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July 24th, 2009Dear Liberty Activist, So far, so good. Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce committee are still holding their ground against ObamaCare. So much so that House Leadership is considering bypassing the committee altogether, as reported this morning by The Hill. Says House Democrat Caucus Chairman John Larson, "The preferable course would be to go through the committee. But all options will be on the table." Meaning that Nancy Pelosi is considering doing an end-run around the committee and breaking procedure in a desperate gamble to rush socialized medicine through the House by Barack Obama's foolish August deadline. As ALG News reported to you yesterday, the Thursday session of the House Energy and Commerce committee was cancelled because Chairman Henry Waxman still can't find the votes to pass the ObamaCare proposal. And according to Congresswoman Jane Harman (CA-CD36), "We've been asked to clear our calendars for Saturday," meaning that whatever is going to happen will occur over the weekend—maybe even in the dead of night. At contention right now is a controversial proposal by the Obama Administration that, as reported by Politico, would "empower an outside body, like the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, to make binding recommendation for cost cuts in government-run health care programs." House Democrats have claimed that their version of ObamaCare will cut the growth of Medicare spending by $500 billion over ten years. At Wednesday night's news conference, Barack Obama elaborated on his plans to cut Medicare to pay for his overall plan by allowing an "independent group of doctors and medical experts" to determine how to cut the program tens of millions of seniors now depend on for medical care. And you know what that means: Rationing health care away from seniors. As ALG President Bill Wilson commented yesterday, "Telling seniors that their care is going to be cut to pay for a foolish, unsustainable welfare program is an outright insult to the generation that defended this nation, brought about the fall of communism, and built America." And only you can stop it. Keep fighting! Here is the list of all eight Blue Dog Democrats on Energy and Commerce who need to be told that, in House Republican Leader John Boehner's words, "it's time to throw this bill away":
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat Caucus Chair John Larson, and Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman also need special attention today. Give them a call and tell them to follow procedure and address the concerns of their own caucus in committee:
And please keep calling your own representatives in the House and in the Senate, too. The switchboard number is (202) 224-3121. In today's Liberty Action Report, the Blue Dogs are singing the "deficit-neutral" blues, Barack Obama is leading us into a massive bottomless pit, The Philosopher's Stone returns addressing just who Justice Ruth Ginsberg thinks the "we" are who don't want too many of the undesirable populations around. Also, this week we have included a new feature, The Overnights by Adam Bitely, a week-in-review of what's hot in the blogosphere. Plus, The White Mountain Independent recently ran a column from ALG Chairman, Howard Rich. Please send your letters to the editor at Robert@getliberty.org. We
publish all points of view! Today, Brenda Piper of Waco, TX writes an
open letter to Congress, "I am begging you to please
go home and talk to your constituents before you vote
on the Obama Healthcare Plan, AKA No-Bama Health-Care-less Plan. I am a
senior citizen and I have spent my life doing everything I can for this
country. I do not appreciate or approve of Obama taking my
liberties away from me just because I am over 60. Well put, Brenda. And thank you for your passionate letter! I know there are Capitol Hill staffers who receive this mailing, and they will read it. The only change politicians in Washington ought to be making is to stop ruining this country. And fear not. This bill will be defeated! For Liberty, Robert Romano P.S. Want to keep your health care? Help us out with a small donation today!
Open Source & Copyright Free The
"Deficit-Neutral" Blues Stepped
In Justice
Ginsburg, Who are "We"? The
Overnights from NetRight Nation ALG
in the News: Not so stimulating The "Deficit-Neutral" BluesBy Robert Romano Barack Obama is publicly pulling out all of the stops to salvage his hemorrhaging government-run, socialized medicine scheme. The so-called public "option" is languishing in the House of Representatives, and so far, the Pied Piper President has been unable to win over members of his own Party. This week alone, he made a speech at a children's hospital on Monday, he appeared in the Rose Garden on Tuesday, then had his much-ballyhooed national press conference Wednesday night, and again yesterday stumped in Ohio. All to push legislation that he still claims is a fait accompli. So, why the full-court press? Because in testimony delivered last week by Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Director Douglas Elmendorf, the non-partisan budget analyst single-handedly delivered a critical blow to the ObamaCare plan, stating that "the legislation significantly expands the federal responsibility for health-care." Obama was already dealing with a House rebellion of the so-called Blue Dog Democrats refusing to support any health care legislation that is not "deficit-neutral." And now he had a non-partisan budget director effectively testify that government health care spending was going to increase, not decrease, under the proposal. In other words, Mr. Elmendorf singularly put the lie to Obama's promise to deliver health-care reform that was "deficit-neutral." And so, what did Obama do? The Dear Leader summoned Mr. Elmendorf to the White House to "discuss" the financial costs of the House and Senate plans. Ostensibly, Obama is playing the moderate, attempting to show that he is willing to meet with his apparent critics. Pure theater. Underneath, it's an unprecedented move, and threatens to tarnish any semblance of the Separation of Powers. The CBO reports to Congress, not to the Executive branch—hence the moniker Congressional Budget Office. This is intimidation and thuggery, and calls into question any future report from the CBO as political numbers, dictated by the hacks in the White House. So did the Oval Office thumbscrew brigade get what they wanted? Well not quite. On the CBO blog, Mr. Elmendorf writes, "I was invited to the White House to meet with the President, his key budget and health advisers, and some outside experts. The President asked me and the outside experts for our views about achieving cost savings in health reform. I presented CBO's assessment of the challenges of reducing federal health outlays and improving the long-term budget outlook while simultaneously expanding health insurance coverage–just as we had explained these challenges in a letter to Senator Conrad and Senator Gregg last month. I also described CBO's view of the effects of the health legislation we have seen so far, as I did last Thursday in a hearing at the Senate Budget Committee and a mark-up at the House Ways and Means Committee." That he stood by his guns and did not change his assessments at the White House meeting is a testament to Mr. Elmendorf's integrity, and if the White House was hoping to get him to revise his cost-estimates, they were surely disappointed. However, this was not even the most critical move made by the Obama Administration this week behind-the-scenes. If anything, it was a diversion from the main event. As ALG News has previously reported, seven key Blue Dog Democrats who sit on the House Energy and Commerce committee also met with Barack Obama on Tuesday, a day after the CBO-White House meeting, as he attempted to persuade them to lift their own opposition to his health care proposal. And what they do next will be a clear indication if the Blue Dogs are acting as watchdogs for taxpayers, or are in fact the Administration's favorite new lapdogs. According to Politico, "Most of the White House session focused on slowing the rapid growth in health care costs, lawmakers said afterward. That discussion centered on a White House proposal to empower an outside body, like the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, to make binding recommendation for cost cuts in government-run health care programs. Waxman and others previously opposed the idea, but the chairman made a verbal agreement to work with the seven Blue Dogs on his committee to break through an impasse that has stalled consideration of the enormous bill." Although the Politico story, attempts to downplay this meeting's significance as "arcane-to-the-outside development [that] is a pint-sized breakthrough in an ocean of concern," this meeting could actually mean everything to the legislation's chances of passage. In fact, the Blue Dogs may already be waffling. The Wall Street Journal quotes the apparent leader of the Blue Dog rebellion, Congressman Mike Ross (AR-CD4) as recently stating, "We want a bill that we can vote for. A lot of people say, 'Why do health-care reform when the deficits are so big?' But that is when we've got to do it." All of which is a far cry from the loud bark Ross and his coalition made when he and six other Blue Dogs that sit on the Energy and Commerce committee signed the House Blue Dog coalition letter on July 9th. It stated that "We do not support health care reform that is not deficit neutral." If they vote with Republicans, the legislation will not even make it to the House floor. Today, the committee is expected to take up the overall proposal. So, the key question is: Does this proposed amendment to the proposal make it deficit-neutral, rendering it politically palatable for the Blue Dogs to vote for? In short, no. Because if this is the grand compromise that is ironed out of the Energy and Commerce committee, it will mean that they have actually agreed to an ObamaCare rationing board to implement de facto price controls on the cost of health care nationally. And since all insurance carriers will be regulated through the new government-run system as well, all prices would be dictated by and through this body. Therefore, the effect would be to arbitrarily lower the costs of delivering health care: doctor pay, the cost of procedures, supplies, equipment and technology, etc. In turn, there will be at least three significant impacts: 1) watering down the quality of everyone else's health care; 2) insolvency of health care institutions like hospitals; and 3) shortages of care and rationing. Therefore, any cost "reductions" would come at the true cost of reducing the quality of care through medical rationing. Why? Because the so-called cost "savings" will not even be contained in the bill. They will be up to the arbitrary whims of the ObamaCare rationing board or some other pencil-pushing bureaucracy that will invariably wind up making medical decisions based on cost-analysis, and not on what is best for patients—all of the horrors that opponents have predicted would happen in socialized medicine. And as ALG News reported Wednesday in "The Truth Stinks," the House plan promises to cover an additional 45 million people under government-provided health care. In short, expanding care to that many individuals without raising costs can only be achieved with huge cuts to the quality of care delivered. An average premium currently goes for $4,700, bringing the total cost of the additional care to 45 million more people to roughly $211.5 billion extra annually. All of which will be piled atop an insurmountable debt that now totals $11.4 trillion. The other end of the equation is that this Board will invariably face market pressures undermining the effectiveness of price controls, since doctors still need to get paid, procedures still paid for, supplies bought, and equipment and technology procured and maintained, etc. All of which means that even if payments through insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, and the public "option" are price-controlled, the actual costs will still have to be made up for elsewhere. Where? Well, first the government-run system may try to shift the costs to individuals. Of course, everyone already knows that unpaid medical bills are an endemic part of the problem right now. When that fails, Congress and Treasury will then be forced to borrow more money to cover the unpaid bills in order to keep the institutions solvent. So much for the proposal being deficit-neutral! It can't be. And these 7 Blue Dogs that signed the letter and sit on the Energy and Commerce committee know it. The committee is expected to meet again tomorrow to work on this "cost-cutting" measure. What they need to know is that the two likely outcomes of this very bad compromise are either price-controlled, watered-down coverage that declines in quality; or the most likely outcome: deficits as far as the eye can see. Such are the "deficit-neutral" blues. Robert Romano is the ALG Senior News Editor. http://blog.getliberty.org/default.asp?Display=1401 Stepped In
ALG Editor's Note: William Warren's award-winning cartoons published at GetLiberty.org are a free service of ALG News Bureau. They may be reused and redistributed free of charge. http://blog.getliberty.org/default.asp?Display=1400 Justice Ginsburg, Who are "We"?By Victor Morawski Last week we took note of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg's surprising, even shocking, observation that she thought abortions should be used to rid ourselves of "populations that we don't want to have too many of." This week, it is equally important to ask who, precisely, she thinks the "we" are who don't want too many of the undesirable populations around. And it is, perhaps, even more important to examine what she and her ilk think Big Government's role is in the sordid mix. When we follow their trail, what begins to emerge is a picture of a group of liberal elitists, Justice Ginsburg among them, who viewed legalized abortion as a means not only of granting women their "right to privacy," but as a vehicle for furthering the end of eugenics, as a way by which to rid society of just those types of people the Ginsberg "we" do not want "too many of." Here two threads, when followed, will amply illustrate eugenics as the main impetus behind Roe v. Wade. We will view its influence on the views of W.R. Weddington, co-counsel (along with his wife, Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee) in Roe v. Wade; and Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, one of the most important groups favoring the legalization of abortion. (1) In a 1996 letter to Betsey Wright of the Clinton Transition Team, Ron Weddington's strong racist advocacy of eugenics surfaced unmistakably. Writing in support of R U 486 [the morning after pill] Weddington argued for its quick approval as, "26 million food stamp recipients is more than the economy can stand." He argued that Clinton's success as a reformer needed a "better educated, healthier, wealthier population" [the goal of eugenics]. To this end, he told him, "you can start immediately to eliminate the barely educated, unhealthy and poor segment of our country." He urged Clinton to use a media campaign with the aid of sports and entertainment stars to persuade them to have only children that they could afford. And preventing that extra mouth to feed will require more than just pushing abstinence, Weddington maintained, "government is also going to have to provide vasectomies, tubal ligations, and abortions" Note that he, like Ginsburg, claims that these are things government should do. And it should do them to further eugenics as their end. To keep in check the numbers of those "we don't want to have too many of." (2) Ever since 1955 when, in a secret meeting, members of Planned Parenthood vowed to declare war on what they deemed an epidemic of back alley abortions, their organization has become a leading player in the fight to decriminalize abortion. That eugenics, not a woman's supposed "Right to Choose," was the guiding motivation behind their push for decriminalization can be seen from the motivations of its founder, Margaret Sanger, a forceful crusader for it. Indeed, Ms. Sanger's motto for the movement she founded was, "More from the fit, less from the unfit." And there's not much doubt who the "we" is in that formula. Her successors have also openly claimed to carry on Sanger's legacy. On what would have been Sanger's 100th birthday, then PP president Faye Wattleton, declared that the organization is very proud of the mission given them by their "courageous leader"---a "grand mission" of which "abortion is only the tip of the iceberg." (Presumably, furthering eugenics is below the water line on that iceberg). Alan Guttmacher, President of PP from 1962-1974---the years during which the battle for abortion legalization was fought---was a former Vice President of the American Eugenics Society [Need we wonder where he stood on the issue?] He is on record stating that PP as an organization is "merely walking down the path Ms. Sanger has carved out for us." And what was that path? Now, please understand, as Sanger's followers doubtlessly do, she did not see herself as a mere fellow laborer with the eugenicists, she was one, as is evidenced by her membership in organizations like the American Eugenics Society (starting in 1930) and the International Congress of Eugenics (beginning 1932). In words strikingly similar to Weddington's, she argued against the creation of large families, claiming that "breeding too many children" is "the most immoral practice of the day." Because of the lower quality of life a child will experience in a large family, she maintained that, "The most merciful thing that a large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it." And what, then, following this line of reasoning do "we" do if they decide not to kill it on their own? Well, that, according the Ruth Bader Ginsberg, is where Big Government comes in, deciding for the rest of us how to rid ourselves of "populations that we don't want to have too many of." Victor Morawski is an ALG News contributing writer and a professor of philosophy at Coppin State University. http://blog.getliberty.org/default.asp?Display=1399
The Overnights: The Week in the Blogosphere in ReviewBy Adam Bitely Health Care has dominated the blogosphere for much of the week. And it was a roller coaster of coverage. As the week began, the top stories that were covered ranged from Sonia Sotomayor's hearings to Medicare and Manuel Zelaya's attempts to return to power in Honduras. But as the week progressed, Health Care became the dominant issue. Now that we are at the end of the week, it appears that the Obama Socialized Medicine plan has been stalled until September at the earliest. And if bloggers can keep the pressure high, they can stall the vote indefinitely.
On Monday, bloggers focused coverage on the flaws of the proposed plan in the House. With projections coming from the Congressional Budget Office that showed that the proposal was more expensive than Obama was admitting, the blogosphere was buzzing with coverage urging readers to call their representatives. As you can see by the chart above, coverage was building steadily over last week and by Monday, was becoming the top issue. By Wednesday night when Obama was holding his press conference, blog coverage was peaking and it looked dim for his bill to pass before the August recess. Yesterday, Harry Reid caved under pressure
and announced that he would not consider the legislation until after
the recess. The center-right blogosphere has had a victory in round one! The center-right blogosphere still has its biggest job in front of them if they want to truly win on Health Care. When congress goes home for the August recess, they must put pressure on representatives just as they did last summer in regards to energy legislation. They were successful last year when they put on their full court press, and they must be successful this year. If they are, when Congress reconvenes in September, we will not hear a thing about Socialized Medicine. Adam Bitely is Executive Director of NetRightNation. http://blog.getliberty.org/default.asp?Display=1398
Not so stimulatingBy: Howie Rich, Americans for Limited Government With polls showing that the majority of American citizens are no longer optimistic about the mammoth federal "stimulus" plan passed earlier this year, the administration of President Barack Obama is once again trying to spin (and spend) its way out of trouble. Of course, that strategy is proving difficult as Obama's own vice president admitted earlier this month that the administration had "misread" the economy - a remark which could very well go down as the understatement of the century. Earlier this year, Obama claimed that his "stimulus" plan would hold unemployment to "only" 8 percent. Unfortunately, the national unemployment rate is currently at 9.5 percent - and still rising. Consumer credit delinquencies are at an all-time high, and a "debt explosion" looms on the horizon as the $13 trillion that America has spent, lent or pledged on "economic recovery" begins to push interest rates through the roof. Meanwhile, welfare rolls are once again skyrocketing - due in large part to the deliberate undoing of welfare reform that the Obama administration snuck into its "stimulus" bill. Also, the Federal Reserve Bank has nearly doubled the amount of money in circulation over the past year - charting a reckless path toward record inflation. In other words, we're heading right into a perfect fiscal storm - and for what? Where are the millions of new jobs that Obama promised? Frankly, all the
American people have received from the Obama "stimulus" are empty
promises and an ever-escalating tab that their children and
grandchildren will be paying off for decades. In fact,
according to a recent Heritage Foundation report, the "debt-based Obama
economic stimulus plan has become a major drag on economic recovery." Howie Rich is chairman of Americans for Limited Government. |
