Archive for category Individual Freedom
What’s Obama Up To?
Posted by Tom in Centrally Managed Economy, Deficit, Democrats, Economics, Financial Crisis, Individual Freedom, National Character, National Debt, Nationalized Health Care, State Finances, Statism, Taxation on March 5, 2010
On paper Obama appears to be a smart guy and reasonably well informed. I suspect he knows:
- We face $1.4 Trillion annual deficits for the next decade.
- Our current national debt is $12.3 Trillion and will grow by $1 Trillion a year.
- Estimated unfunded liabilities from social security and medicare are $107 Trillion.
- States with aggregate deficits of $350 Billion, debt of $1.9 Trillion, and unfunded liabilities of $1.4 Trillion are asking for federal handouts.
- Unemployment is 9+% with private sector growth stalled.
Why then would he promote a radical takeover of healthcare with 10 year costs of $2.3 Trillion that adds $1.86 Trillion to the deficit over the next 20 years, that creates employment taxes and mandates, each discouraging private sector employment, and that fails to solve the demographically certain failure of medicare, social security and medicaid? We’ve proven our inability to handle two, no three if you include medicaid, major entitlements, why add another? And why would he risk his party’s control of Congress and his own ability to govern to attain this goal that a majority of Americans don’t want?
Obama is smart enough to know that Obamacare will exacerbate the financial straights of the United States. It’s uncertainty will decrease private sector employment. It’s taxes will decrease private capital for investment. It will cede financial and technological leadership to other countries. In short, we will be worse off tomorrow than we are today. Why would he risk that…want that?
It is clear that he knowingly intends to drive us further to the brink. It is also clear that given his apparent intelligence he has an end-game in mind. Take our admitted crisis, you know the “never-let-a-crisis-go-to-waste” kind, explode it into a gigantic, off-the-clff catastrophe, then come up with a one-of-a-kind, popular solution that involves “shared pain” and if we are all lucky, someday “shared gain.” Call it a Cloward-Piven Strategy on steroids. (See: Cloward-Piven Strategy: Is It Obama’s? and references cited therein.)
As Larry Kudlow said in NRO, One Giant Government Leap Backwards,” One of the most galling features of this plan is a taxpayer-subsidized government-insurance entitlement for people earning up to 400 percent above the poverty line, or nearly $100,000 for a family of four. In other words, a middle-class health-care entitlement that will add millions of people to the federal dole. It’s all too reminiscent of the political dictum of the old New Dealer Harry Hopkins: tax and tax, spend and spend, elect and elect.”
So will Obama’s “Fiscal Responsibility and Reform Commission” turn out to be the VAT Commission with a European 12% sales tax on top of the income tax, excise tax, etc. And those on top of the various state sales, income and property taxes? All this to finance BIG GOVERNMENT? If so, we will then all have the advantage of being “in the same boat,” “equal,” and “happy” in an ever declining country and economy.
So for the literarily inclined, Obama wants us on Hayek’s Road to Serfdom where we will encounter Orwell’s Animal Farm with 1984’s Big Brother in control. As Obama recently said in response to a push-back, “we won the election.” And win the next election and the next, he aims to do with the creation of more and more dependency on him and less and less individual responsibility.
I won’t be around to witness the outcome but I hope the next generation will become informed and engaged, lest our grandchildren and great-grandchildren suffer horrible consequences.
Tom Motherway
When Insurance Is Not Insurance
Posted by Tom in Deficit, Individual Freedom, Nationalized Health Care, Taxation on February 24, 2010
The Democrats’ goal of healthcare rapidly turned into health “insurance” care. This to supposedly provide healthcare to some inflated numbers of people who had no healthcare. But by law everyone has healthcare, just get to the emergency room and you will be cared for with or without insurance. So the leftist needed another tack to take over 16% of the U.S. economy. Thus Obamacare magically became Obama insurance.
Health insurance is not “insurance” in any true sense of the word. True insurance is a contingent indemnity against loss provided by a business that assesses and pools specific risks. As Clifford Asness states in his Bloomberg.com article today, “Don’t Ask” Is No Way to Run Health Care, “true insurance comprises two things: The first is a goal: to protect against very large losses. The second on is a method: the proper assessment and pricing of risk.” So fire insurance assesses the risk of occurrence of fire in a specific location and the expected degree of damage from fire in that location. Facts and circumstances like construction type, proximity to a fire plug or station, and repair or replacement costs are taken into account. Since others need such insurance like risks will be pooled and spread by the insurance company. To cover expected losses, that company will maintain reserves and beyond that has its owners capital. Companies can incur underwriting profits or losses depending on their experience in the specific insurance pools.
Health “insurance” in this country amounts to prepaid health care expenses. It does not indemnify against only large risks but prepays for every cold and sniffle. In fact it is practically speaking the only way in which medical providers get paid for their services. It is this fact–third party payment–that causes overuse and unnecessary costs.
Think about it. Employer provided insurance benefits are an expensive cost of compensation, yet they are not taxable as compensation to the insured employee, even though they are deductible to the employer. From the employee’s perspective, medical service is a free service.
“Having businesses offer full health coverage almost from the first dollar spent is phenomenally inefficient. Health care is over-consumed because it is essentially, at the margin, free to employees and too cheap — fully deductible — to the company. All incentive for the consumer to control costs is abandoned. Furthermore, the system is nonportable and famously bureaucratic, with the associated costs in time, money and frustration.
“To put the “insurance” back in health insurance, we need to remove the tax deduction for routine health-care expenses, whether the coverage is purchased by employers or individuals. If we choose to retain a deduction for insurance against large losses, it should apply equally to plans bought by individuals directly and those provided by employers.
“Among other benefits, this would remove a large tax deduction and the savings could be used to reduce other tax burdens. It would also solve the portability problem because without a tax advantage at work most individuals would purchase their own insurance. Most importantly, by buying their own insurance, designed to protect against only relatively large losses, individuals would become conscious of medical costs.”
In short, we need Consumer Driven Health Care (CDHC) where consumer pays for what he gets. He will spend economically both on high deductible insurance and generic drugs. His policy will be portable. It will be highly competitive if companies can cover across state lines and if tort reform reduces the costs of defensive medicine. With increased use of Health Savings Accounts costs will be further reduced. And yes, major pre-existing diseases can be inexpensively covered by subsidized high risk pools.
Tom Motherway
“Catholic Charities in Albany NY Now Providing Free Syringes to Addicts”
Posted by Tom in Government Regulation, Individual Freedom, Law, Morality & Religion in the Public Square, National Character, Politics, Statism on February 21, 2010
Another well-intentioned, liberal Bush idea that Obama has continued and enhanced is the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. Michael Tanner of Cato calls it Obama’s Faith-Based Boondoggle. Michael, who has video-conferneced with our Reno Hayek Symposium meeting, correctly states that, “the damage done by government co-option of private charity goes far beyond money.” His point is that the addiction of federal dollars soon distorts the purposes of the charity–by dependency, sloth and ultimate control.
The Bush/Obama program of leveraging government dollars by using low cost (sometimes free) charity workers, is better than creating another government department to accomplish some social (not religious) goal. But the point is that the charity would ultimately accomplish the same or near same goal with private dollars. In short, there is no need to spend government dollars. Excuse me, your tax dollars.
“Government funding is antithetical to the nature of charity. After all, the essence of private charity is that it is voluntary. Tax money is based on coercion. There is neither compassion nor love behind a grant of money forcibly taken from taxpayers who may have no desire to support the charity in question.”
“There is no reason for government to be in bed with private charity. Charity is thriving in America. We are the most generous nation on earth. Every year, Americans contribute more than $300 billion to charity. In addition, more than half of all American adults perform volunteer work. That time and effort is worth more than another $300 billion. And that does not include the countless dollars and time given to family members, neighbors and others outside the formal charity system. A few extra dollars from Washington add little to this amazing success story.”
The proper role of government is the crux of all political difference. Big and all-intrusive or small and limited, that is the question. Our founding fathers set up a limited federal government with checks and balances and specifically delegated powers. Roles and powers not delegated to the federal government by the people were specifically reserved to the states or to the people. The founding fathers would be shocked to see how far the federal government has evolved from their vision.
The principle of subsidiarity is an organizing principle that matters ought to be handled by the smallest, lowest or least centralized competent authority. This concept is applicable to government, management, and society. The parent, the family, the school, the church, the social group, the village, the city, the state and only then should the central authority, the federal government be competent to handle any given issue or concern. Let’s see… that would leave defense, postal service, national currency, and… what else to the federal domain? Read the constitution! You will be surprised.
Point is…if we continue to cede our obligations and our rights to the central authority, we will become dependent serfs….without moral fiber, character, or courage. That we can gather, speak, give to charity, volunteer, teach our children, defend ourselves and our families is our strength, our essence. Once ceded, never retrieved. Let charities do charitable work….yes even in healthcare!
A friend and member of our group on reading about Catholic Charities providing syringes to addicts in Albany wagged, “what’s next, condoms?” Makes me, a practicing Catholic, question– as have others–whether Catholic Charities is indeed Catholic, or for that matter, a charity!
Tom Motherway
Obama Wants Republican Ideas To Save Obamacare–Just Say No
Posted by Tom in Government Regulation, Individual Freedom, National Debt, Nationalized Health Care on February 11, 2010
Jay Cost has a great post today in Real Clear Politics, The Blair House Stunt. He posits Obama’s invitation to Republicans to advance their healthcare ideas as either an honest attempt at a bipartisan reform of healthcare or a political stunt. He concludes it is a political stunt meant to help the Democrats by hurting the Republicans. This for three reasons: a) it’s televised giving the glib snake oil salesman his foil over lesser debaters, b) the invitation was extended to party leaders not the more moderate/liberal Republicans, and c) there are only nine months before the midterm elections so why would the Republican leadership want to help put lipstick on this pig!
Jay Cost’s reasoning is persuasive. Obamacare is the albatross around the Democrats necks as recently demonstrated by Scott Brown’s Massachusetts victory. Recent polls show the public against the takeover of 16% of the economy.
Obama has said that he is not willing to start with a blank sheet of paper which is the only way to negotiate a compromise. He wants his core elements in Obamacare. Most of those core elements are statist, anti-free market, and deficit growing at a time when the nation is near bankruptcy.
So there is no real hope of bipartisan compromise given Obama’s ground rules. Why waste time the Republicans could better spend by going directly to the voters with a cogent set of reform ideas: 1) allow all insurance to be sold across state lines, 2) tax employer provided benefits as compensation, 3) encourage individual policy ownership and portability by allowing a modest tax credit, 4) expand Health Savings Accounts scope and deductibility so more attractive high deductible policies would come to market, and 5) enact serious tort reform to eliminate gross legal fees and defensive medicine. In short, this simple reform would make the patients the medical consumers responsible for their own insurance. It would reduce the overall cost of healthcare with increased competition and decreased lawsuit diseconomies. Finally, it would not add to the deficit and in fact would provide additional revenue to the treasury to reduce the deficit.
The Republicans should politely just say no to Obama’s invitation as it stands. At the same time it is reasonable to state the principles that are necessary for health insurance and healthcare costs containment. That can be done succinctly in a way that the voters will easily appreciate.
Tom Motherway
Who Owns Obama and the Democrats?
Posted by Tom in Democrats, Economics, Energy Facts & Policies, Environment, Individual Freedom, Politics, Unions, Wall Street on January 29, 2010
There are primarily four major political groups that literally own Obama, Reid, Pelosi and the rest of the Democrats: Unions, particularly the public employee unions. Trial lawyers. Environmentalists. And, Wall Street and Business Rent Seekers. The cost of these relationships to the economy and to our freedom is significant but difficult to completely quantify.
Unions. According to the latest figures overall union membership as a percentage of the workforce has held steady with 2008 at 12.4% and 2009 at 12.3%. Within that overall group, however, the private sector unionization declined from 7.6 to 7.2% while the public sector grew from 36.8 to 37.4%. It’s no secret that Obama favored the unions over the bondholders in his nationalization of GM and Chrysler. Nor is it a secret that his most frequent visitor is Andy Stern who will let you know what they spent to get Obama elected! Oh, and about 1 million of the federal work force are union members, 28% of the wage and salary workforce. As to the effects of this, see my post of January 7th Unions and Excessive Government Compensation.
Trial Lawyers. This is that monopoly of “professionals” who are licensed to represent real or pretended injured people for “contingency fees” of 25-50% of the awards obtained in trial or, more likely, settlement. These “injured” plaintiffs can be investors, cancer patients, or “whiplash” victims. Oftentimes the attorneys advertise to let them know they are “injured” or purchase new issue stock to become self fulfilling injured plaintiffs themselves! Recent cases have highlighted the manufactured testimony that these lawyers pay for, the perjury that they suborn. According to a recent post in OpenSecrets.org, during the last decade the trial lawyer given over 90% of their political contributions to the Democrats. In 2009 $2.86 Million to the Democrats and $140 Thousand to Republicans. Is it any wonder that there are no caps on medical malpractice damages in Obamacare? Thus big awards, large insurance premiums and defensive medicine will continue to drive up medical costs. (In the interest of full disclosure, I was once one of these trial lawyers, but as Woodrow Wilson said, “I have repented of it”)
Environmentalists. This is the most difficult economic drag and freedom surrender to estimate. Consider the ethanol debacle both in terms of costs and free market damage where the government pays producers to produce, forces customers to buy and restricts cheaper imports for a process and substance which increases greenhouse gasses! Consider the recent cap and trade bill passed by the House. Or, how about the CO2 we exhale and the EPA’s intention to regulate it as harmful! Has there been a cost-benefit analysis on the solar, wind, insulation state and federal tax and other subsidies or the wasted economic investment as a result thereof? And all of this for a “global warming science” in which the scientists manipulate the data!
Wall Street and Business Rent Seekers. Now we get to the folks we love to hate, the money guys who have long sucked at the Democratic teat. These folks spend the money to get the edge. They love cap and trade because they will become the traders getting the juice of commissions. They love Barney Frank’s push on Fannie and Freddie for more subprime mortgages because they generated fees from packaging and selling them as securities. Some felt “forced” to deal like drug companies, hospitals and insurance companies in the recent Obamacare debacle. Others just sought advantage over honest competition; in economic terms they are simply rent seekers.
These poor seekers of corporate welfare are the easiest to turn on for political reasons, so Obama is turning on them appearing like the populist he isn’t, while still taking their cash. This is truly fun to watch but is of little significance.
As long as the elite Democratic rulers are literally owned by these very special and influential interests, our economy will flounder and our freedoms will diminish.
FOLLOW UP: Media-Educators. At dinner tonight on this penultimate day of January Bill Collins suggested that Hollywood should have been included in the list of “owners.” Sure enough, common knowledge and a cursory internet search reminds us that Democrats dominate “Tinsel Town.” But this is just one segment of the media, the entertainment segment of the Fourth Estate, if you will. So, it seems incumbent to include the MSM (Main Stream Media) like MSNBC, CBS, ABC, CNN. It’s not too obvious that fawning lap dogs like Chris Matthews or Keith Olbermann are more than a bit biased. Stretching the “media” definition we can easily include the educational establishment. Hard to find a non-Obama hope-change professor on a college campus today. It would seem fair to say that the Media-Educators should indeed be included in the list of owners of Obama and the Democrats. Their influence aside from environmentalism would seem to be more social than economic. Things like “gay marriage” and “don’t ask, don’t tell” interest them. The cost here is to our intelligence and to the future of our society, thus our freedom. This is hard to measure in economic terms. But it is perhaps more critical to our democracy. The lack of education, intelligence in the electorate, and a free press willing to to its critical, investigative job will if continued doom our future.
Pray that the next generations are smarter than ours and will remedy this sorry state of affairs!
Tom Motherway
We Get No Respect
Posted by Tom in Individual Freedom, National Character, Politics, Press on January 24, 2010
“On MSNBC, snakes and lizards poured almost visibly from Olbermann’s mouth when he said Scott Brown spoke “out of his bare bottom,” and called the Massachusetts father of two “an irresponsible, homophobic, racist, reactionary, ex-nude-model tea-bagging supporter of violence against women and against politicians with whom he disagrees.” To quote from the excellent post of Meghan Gurdon in her January 21st Washington Examiner post.
That made me think a bit more about our leftist, ruling elite. They, the Pelosis, Reids, Obamas, and Obermans of this world are out of touch with the people they govern. They believe in all sincerity that they are better than we are. They are certain that they know what is best for us. Thus, they govern; thus, they communicate.
We on the other hand, work to provide for our families, attend religious services to pray to our God, volunteer to help our neighbors, and try to make ends meet and enjoy life in the process. At election time we try to vote for the best candidates and we don’t always make the right choices. We’re often times persuaded by the smooth veneers of those elites.
When we disagree with what the elites are doing, we protest, we answer pollsters, we write to our elected representatives, we attend tea parties, and we vote. When the elites see that we unwashed masses disagree with their superior knowledge and governing, they name call. The lowest intellectual form of argument is the argumentum ad hominem, which is “name calling” rather than addressing the issue.
Those of us who object are called Nazis, astroturfers, right-wing nut cases, and tea baggers. This only goes to show the correct intellectual caliber of Pelosi, Reid, Olbermann, et al. They are great at calling names but short on substantive arguments.
Obama doesn’t connect with the people because he can’t connect. He talks down. He’s the darling of those who also talk down. His interview with George Stephanopoulos is the perfect example. “I think the assumption was…if we’re making a good rational decision here, then the people will get it.” (emphasis added) But the people don’t get it. So elitist Obama will now start speaking “directly to the American people.” His recent foray into his newly acquired populism is an example. He will not tax the banks to get back his bailout money, even though the banks have already repaid it. But he won’t tax the union-owned auto companies who haven’t repaid the bailouts. He’s indebted to the unions.
Obama, Reid, Pelosi do not respect this nation. They do not respect our history. They do not respect our values. They seek to change us into a European socialist state. Tonight I watched Dennis Miller at the Silver Legacy really lay it on hard along much the same lines. He had a standing ovation in the packed house. We get no respect.
Obama, Reid, Pelosi and ilk are really pseudo intellectuals. They have never had any real life experience, never worked but instead have sucked off the public trough. They are unworthy of their offices. Despite the vile mouth Olbermann, Scott Brown is going to Washington.
The Massachusetts voters have spoken and they will get respect!
Tom Motherway
Freedom of Speech-An “Essential Mechanism” of Democracy
Posted by Tom in Constitution, Individual Freedom, Politics, Press on January 23, 2010
As the January 22nd WSJ pointed out editorially, “freedom has had its best week in many years.” The article refers to Scott Brown’s election as a check on the runaway Congress and more recently the Supreme Court 5-4 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission which overturned that part of McCain-Feingold which banned corporations and unions from “electioneering communications” within 30 days of a primary election or 60 days of a general election. Justice Kennedy for the majority wrote that the ban on corporate expenditures had a “substantial, nationwide chilling effect” on political speech; in other words, it was censorship.
Predictably the Democratic liberals and socialists howled! Corporations are not people! A major victory for big oil, Wall Street, insurance companies and other special interests, Obama cried. Senators called for hearings. Leftist groups called for a constitutional amendment!
Funny Obama in his rant did not mention his union employers, specifically the public employee unions, the membership of which now outnumbers that of private sector unions! And while members of his leftist coterie argued that corporations were not people, they neglected to mention that Obama’s coddling, fawning main stream liberal press are also corporations! Yes, its OK for leftist journalists to have freedom of speech, NBC, CNN, NYT WaPo and the like, who are all exempted under McCain-Feingold’d “electioneering communications” proscriptions. However, it unfair if other corporations and unions have freedom of speech.
So duplicitous Obama is showing his true position: freedom of speech is OK as long as the speech is in his favor. This gets uncomfortably close to the control of communications fostered in the USSR. The Supreme Court upheld this essential mechanism of Democracy. Bravo!
Tom Motherway
The Moral High Ground-It’s Not All About Money!
Posted by Tom in Constitution, Foreign Policy, Individual Freedom, National Character on January 14, 2010
I count 7 separate articles in the first section of today’s (1-14-10) WSJ on Google’s stand for individual freedom in China. Quick summary:
- U.S. Holds Fire in Google-China Feud.
- A Heated Debate at the Top.
- Web Is New Front Among Cold War Foes.
- Levi’s Left, Too-And Came Back.
- Pullout Threat Jolts Chinese Users.
- Clash on the Great Firewall.
- Google Gets on the Right Side of History.
The last of these is rather frightening linking what is going on in China to what was going on in East Germany with the rat-on-your-neighbor system set up by the Stasi, only recently discovered with the release of Stasi files.
We all realize that freedom will one day come to China, just as modernity will one day come to Islam. The question in each case is what it takes to get there. How much pain, how much protest, how much bloodshed, and how much money sacrificed.
We see with Google that principle overcomes profit. It recognizes that our First Amendment rights, freedom of speech, press, and religion are the basic rights of a democracy. Google stands up. The United States government sits by.
A follow-up in Bloomberg this evening reports that Google tried to enlist other companies to help draw attention to the cyber attacks from China without success. Since that failure of support three U.S. companies have stepped up and said they were the subject of cyber attacks, Adobe Systems, Inc., Juniper Networks Inc., and Rackspace Hosting Inc.
We should be justifiably proud that Google leads and other American companies follow to exercise their voice for individual freedom in the face of loss. The Founding Fathers’ spirit lives, thank God!
It’s not all about money!
Tom Motherway
Hooray For Google
Posted by Tom in Foreign Policy, Individual Freedom, National Character, Statism on January 13, 2010
Today’s WSJ front-page, six-column, lead headline: “Google Warns of China Exit Over Hacking.” No, it’s not a slow news day but the Journal gives this story its appropriate position to all those who champion individual rights and freedom. The story: Google was hacked last month apparently by government sources seeking to break into the email accounts of civil rights activists and 20 foreign firms. Google has notified the government that it is prepared to leave this gigantic market rather than to continue to submit to its censorship and hacking. No other major company has taken this step. Google has made the decision to forego revenue, market share, and profit and stand up for individual rights and freedom.
What’s interesting to note is that an American company is taking this hard stand. The leftist Democratic government in control of the United States did not take this stand. Hillary Clinton has made it clear that human rights would be on the back burner. Barack Hussein Obama’s uber-liberal golf buddy, Thomas Friedman of the New York Times wrote: “One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages…(by imposing) the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century.” This from the brilliant editorial in NRO today, “Google Stands Up to Beijing.”
Again, this just shows the lack of foundation, lack of principle of these leftist Democrats. The one principle they seem to share is perpetuation of control. And this is mainly fostered by entitlement addiction and regulatory excess. The perfect examples of this today are Obamacare and cap and trade where they have manufactured crises to initiate addiction and control.
So while Google plays hard ball in business and is sometimes a rent-seeker of the first order, it should be loudly applauded for today’s stand. Would that our government had such values.
Tom Motherway