“We should never despair, our Situation before has been unpromising and has changed for the better, so I trust, it will again. If new difficulties arise, we must only put forth new Exertions and proportion our Efforts to the exigency of the times.” —George Washington
Friday, August 28, 2009
Mike Rogers on Obamacare
Manifesto
1. TaxationEliminate the progressive income tax-replace it with a flat income tax or national sales tax-for its purpose is to redistribute wealth, not fund the constitutionally legitimate functions of the federal government.
All residents of the country must be required to pay the tax so they have a stake in limiting its abuse.
Eliminate the automatic withholding of taxes, for it conceals the extent to which the federal government is confiscating income from its citizens.
Eliminate the corporate income tax, for it is nothing more than double taxation on shareholders and consumers, and penalizes wealth and job creation.
Eliminate the death tax, for it denies citizens the right to confer the material value they have created during their lives to whomever they wish, including their family.
All federal income tax increases will require a supermajority vote for three-fifths of Congress.
Limit federal spending each year to less than 20 percent of the gross domestic product.
2. Environment.
Eliminate the special tax-exempt status granted to environmental groups, since they are not nonpartisan charitable foundations.
Eliminate special statutory authority granting environmental groups standing to bring lawsuits on behalf of the public, since their main purpose is to pursue the Statist’s agenda through litigation.
Fight all efforts to use environmental regulations to set governmental industrial policies and diminish the nation’s standard of living, such as “cap-and-trade” to regulate “man-made climate change.”
3. Judges
Limit the Supreme Court’s judicial-review power, which far exceeds the Framer’s intent, by establishing a legislative veto over Court decisions-perhaps a two-thirds supermajority vote of both houses of Congress, not dissimilar from the congressional override authority of a presidential veto.
Eliminate lifetime tenure for federal judges, given the extra-constitutional power they have amassed and their routine intervention in political and policy decisions-which the Constitution leaves to representative branches.
No judicial nominee should be confirmed who rejects the jurisprudence of originalism.
4. The Administrative State
Sunset all “independent” federal agencies each year, subject to Congress affirmatively reestablishing them.
Require federal departments and agencies to reimburse individuals and enterprises for the costs associated with the devaluation of their private property from the issuance of regulations that compromise the use of their property.
Eliminate unions for federal government employees, since the purpose of a civil service system is to promote merit and professionalism over patronage, and the purpose of federal unions is to empower themselves and promote statism.
Reduce the civilian federal workforce by 20 percent or more.
5. Government Education
Eliminate monopoly control of government education by applying the antitrust laws to the National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers; the monopoly is destructive of quality education and competition and is unresponsive to the taxpayers who fund it.
Eliminate tenure for government schoolteachers and college/university professors, making them accountable for the quality of instruction they provide students.
Strip the statist agenda from curricula (such as multiculturalism and global warming) and replace it with the curricula that reinforce actual education and the preservation of the civil society through its core principles.
Eliminate the federal Department of Education, since education is primarily a state and local function.
6. Immigration
Eliminate chain migration, which grants control over immigration policy to aliens and foreign governments, and which the Statist defends to expand his electoral and administrative state constituency.
Secure the nation’s borders and discourage those who violate them-illegal alien and citizen lawbreaker alike-by enforcing the immigration laws.
End multiculturalism, diversity, and bilingualism in public institutions, which beget poverty, animosity and ethnic balkanization; promote assimilation and unity of citizenship, allegiance to American culture, and English as the official language.
7. Entitlements
Social Security is going bankrupt. Medicare is going bankrupt. Medicaid is going bankrupt. These programs and others have accumulated more than $50 trillion in IOUs due end payable by subsequent generations. Educate the young people about the intergenerational trap the Statist has laid for them-which will steal their liberty, labor, opportunities, and wealth-and build a future electoral force for whom the elixir of entitlements is understood as a poisonous snake oil. These programs were created in politics and will have to addressed in politics. Only in this way can they be contained, limited and reformed.
Fight all efforts to nationalize the health-care system. National health care is the mother of all entitlement programs, for through it the Statist controls not only the material wealth of the individual but his physical well-being. Remind the people that politicians and bureaucrats, about whom they are already cynical, will ultimately have the final say over the choice of doctors, hospitals and treatment-meaning the system will be politicized and bureaucratized. Remind them that this human experiment has been tried and has failed in places like Britain and Canada, where patients have been subjected to arbitrary treatment decisions, long waiting periods for lifesaving surgeries, antiquated medical technologies, the denial of high-cost pharmaceuticals available elsewhere, and the inefficient rationing of health care generally. And remind them that despite past utopian promises, the Statist rarely delivers.
8. Foreign Policy and Security
Ensure that all foreign policy decisions are made for the purpose of preserving and improving American society.
Reject all treaties, entanglements, institutions, and enterprises that have as their purpose the supplantation of America’s best interests, including its physical, cultural, economic, and military sovereignty, to an amorphous “global” interest.
Ensure that America remains the world’s superpower. Ensure that at all times America’s military forces are prepared for war to dissuade attacks, encourage peace, and, if necessary, win any war.
9. Faith
Oppose all efforts to denude the nation of its founding justification-that is, God-given unalienable, natural rights that the government can neither confer on the individual nor deny him. The Statist seeks the authority to do both, which explains his contempt for, or misuse of, faith. Moreover, faith provides the moral order that ties one generation to the next, and without which the civil society cannot survive.
10. The Constitution
Demand that all public servants, elected or appointed, at all times uphold the Constitution and justify their public acts under the Constitution.
Oppose all efforts to “constitutionalize” the statist agenda.
Eliminate limits on and rationing of political free speech through unconstitutional “campaign finance” laws, which benefit incumbent politicians, the media, unions, and other Statist-related groups. Any American citizen or group of American citizens should be free to contribute to candidates as they wish, as long as the source, amount, and recipient of the contributions are made known.
Defeat all efforts to unconstitutionally regulate the content of political speech on broadcast outlets, such as radio. The Statist now seeks to consolidate the power he has accumulated by silencing noncompliant voices through a variety of schemes that would regulate broadcast content.
President Reagan said, “Freedom is never more then one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”
Thursday, August 27, 2009
New Healthcare Initiative Announced!
America, You're Stupid! - Bill Maher
Quintessential liberal leftard statist thinking - Bill Maher revealing how they view the rest of the country.
Right Bill, we're all jess a bunch stoopids...problem is, we elected a "President," and we have this thing called a "Constitution." We didn't elect God's "partner," although I know people like you think he is - and, of course, that you and a select few of your statist friends are too...everyone else is just hillbilly stoopid.
Democrat Problem Solving
1. Create a crisis.
2. ...I mean a REALLY unnecessary crisis.
3. Suffer the law of unintended consequences.
Let's take healthcare as an example:
1. Scream about "40 million uninsured!"
2. Set the ENTIRE healthcare system on fire...
You get it.
Fire Pants Nuts Stomp
Shared via AddThis
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
CIA Morale
Obamachow
Monday, August 24, 2009
Minus Twelve
Town Hall Meeting with U.S. Congressman Brian Baird
Hoorah, Marine Corps!
"...all enemies foreign OR domestic..."
I love this guy - "stay away from my kids!"
Friday, August 21, 2009
$9 Trillion Deficit!
Trojan Horse
an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly-owned and democratically-controlledenterprise.[1] It is a business organization owned and operated by a group of individuals for their mutual benefit.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Plaxico Burress on Gun Safety
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Slicing and Dicing
The sad and sorry fact is that anyone with even half a brain and a single ounce of common sense would have -- and should have -- seen this big, fat governance failure the day before, without having to wait until the sickening morning after.I shall forever remember 2008 as the year when the ninnification of America reached its peak.It's as though 59 million Americans joined hands and shouted at the top of their little lungs, "Yes, We Can March off This Cliff."It's every mother's adolescent-groupthink nightmare.
Candidate Obama gave us some "high-flying words," all right.But President Obama has given us nothing more substantive than power, expedience, greed and intolerance.A very bad bargain indeed
A Better Class of Criminal
Key Arguments in the Healthcare Debate
One reason the Obama administration is prepared to use rationing to limit health care is to rein in the government's exploding health-care budget. Government now pays for nearly half of all health care in the U.S., primarily through the Medicare and Medicaid programs. The White House predicts that the aging of the population and the current trend in health-care spending per beneficiary would cause government outlays for Medicare and Medicaid to rise to 15% of GDP by 2040 from 6% now.
But budget considerations aside, health-economics experts agree that private health spending is too high because our tax rules lead to the wrong kind of insurance. Under existing law, employer payments for health insurance are deductible by the employer but are not included in the taxable income of the employee.
The unions are particularly vehement in their opposition to any reduction in the tax subsidy for health insurance, since they regard their ability to negotiate comprehensive health insurance for their members as a major part of their raison d'être.
Those who worry about too much health care cite the Congressional Budget Office's prediction that health-care spending could rise to 30% of GDP in 2035 from 16% now. But during that 25-year period, GDP will rise to about $24 trillion from $14 trillion, implying that the GDP not spent on health will rise to $17 billion in 2035 from $12 billion now. So even if nothing else comes along to slow the growth of health spending during the next 25 years, there would still be a nearly 50% rise in income to spend on other things.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Robert Novak, RIP
Obama Logo - Phobia?
Canadian Medical Association: "Cut Surgeries!"
Vancouver patients needing neurosurgery, treatment for vascular diseases and other medically necessary procedures can expect to wait longer for care, NDP health critic Adrian Dix said Monday.
Dix said a Vancouver Coastal Health Authority document shows it is considering chopping more than 6,000 surgeries in an effort to make up for a dramatic budgetary shortfall that could reach $200 million.
Monday, August 17, 2009
"I will vote against the interests of my District." Yes, Massa!
Wow! The hubris of this guy is appalling. This is representative of the bulk of the Democrats and half the Reps too - the arrogance that is apparently mainlined into you once you go to Washington.
Shameful.
Eight Reasons Why Big Government Hurts Economic Growth
Great summary of why excessive government spending is a BAD idea. This should be required viewing in all American high schools.
Hat tip: Mark Perry over at Carpe Diem
Conservative Nation
Despite the Democratic Party's political strength -- seen in its majority representation in Congress and in state houses across the country -- more Americans consider themselves conservative than liberal. While Gallup polling has found this to be true at the national level over many years, and spanning recent Republican as well as Democratic presidential administrations, the present analysis confirms that the pattern also largely holds at the state level. Conservatives outnumber liberals by statistically significant margins in 47 of the 50 states, with the two groups statistically tied in Hawaii, Vermont, and Massachusetts.
Canadian Medical Association: "The System is imploding."
Overhauling health-care system tops agenda at annual meeting of Canada's doctors
Ouellet has been saying since his return that "a health-care revolution has passed us by," that it's possible to make wait lists disappear while maintaining universal coverage and "that competition should be welcomed, not feared."
In other words, Ouellet believes there could be a role for private health-care delivery within the public system.
He has also said the Canadian system could be restructured to focus on patients if hospitals and other health-care institutions received funding based on the patients they treat, instead of an annual, lump-sum budget. This "activity-based funding" would be an incentive to provide more efficient care, he has said.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Sanity in the Senate?
Climate legislation would require 60 votes in the Senate. Most Republicans have said they oppose the cap-and-trade measure, and at least 15 of the Senate’s 60-member Democratic majority have said the House-passed version would hurt the economy and needs to be revamped to win their support.
It's Been Tried: TennCare
We Tennesseans have been trying to warn the rest of the country! We were the test case for HillaryCare in 1994 - it damned near bankrupted our state.
Rumbler tried to attend Marsha Blackburn's Town Hall today to let her know we were behind her...not to worry - the crowd was overflowing and very supportive of her efforts to stop foisting an even more socialist bill than TennCare on the country.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Jobs and Money
Comfortably Numb
This is a Danteesque allegory of the left stream media desperately trying to revive Obamacare!
Kamp Obama
Media Mediocrity
Portsmouth, NH
Love the part with the paid Union folks getting off the bus - and WE'RE the ones "astroturfing!" Facts are pretty difficult things for liberals to deal with.