October 21, 2009
Oct 21 04:57 Sen. Klobuchar, What About Traditional Energy Supplies? Oct 21 05:42 What Is Pelosi Hiding? Oct 21 08:31 Government Takeover Via Mandates Oct 21 10:16 Will Democrats Willingly Walk the Plank? Oct 21 12:04 So Bad On So Many Levels Oct 21 23:46 AKlo, Franken Vote For Fiscal Irresponsibility
Prior Months: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep
Sen. Klobuchar, What About Traditional Energy Supplies?
Amy Klobuchar is preaching the gospel of setting renewable energy standards . Unfortunately, I've seen no evidence that Sen. Klobuchar has put a high priority on expanding the use of existing energy supplies :
I will fight to expand incentives for investment in homegrown, renewable energy sources and technology. Here in Minnesota, we have the ability to produce a wide variety of homegrown energy, including ethanol, biodiesel, wind, solar and biomass. We need to adopt renewable fuel content standards including ethanol, biodiesel, biomass, 10% by 2010 and 20% by 2020. We also need renewable standards for electricity so that 20% of our electricity comes from sources like wind and solar energy by 2020.On her campaign website, Sen. Klobuchar didn't say anything about existing energy with the exception of her willingness to go after the Halliburtons of the world. Unfortunately, Sen. Klobuchar is too wedded to the environmental/anti-industrial complex to consider options like drilling on the OCS or voting for building nuclear power plants.
I will fight to improve our nation's energy efficiency and emission standards so we can reduce our dependence on foreign oil and move forward with greater use of renewable energy alternatives. We need to raise the fleet-wide fuel economy standards for cars and light trucks to at least 33 mpg by 2010.
Former Shell CEO John Hofmeister thinks that's a mistake :
In his presentation abstract Hofmeister notes "Green energy is helpful but inadequate to the demands of the future." His keynote address will not only cover supply issues, but also the impact on economic competitiveness of an aging infrastructure, as well as the importance of investing in the traditional energy base.Nuclear power doesn't create greenhouse gases. Most importantly, it's abundant, inexpensive and we aren't subjected to a volatile foreign market for it. Why isn't Sen. Klobuchar pushing that?
Drilling on the OCS is a low-risk, high-reward thing. Still, Sen. Klobuchar hasn't lifted a finger to open up drilling on the OCS. Why isn't that a priority with Sen. Klobuchar? Isn't making natural gas prices a priority with Sen. Klobuchar? It's important to remember that many of the wells that get drilled on the OCS harvest natural gas, which is the cleanest-burning fossil fuel. If saving the planet is a priority with Sen. Klobuchar, then natural gas and nuclear power should be right at the top of her energy priority list.
I suspect that the reason they aren't at the top of her priority list is because she's too reliant on campaign contributions from environmentalists. Now that's a shocker.
It's time that Minnesotans, especially farmers and commuters, asked Sen. Klobuchar whether she represents the environmentalists or if she'll represent Minnesotans for a change.
Posted Wednesday, October 21, 2009 4:57 AM
Comment 1 by walter hanson at 21-Oct-09 05:56 PM
Gary:
If Brad Childress held a press conference and said he has come up with a plan to dramatically improve the performance of the Minnesota Vikings. That plan is to bench and not play anymore Brett Farve, Adrian Peterson, and Jared Allen people will laugh at how silly Childress is.
Yet basically every democrat supports a policy of no oil, no nuclear, and no coal. Who is more naive the Democrats or the public who doesn't understand that this is their energy policy.
This just shows Amy is in that camp I just described.
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
What Is Pelosi Hiding?
When the House bills were first scored by the CBO, each carried a price tag in excess of $1,000,000,000,000. The deficit created by the bill in the first decade was just short of $250,000,000,000. Based on those numbers, I'm skeptical of Speaker Pelosi's claims that the new CBO scoring comes in under $900,000,000,000:
House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Tuesday new estimates showed a healthcare overhaul drafted by Democrats would reduce the U.S. budget deficit over 10 years and cost less than $900 billion.I'm skeptical. How does the Democrats' H.R. 3200 go from price tage in excess of $1,000,000,000,000 and deficits of more than $230,000,000,000 to a price tag under $900,000,000,000 and shrinking the deficits?
First, I'm not accusing the CBO of cooking the books. Quite the opposite. I'm suggesting that House Democrats learned a trick from Sens. Baucus and Stabenow. I'm betting that they took things out of the official reform bill to get the price tag under President Obama's magic number of $1,000,000,000,000 and make it deficit neutral with the full intent of including the things they took out in separate legislation later.
Simply put, I'm betting that the Democrats are playing games with the legislation.
I'd further submit that President Obama's benchmarks aren't the test of whether the legislation is worthwhile. I put a list of questions together in this post that the Democrats should be forced to answer before We The People sign off on spending money on. Here's the list:
- Won't increasing taxes increase health care costs?
- Won't cutting Medicare by $404,000,000,000 while Medicare enrollment is increasing by 30 lead to rationing? Won't those cuts likely hurt rural hospitals?
- Isn't putting a Medicaid mandate on states avoiding taking responsibility for a federal government-initiated program?
- Why does this legislation still leave 25,000,000 uninsured?
- Isn't the true cost to families, the federal government, insurance companies, manufacturing companies & state governments closer to $2,000,000,000,000?
- Will any of this stabilize or lower health care costs? If yes, how?
- Won't insuring everyone cause health care spending to actually increase?
- Considering the FY2009 deficit was a record $1,420,000,000,000, can we afford another $2,000,000,000,000 in spending obligations over the next 10 years?
- Will the tax increases included in the Democrats' health care plans stifle economic growth and job creation? If yes, doesn't that mean we should rethink this legislation?
- Wouldn't HSAs give people an incentive in using their health care dollars wisely? Shouldn't that be our goal?
I'd bet that it's just a matter of time before We The People find out what those things are. This is definitely a time when We The People should question the Democrats' leadership, especially considering the secretive nature of these negotiations and Speaker Pelosi's manipulative nature. Putting it bluntly, I wouldn't trust her as far as I could throw her if I had 2 broken arms and a bad back.
Posted Wednesday, October 21, 2009 5:48 AM
No comments.
Government Takeover Via Mandates
This Cato Institute research paper is spot on in its analysis. I found this information to be particularly powerful:
Compulsory health insurance could require nearly 100 million Americans to switch to a more expensive health plan and would therefore violate President Barack Obama's pledge to let people keep their current health insurance. In particular, the legislation before Congress could eliminate many or all health savings account plans. Making health insurance compulsory would also spark an unnecessary fight over abortion and would enable government to ration care to those with private health insurance.It's been established that President Obama's promises aren't worth anything, often because they've all been broken. President Obama's initial pledge that people could keep their health care plan if they liked it isn't credible in light of the mandates included in the Democrats' health care legislation. With all of the mandates included, there's little chance that people can keep their policies.
Obama adviser Larry Summers writes that mandates "are like public programs financed by benefit taxes," meaning that compulsory health insurance would also violate President Obama's promise not to increase taxes on the middle class. Under the House Democrats' legislation, some middle-income earners would face marginal tax rates over 50 percent (before state taxes).
Mandates in the various bills appear to drive HSAs out of existence. Democrats, including President Obama, should be forced to explain why HSAs are being driven out of existence. It's long been my belief that making people better health care shoppers would lower health care costs. It's also been my belief that a policy with minimal mandates, a few basic coverages, a modest deductible and catastrophic insurance would be significantly cheaper than the policies that the Democrats' mandates would allow.
If you bring the cost of health insurance down without price controls, more people would buy it. There's little doubt but that people whose incomes are in the $75,000-$100,000 range choose to go without health because of the priciness of insurance premiums. If premiums drop, there's little doubt that they'll start buying health insurance again.
The experience in Massachusetts belies the claim that compulsory health insurance brings down health care costs. The "shared responsibility" ruse allows Massachusetts politicians to declare success for a compulsory health insurance scheme whose actual costs reveal it to be a failure. Massachusetts also demonstrates that compulsory health insurance enables, and ultimately requires, politicians and government bureaus to control nearly all aspects of health care and medical practice.Simply put, mandated health care ruined people's lives in Massachusetts. It's an abject failure. Health care costs have skyrocketed. Taxes are going up. Does that sound like success to you? The only thing that's worse than MittCare is Mitt Romney on TV criticizing the Democrats' health care legislation.
Mitt would do well to learn the first rule of holes, which is, when you're in a hole, stop digging. It's obvious that Mitt hasn't learned that lesson. He insists that his idea is a free market plan. I didn't know that mandates became part of a free marketer's first principles.
Whether at the state or federal levels, mandates aren't part of a free market advocate's vocabulary. The words free markets and mandates fit into the same sentence as smoothly as fist fits into a glove. They simply don't go together.
I wrote yesterday that I'd doubt that most mandates would pass a laugh test. Essentially, they're monuments to special interests. Most mandates have little to do with smart health care policy.
The Democrats' legislation is built on a faulty premise. They think that it's most important to start with covering everyone, then forcing the other pieces of the puzzle to fit together once their first goal is accomplished. I'd argue that there'd be a better chance of success if health insurance was made more affordable by limiting mandates and by forcing people to be better health care shoppers.
Once prices dropped, I'd bet that most of the people who choose not to buy insurance would start buying health insurance again. Building a health insurance policy on those principles would make portability a better option, too.
I'd submit that my idea is vastly superior to anything that the Democrats have put into their legislation, mostly because their legislation does nothing to reduce health insurance or health care costs but also because their legislation does little to insure all of the uninsured.
Why should we call the Democrats' plans smart when they do little to insure the uninsured and do even less to lower health care costs? Only in Washington, DC could they call that reform.
Posted Wednesday, October 21, 2009 8:36 AM
No comments.
Will Democrats Willingly Walk the Plank?
After reading the latest polling from Rasmussen, including the polling on President Obama and the Generic Ballot Question , it's clear that Democrats are in serious trouble. That's before factoring in their troubles should they pass a tax-filled health care bill that doesn't significantly reduce the number of uninsured and that is a job-killer. Here's the grim news for President Obama:
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Wednesday shows that 27% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty percent (40%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -13 .I'm not certain that President Obama isn't willing to risk re-election if he's able to pass single-payer. I'm sure he'd rather be re-elected than not but I think he'd be okay with being a one term wonder if he's able to achieve the liberals' holy grail of universal health care coverage.
Here's the bad news for congressional Democrats:
The GOP advantage over Democrats increased from two points to five in the latest edition of the Generic Congressional Ballot.As bad as this polling is, here's worse news:
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 42% would vote for their district's Republican congressional candidate while 37% would opt for his or her Democratic opponent. Support for Democrats dropped two points this week, while support for the GOP slightly increased.
Voters not affiliated with either party heavily favor the GOP, 40% to 23% .If Democrats lose independents by a 17 point margin, then they'll have a difficult night the first Tuesday in November, 2010. Monday night, Dick Morris told Hannity that senior citizens were breaking about 2:1 against Democrats, that those aged 30-64 are split about even and that 20-somethings were breaking 2:1 for Obamacare with one exception.
Morris said that when young people were told what was in the health care bill, the polling flipped to 2:1 opposed. That means that Republicans' job is to constantly remind senior citizens of what's in the health care bill that they don't like and to tell young people that they'll be hurt directly by the fines imposed for mandating coverage and that the Democrats' tax-filled legislation will kill jobs just as they're graduating and looking to start a career.
What we're seeing, if this polling is accurate, is a voluntary dismantling of the impressive coalition that President Obama put together. Frankly, I'm surprised that more Democrats haven't abandoned President Obama by now.
Posted Wednesday, October 21, 2009 10:22 AM
No comments.
So Bad On So Many Levels
This morning, I participated in a blogger conference call with Sen. John Thune. the subject of this morning's bcc was health care. During his opening statement, Sen. Thune talked about the $250,000,000,000 deficit-busting bribe (my word, not Sen. Thune's) to doctors. This is the Democrats' attempt to hide the true cost of the bill by separating out a major expense of the Democrats' health care legislation.
Sen Thune also talked about the tax increases in the Finance Committee and HELP Committee bills, saying that these tax increases will drive the health care cost curve up, not down. Sen. Thune further noted that the JCT reported that almost 90 percent of the taxes included in the Democrats' legislation will hit people making less than $200,000. He then noted that over 50 percent of the tax increases will hit people making less than $100,000.
Sen. Thune also said that, contrary to conventional wisdom, the public option wasn't killed during August's townhall meetings. Sen. Reid is committed to getting it put into the final Senate bill.
Noel Sheppard of Newsbusters asked the first question:
Q: What's up with the Democrats' trying to revoke the insurance companies'Here's the question that John Hawkins of Right Wing News asked :
antitrust exemption?
A: The White House is trying to rally support by villainizing insurance companies. Sen. Thune doesn't think this will have much effect.
Q: Can you talk a little bit about what will happen if the Democrats try to use procedural tricks like reconciliation to get the bill through the Senate with 50 votes?My question focused on the tax increases and the unfunded mandates from the Finance Commitee. I asked if we shouldn't highlight the tax increases included in the Democrats' bills and the tax increases that the Medicaid unfunded mandate would trigger at the state level.
A: I don't believe the government plan is dead. They are trying to get it back in.
I think they will bring it out under regular order and that requires 60 votes. The first run, at least, they will try it with the public option in it. If that doesn't work, they will probably try something like the Baucus bill. That will still be a tough bill. It's a 2 trillion dollar expansion, a 1 trillion dollar tax increase, and a trillion dollars in Medicare cuts.
If that doesn't work, they go to reconciliation. That would be improper. We would raise points of order. They would need 60 votes to break those.
They could also split the bill. Put the revenue portion through reconciliation, they could do it and make it work.
Follow-up: If they split the votes, they can ram it through. Is that true? What can we do at that point?
A: To stop them on that last tactic, we need at least 11, 12 Democrats to stop them. When they have this kind of majority, there is not a lot we can do. We will do everything we can to block it, but we need the help of American people to help do it.
Sen. Thune said that those were two excellent points to highlight before saying that there's alot of great points they could highlight alot of things because "this bill is so wrong on so many levels." That's something I can't argue with.
I then suggested that they put a video together that's titled "Wrong On So Many Levels." Sen. Thune thought that sounded like a good idea.
Follow this link to John Hawkins' post on the call.
Posted Wednesday, October 21, 2009 12:10 PM
No comments.
AKlo, Franken Vote For Fiscal Irresponsibility
This afternoon, the Dmeocratic leadership offered a bill to essentially bribe doctors into supporting their health care legislation. The bribe would've added $247,000,000,000 to the debt. Unfortunately for Sen. Reid and the Democrats' leadership, the bill was defeated by a 53-47 vote .
Lawmakers in both parties have expressed concerns about the size and scope of health care reform legislation. But leading Democratic leaders said their plan will drive down costs while reforming a system that's broken.That's been the Democrats' mantra for over 3 months. People don't believe them, partially because of their credibility gap created by their predictions that the stimulus bill would create millions of new jobs. The lesson to be learned from this is that you'll get nowhere if your credibility is shot.
"If you like what you have, you can keep it. We'll protect Medicare and the middle class and pass a responsible bill" commented Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. "We are committed to passing health care. When asked about the government-run public insurance option, Reid said the idea is still in the running.Nobody in their right mind believes Sen. Reid's statement. They've seen studies, one from the Lewin Group and another from the Heritage Foundation , that gives them reason to not trust a crackpot like Sen. Reid.
Republicans, and even some Democrats, have expressed concern about the public option, arguing that the government shouldn't be in the business of running health insurance.
Minnesotans need to know that Sens. AKlo and Franken voted with the extremists in the Senate Democrat caucus in support of this gimmick. They obviously didn't think that voting to add another quarter of a trillion dollars to the deficit was a big thing. They obviously thought that Minnesotans wouldn't mind having prosperity placed farther away from them because the deficit is sucking up all the credit.
Everyone knew that Sen. Franken was a liberal extremist. It isn't a surprise that he voted like an idiot. What's surprising to her supporters is that Sen. Klobuchar voted with extremists like Chuckie Schumer, Harry Reid, Patrick Leahy, Jay Rockefeller and Dick Durbin. Prior to this vote, AKlo had worked hard to maintain an image, albeit false, that she was a centrist.
Voting to play this trick on the American people is proof that she represents Hary Reid, Dick Durbin and Chuck Schumer more than she represents centrist Minnesotans. It's also proof that she's devoted to fiscal irresponsibility. Combine this vote with her voting for the stimulus, the $410,000,000,000 omnibus bill and the $1,000,000,000,000-a-year-deficit budget bill and there's little proof that AKlo is anything but an out-of-control liberal.
Color me not the least bit surprised. To me, this is just proof of AKlo and Franken showing their true color, red, as in red ink.
Posted Wednesday, October 21, 2009 11:51 PM
Comment 1 by Minnesota Central at 22-Oct-09 10:04 AM
This legislation relates to updating the Medicare physician fee schedule for years beginning with 2010 and to sunset the application of the sustainable growth rate formula.
This has been done for years ... most recently in the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008. At hand was a scheduled 10.6% cut in Medicare's payments to doctors. Since this was reversed then the bribe you mention was approved by President Bush and most Republicans.
Have you written Senators Klobuchar and Franken to ask why they voted the way they did ?
I suspect that they feel there is better legislation that will address this. For example, The Medicare Payment Fairness Act of 2009 which would reform Medicare by paying hospitals for the quality, not quantity, of care. These changes would reduce the regional differences in Medicare spending by shifting the nation to a coordinated, integrated delivery system like Minnesota. Studies have shown that more integrated care could save taxpayers an additional $100 billion a year.
My reaction is that Senators Klobuchar and Franken are looking at the long term and a better, fairer solution.
