Friday, June 26, 2009

I agree with President Obama on this one

I'm usually pretty critical of President Obama's policies and arguments. However, for once, I really agree with something he said, although I may not agree with his conclusions.

This past Tuesday, June 23, the president held a press conference on Iran, energy policy, and health care. On health care and the need for nationalization, President Obama made the following statement:

"Unless we act . . . the amount our government spends on Medicare and Medicaid will eventually grow larger than what our government spends on everything else today."


I whole-heartedly agree: we need to act on health care. But inherent in our President's statement is a strong refutation of his plan to nationalize health care.

He states that the amount we spend on just Medicare and Medicaid will soon engulf the ENTIRE federal budget of thousands of billions of dollars each year. Now, Medicare and Medicaid don't cover many treatments that would be covered under the President's health care proposal, and they are only open to certain segments of the population.

In other words, Medicare and Medicaid are like pilot programs. They can be viewed as "test runs" for how government does when it tries to handle more minimal health care for a smaller portion of the American people.

And what has happened? How did it work out? 

In the president's own words, "Medicare and Medicaid will eventually grow larger than what our government spends on everything else today." The President has kind of argued against himself. When we tried to cover a few million people with Medicare and Medicaid, it is going to end up costing over $3,000,000,000,000 (That's $3 trillion)! 

So let's have the government cover up to three hundred million people? THEN what will the price tag be?

I look to the words of a president I consider far wiser than most of our recent chief executives. This man oversaw a time of great economic prosperity in U.S. history, the roaring 20s. He said,

"There is no end of the things which the government could do, seemingly, in the way of public welfare, if it had the money. Everything we want cannot be had at once. It must be earned by toilsome labor. There is a very decided limit to the amount which can be raised by taxation without ruinously affecting the people of the country by virtual confiscation of a part of their past savings.


"The business of the country, as a whole, is transacted on a small margin of profit. The economic structure is one of great delicacy and sensitiveness. When taxes become too burdensome . . . there is depression, lack of employment, idleness of investment and of wage earner, with the long line of attendant want and suffering on the part of the people. After order and liberty, economy is one of the highest essentials of a free government. It was in no small degree the unendurable burden of taxation which drove Europe into the Great War. . ."


--President Calvin Coolidge, served 1923-1928

I don't know if I need to mention the fact that after President Coolidge left office, President Herbert Hoover took over. Months later began a period of raising taxes and the Great Depression, from which America would not entirely recover for years.

We may all want the government to do more for us, especially in the name of compassion for the weakest among us. The bottom line is that it simply can't do everything, though. There is "a very decided limit" to the number of services the federal government can provide without entirely wrecking our economy, confiscating our savings, and eroding our precious liberty. We are already running a nearly $2 TRILLION deficit after bailing-out and taking over banks and automakers.

So President Obama is right. I whole-heartedly agree: unless we do something, (like cut back our federal budget significantly!), Medicare and Medicaid will soon cost more than we can afford. And that is precisely why we can't afford to expand government funding for health care beyond its already too expensive level.

Monday, June 15, 2009

Dedication to Conservatism = Win!

Here's some encouraging news out of a new Gallup poll released today -- Americans identifying with Conservatism constitute 40% of all voters. This is a contrast with 35% calling themselves "moderate" and only 21% identifying with the term "liberal."

CRs, if we want to advance our principles, we should focus on aligning our party with what voters want to vote for: Conservatism.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/120857/Conservatives-Single-Largest-Ideological-Group.aspx

Friday, June 12, 2009

Pay Czar

I would like to go on record as saying I'm not to fond of this Pay Czar idea. Not only will have authority to oversea compensation for companies who accepted TARP money, but he may also be able to control executive pay levels for other domestic companies. The job decription is still a little fuzzy, but he told ABC News that "My goal is to reach out to these seven companies and meet with them and work out an acceptable compensation program -- acceptable to the business community, acceptable to the administration, and hopefully acceptable to Congress and the public. It's a challenge, but I think it's do-able."

I'm still left wondering why we're worried about whether or not the administration is happy with compensation levels in the free-market. The idea that we're now paying somebody, presumably with our tax dollars, to tell companies how much they can pay their employees seems unproductive, and scarily Big Brother. And I know he has requested not to be called a Pay Czar. But his actual title, Special Master of Compensation, doesn't exactly calm my fears.