Amazing, absolutely amazing. I knew, but still dreaded what was an eventual outcome this past sunday as the Democrates snuck in healthcare. I hoped for another Scott Brown like moment that would delay or finally derail this damn thing, but knew there was little to no hope as the Dems made their intentions clear for the previous month.
After thinking about it for a bit, the first thing that comes to my mind is the incredible amount of arrogance and disconnect with America it took for Obama, Pelosi, and Reid to continue to push for this bill. Obama ran his presidential campaign on a policy of being open with the American people and responding to their needs as he believed he was elected to do. Coming into office one of Obama's first priorities was to take advantage of his mega majorities in Congress and to pass national healthcare reform. He was convinced with his popularity coming into office that he could push for this change and gain the support of the American people. When the expected outcries of conservatives and the Republicans came about he was confident that he and the house democrates could neutralize it enough to force the Republicans into an awkward situation of voting in mass against a policy that presumably the American public would support only... of only President zero explained how important it was.
This did not work for a few reasons. First being the failure of the stimulus that Obama pushed Congress to pass in January 2009. Obama stressed that without the stimulus that unemployment could go above 8% and so it must be passed right away. After it was passed unemployment not only went past 8%, but then 10%. Later Obama displeased the public by weighing in on . This along with other incidents such as Sotomayor's nomination to the supremem court and the rediculous "beer summit" and of course a President that seems to prefer constant campaigning to actual governing has soured a public and so his message on healthcare increasingly viewed in a negative light.
Still though, even with the public increasingly against this and tea party rallies increasing across the country Obama and the democrates knew they had the numbers in Congress and through a side show production could easily pass what they wanted in healthcare reform by Christmas 2009. Enter Scott Brown. His election to fill Ted Kennedy's seat made amending the Senate bill in the house untennable because the Republicans now could and certainly would fillibuster the process. No worries thinks Obama and Pelosi, we can pass the Senate bill and tell others that we can change it afterwards. All this done again while taking the case to the American people who again and again tell them, we hear you and we don't want this.
What kind of ignorance and arrogance it must take to fail on all these levels to sell your policy to the opposition and to the American people and yet pass it under assumption that "they'll take us later." Even after signing the bill into law the President has stated he will hit the road again to tell us how great it is. For having such a great education this guy is about as clueless as Mr. Magoo. He's campaigned over and over and over and over on this same damn thing and now thinks somehow doing the same thing will change it? When he sees an angry public he will simply pat himself on the back and tell himself that "this is the way it must be, but give it time they will agree with me." November can't come soon enough. Every single one of this fucking dems needs to get tossed out on their ass where they will be forced to sit and watch as we repair or attempt to repair this unprecedented damage that has been done to our country.
Eh, kind of a bad write up, but dawg gone it I'm ticked about this and needed to type something.
-Zach
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Deem and pass? Absolute lunacy
So the latest scuttlebut from DC was an idea floated from Dem leadership in Congress, or Nancy Pelosi that house dems could attempt to pass healthcare reform through a process called "deem and pass." Basically the way this rule works is that the house deems the bill sufficient or the same as a bill previously passed and sent to the Senate and with this rule they could conceivably send the bill to President Obama's desk without the need for another vote on it.
Frankly there is no other world for such a procedure than sheer madness on the Dems part should they try it. This bill has been hyped and has been in front of the public for over a year now and to pass it in a way clearly due to it's unpopularity and the fact that they can't pass it with the votes would kill the dems more than a thousand gay sex scandals in the polls this upcoming novemeber. Frankly, I doubt that even they would be so bold as to go that far and recent news may make it so that they don't have to take such an undesirable route.
The CBO came out with their projections on Obamacare and for the dems the news was very encouraging. According to the non-partisan CBO they estimate that the healthcare reform bill would cost the country 940 Billion dollars over ten years and would save the country some cash by bringing down or controling healthcare costs more than our current system allows. The problem with these estimates though is that they are exactly that, estimates. In almost every other government system the estimates have been woefully lower than what was found to later be the ultimate cost of the bill. In Medicare the costs versus what the estimates were were so far off that Medicare ended up costing nine times more and as of now is still in need of massive government funding to keep from going bankrupt. Add on to that a system in which seeks to subsidize or take over a fifth of the US economy from the private sector and we still have a recipe for a system that could massivly baloon in cost.
Alas, with this score it will or may give some wavering Dems enough cover to vote yes on the bill and force through this bill as soon as this Sunday. From there it would then go to the Senate were the game plan for the Dems will likely be to pass it without any changes so it may go to Obama's desk for signature into law.
Sigh, I can now only hope that my own views on this bill and it's impact on our country are wrong, much the same way that I have hoped that my opinion of Obama was wrong during his campaign and how he would govern in office. Sorry to say, more often than not I have been right, but this time let's hope if this passes it does help our country.
-Zach
Frankly there is no other world for such a procedure than sheer madness on the Dems part should they try it. This bill has been hyped and has been in front of the public for over a year now and to pass it in a way clearly due to it's unpopularity and the fact that they can't pass it with the votes would kill the dems more than a thousand gay sex scandals in the polls this upcoming novemeber. Frankly, I doubt that even they would be so bold as to go that far and recent news may make it so that they don't have to take such an undesirable route.
The CBO came out with their projections on Obamacare and for the dems the news was very encouraging. According to the non-partisan CBO they estimate that the healthcare reform bill would cost the country 940 Billion dollars over ten years and would save the country some cash by bringing down or controling healthcare costs more than our current system allows. The problem with these estimates though is that they are exactly that, estimates. In almost every other government system the estimates have been woefully lower than what was found to later be the ultimate cost of the bill. In Medicare the costs versus what the estimates were were so far off that Medicare ended up costing nine times more and as of now is still in need of massive government funding to keep from going bankrupt. Add on to that a system in which seeks to subsidize or take over a fifth of the US economy from the private sector and we still have a recipe for a system that could massivly baloon in cost.
Alas, with this score it will or may give some wavering Dems enough cover to vote yes on the bill and force through this bill as soon as this Sunday. From there it would then go to the Senate were the game plan for the Dems will likely be to pass it without any changes so it may go to Obama's desk for signature into law.
Sigh, I can now only hope that my own views on this bill and it's impact on our country are wrong, much the same way that I have hoped that my opinion of Obama was wrong during his campaign and how he would govern in office. Sorry to say, more often than not I have been right, but this time let's hope if this passes it does help our country.
-Zach
Friday, March 5, 2010
The National Debt and the Obama administrations first year in office
I came across this from another conservative commentator and thought I'd repost it in it's entirety here for those interested. I will also follow it with some brief comments of my own to keep this thing from being completely plagerized.
"How many times have we heard Obama say that he "inherited" the problems we now have? And one of those problems is our national debt. So it is time to take a good look at that debt, and how we got where we are:At the end of 2000, our national debt was $5.6278 trillion. During the first six years of the Bush administration, and under a Republican held Congress and Senate, our debt increased to $8.4514 trillion (at the end of 2006, the year the Democrats took control of both Houses). An increase of $470.45 billion a year ($2.8227 trillion in six years). Remember that number; $470.45 billion/year.Within two years (at the end of 2008) of Democratic control, our nation debt had increased to $9.985 trillion, an annual average of $767.2 billion, almost $300 billion a year more than under Republicans.In the 8 years of the Bush administration, our national debt increased by $4.2988 trillion.At the end of 2009, the first year of the Obama administration, our national debt had risen to $12.3114 trillion, an increase in one year $2.3265 TRILLION. ONE YEAR, only $500 billion less than the entire first six years of George Bush.Our projected national debt at the end of this year is over $14 trillion. That means that in just two years, Obama, and the Democratically held Congress will have increased our debt by more than Bush did the whole 8 years he held office.I don't want to read one more person on the left complain about the debt that was created under Bush or the Republicans. Not one."
The numbers there are pretty solid and while they again show us that congressional Republicans and President Bush were not fiscally conservative as many of us expected, the Obama administration and congressional Democrats have increased spending at an incredible pace. Some might wonder where this massive spending increase has come from and to me, the first thing that comes to mind is the 780 billion dollar "stimulus" package that Obama pushed Congress to pass in January 2009 with the expectation that it would keep unemployment under 8%, today it is at 9.7%. Think that's bad? Well keep in mind that even though a large portion of that approved stimulus as yet to be spent the Obama administration is starting to push for yet another stimulus package. Perhaps the slogan on that one should read, "third times the charm."
Back to the topic of the national debt. Keep in mind that those numbers don't even take into effect the costs that will take effect should Congress pass the healthcare legislation. So far according to a WSJ editorial written by Congressman Paul Ryan the costs in deficit for this program over the next ten years would add 460-1.4 trillion bucks. That's all for one program and that's the best case scenario we can hope for. The more likely scenario would have this program ballooning in costs as Medicare has done and as the state provided medical care in Mass. has done. Either way you slice it we are spending at unprecedented levels and it will be much better for us to become fiscally responsible as a country by our own choice before we are forced into it.
-Zach
"How many times have we heard Obama say that he "inherited" the problems we now have? And one of those problems is our national debt. So it is time to take a good look at that debt, and how we got where we are:At the end of 2000, our national debt was $5.6278 trillion. During the first six years of the Bush administration, and under a Republican held Congress and Senate, our debt increased to $8.4514 trillion (at the end of 2006, the year the Democrats took control of both Houses). An increase of $470.45 billion a year ($2.8227 trillion in six years). Remember that number; $470.45 billion/year.Within two years (at the end of 2008) of Democratic control, our nation debt had increased to $9.985 trillion, an annual average of $767.2 billion, almost $300 billion a year more than under Republicans.In the 8 years of the Bush administration, our national debt increased by $4.2988 trillion.At the end of 2009, the first year of the Obama administration, our national debt had risen to $12.3114 trillion, an increase in one year $2.3265 TRILLION. ONE YEAR, only $500 billion less than the entire first six years of George Bush.Our projected national debt at the end of this year is over $14 trillion. That means that in just two years, Obama, and the Democratically held Congress will have increased our debt by more than Bush did the whole 8 years he held office.I don't want to read one more person on the left complain about the debt that was created under Bush or the Republicans. Not one."
The numbers there are pretty solid and while they again show us that congressional Republicans and President Bush were not fiscally conservative as many of us expected, the Obama administration and congressional Democrats have increased spending at an incredible pace. Some might wonder where this massive spending increase has come from and to me, the first thing that comes to mind is the 780 billion dollar "stimulus" package that Obama pushed Congress to pass in January 2009 with the expectation that it would keep unemployment under 8%, today it is at 9.7%. Think that's bad? Well keep in mind that even though a large portion of that approved stimulus as yet to be spent the Obama administration is starting to push for yet another stimulus package. Perhaps the slogan on that one should read, "third times the charm."
Back to the topic of the national debt. Keep in mind that those numbers don't even take into effect the costs that will take effect should Congress pass the healthcare legislation. So far according to a WSJ editorial written by Congressman Paul Ryan the costs in deficit for this program over the next ten years would add 460-1.4 trillion bucks. That's all for one program and that's the best case scenario we can hope for. The more likely scenario would have this program ballooning in costs as Medicare has done and as the state provided medical care in Mass. has done. Either way you slice it we are spending at unprecedented levels and it will be much better for us to become fiscally responsible as a country by our own choice before we are forced into it.
-Zach
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