afford to cripple the economy with higher taxes either. We cannot afford to forgive un-paid student loans after 20 years. We cannot afford to pay for weapons systems the Pentagon says they don’t need but the owners of the local defense contractor assure us will bring jobs to our town. We cannot afford speedy new trains, shiny new windmills, billions to “help” big banks provide credit, or thousands to preserve newly added historical sites. We cannot afford to buy that big new library in our town, add that airstrip to the local field, or spend billions on“incentives” for cable companies to provide broadband internet to rural communities.

Yes we would very much like new books for the library, to preserve the birthplace of the local town founder, to hire a new park ranger, to better monitor wolf populations in Yellowstone, to put a man back on the moon. My three year old son would very much like a new train set, too, but the mortgage payment comes first.

Scarlett Says: put your foot down. Stop holding out your right hand for stimulus money while shaking your left in anger. Buckle in, hunker down, and be ready for the lean years. Cotton’l go sky high in a few years- but you won’t see a dollar if you lose Tara.


**Budget line items taken from http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/
National per person debt estimate taken from http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/

Voter Malcontent: Phenomenon or Measurable Change?

Senator Jim Bunning, a republican from Kentucky, is retiring from the Senate. The race to replace him includes two viable democratic challengers as well as, suddenly, two viable Republican challengers.

When Bowling Green eye surgeon Rand Paul, son of Congressman and former presidential candidate Ron Paul, declared his intention to run for the seat being vacated by Senator Bunning, many Kentucky politicians rolled their eyes. Most political observers anticipated a hard-scrabble grass roots campaign fed by internet money drives and populist stump speeches. Trey Grayson, Kentucky’s current Secretary of State, had already been courted by the NRSC (National Republican Senatorial Committee- the leading fundraising and campaign organization for Republican Senators) and has stellar credentials. The idea that Dr. Paul could organize a feasible campaign against someone with established name recognition and a head start on fundraising seemed laughable.

But, as the Brown election in Massachusetts, the burgeoning Tea Party movement, and a host of recent polls across the country have shown, voters are angry. They are not only angry at the President (a traditional, if often unfairly so, target of voter discontent) but at anyone who smacks of “establishment Washington”. The renewed call for Congressional term limits, a Constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget, and the elimination of “pork” spending are all affectations of the electorate’s discontent. The overwhelming sentiment expressed at Tea Party rallies and on internet message boards is “kick the bastards out!” Add to this the traditionally more vocal and inspired minority of eligible voters during primary season and it looks as if every single race is a powder keg waiting to be ignited or already possessing a lit fuse.

The Paul campaign, and dozens just like it across the country should keep in mind, though, that it is February. Polling samples are small. Those who participate in polls, call in to radio shows, post on blogs, or write editorials in the newspapers (what few still exist) are a minority. They are a vocal and well informed minority, but they still represent a small segment of likely voters- even in primary season. The real “trick” is to turn that vocal minority into an actual groundswell of support. The Dean campaign of 2004 and the senior Dr. Paul’s campaign in 2008 serve as examples of how internet chatter and money-bombs do not necessarily translate into actual votes. You have to convince all your supporters to do the work of registering to vote, registering their neighbors to vote, and then going to the polling place on election day. Depressing as it is, far too many Americans find the simple act of voting to be “too much trouble”. There are still more active voters over the age of 50 than under. Those active “seniors” tend to be less vocal on the internet and far less likely to donate to primary campaigns. They do donate more towards established political action groups- but those are the very groups that Dr. Paul’s campaign have lambasted Trey Grayson’s campaign for pandering to.

Given that both Dr. Paul and Mr. Grayson have nearly identical views on government spending, abortion, national defense, immigration, and health care reform, this primary campaign will likely devolve very quickly into demonization of the opponents. I’ll keep an eye on this race and report again about platform similarities and the tone of the media campaigns.

Scarlett Says: Hold onto your hats boys, this is like to get a mite ugly.

Campaign Finance "Reform"

Like a lot of people in 2000 and 2001 I was very much in favor of campaign finance reform. But, like so many others, I was disgusted with what we got. The Congress- that I worked for - limited or eliminated donations by large corporations but increased the amount that individuals could contribute. While that might sound like a good way to avoid monopolistic mercantilism, the rich in our country got rich by making great companies. Getting $50000 from Bill Gates isn't all that different than getting it from Microsoft. He's still going to look for the candidate that best supports the interests of his golden goose.

Then there's the issue of free speech. Special interest groups are a popular boogeyman, but they are no more inherently evil, or good, than any other organization. By definition every political body, from the Congress of the United States, to the local school board, to the VFW, is a special interest group. By trying to limit add spending and donations by these groups we exacerbated the very situation we were trying to rectify. To wit: we limited the voice of the people while simultaneously providing protection for the few rich who can afford to buy full page NY Times adds and 30 second Super Bowl spots.

I have seen first hand how money affects, effects, and corrupts politics. This is not a new occurrence. As long as there have been politicians there has been greed and corruption. The Greeks and Romans were no better at finding a solution than we have been. We can try to limit this corruption and better prosecute those who fall prey to the allure of “easy money”, but we cannot hope to completely eliminate it. Not while we elect human beings to office, anyway.

Which brings us full circle: how do you limit the power of money without silencing the voice of the people? Unions were originally formed to protect the rights of workers in an industry. They were, are, special interests groups. Many large unions hold considerable sway, through their monetary and political power. Should we silence the ability of their members to “petition Congress for a redress of wrongs”? Can we, legally? If we say that only individuals can contribute then we intrinsically handicap “the little man” who cannot hope to fight the spending power of a Soros, Gates, or Buffett. If we allow the little men to group together and pool their resources then we are right back where we started, the competing maze of unions, church groups, gun owners, dog lovers, etc. all fighting to be heard and all racing to spend just one dollar more than the opposition.

Sorry but I don’t have any answers. Anyone who tells you he or she does have an easy, quick, solution is lying. And that’s about as clear and honest statement as you are going to get from any politician.

I am a conservative

I am a conservative because I believe in smaller government that is locally focused except for the matters of interstate trade and national defense. I believe that the best defense for our country is a strong, advanced, volunteer, military.

I am conservative because I believe the Constitution is the arbiter of law in this country and that God is the arbiter of morality. I believe in the rule of the majority with the protection of the minority from the whims of the enraged masses.

I am a conservative because I believe that all men and women are created equal and that we should all enjoy the same access to opportunity, without arbitrary restriction based on race, gender, or nationality.

I am a conservative because I believe that life begins at conception and that the unborn are citizens too. I believe that life is the most sacred of rights that can be given up willingly only by those who sever their ties with the greater community.

I am a conservative because I believe that there should be a separation between church and state, not an abolition of all religion.

I am a conservative because I believe that the best environment to raise a family is in the loving nurturing home of a man and women bound together by the holy sacrament of marriage. I am furthermore a conservative because I believe the government has no business interfering in the raising of my family beyond the obvious protections of life.

I am a fiscal conservative because I know that the best way to create jobs is to create businesses and the best way to create business is to remove the fetters to free enterprise. I believe that there should be protections against corruption that do not squash the ability of a man or woman to succeed. I believe that there are things our Federal tax dollars pay for that should never, ever, be funded with "public" funds.

I am a conservative because I believe that isolationism is the path to weakness and internationalism is the path to abolition of sovereignty and free will. I believe that democratic republics are America's gift to the world and the greatest boon to human rights and the freedom of mankind since the birth of Christ.

I am a conservative because I am a mother and I have held in my two hands the miracle of life and vowed with every sinew of my body that no harm shall come to my children.

I am a conservative because I was attacked on 9/11.

Finally, I am a conservative because I am educated enough to know bias when I see it and idealistic enough to hope that all men can work together for the betterment of the country and our world.