Posts Tagged ‘Obama’

Letter to the President #8

Friday, February 5th, 2010

February 5, 2010

Dear Mr. President,

I may be a little late in commenting on your State of the Union address, but it is filled to the brim with sewage that it would take days for any sane person to shovel their way through it. This speech differed little from the many you have given the past year. I often wonder when you will shut your mouth and actually start defending this country.

Instead of reporting on the State of the Union, people are more aware of it than you, and the 18 pages you spent selling your socialist agenda. It was the typical push for universal health care, cap and trade and a government takeover of energy production, another stimulus (the Jobs Bill), blame Bush, and more of your ego inflation. But there are a few points I want to address specifically.

You talk about the suffering of the people. You even throw in a few sob stories and supposed letter written to you just to prove that you understand our pain. You understand nothing. You insist that the economy downfall and our suffering is the result of the change you promised not coming quickly enough. And you blame Republicans for that. 1) The Republicans do not have a majority. Democrats do. Republicans couldn’t stop a bill from passing even if they all voted against it. It is people in your own party that has slowed down your ghoulish legisltaion. Blame them not the GOP. 2) You are either delusional or lying. I believe it is both. You truly believe that destroying America and turning it into a socialist country will make the country and the world a better place. You are also lying because you want the public to believe that our refusal to accept your regulations has furthered this economic slump. The reality is that the change you brought to Washington, your economic policies have prolonged the recession turning it into a depression. Your big government solutions took a problem and expanded it.

A second point I wish to make is that you are now attempting to rewrite history. You throw out a bunch of numbers and figures to prove that your stimulus bill actually saved the economy from total collapse. The numbers do not add up. There is no evidence that your spending spree saved the economy. There is evidence that it made the economy worse. Unemployment skyrocketed, businesses loss money, employers stopped hiring and began laying more people off, consumer spending dropped, banks stopped lending, and the stock market has yet to show any sign of recovery.

You mentioned tax cuts that you passed. Where are they? Tax rates are still the same and are due to increase when the Bush tax cuts expire later this year. That is considered a tax increase for those who do not understand basic economics. You have passed tax credits, but those are not tax cuts. A tax cut means that tax rates have decreased and will remain that way. A tax credit is a temporary refund that a person is forced to pay back when he is taxed on it at later date.

In 2009 you passed a tax credit on people’s paychecks that amounted to an additional $10 a paycheck. When filing taxes in 2010, those who received that credit will be charged income tax on that extra money along with the rest of their income. Explain how this is a tax cut. Simple, it’s not.

You have blatantly shown contempt for the Constitution and the rule of law. The Senate blacked a bill of yours that would have established another bureaucracy known as the Fiscal Commission. Instead of respecting the political process you are going to issue an executive order to create this Fiscal Commission and get what you want. How childish! You cannot override the House and Senate every time you do not get your way. This is an abuse of your executive power. This very act is something a dictator does. But then, you said once that you would rule this country.

Lastly, you have already demonstrated you desire to take over health care, businesses, and banks, but now you want education. The education in America is already largely controlled by the federal government, but you want more. You want a bill that will allow the government more control of education all in the name of protecting the children. The Department of Education already regulates schools including universities. Yet, many college graduates still cannot read anything longer than a magazine or even discuss current world events. And you have the gall to insist that more government legislation will fix this? You have the audacity to tell students that if they take out a student loan to pay for college they will not have to pay it back after ten years if they get a government job, or twenty years if they get a regular job. Instead the government will absorb the loan. Not only is this financial suicide for the United States since we are trillions of dollars in debt and have no money, but this is insulting to those who took responsibility for their debts and paid off their loans. I am one of those people. I paid for my education. I paid my student loans. Not the government.

How dare you insist that people need the government’s help to pay for anything. How dare you encourage young people to not take responsibility for themselves and their education but instead to let the government handle it. Your big government policies will breed yet another generation of people who refuse to work for anything, refuse to be self reliant, but instead believe that they are entitled to everything. They will believe that government should provide for them. This is not only a violation of the U.S. Constitution but an insult to the American character.

Like any tyrant this does not concern you. You want people to believe that you are doing all of this out of compassion because you care. You are an arrogant fool who cares only for yourself. You refer to yourself so much it is difficult to believe that you care for anything else. You wish for us to look upon you as our Savior and the savior of America. Mr. President, you are one of many that has helped destroy this country. There is one savior and he died on a cross. Would you do the same? You talk about Americans making sacrifices. You talk about how it is time for Washington to tighten its belt. Where are those sacrifices on the part of Washington? Where are your sacrifices? What are you willing to sacrifice?

When it comes down to it, Mr. President, your mouth is a black hole that spouts empty words.

Sincerely,

Lady Liberty

Letter to the President #7

Tuesday, January 26th, 2010

January 26, 2010

Dear Mr. President,

Now that we have come to your first State of the Union address the pressure is on for passage of your precious health care bill. You just want some “accomplishment” to boast about. I guess you must be getting tired of constantly talking about your stimulus bill, blaming Bush for the economy, yourself, blaming Bush again, yourself, your stimulus bill, oh, and blaming Bush.

As this monstrosity of a bill nears a vote, it becomes more evident who the beneficiaries are. With the new taxes proposed the government will receive a large sum of money from individual people, businesses, and insurance companies. The state of Louisiana is set to get $300 million. You have agreed to exempt Union workers from the Senate’s proposed Cadillac Tax. The AMA and pharmaceutical companies are set to prosper from this bill as well. And who knows what other pay offs and back room deals were made in Congress just to get the bill through?

And why are you meeting personally with Union leaders? You promised the American people that your administration would be free of special interests. Unions are special interest groups. Why do they get an exemption from this tax? Less than 10% of the private sector is unionized. Your so called health reform will force the majority of Americans to pay an additional tax on their health insurance premiums, which will raise the cost of their insurance. To avoid bankruptcy, many will have to join a union. This will make Union memberships soar and these Unions, such as SEIU, will prosper from the additional membership dues.

Why have you given the Unions your personal guarantee that they will be exempted from this new tax? Your personal guarantee! Shakespeare wrote that there was something rotten in the state of Denmark. Well there is definitely something rotten in Washington D.C. The stench from you, the cronies in your administration, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Barney Frank, and all of the sweetheart deals that have been going on in Congress would make even the dead recoil.

But you are not satisfied with taking over health care. You want to impose a 15% tax on the banks that took federal bailout money. First you forced the banks to take the money, then refused to take it back when they first tried to repay it. By now, most of the banks that took bailout funds have repaid it. But apparently this isn’t enough.

You feign anger over the banks using bailout money on bonuses. So what if they did? Why are you against CEOs getting paid bonuses? These companies have already repaid the TARP funds. You have no right to be angry. This is a punitive tax meant to force the banks fall into line.

While you are in the business of getting bailout money back from companies, why don’t you force GM and Chrysler to pay back what was given them? The car companies took more money from the federal government than the banks did, yet you have not demanded that they pay it back. The United Auto Workers Union received a hefty amount of bailout money when you took over General Motors, yet you have not demanded it back. A lot of businesses, that had contracts with these car companies, disappeared when Chrysler and General Motors fell under the government’s control. What has Gm or Chrysler produced since January 2009? Nothing. But this doesn’t bother you. It’s those banks that are the problem. You’re just so angry over those AIG bonuses.

What irritates you, Mr. President, is not the fact that the banks may have spent their bailout money of executive bonuses. What you’re angry about is the fact that you haven’t managed to gain control of the banks. That is the real reason for the tax. You’re not concerned that this tax will get passed on to consumers. You, like all socialists, want more money. You are going to squeeze the private sector until there is nothing left to gain, and even then it won’t be enough.

You said that “We want our money back.” Well, here is an idea: why don’t you and your liberal thugs take the money that you stole from the American people for your precious public works programs and stimulus package and give it back to the taxpayer? Or am I asking too much from our “historical” president.

Sincerely,

Lady Liberty

A Letter to the President #6

Monday, November 23rd, 2009

November 23, 2009

Dear Mr. President,
Why do you hate the United States so vehemently? What is it about this country that causes you to despise it so? This nation allowed you to go from being a poor black kid in Chicago to becoming the President of the United States. You used our capitalist system to improve your lot in life. Now you have the gall to trash it and to deny such a future to all Americans: current and future generations. You, like all liberals, use the free market to advance yourselves and then you turn around and talk about its shortcomings and how it has failed and is outdated. If the system is a failure and outdated, then how is it you and those like you were able to use it to your success? The real reason for you denunciation of capitalism is that you and your ilk do not want others to be successful, thus challenging your power. Such greed has proven to be the downfall of all who pursue it.
I do find it interesting that you have recently decided to allow Fox News to interview you, especially considering that you and your administration has spent the past several months trashing Fox. Your duplicity came out clearly in the interview. In it you said, “I think it is important though to recognize that if we keep on adding to the debt, even in the midst of this recovery, that at some point, people could lose confidence in the U.S. economy in a way that could actually lead to a double-dip recession.” Why then are you pushing for universal healthcare? The current estimated cost is $1.2 trillion. $1.2 trillion! Then, you want to go to a green economy meaning that all current means of producing energy will be eliminated and many more people will be forced into unemployment. You plan to accomplish this with cap and trade, another bill that will cost us trillions of dollars. Considering we had to beg China for money to pay for your disastrous stimulus bill, where are you going to get the money to pay for these other two bills? And this does not include whatever else you have planned.
You said yourself that we are in debt as a nation and that if spending does not cease the recession will be worse. Why then do you insist on spending money? Why don’t you urge Congress to quit spending? Why not cut all wasteful spending? It’s simple. You expect the average citizen to do as you tell them, but you have no intention of controlling your spending.
There are also a few lies in your above statement. 1) We are not in the midst of an economic recovery nor have ever been in one since your stimulus bill. 2) The world has already lost confidence in the U.S. economy. Why do you think the value of the dollar keeps falling? 3) Double-dip recession? We are well on our way to a depression, if we’re not already there. And we have you to thank for this.
Mr. President, you had the opportunity of being a great president. But, you abandoned honesty and integrity for your Marxist ideology and your lust for power. Glenn Beck was correct when he said that you and your associates are collapsing the system because that is exactly what you are doing.
You’ve weakened the economy to a near state of disrepair. The dollar has sunk and prices are up. More people are out of work and businesses are looking at even more ways to cut costs in preparation for your massive takeover of the economy. This will result in further unemployment and a decrease in the quality of our goods while prices continue to rise.
You and your union thugs are doing what Marxists have done throughout centuries. It happened in Rome, Germany after WWI, the French Revolution, and the Bolshevik Revolution. Those who wanted a socialist utopia created anarchy by collapsing the current economy. Afterward, the ones who caused the problem step in with the solution. The people, being desperate and frightened, accept these “saviors” only to regret it later as their quality of life sinks and their freedom disappears. This is what has happened recently in the United States. Our own government, with their big government regulations, caused the housing market crash, inflation, tumbling wages, loss of jobs, and the continued demise of the dollar. Through you, the same government steps in with a solution: increase in the size of the government and an increase in government spending, thus choking what little free enterprise and liberty are left.
Mr. President, on the outside you appear to be like everyone else. You are clean cut and well dressed, even pleasing to look at. But underneath all of that beats the black heart of a soulless man whose foul stench and deeds are consuming this great country. If you do not put a stop to this madness, we will all sink into the black hole of socialism’s disease.
Sincerely,

Lady Liberty

Unions And Our President (SEIU)

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

With all of the information coming out about ACORN, SEIU, and the Apollo Alliance and their connections to President Obama, one has to wonder, how deep do these connections go?  Who is really in charge of the United States?  Who is behind recent legislation being pushed through Congress?  We all know that ACORN received money from Obama’s stimulus bill, though it is not the first time they received federal funds.  SEIU has a large stake in the Health Care Bill being rammed through.  And then there is Cap and Trade which is speaking through with little to no attention from the press.  How much you want to bet that the Apollo Alliance is going to receive a tidy sum from Uncle Sam?  They promote “green” jobs.  Isn’t that what Cap and Trade is supposed to do?

First let’s explore SEIU (Service Employee’s International Union).  Andy Stern is the president of SEIU.  He is a Marxist.  SEIU’s policies fall within Marxism. (Click on the link below to watch Bill Moyers’ interview with Andy Stern.)

Bill Moyers\’ Interview with Andy Stern June 15, 2007

Notice the similarities between what Andy Stern says and what Obama says.  He talks about making government work for the unions.  Oh he speaks about individuals, but if Stern had his way everyone would be part of the union.  Stern mentioned redistributing wealth and how it mustn’t be in the hands of a few people.  Obama mentions the sam when trying to answer Joe the Plumber\’s question. Which he failed to answer.  Andy Stern wants to use political power to change the behavior of corporations like Bank of America.  Obama is using political power to force people to buy into an insurance program they do not want; to force insurance companies to provide coverage that they do not wish to provide and may be unable to provide.  Of course, this will take care of the universal health care coverage that SEIU wants.

Andy Stern has had at least 22 visits to the White House where he has talked personally with Obama in the first 6 months since the inauguration.  He has had the most visits with the president than anyone else.  That is a lot of meetings between the president of a union and the President of the United States.  Didn’t Obama pledge to end special interests?  Apparently he only wishes to end the special interests of evil corporations and their profit making.  But Obama has no qualms about SEIU, a labor union, making a profit through taxpayer money.

Watch these three videos below.  (Click on the link to access the video.)  The first two are from an SEIU conference in October 2007.  The third from the SEIU convention of 2008.  In both video Obama is addressing SEIU.  Now listen to what he says.  Listen to what he promises SEIU member.

Obama\’s SEIU Agenda is my Agenda

Does Obama Represent the Country of SEIU?

Barak Obama Adresses SEIU\’s 2008 Convention

Here Obama admits to working with SEIU members during his days as a community organizer.  Did you notice the phrase, “get everybody organized”?  Does that mean we will all be forced into a union?  Is this the setup for his civilian task force which he mentioned in another speech?  Notice he said “Your agenda is my agenda.”  That is a very clear sign that SEIU is a special interest in the Obama Administration.  His agenda is their agenda!  In the third video Obama claims, “You and I together-together you and I, we are going to change this country and we are going to change the world.”  Sounds like SEIU and its president, Andy Stern, have authority over what happens in this country and influence over Obama.  Obama is admitting right here that they will work together to change America.

It is no secret that SEIU spent at least $60 million on Obama’s campaign for the presidency.  (Do you still believe that Barak Obama has no connections to this organization?)  Obama’s political director is Patrick Gaspard.

Gaspard is a former lobbyist for SEIU. [i] He first joined SEIU in 1999 to help organize the local 1199 “March For Justice”.[ii] He remained with SEIU promoting their agenda in Congress until 2008. He only quit that job to join Obama’s campaign. That is a good seven years with the union. The fact that he went straight from SEIU to Obama, who is also well connected with the union, shows that it is unlikely that Gaspard became disillusioned with the union and quit because of such sentiments. Especially since President Obama is promoting SEIU’s agenda. Gaspard also has known ties with ACORN. It is interesting how ACORN keeps popping up in Obama’s circle of friends.

It is well documented that Obama and SEIU are connected.  Very much so.  Obama himself said that SEIU’s agenda is his agenda.  He has a former SEIU lobbyist in his administration.  Lobbyists do not change.  Even though this evidence is circumstantial, the circumstances are suspicious.


[i] Patrick Gaspard, Who Runs Gov, 18 November, 2009, http://www.whorunsgov.com/Profiles/Patrick_Gaspard

[ii] Stein, Sam, Patrick Gaspard: Obama’s Glue Man, January 4, 2009, The Huffington Post, 18 November, 2009, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/04/obamas-glue-man-the-best_n_148415.html

Letter to the President #4

Friday, September 18th, 2009

September 18, 2009

Dear Mr. President,

Your speech to Congress on the 9th was nothing more than a rehash of the weekly primetime speeches you have given promoting you health care bill. You love to say that we are in the “worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.” But there you are wrong. The 1970s under Carter’s failed administration were far worse than what we are facing now. Then there was double digit unemployment, rising inflation, cost of gas and oil rose exponentially.

You continue to talk about the success of your stimulus bill. Well, if an unemployment rate of 9.7%, money going to ACORN, pig farms, and the building of nonexistent infrastructure is success then I congratulate you. You succeeded in failing to revive the economy. But then, economic revival was not your goal was it? Your bill was designed to waste money and fund government programs meant to keep people dependent on the government. It was meant to make people desperate so that when you proposed universal healthcare we would accept it. But it didn’t work. Yes, unemployment is up and we are far from economic recovery, but we do not want government healthcare. Many have learned what it entails and the sacrifices we would have to make, but you politicians get to avoid it. The people have learned that the proposed health care bill has nothing to do with ensuring people have access to health care, which they already do, but has everything to do with controlling the economy. You know as well as I that if the government controls 1/6 of the economy and controls the health of the people, it controls the nation and its people. The people will be slaves for your government regime. That is something Americans do not want.

You are shocked by the protests and are speechless. You first claimed you knew nothing about it. When that didn’t work you played the race card painting the protesters as dumb, ignorant, hillbilly, right wing, Nazi loving, racist extremists. (Or at least your supporters did and you never condemned them for saying such things.) When that didn’t work, you and your people insisted that we are the minority and that the “silent majority” support you. The thing is, Mr. President, we are the silent majority, but we are silent no more.

You accuse the opposition of using scare tactics in order to stop reform. All we have done is tell the truth about what has happened in other countries that have done what you propose. It is you who is using scare tactics. You portray our current health system as a crisis. You are telling the American people that we need your health reform in order to avert catastrophe. You did the same thing when it came to passing you stimulus bill. You portrayed our current economic situation as a crisis. You droned into our heads the belief that if the government didn’t do something, we would go bankrupt, unemployment would go up, more jobs would be lost, more homes foreclosed on. Well, the people listened and allowed you to pass you Recovery Act, as you are now calling it, and the country is bankrupt, the deficit is higher than ever, more jobs have been lost, unemployment nearly doubled, and more homes have been foreclosed on. You took a crisis that did not exist and turned it into one giant mess. Now you want to do the same with our health care system.

Whenever the government gets involved in the free market, it chokes it, until the government is the only one left to provide what the private sector used to. You know this, and that is your goal. So you and your cronies dismiss us as liars and as a violent angry mob. The truth of the matter is, Mr. President, you fear us. You are afraid of the people. You fear an armed uprising. The truth is you have an insatiable need for everyone to love you. You have an enormous ego and need people to worship you.

You say that you do not want Canada’s system of health care. Then why are you pushing for a bill that creates exactly that? You are attempting to play the moderate who isn’t for a complete takeover of the health care system, but is for tighter regulations on insurance companies. In the end, no one knows what you are for or against. But again we know the truth, don’t we? You are, and always have been, for complete government takeover of the health care system because once you get control of that it will be easy to take control of everything else.

You brought up Theodore Roosevelt in an attempt to garner support for your supposed reform. However, Theodore Roosevelt never specifically called for health reform. In 1912, he did run on the Progressive Platform for president and one of their platforms was universal healthcare. However, the people voted against it then and have ever since.

You constantly talk about the increasing cost of health care and how people are being forced to pay for “somebody else’s emergency room and charitable care.” Well, isn’t that what your universal health care would do? Government run health care forces people to pay for someone else’s health care. Government welfare is forced charity.

The bill you propose will dictate how much coverage insurance companies will have to provide, whom they can cover, whom they cannot, and put price controls on prescription medication. These measures will force insurance and drug companies out of business. These are businesses. They have to make a profit to stay in business. They have the right to cover whom they choose and to put caps on how much they will cover. But by forcing these companies to provide more than they can afford you force them to close.

Next you propose a bill that requires everyone to carry insurance whether they want to or not. This is not freedom of choice. This ensures that everyone will be on the government plan because those who lose their insurance when their current provider disappears will be forced onto what the government offers.

The thing is, not carrying insurance, companies denying coverage, drug companies wanting to make a profit, these are not the causes of the increase cost of health care. Part of the cause is newer technology and innovation. But the real culprit is the government. Government regulation of insurance companies forces their premiums to rise. Medicare and Medicaid are government run insurance programs. The bureaucracy they created and the amount of paper work that has to be filed takes money. This is where the waste is. The majority of the waste is on the part of the government, not individual people or companies.

You want us to believe that a health bill costing nearly $900 billion dollars will not add to the deficit. Tell me, how can spending $900 billion when we have no money not add to the deficit. Mr. President, you are spending money we do not have. It will add to the deficit. Do not insult our intellect. You say spending cuts will pay for this. What cuts? What government spending will be cut to pay for it? Once again you cannot give us specifics. Only generalities.

It is ironic that you would mention that the “unique and wonderful things about America has always been our self-reliance, our rugged individualism, our fierce defense of freedom and our healthy skepticism of government.” You are correct. These qualities are what make America great. Yet at the same time you are a hypocrite. You are proposing a bill that will kill these characteristics. You are proposing a bill that will make Americans dependent on the government, stripping away our individualism and liberty and stretching the government far beyond the boundaries that our Founders intended.

You talk about a collective responsibility earlier in your speech that Americans have to provide affordable health care for all. You said that we all share the costs, the responsibility, the successes and failures. You say that social justice is the character of our country. Social justice is code for socialism and redistribution of wealth. Social justice is the antithesis of freedom, rugged individualism, and the American character. Social Justice led to Social Security and Medicare, two programs that you claim are great achievements. Mr. President, they are utter failures. After nearly 70 years Social Security went bankrupt; after 40 Medicare has suffered the same fate. And they are but the tip of the iceberg.

Your speech, like so many others you have given in the past, was nothing more than pious rhetoric. You intend to fool the public with deceptive altruism. Mr. President, when are you going to stop campaigning and start leading? Anyone can deliver a speech especially when they have a teleprompter in front of them. In the past three years you have taken the campaigning to a fine art. But not everyone can lead. To be a leader you must be honest, honorable, possess integrity, and sacrifice (privately). You are none of these. Mr. President, you are nothing but a soulless man in a fancy suit.

Sincerely,

Lady Liberty

A Letter to the President #3

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

August 20, 2009

Dear Mr. President,

Tuesday, August 11, you graced us with another Town Hall meeting. This seems to be the only thing you are good at. You have become quite adept at using these staged events to push the liberal agenda. Once again your entire speech was filled with one lie after another. You never answered any of the questions (if they could be called that) that were asked. Are you incapable of answering questions directly? Or are you too much of a coward?

You mentioned in your speech that people “are held hostage by health insurance.” People are not held hostage by insurance companies. Whether an insurance company pays for something or not, people still have access to high quality medical care. Hospitals will work with individuals who are unable to pay up front. Apparently you are under that assumption that people will only receive the treatment they need if their insurance agrees to pay the cost. But here’s a question: if the government insurance program refuses to pay for medical care, then by the same logic are you not held hostage by the government?

Once again you want us to believe that the stimulus bill is working. If so where is the evidence? The only jobs created are federal and state jobs. The only people benefiting from your stimulus are Union leaders. Unions have always killed capitalism. Government intervention destroys prosperous economies. Private business is what we need. Many businesses have closed their doors, or laid off employees to cover the rising costs that your Stimulus package put on them. Unemployment is close to 10%. And as you’ve said, only a third of the money was spent. If this is the result after only spending 1/3 of the allotted money, why spend the rest. Why don’t you and Congress give the rest of that $787 billion back to the people? The people have always been able to spend their hard earned money better and more efficiently than the government.

The Recovery Act is a failure. You love to mention Bush’s failed economic policies. Unemployment stayed fairly constant that last eight years, as the chart below indicates.

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

4%

4.7%

5.8%

6%

5.5%

5.1%

4.6%

4.6%

5.8%

9.7% as of July

Figures from www.infoplease.com & http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=usunemployment&met=unemployment_rate&tdim=true&q=current+U.S.+unemployment+rate

When are you going to quit blaming Bush for your problems?

True to your Marxist principles, you instigate class warfare. The wealthy Americans are not paying enough. In truth, the wealthiest Americans pay more in taxes than anyone else. You stated, “It doesn’t mean we can just sit back and do nothing while so many families are still struggling, because even before this recession hit we had an economy that was working pretty well for the wealthiest Americans, it was working pretty well for Wall Street bankers, it was working pretty well for big corporations, but it wasn’t working so well for everybody else. It was an economy of bubbles and busts.” Karl Marx would be so proud of you. The thing is, when the wealthy prosper, so do the poor. A free market economy always has “bubbles and busts”. The ups are usually long lived and the downturns are short. However, when government steps in to right wrongs that never existed those economic downturns last a long time. This is what you have been doing since January. Though you are only doing what our government has steadily done since F.D.R.

A free market society is the best society any nation can have. It gives all people the opportunity to succeed, but it does not guarantee results. The wealthiest Americans exist because they took the risk of seeking fortune, worked hard, and succeeded. They refused to settle for mediocrity. What you are pushing for is equal poverty. Your health plan will force everyone to pay all that they earn in order to support it. It will destroy business and destroy the economy. This has happened in every nation that has implemented such a plan. The results will be no different here.

Whereas many of the poor in this country remain so because they are dependent on the government for their livelihood. These people are on welfare, collect food stamps, and have Medicaid for health insurance. They have no incentive or desire to improve themselves and their lives.

You yourself are wealthy, Mr. President. You have more money than people can dream of. Many in your administration are wealthy. Are you, or they, willing to give up your wealth to someone who has less than $10,000? Are you willing to donate your money to a non profit charity that lives among the poor day after day trying to help them find work? Since you are unwilling to sacrifice your wealth for the sake of another, then do not force others to do it through a government mandate. You hypocrite.

You and your ilk always make it a crime for people or businesses to create profit from business transactions. You accuse the drug companies and insurance companies of making more money than they should. Who are you to decide how much they should make? Who are you to decide how much anyone should make? Those companies only stay alive because they make a profit and those profits are reinvested in the company. That is how business works. No one has the right to decide how much an individual or a business makes.

You try to use the fact that UPS and FedEx are doing just fine while competing against the Post Office as a reason for government run health care. “It’s the Post Office that’s always having problems,” you said. Maybe this is why the government should not run anything. The Post Office loses money every year. What will make government health care any different? FedEx and UPS came around because of the increasing inefficiency of the post office. They have proven that the government cannot run a business. Insurance, whether health or other, is a business.

You mentioned, “Medicare and Medicaid are on an unsustainable path. Medicare is slated to go into the red in about eight to 10 years.” If Medicare and Medicaid will be bankrupt in 10 years, then why are you expanding these unsustainable programs to cover everyone? Medicare and Medicaid are both government insurance programs done on a smaller scale. If they are bankrupt after 40 years, what makes you think you can just expand them on a national scale and have different results? Trying to use these two programs as a reason to have nationalized health care is a flawed argument.

Another aspect of our current health system that you claim is a problem is the fact that specialists are paid more than general practitioners. There is a reason for that. General practitioners see a wide variety of patients every day. They see more patients than the specialists. Because they see more people per day they can charge less per patient without suffering a huge deduction in pay.

Specialists only concentrate on one area of the medical field. They go through more years of school than your general practitioners. They only see patients that pertain to there area of expertise. A Cardiologist only sees patients with major heart problems. Oncologists see only cancer patients. And so on. That is their specialty. You wouldn’t send someone with a sore throat to these people. You also wouldn’t want a general practitioner treating you if you had cancer or a heart attack. Again, who are you to decide how much a doctor can or cannot make? Doctors are businessmen. Their practices are businesses. Setting restrictions on how much a physician earns compels them to treat less people and not care if their patient get well or not.

You contradicted yourself later when you mentioned that you managed to get “something right like Medicare.” How could the government have gotten Medicare right when it is bankrupt? You said yourself that it is headed on the road to bankruptcy. But you insist that the government got it right. If you believe this, then you have admitted that you think the right course for America is to spend it in to oblivion while taking complete control of private industry.

You addressed on person’s concerns by stating that Medicare benefits will not be cut to pay for this public option. One problem: about a month before you passed a proposal of how to pay for government run health care. One this proposal were cuts in Medicare and the supposed savings from these cuts would help pay for this health care reform of yours. Which is it?

Another portion of your speech states:

“Under the reform we’re proposing, if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.

You will not be waiting in any lines. This is not about putting the government in charge of your health insurance. I don’t believe anyone should be in charge of your health insurance decisions but you and your doctor. I don’t think government bureaucrats should be meddling, but I also don’t think insurance company bureaucrats should be meddling. That’s the health care system I believe in.”

Mr. President, why do you continue to lie to us? Page 16 of the House Bill begins a list of requirements that must be met in order for individuals to be allowed to keep their current insurance plan. If none of those measures are met, they lose their insurance, forcing them on the government option. How is that allowing people to keep their current health insurance? There is a similar list for employer based insurance.

This bill has provisions for establishing advisory boards for everything: preventative care, use of medical practices, care received, prescriptions and so. With all of these health advisory boards, not only is there going to be a new bureaucracy formed, meaning increase government control, but what is to keep these boards from determining who your doctor is, what medical care you will be allowed to receive, or how much care you will receive? These boards will be headed by government bureaucrats. Who controls them? Another bureaucrat?

Either you do not have a clue of what is in this bill, or you do and do not care. I believe it is a combination of both. You know full well that this supposed reform imposes new taxes, cuts Medicare benefits, rations care, dictates the kind of medicine people can have and extends government control over every aspect of people’s lives. You know this and you do not care if it results in economic disaster, Americans being denied health care, or kills the ingenuity and initiative that drove us to develop better treatments for diseases.

Mr. President, your entire speech at this meeting is the equivalent of what comes out of a horse’s ass. You couldn’t even answer the pitiful questions that were asked. Instead, you continued to sell us a bushel of lemons. You claim to care about average American. You are a liar. You don’t care about the people. You just use them to get your government programs passed. You use the status quo, “the people,” to get what you want and if these measures fail you can stay afloat by claiming that you were only trying to help. Or, that your measures kept things from being worse.

Sincerely,

Lady Liberty

The Push For Government Run Health Care (part 5)

Monday, July 27th, 2009

This is a copy of an article at CNN.com.  You can read the original at: http://money.cnn.com/2009/07/24/news/economy/health_care_reform_obama.fortune/index.htm

5 freedoms you’d lose in health care reform

If you read the fine print in the Congressional plans, you’ll find that a lot of cherished aspects of the current system would disappear.

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By Shawn Tully, editor at large

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Sick pay: 9 stories of health costs

From $10,000 deductibles to no coverage at all, CNNMoney.com readers and viewers reveal their battle with the rising costs of health insurance.


Would you be willing to pay more in taxes for the promise of reducing your health care costs?

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NEW YORK (Fortune) — In promoting his health-care agenda, President Obama has repeatedly reassured Americans that they can keep their existing health plans — and that the benefits and access they prize will be enhanced through reform.

A close reading of the two main bills, one backed by Democrats in the House and the other issued by Sen. Edward Kennedy’s Health committee, contradict the President’s assurances. To be sure, it isn’t easy to comb through their 2,000 pages of tortured legal language. But page by page, the bills reveal a web of restrictions, fines, and mandates that would radically change your health-care coverage.

If you prize choosing your own cardiologist or urologist under your company’s Preferred Provider Organization plan (PPO), if your employer rewards your non-smoking, healthy lifestyle with reduced premiums, if you love the bargain Health Savings Account (HSA) that insures you just for the essentials, or if you simply take comfort in the freedom to spend your own money for a policy that covers the newest drugs and diagnostic tests — you may be shocked to learn that you could lose all of those good things under the rules proposed in the two bills that herald a health-care revolution.

In short, the Obama platform would mandate extremely full, expensive, and highly subsidized coverage — including a lot of benefits people would never pay for with their own money — but deliver it through a highly restrictive, HMO-style plan that will determine what care and tests you can and can’t have. It’s a revolution, all right, but in the wrong direction.

Let’s explore the five freedoms that Americans would lose under Obamacare:

1. Freedom to choose what’s in your plan

The bills in both houses require that Americans purchase insurance through “qualified” plans offered by health-care “exchanges” that would be set up in each state. The rub is that the plans can’t really compete based on what they offer. The reason: The federal government will impose a minimum list of benefits that each plan is required to offer.

Today, many states require these “standard benefits packages” — and they’re a major cause for the rise in health-care costs. Every group, from chiropractors to alcohol-abuse counselors, do lobbying to get included. Connecticut, for example, requires reimbursement for hair transplants, hearing aids, and in vitro fertilization.

The Senate bill would require coverage for prescription drugs, mental-health benefits, and substance-abuse services. It also requires policies to insure “children” until the age of 26. That’s just the starting list. The bills would allow the Department of Health and Human Services to add to the list of required benefits, based on recommendations from a committee of experts. Americans, therefore, wouldn’t even know what’s in their plans and what they’re required to pay for, directly or indirectly, until after the bills become law.

2. Freedom to be rewarded for healthy living, or pay your real costs

As with the previous example, the Obama plan enshrines into federal law one of the worst features of state legislation: community rating. Eleven states, ranging from New York to Oregon, have some form of community rating. In its purest form, community rating requires that all patients pay the same rates for their level of coverage regardless of their age or medical condition.

Americans with pre-existing conditions need subsidies under any plan, but community rating is a dubious way to bring fairness to health care. The reason is twofold: First, it forces young people, who typically have lower incomes than older workers, to pay far more than their actual cost, and gives older workers, who can afford to pay more, a big discount. The state laws gouging the young are a major reason so many of them have joined the ranks of uninsured.

Under the Senate plan, insurers would be barred from charging any more than twice as much for one patient vs. any other patient with the same coverage. So if a 20-year-old who costs just $800 a year to insure is forced to pay $2,500, a 62-year-old who costs $7,500 would pay no more than $5,000.

Second, the bills would ban insurers from charging differing premiums based on the health of their customers. Again, that’s understandable for folks with diabetes or cancer. But the bills would bar rewarding people who pursue a healthy lifestyle of exercise or a cholesterol-conscious diet. That’s hardly a formula for lower costs. It’s as if car insurers had to charge the same rates to safe drivers as to chronic speeders with a history of accidents.

3. Freedom to choose high-deductible coverage

The bills threaten to eliminate the one part of the market truly driven by consumers spending their own money. That’s what makes a market, and health care needs more of it, not less.

Hundreds of companies now offer Health Savings Accounts to about 5 million employees. Those workers deposit tax-free money in the accounts and get a matching contribution from their employer. They can use the funds to buy a high-deductible plan — say for major medical costs over $12,000. Preventive care is reimbursed, but patients pay all other routine doctor visits and tests with their own money from the HSA account. As a result, HSA users are far more cost-conscious than customers who are reimbursed for the majority of their care.

The bills seriously endanger the trend toward consumer-driven care in general. By requiring minimum packages, they would prevent patients from choosing stripped-down plans that cover only major medical expenses. “The government could set extremely low deductibles that would eliminate HSAs,” says John Goodman of the National Center for Policy Analysis, a free-market research group. “And they could do it after the bills are passed.”

4. Freedom to keep your existing plan

This is the freedom that the President keeps emphasizing. Yet the bills appear to say otherwise. It’s worth diving into the weeds — the territory where most pundits and politicians don’t seem to have ventured.

The legislation divides the insured into two main groups, and those two groups are treated differently with respect to their current plans. The first are employees covered by the Employee Retirement Security Act of 1974. ERISA regulates companies that are self-insured, meaning they pay claims out of their cash flow, and don’t have real insurance. Those are the GEs (GE, Fortune 500) and Time Warners (TWX, Fortune 500) and most other big companies.

The House bill states that employees covered by ERISA plans are “grandfathered.” Under ERISA, the plans can do pretty much what they want — they’re exempt from standard packages and community rating and can reward employees for healthy lifestyles even in restrictive states.

But read on.

The bill gives ERISA employers a five-year grace period when they can keep offering plans free from the restrictions of the “qualified” policies offered on the exchanges. But after five years, they would have to offer only approved plans, with the myriad rules we’ve already discussed. So for Americans in large corporations, “keeping your own plan” has a strict deadline. In five years, like it or not, you’ll get dumped into the exchange. As we’ll see, it could happen a lot earlier.

The outlook is worse for the second group. It encompasses employees who aren’t under ERISA but get actual insurance either on their own or through small businesses. After the legislation passes, all insurers that offer a wide range of plans to these employees will be forced to offer only “qualified” plans to new customers, via the exchanges.

The employees who got their coverage before the law goes into effect can keep their plans, but once again, there’s a catch. If the plan changes in any way — by altering co-pays, deductibles, or even switching coverage for this or that drug — the employee must drop out and shop through the exchange. Since these plans generally change their policies every year, it’s likely that millions of employees will lose their plans in 12 months.

5. Freedom to choose your doctors

The Senate bill requires that Americans buying through the exchanges — and as we’ve seen, that will soon be most Americans — must get their care through something called “medical home.” Medical home is similar to an HMO. You’re assigned a primary care doctor, and the doctor controls your access to specialists. The primary care physicians will decide which services, like MRIs and other diagnostic scans, are best for you, and will decide when you really need to see a cardiologists or orthopedists.

Under the proposals, the gatekeepers would theoretically guide patients to tests and treatments that have proved most cost-effective. The danger is that doctors will be financially rewarded for denying care, as were HMO physicians more than a decade ago. It was consumer outrage over despotic gatekeepers that made the HMOs so unpopular, and killed what was billed as the solution to America’s health-care cost explosion.

The bills do not specifically rule out fee-for-service plans as options to be offered through the exchanges. But remember, those plans — if they exist — would be barred from charging sick or elderly patients more than young and healthy ones. So patients would be inclined to game the system, staying in the HMO while they’re healthy and switching to fee-for-service when they become seriously ill. “That would kill fee-for-service in a hurry,” says Goodman.

In reality, the flexible, employer-based plans that now dominate the landscape, and that Americans so cherish, could disappear far faster than the 5 year “grace period” that’s barely being discussed.

Companies would have the option of paying an 8% payroll tax into a fund that pays for coverage for Americans who aren’t covered by their employers. It won’t happen right away — large companies must wait a couple of years before they opt out. But it will happen, since it’s likely that the tax will rise a lot more slowly than corporate health-care costs, especially since they’ll be lobbying Washington to keep the tax under control in the righteous name of job creation.

The best solution is to move to a let-freedom-ring regime of high deductibles, no community rating, no standard benefits, and cross-state shopping for bargains (another market-based reform that’s strictly taboo in the bills). I’ll propose my own solution in another piece soon on Fortune.com. For now, we suffer with a flawed health-care system, but we still have our Five Freedoms. Call them the Five Endangered Freedoms. To top of page

Questions Few Bother to Ask

Tuesday, July 14th, 2009

1. Why was a stimulus bill passed when we had to borrow money from China to pay for it?

2. Since all revenue generated by the government is already spent and our country is basically bankrupt, why does Congress and the president continue to pass spending bills?  Wouldn’t the sensible thing to do be to cut spending?

3. Universal health care, in all its forms, has failed everywhere it has been tried. Medicare and Medicaid are bankrupt and do not provide quality care to its recipients. Why, then, is President Obama and Congress pushing for a Universal Health Care plan? Since the U.S. is bankrupt and is forced to borrow money to meet its spending, how do they expect to pay for it?

4. Cap and Trade failed during the Clinton administration and slowed economic growth. Knowing this, why is the federal government passing it again?

5. We are in a recession and well on our way into a depression, so why is Congress and President Obama passing more legislation that increases spending and our taxes? Such measures prevent economic prosperity and prolong economic downturn.

6. We were told that the Stimulus Bill would stop the rising unemployment rate and create more jobs. Why then, since its passage, the unemployment rate has dramatically increased? Where are all the jobs Obama promised us?

7. In the six months since the Stimulus Bill was passed, over 2 million jobs have been lost, costs are going up, taxes are increasing, and the unemployment rate has almost doubled, sitting at 9.5%. Why is Obama not taking responsibility for this? Why does he continue to blame Bush for the bad economy, especially since the past 6-7 months is the consequence of his bill?

8. Why do we constantly have the same people, the same faces in Congress?

9. Why do former Democrat Presidents keep showing up on the public stage giving speeches or running for another office, while former Republican Presidents tend to just go home?

10. Why do presidents have czars when they are unconstitutional?

11. Why does our government continue to whine the rich do not pay enough in taxes? The wealthy in this country already pay the majority of our taxes. They always have.

12. How much does an individual have to pay in taxes before it is considered enough?

13. Why does the federal government control almost every aspect of our lives? They control the schools, health care, businesses (through various regulations), food and drug, banks, car companies, industry, and agriculture to name a few.

14. Why do people jump for joy when the government says they will give them something for free, knowing all along that it’s never free? (i.e. universal health care or free health care)

15. Why is we are told the less government and deregulation is what caused this current economic mess when for the past 70 years we have steadily moved toward more government regulations and more government programs? (Despite efforts by some Republicans, we have yet to enact massive deregulation and massive, permanent tax cuts.)

16. Why do we have Affirmative Action? In a time when we are supposed to ignore the color of someone’s skin, doesn’t Affirmative Action make look at race first?

17. Why can’t people admit that the only reason Barak Obama was elected, and that they voted for him, was because he is black?

And why can’t the media just admit that they are in love with this idiot, who has the same IQ as TOTUS? (TOTUS is the president’s teleprompter that seems to have been breaking down an awful lot lately.  Good Job TOTUS!  Keep up the good work.)

18. The time when Countries, especially the United States, experienced the most economic growth and prosperity was when the federal government left people alone and did not micromanage everything. Why is it we have not learned from that? Why do we increase the size of government and spending when the economy is failing?

19. Why are liberals incapable of telling people who they really are and what they stand for? (They always run as moderates or semi-conservative to get elected and then show their true colors.)

20. If the state of California is bankrupt from all of their spending on welfare/entitlement programs and are now forced to hand out IOUs, why is Congress and President Obama following their example? Shouldn’t they be learning from their mistakes and not duplicating California? (New York and Massachusetts are also going bankrupt with their big government policies.)

21. Where is the tax cut that Obama promised 95% of Americans? Or is that the extra ten dollars in everyone’s paycheck? (Wow. We can now go to Starbucks to prevent them from going into bankruptcy.)

22. Why is President of Obama, leader of the FREE world, shaking hands and being chummy with dictators who force their people to live in poverty?

23. Manuel Zelaya, former president of Honduras, was overthrown by the Honduran military when he tried to remain in office even though his term was up and the people had voted for a new president. According to the Honduran constitution, Zelaya had to leave, but he tried to usurp the constitution and declare himself president for life. The Honduran military upheld their constitution, their laws. It was not a coup. Obama condemned the actions of the Honduran people and military demanding that they return Manuel Zelaya to power. Could this be an insight into Obama’s true intentions? Is he planning to remain president even when his term ends and the American people elect another to take his place?

President Obama swore an oath the uphold, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. Since then he has systematically violated it and has taken over industries that were one in the hands of the private sector. Nowhere in the Constitution is our government (the Presidency, Congress, and the Supreme Court) given the authority to take over businesses, mange health care, dole out welfare/entitlement funds to anyone, to buy crops from farmers.  Why is he not up for impeachment? (Many member of Congress should be impeached as well.)

Why is Obama concerning himself with universal healthcare, cap and trade, and another stimulus bill when we are being threatened by foreign powers?  North Korea vowed to wipe the United States off the map.  Why has Obama not addressed this?

Why is Obama cutting our military defenses?  Does he want the U.S. to be attacked?

How could the Obama administration “misread the economy” when he spent his entire campaign telling us that we “are in the worst economy since the Great Depression”?

Did anyone ever bother to consider that perhaps the 46 million people in this country who do not have health insurance, do not want it? (Everyone in this country has access to health care, even if they do not carry health insurance.  This will change under Obama’s health care plan.)

Did it ever occur to people, especially the government, that the reason the health care system in the U.S. is broken is because the of all the rules/regulations imposed on it by the government and the bureaucracy that always accompanies said regulations?

Why do people turn to the government to fix the economy when it was the government that caused the economic downturn?

Why is it that those who are for universal health care and praise Canada’s health care system, go to privately run hospital in the U.S. and stay far away from countries that have socialized medicine?  Also, if government run health care is so great, why do people who live in countries such as Canada, England, Sweden, etc. come to the United States for medical care? Look at Micheal Moore.  He constantly praises countries like Canada and Cuba for their great health care.  Yet when he needed medical help in losing weight, he went to a privately run hospital in Florida.  Hypocrite!

The U.S. Constitution is no more than 3-4 pages in length.  Why are all the bills passed by Congress more than a 1,000 pages?  Can we say, “pork barrel spending?”

Why is it that lately Congess has passed legislation without even reading or debating the bill?  Isn’t it important to know exactly what you are voting on and enacting into law?

Why would anyone want the federal government to run the health care system, or any system in this country when they destroy everything they touch? Look at the education system.  Since the formation of the Department of Education and the feds took control of education, the quality of education in this country has decreased every year.  High Schools are turning out kids who can barely read or do basic math, much less actually think.  Colleges routinely turn out graduates who know less than they did before they registered with classes.  Very few graduates understand history, basic economics, common sense, or that the gray matter between their ears is for thinking.  Analytical thinking.  It is not for listing to your ipod or watching the latest music video on you tube.

What ever happened to the American Spirit and America’s rugged individualism?

Why are liberals always angry at a bunch of dead, white males? THose dead, white males made this country that they live in and prospered in.

The Push For Government Run Health Care (part 3)

Wednesday, July 1st, 2009

Everyday we are told that we need health care reform. Obama claims that the nation’s health care system needs to be overhauled and that he is the one to do it. Obama, Liberals and Democrats, the major media, and nearly every American believes that the health care system in this country is broken. People are told every day that if nothing is done, if the government doesn’t do something, then health care in America will vanish. People will not have access to medicine. The country will go bankrupt.

The truth, however, is that all of this is nothing more than fear mongering. Obama and his liberal friends want you to be frightened of losing your current health care coverage so that you will go along with their solution. The thing is, the solution being offered is the cause of the problem.

Obama claims that about 46 million Americans are not insured. No one bothers to ask why they have no insurance. It is assumed that these people want insurance but are unable to afford it or get it from an employer. The fact is that approximately 17.6 million of these 46 earn $50,000 or more a year and about 10 million earn more than $75,000 a year. People who earn this much tend to pay for their health care out of pocket. Therefore, they do not need insurance. Basically about 38% of these 46 million who are uninsured earn enough money to afford it, but choose not to have it. This 46 million uninsured is a number thrown around by politicians, Obama, and the media to gain sympathy from you.

The population of the United States is roughly 300 billion. The fact that 46 million people might not have health insurance is the least of our problems. The majority of Americans have health insurance whether it is through their employer, a private insurance company, or the government. There are a variety of reasons for why individuals do not have insurance. Affordability is at the bottom of the list. Most people do not carry health insurance for two reasons: they do not want it, or they don’t need it.

But here is a fact no one bothers to mention. Every American has access to health care. A person is never denied access to a doctor or a medical procedure because they don’t have insurance. The difference is, they pay for it directly out of their own pocket instead of waiting for a third party to cover the cost from money that they sent in over a period of time.

Whenever we purchase items from a store we pay for it directly right then and there. Why should medical care be any different? When you pay for medical care directly, you only pay for what you use and pay less than what you would through an insurance company or if you relied on the government. You are ultimately responsible for paying for your health care. It is your responsibility to go to the doctor when needed and then pay for it. It has never been the government’s responsibility to cover your medical costs. Such measures violate the U.S. Constitution and degrade individuals. It also robs us of you of your liberty.

Obama claims that universal health care will bring competitiveness to private insurance companies. This is a blatant lie. In every country that has had socialized medicine the private sector was destroyed, leaving people with only one option: the government’s program. The private sector has never been able to compete with the government. The private sector depends upon profit to stay in business. When the government steps in and says “free” the private sector disappears.

Obama claims that rising health care costs caused the deficit. Anyone with an ounce of common sense knows that this is absurd. What about the $700 billion stimulus bill that he passed back in January? How about the amount of spending that the government does every year with no regard for the fact that they do not have the money? How about all of the pork barrel spending that is snuck through on every bill that goes through Congress? All of this caused and adds to the deficit. If Congress and our current president cannot control their spending, the deficit will never get paid off, despite current health care costs.

The fact is, our nation is bankrupt. We have no money. The value of the dollar continues to fall. As a nation we continue to borrow more from China to pay for all of Congress’ spending. The two government run health insurance plans in this country are bankrupt. How can we as a nation afford a single payer system like what Canada has? We can’t.

People believe that Obama is pushing health care reform because he cares about them. Obama, like all politicians, does not care about anyone but himself. He doesn’t care about you or the fact that people are without health insurance. Obama sees this as an opportunity to seize more power and he is using it. If our Congress, and if Obama really cared about the people’s access and ability to pay for health care, they would be pushing for less government involvement. They would be pushing for an end to Medicare, an end to Medicaid, and for deregulation of the health care sector.

Here is another question: why are we moving towards universal health care when the countries that already have it are moving towards privatized medicine? We have had Medicare and Medicaid for about forty years. In that time they proved that government run health care does not work. Why is our government expanding these programs instead of getting rid of them?

In short there are five reason to ditch Universal healthcare in all of its forms:

1. Government run health care is unconstitutional

2. Government run health care does not work.

3. Government run health care drives up the cost of medicine and limits access

4. Countries with it are moving away from it.

5. This is the United States of America not Europe. It is time that we quit emulating Europe and be Americans with American innovations and American solutions.

This country was built by people who were fiercely independent, did not rely on the government for anything, solved their own problems, and did not bitch, whine or complain when things were not fair. They told the government where to stick. It’s time we do it again.

Obama Appoints Cyber Czar (part 3)

Tuesday, June 9th, 2009

But let’s look at a modern day example of how complete government control ruins nations and cripples people. Take Mugabe the dictator of Zimbabwe. Robert Mugabe, who is a Marxist, became president of Zimbabwe in 1980,[i] a tile he has never relinquished even after a presidential election that took place in March 2008.[ii] Before Mugabe, Zimbabwe had been a very wealthy country. The most affluent in all of Africa. Since Mugabe’s takeover, Zimbabwe has sunk into economic collapse. Mugabe has spent his whole career preaching discrimination against whites and getting rid of any vestige of western influence from colonial days. The result: suffering and destitution.

Mugabe systematically took control of everything. He took over the media, law enforcement, schools and the army. Then he took over the economy by redistributing farmland, taking from white farmers and giving to poor blacks. Misled by his rhetoric of moderate reform and his promise to not change Zimbabwe or hurt it’s prosperity, many of these white farmers bought their land after Mugabe became president.

Starting in 2000, Mugabe used his army to forcefully remove whites from their farms, land they owned and worked. These farm owners sendured violent attacks. Some were killed. Their families suffered as well. Some even had children taken hostage. Mugabe then gave that land to blacks, but not any of the blacks that worked or managed the farm under the white landowner. They were thrown out on the streets. These new land owners didn’t know the first thing about running a farm causing it to fall into disarray as production ceased. Zimbabwe has very fertile land, but that land is cultivated by incompetent idiots all in the name of racial justice.

With the destruction of agricultural productivity, Zimbabwe’s exports fell, causing income from those exports to stagger. The country plunged into poverty. Warehouses that once held grain are now empty. People who used to have homes now live in slums and shabbily put together huts. What cattle haven’t been killed by the starving masses for food wander the countryside, much of which have hoof and mouth disease. Hospitals are falling apart and provide substandard medical care. Rampant outbreaks of cholera have killed many people. Those with AIDs have no access to medication. Those who have not died of disease die of starvation. Zimbabwe is now entirely dependent on foreign aid.

In an effort to attack the crippling economy, Mugabe issued edict after edict. There are so many laws in Zimbabwe no one can do anything for fear of breaking one. These laws only treat the symptoms of economic collapse. Not the root cause. (Sound familiar?) The true cause of Zimbabwe’s problem is Mugabe himself and his expansion of government into every aspect of people’s lives. His redistribution of wealth in the name of fairness or justice caused rapid inflation and weakened the currency. Zimbabwe has the highest inflation rate in the world. Compare it to the inflation rate of others countries at the height if there economic downturns.

Highest Monthly Inflation Rates in History

Country

Month with highest inflation rate

Highest monthly inflation rate

Equivalent daily inflation rate

Time required for prices to double

Hungary

July 1946

1.30 x 1016%

195%

15.6 hours

Zimbabwe

Mid-November 2008 (latest measurable)

79,600,000,000%

98.0%

24.7 hours

Yugoslavia

January 1994

313,000,000%

64.6%

1.4 days

Germany

October 1923

29,500%

20.9%

3.7 days

Greece

November 1944

11,300%

17.1%

4.5 days

China

May 1949

4,210%

13.4%

5.6 days

Source: Prof. Steve H. Hanke, February 5, 2009.[iii]

Mugabe’s takeover of schools has increased the literacy rate of children. But the good news ends there. Children are taught hatred of whites, and foreigners. They are taught to fire weapons, build bombs, and to be good little soldiers that worship Mugabe. They are turned into his own, private militia who are then used to pull white farmers off their land, harass the people as the wait in food lines, and crush dissenting opinion and political enemies.

In the twenty years since his seizure of power, Mugabe has managed to take one of the most prosperous countries in the world, and turn it into the most poverty stricken. Africa’s golden gem is now dead weight, a parasite.

Zimbabwe is not the only country whose economy was destroyed by government confiscation of power and a dictator’s disregard for the welfare of the people. We still have Cuba, Sudan, Iran, Nigeria, Somalia and the list goes on.

You should notice a pattern here. Whenever a government becomes too powerful, the people suffer. We lose our freedoms, the wealthy are punished and the poor remain poor. Stalin destroyed the kulak farming class, who were quite wealthy. Hitler shut down the successful businesses of Jews. In Uganda, Idi Amin removed the wealthy Indian commercial class. Mugabe purged his country from rich, white farm owners. And now Obama wants to decide how much money CEOs can make and has taken over the auto industry. The similarities are frightening!

Obama is too much like past and present dictators. He has control of the major media. NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN and all of their offshoots have voluntarily thrown their support to him and report whatever he wants. If you watch these networks closely, you will notice how they paint Obama like a god, they almost always give him favorable coverage, they refuse to call his takeover of what used to be private industries for what it is, and they spend most of their time distracting the public by fawning over how good he looks in a suit and how great Michelle Obama’s arms are. You do not find much in the way of dissenting opinion. The only areas where true freedom of the press is still practiced are Fox News, talk radio, and the internet.

That can easily change. Obama, Pelosi, and other liberals want to reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine, which is nothing more than censorship. Obama’s appointment of a cyber czar is an attempt to control the internet. He can give excuse after excuse for why we need the government to monitor the internet, but the real reason is to control it, to control the people.

Obama passed his stimulus bill which greatly expanded the size of government, took over the auto industry, the banks, and is trying to force individual states to take money from the federal government. Obama has decreed that only environmentally friendly cars are to be manufactured in the U.S. His administration has decided how much CEOs can earn by putting caps on their income. Obama is now pushing health care reform, which is little more than government run health care. They already decide the quality of health for the elderly. The government owns the education system. It owns your retirement plan. Obama wants to redistribute wealth to bring what he and other liberals call social justice. Class warfare is how they gained power and how they keep it.

The federal government has steadily grown in size since the days of F.D.R. Barack Obama has managed to outdo that by increasing its size at an exponential rate.

Observe the events of the last five months. As you do, think about Hitler, Stalin, Mugabe, Castro, Idi Amin, and every other dictator the world has seen. Think of the French Revolution where class warfare was taken to the extreme as the peasantry slaughtered the aristocracy. Robespierre used the anger of the poor to gain power. Thomas Jefferson said of Robespierre, “The rich were his victims, and perished by the thousands.”[iv]

Obama is doing the same by constantly talking about the amount of unemployed in this country and demonizing the rich. If he succeeds in his ambitions, we will all suffer a loss of our freedoms and an economic collapse. We will become a third world country. Obama, like all liberals, is a parasite. Like all parasites, he takes a healthy body, or in this case a nation, and turns it into an ailing corpse. He feeds off of people’s fears, desperation, and anger.

Obama’s announcement for the need of a cyber czar is another in a long list of endeavors to seize power from the people. He uses the fear of terrorism to win our support for this newly created post. But what we really have to fear is not terrorism, but our own government and Barak Obama.


[i] Power, Samantha, How to Kill a Country, The Atlantic, (December 2003), http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200312/power June 9, 2009

[ii] A Way Forward for Zimbabwe, International Crises Group, (January 2009) http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=3535&l=1&gclid=CM7Cwqm5_ZoCFRNM5QodF2S1eQ June 9, 2009

[iii] Hanke, Steve H., R.I.P. Zimbabwe Dollar, Cato Institute, February 9, 2009. http://www.cato.org/zimbabwe June 9, 2009

[iv] Peterson, Merrill D. ed., Thomas Jefferson: Writings, (1984), The Library of America, NY. pp. 1272