Thursday, April 29, 2010

Obamacare to drive up insurance premiums and cost employees their insurance plans

If you like your healthcare plan, Obamacare means you could lose it

"the documents (House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Henry) Waxman obtained included embarrassing evidence that the health-care law could drive up insurance premiums and force employers to dump employees from their health plans.

“Turns out Obamacare means if you like your health plan you can lose it. The president didn’t have to actually strong-arm companies into dumping their employee health insurance because his bill carried financial incentives to virtually guarantee that result,” Energy and Commerce Committee ranking member Rep. Joe Barton, Texas Republican, said.

Most significantly, documents unearthed by the investigation highlight companies that are considering dumping employees from their current health-care plans in the face of new costs from the health-care law. President Obama repeatedly promised his health-care law would let Americans keep their current insurance if they’re happy with it."

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2010/04/28/why-waxman-really-canceled-his-health-care-%e2%80%98show-trial%e2%80%99/

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Don't know much about political candidates

Public Policy Polling released a poll today showing (deploring?) that voters know little about political candidates. While it may be true, this observation really misses the point.

Ideally, we wouldn't have to know much about our political candidates... or care about them in the least. Ideally, our politicians would be so powerless as to be inconsequential to our own lives.

"My idea of a great president is one who acts in accordance with his oath of office to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States." Not since the presidency of Grover Cleveland has any president achieved greatness by this standard. Worse, the most admired have been those who failed most miserably." (Robert Higgs)



It is only because our politicians are so arrogant and insist on having so much arbitrary power over us that any of these things matter.

The best politicians would do NOTHING about healthcare or any other economic issue other than REPEAL existing government restrictions and mandates and subsidies... and enforce the few statutes that make sense fairly and evenly.

The free market does anything and everything better than government could ever hope to. It is the government that causes our economic problems and the free market that is always the solution. The best political platform is this: "My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them." (Barry Goldwater)


It is merely because politicians in Washington and Raleigh and state capitals are so tyrannical that knowledge of them becomes important. But the political class has managed to make government so complicated that many feel they cannot understand it. But if you ask those same people what they want out of government, the answer would be very simple: LEAVE US ALONE. STOP SPENDING OUR MONEY. STOP TAXING US TO DEATH. STOP STEALING OUR LIBERTY. LEAVE US ALONE.

Obama running scared

Obama is running away from his constituents, refusing to answer tough questions about the enormous bills he is pushing.

http://backyardconservative.blogspot.com/2010/04/obama-runs-away-in-quincy.html

Friday, April 16, 2010

"Social Justice" is code for socialism



"Social Justice" is a code word for socialism. And socialism is indeed evil.Socialism is nothing more than coveting what is not yours and asking the government to steal it for you.
Socialism is the theft of what belongs to others... so that the state can redistribute the stolen plunder... in order to buy power and votes with others' property.

http://michellemalkin.com/2010/04/16/when-social-justice-is-a-code-phrase/
http://www.redstate.com/erick/2010/04/16/social-justice-and-glenn-beck/

Red State Uprising: How to Take Back America
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guestvoices/2010/04/what_glenn_beck_meant_about_social_justice.html

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Repeal of Obamacare: Why does it bother progressives so much?



Why does the thought of the impending repeal of Obamacare anger "progressives" so much? Is it simply the horror at seeing so much hard work and lobbying going to waste? the bitter taste of an issue that once favored Democrats turning into ashes in their mouth (and an albatross on their necks)?

No, it's more than that. It's something more profound and philosophical. The impending repeal of Obamacare (and the popularity of the repeal issue among independents) is so jarring to "progressives" for a deeper reason that challenges the fundamental core of the progressive ideology.

It is, as Henry Hazlitt so intelligently said, "because by implication it challenges the present smugly fashionable assumption that every change means progress, and that whatever political or economic trend is latest in time must be best."

Obamacare makes healthcare WORSE. The majority of independent voters and voters likely to vote in 2010 already recognize this. The sooner "progressives" admit that Health Care Deform made matters WORSE and get on board with repeal, the better. The first step is admitting that "progressives" have a problem. The first step is admitting that "progressivism" IS the problem.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Still the greatest health care reform measure ever implemented by the Federal Government

Health Savings Accounts
http://www.ustreas.gov/offices/public-affairs/hsa/

No amount of government spending or regulatory gimmicks can compare to the simple power of savings and consumer empowerment.

Private savings and private decision making are the keys to correcting the damage that government spending and centralized planning have caused.

Monday, April 12, 2010

God is Not a Socialist

"God is Not a Socialist"
from The War on Success
by Tommy Newberry
www.TheWaronSuccess.com



"Socialization is always accompanied by secularization—the smaller God becomes, the larger government grows. Of course, that’s a human perspective; God doesn’t shrink at all. But as God fades from our attention, so does liberty. Evil in all its varieties is just the natural outgrowth of freedom without God. Review the whole history of godless Communism and fascism—did anything good come of it?

No doubt about it, America’s system of free enterprise, like our founding documents, is inspired by the timeless truths revealed throughout the Old and New Testaments. But today, the diminishing of God has led Americans to feel lonely, confused, and isolated like never before. Disconnected from traditional and proven sources of value and love, more and more people now seek solace in government programs. The result has been a decline in individual freedom and the diminishing of our range of lifetime opportunities.

This is the inevitable result when a country moves toward socialism. The socialist deplores biblical absolutes or fixed truths of any kind, for they restrict his ability to manipulate feelings and influence the masses. Communist godfather Karl Marx was a philosophical materialist, meaning he didn’t believe in God or any spiritual realm. To Marx, if you couldn’t see it, it didn’t exist: the material world is all there is. This warped atheism is a crucial component of the socialist mindset, justifying their attempts to create a utopian "workers’ paradise" on earth.

Nevertheless, today’s socialists deceptively weave biblical quotes and
spiritual-sounding platitudes into their rhetoric to help win over the "innocently ignorant" people of faith. American socialists are particularly prone to selling their ideology in religious terms. After all, our nation was founded on biblical principles, and according to recent polls, 80 percent of Americans claim to believe in God, and 77 percent profess to be either Christian or Jewish. Socialists can’t explicitly reject God and expect to win election, so instead they try to co-opt Him as a salesman for their atheistic cause.

Because they don’t really believe in God, many socialists are biblically illiterate, despite their biblical sales pitch. They twist God’s instructions and the values He extols, extracting collectivist lessons where none exist. Unfortunately, many religious people, congregants and leaders alike, who recognize these distortions are reluctant to challenge them, either because they’re intimidated by political correctness or because they don’t fully understand the harsh reality of socialism.

Although the socialist claims to be doing God’s work, the big, cold hand of the federal government is no match for the warm, loving hands of God. Socialism does not produce spiritual fulfillment anywhere, and it never brings man closer to God."

http://www.billboardsagainstobama.com/pdf/SURPRISEchapter.pdf

TheWarOnSuccess.com

Friday, April 2, 2010

How the left distorts the bible

Rabbi Aryeh Spero debunks the leftist delusions and distortions of Jim Wallis and "social justice" Marxists:

"The social justice that God expects of us is handled not through statist redistribution of wealth but through acts of charity. In the Old Testament, there are constant calls for giving charity but none for statist redistribution of wealth, nor calls for an economic leveling of society or for a lack of distinctiveness and differences among individuals. Doing so runs contrary to the notion of the individual as a unique and distinctive being, which is the meaning behind “human created in the image of God”, i.e., singular beings.

The Bible calls for acts of charity from the individual, for in being direct and personal, charity has the ability to elevate and ennoble the giver and provider. The direct act of giving changes the person and involves and partners him with God. Unlike Marxism, the Bible emphasizes the individual, not the state, the personal and not the masses."

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=36269

162,000 jobs???

So the Bureau of Labor Statistics at the Department of Labor reports a gain of 162,000 (down from an estimated 190,000 expected). And it's only the second monthly job gain since late 2007. The "gain" is not enough to lower the headline unemployment rate (9.7%).

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

But government statistics are often manipulated and overly bullish. Gallup finds an underemployment rate of 20.3% (http://www.gallup.com/poll/127091/Underemployment-Rises-March.aspx) and John Williams' shadowstats unemployment is 22%. (http://www.shadowstats.com/)

ADP's report on private payrolls showed that employers slashed 23,000 jobs (when the consensus prediction was a gain of 40,000). (http://www.adpemploymentreport.com/pdf/FINAL_Report_March_10.pdf)

There is still considerable weakness among private employment (and full-time positions in particular). And now that Obamacare burdens employers with employees working over 30 hours a week, fewer positions will be full-time positions. http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/how-the-health-care-law-affects-your-business/

An additional 200,000 Americans are called "marginally attached to the labor force" by the BLS. "They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey."

"Among the marginally attached, there were 1.0 million discouraged workers in March, up by 309,000 from a year earlier."

48,000 of the jobs "gained" were temporary positions for the US Census.
40,000 of the jobs "gained" were for temporary help services.
These 88,000 temporary positions are more than half of the "gains".

Another 27,000 jobs were in healthcare.

So if you want a full-time position in a field other than healthcare or government, the pickings are still rather slim. And the competition is growing as more graduates and immigrants enter the labor force.



There are now more "discouraged workers" and Americans "marginally attached to the labor force" despite the optimistic spin surrounding the latest employment report. This is not time for Democrats to be declaring "mission accomplished."