Garden State Patriot

Despite opposition to their healthcare proposals reaching a new high, the Democrat’s march towards government-run healthcare is moving forward undeterred. If you believe yesterday’s vote in the Senate Finance Committee means the public option is dead, well, think again.

According to The Heritage Foundation, Senate Democrats, led by Harry Reid, are planning to ramrod their legislation through Congress using what can only be described as scheming, underhanded tactics. As the Foundry piece explains, filibustering the legislation would likely be unsuccessful as it would require the more  ‘moderate’ members of the Democrat caucus going against their own party — an unlikely scenario.

The question is not whether Democrats can muster 60 votes to pass Obamacare; they only need 51 votes to do that. The only time the number 60 will be relevant is when the Senate votes on whether to end debate and vote on the final bill. This is a separate question. We can see Senators from red states like Ben Nelson (D-NE), Blanch Lincoln (D-AR), and Kent Conrad (D-ND) voting against an amendment creating a public option. But voting with Republicans against their party and against their President to support a Republican filibuster? That would take a lot of courage. It would guarantee that these Democrats would face fierce opposition from their leftist bases back home.

Subsequently, Reid will take two Senate-passed measures, merge them together and attach it to a House bill which has nothing to do with healthcare.  

So just how close are we to being inflicted with the Obama/Moore dream of anti-capitalist, competition-free, government-run health care? Closer than many realize. Multiple sources on the Hill have told The Foundry that as early as next week, the Senate could be debating Obamacare. Senate Majority Leader Reid has stated an intention to take the HELP Committee product and merge it with the Senate Finance Committee markup that is expected to be over by this Thursday or Friday. Their plan is to proceed to a House passed non-health care bill to provide a shell of legislation to give Obamacare a ride to the House and then straight to the President’s desk.

Ironically, it wasn’t that long ago that Democrats threatened to shut down the Senate if Republicans used the ‘nuclear option’ to bypass filibusters of Bush judicial nominees. The then-Minority Leader even was quoted as saying that the use of the nuclear option would ”ruin our country.” Now, with the stakes far higher for the nation, the Reid-led Democrats in the Senate are willing to effectively bypass the House of Representatives in their effort to achieve their dream of government-run healthcare. The people’s body, for all intents and purposes, would have no voice in legislation that directly affects the healthcare of the citizenry and 1/6th of our nation’s economy. 

The Democrats’ healthcare proposals already represent an assault on our individual liberties and the concepts of capitalism and free markets which so many of us hold dear. But now their tactics represent nothing less than a direct assault on representative democracy. No sacred institution, no cherished principle, nor the Constitution itself are above sacrifice in the pursuit of their extreme agenda.

Truly shameful.

Dick explains here what Obama’s plans for healthcare really mean. With this summer’s town halls behind us, the fight against Obamacare is now entering Stage 2. Now, we all need to keep the pressure up on, in particular, our Senators. I’ll have more on this soon.

Well, after 10 town hall meetings in August, I think it’s safe to say the verdict is in: Steve Rothman didn’t listen.

Rothman appeared on Lou Dobbs Tonight, along with our favorite Congressman Scott Garrett, on September 10th to debate healthcare – and among other things, had this to say:

REP. STEVE ROTHMAN (D), NEW JERSEY: Well I think my colleague, Scott Garrett and I, the Democrats and Republicans in general in the House agree on about 80 percent of what’s already in H.R. 3200. I did 10 town haul(sp) meetings over the summer and we learned a lot about what language needs to be tightened up, what things concern people and those suggestions are going to be incorporated in the bill, but basically if you have insurance, we’re going to make sure it’s more affordable, bend the cost curve…

Honestly, I don’t know how Rothman could make the case that Republicans agree with 80% of what’s in the bill. But more importantly, the fact that he thinks the message from the town hall meetings was simply to ‘tighten up the language’ and ‘incorporate our concerns’ is insulting to everyone who went to those meetings to protest the Democrat’s proposal. The message of those meetings was clear as could be: We do not want this. Go back to Washington and start over!

Unfortunately, like Dear Leader, Rothman doesn’t really care what the American people had to say to him. After all, they think they know best.

The video of the segment can be seen here. The transcript here.

Barack Obama and the Democrats are spending us into oblivion. Today, the CBO revised their figures and the numbers are downright scary.

WASHINGTON — The federal government will have to borrow $1.6 trillion this year to finance its operations, the highest single-year budget deficit in the post-World War II era, the Congressional Budget Office said in a mid-year update Tuesday.

New spending by Congress since the CBO last updated its projections in March prompted it to raise its estimate of the total deficit from 2010-19 by $2.7 trillion, the CBO said in its update. That 10-year cumulative budget deficit is now expected to reach $7.137 trillion, the CBO said.

Much of that 10-year deficit increase is accounted for by additional appropriations to finance the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. About half of the increase in the 10-year deficit is a result of lowered revenue expectations as the economy continued to struggle, and additional interest costs to finance the national debt.

The U.S. public debt will exceed 61% of gross domestic product by the end of 2010, the CBO said, with that figure rising to 68% of GDP by the end of 2019.

The $1.6 trillion deficit now projected by the CBO for 2009 is $80 billion less than it projected in its March update. That decrease is mostly due to lowered projections of how much the government will spend on its Troubled Asset Relief Program to rescue the banking sector.

The CBO’s estimates are broadly in line with new deficit figures released by the Obama administration Tuesday. The White House Office of Management and Budget also slightly reduced its deficit estimate for 2009, to $1.58 trillion. The White House estimates the 10-year deficit at $9 trillion.

And remember, if Obamacare passes you can add at least another $2 trillion to all of this.

To say this is unsustainable is an understatement. This debt is threatening the very prosperity of our nation. Obama & Co. are destroying us from within.

Cross-posted at Conservatives with Attitude!

When I had the opportunity last week to question Congressman Rothman at the Wallington session, I felt it was important to address not just the specifics of the bill being pushed in the House but also to take issue with the concept that our national government was within its rights to even pass such a bill. As such, I challenged him on the matter; telling him that the Founders - who designed a national government of enumerated and limited powers - expressly forbade such profound government intervention in free enterprise.

Not surprisingly, Congressman Rothman contended that “he believed the power was there.” Of course, liberals tend to see a lot of powers that are not in the document that safeguards our rights and liberties for they simply reject the idea of a limited federal government. In this case, the Congressman (scary enough, a former constitutional law professor) would have us believe the Founders thought it OK for our elected officials to be de facto insurance salesman (Can you say ‘Senator Willie Loman,’ anyone?) Of course, this notion is absurd.

Interestingly enough, our friends at The Heritage Foundation have addressed this very question, debunking Congressman Rothman quite thoroughly.  

We have heard a great deal about the costs and benefits of a “public option” and “single-payer system.”  We have heard about the financial costs—and the other costs—of allowing the government to interfere with matters of life and death.  However, we haven’t heard whether the Constitution gives Congress the power to enact these plans. What does this say about the status of the Constitution in the minds our policymakers today?  If a concerned citizen asks a proponent of nationalized healthcare to point to the constitutional authority for such a law, he may hear that the “General Welfare” clause, the “Necessary and Proper” clause, or the “Interstate Commerce” clause enables Congress to create national public health insurance to act.

None of these clauses—or any others found in the Constitution—gives Congress the power to create a government healthcare system.

The “General Welfare” clause gives Congress the power “To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States.”  This clause is not a grant of power to Congress (as constitutional law professor Gary Lawson has shown). It is a limit to a power given to Congress. It limits the purpose for which Congress can lay and collect taxes.

During the founding, some Anti-Federalists were concerned that this clause “amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the common defence or general welfare.” But James Madison, the “Father of the Constitution,” explained very clearly that it granted no power to Congress. If the “General Welfare” clause gives Congress the power to promote the general welfare, then why specifically list the other powers in Article I, such as the power to establish post offices and post roads, or to coin money? Wouldn’t it be redundant to list them?

In short, as Madison argued, Congress derives no power from the general welfare clause, which merely serves to limit Congress’s power to lay and collect taxes.  Congress can only do so for purposes of common defense or general welfare, in the service of the powers granted to it elsewhere in Article I.

Second, “Necessary and Proper” gives Congress the power “to make all laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States.”  Like the general welfare clause, this clause was not a stand-alone grant of power to Congress.  Rather, it authorizes Congress to make laws that are necessary (and also proper) to make the other grants of authority in Article I effectual.

In other words, the necessary and proper clause cannot itself authorize national public health insurance.  One would have to show that national public health insurance is necessary and proper to execute some other power granted in the Constitution.This puts the proponents of nationalized healthcare back where they started.

Lastly, proponents might argue that national health insurance is part of Congress power “to regulate commerce…among the several states.”  While progressives have often used this clause to expand the federal government, it does not apply especially to the creation of a national health insurance, because to create and engage in commerce is not the same thing as regulating commerce among the several states.

Nobody during the framing generation expected the commerce clause to expand the federal government’s authority to anything relating to or resembling commerce.  James Madison wrote that it is a power “which few oppose, and from which no apprehensions are entertained.”  The clause was designed to prevent some states from taxing goods that passed through their boundaries as those goods proceeded to market.

In case proponents of government healthcare latch on to another clause, the three clauses above and rest of Constitution are explained in depth in the Heritage Guide to the Constitution .

Of course, most progressive advocates of national health insurance are unconcerned whether the Constitution authorizes such a law when a pseudo-constitutional reasoning to reach the desired result will suffice.  But constitutionalists should not allow such attempts to dismiss the Constitution go unanswered.

Not only should this question not go unanswered, but as we conservatives engage with others on healthcare, it is imperative that we address – not just the specifics of the bill being proposed - but the larger issue at hand: that the nationalization of healthcare represents a direct threat and attack on our individual liberties for it undermines the very document the Founders established to protect those rights. It is the only way we will gain the high ground in the debate and the only way to begin to re-establish the system of limited government the Founders desired and created.

Cross-posted at Conservatives with Attitude!

In Ohio, a bunch of Obama drones descended on Ohio State where Rep. Sherrod Brown was having a ’roundtable’ discussion. Of course, the Congressman had been hiding under his desk during the recess until now, having no town hall meetings. So, in order to avoid being challenged by real Americans who are opposed to Obamacare, Brown sent an e-mail to the Obama astroturfers ‘Organization for America’ in hopes of stacking the deck. In fact, many of Brown’s constituents who found out about the meeting went to Ohio State only to be shut out from the meeting.

Outside, though, several of the Obamatons were confronted by an activist wielding a camera. She asked three of these drones what they liked about the bill. Here are their brilliant responses.

Cross-posted at Conservatives with Attitude!

Here’s the story:

WASHINGTON – Bowing to Republican pressure and an uneasy public, President Barack Obama’s administration signaled Sunday it is ready to abandon the idea of giving Americans the option of government-run insurance as part of a new health care system.

Facing mounting opposition to the overhaul, administration officials left open the chance for a compromise with Republicans that would include health insurance cooperatives instead of a government-run plan. Such a concession probably would enrage Obama’s liberal supporters but could deliver a much-needed victory on a top domestic priority opposed by GOP lawmakers.

Officials from both political parties reached across the aisle in an effort to find compromises on proposals they left behind when they returned to their districts for an August recess. Obama had wanted the government to run a health insurance organization to help cover the nation’s almost 50 million uninsured, but didn’t include it as one of his core principles of reform.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said that government alternative to private health insurance is “not the essential element” of the administration’s health care overhaul. The White House would be open to co-ops, she said, a sign that Democrats want a compromise so they can declare a victory.

Under a proposal by Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., consumer-owned nonprofit cooperatives would sell insurance in competition with private industry, not unlike the way electric and agriculture co-ops operate, especially in rural states such as his own.

With $3 billion to $4 billion in initial support from the government, the co-ops would operate under a national structure with state affiliates, but independent of the government. They would be required to maintain the type of financial reserves that private companies are required to keep in case of unexpectedly high claims.

Are your antennae up? Well, they should be. Here’s what Heritage had to say about co-ops in one of their recent e-mails:

According to today’s Washington Post, the Senate Finance Committee will soon produce a health care plan that rejects “a government-run health insurance plan in favor of a network of member-owned cooperatives.” More commonly referred to as “co-ops”, these organizations actually already have a long and proud tradition in many sectors of the U.S. economy, including health care. But Americans must be wary that our nation’s co-op tradition does not become a vehicle for government run health care.

To some the word “co-operative” may have a slight Bolshevik whiff to it, but actually a private co-op is nothing more than private individuals exercising their right to voluntarily self-associate. From farm bureaus to barn-raisers, private co-ops are part of American society. In the realm of health care, a group that organizes coverage provided by private insurers could be structured as a co-op. Or the health insurer itself could be a co-operative owned by its member policyholders. Those kind of insurance companies are called mutual insurers.

Understood in this manner, co-ops have far more to do with Edmund Burke and little platoons than with Leon Trotsky and manning the barricades. And they can be part of the health care solution.

But, don’t be fooled, Burkean little platoons are not what the Obama Administration and its allies in Congress have in mind In liberal Washington today, leaders such as Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), are talking up co-ops that would be:

• Run by the government, preferably the federal government
• Funded or subsidized by the government, or
• Includes plans chosen by the government.

A co-op with any of these three features is obviously unacceptable. A real co-op is:

• Run by its members
• Funded by its members and other private sources
• Controlled by its members

Why is the left fastening to co-ops now? Because their public plan idea—a way for the government to take over health care—has run into a buzz saw of opposition among the American people. Liberals have concluded, it seems, that there’s more than one way to skin a cat. So if the public plan was a Trojan horse for a single payer (which means a complete government take over of your health care decisions), a co-op (the way liberals mean it) is a Trojan horse for a public plan.

Congress should, of course, be empowering true local, private co-ops to be a real health choice for Americans. To do that Congress needs to amend the tax laws to do two things: Allow mutual insurance companies to be the foundation of non-profit insurance companies; and give people the same tax breaks for getting insurance from a co-op as from their employer.

None of this is, however, what some leading members of Congress have in mind when the subject of co-ops comes up.

If we’ve learned nothing else from this crowd running the show in Washington it’s that they will stop at nothing to get what they want. Co-ops appear to be the latest ruse to get their foot in the door towards government-run healthcare.

Cross-posted at Conservatives with Attitude!

On Thursday evening I attended Congressman Rothman’s listening session in Hackensack (the last of 3 that I managed to get to). And for the second time I had the opportunity to question the Congressman, challenging him on 3 issues:

First, I challenged the Congressman on his desire for ”Medicare for all” Americans. Quite simply I said to him “the last time I checked Medicare was laden with waste, fraud and was going bankrupt.”

Secondly, I asked the Congressman how the same number of doctors would be able to care for 47M uninsured without rationing care.

And thirdly, I cited a provision of the bill on page 195 which allows the ‘Government Healthcare Bureaucracy’ to have access to everyone’s financial and personal records to determine eligibility (not just those looking to enter the public plan). On this matter I quipped: “Congressman, you seem like a nice guy. I might even want to have a beer with you. But I don’t want you looking at my finances!”

Upon reviewing Rothman’s response to my questions on whitehouse.com, it became more clear to me just how the Congressman could find an ‘answer’ for anything. He blamed the problems with Medicare on everything but government mismanagement.  

Although I don’t believe the 47M uninsured number (and have demonstrated how this number has been debunked here on CWA!), I wanted to see what the Congressman would say. He responded by saying that many of the uninsured already receive care and that provisions in the bill would allow nurses to have a greater role in administering care. This may well be, but the reality is the bill would not cover 47M uninsured (as Art Laffer showed in his WSJ column last week, also cited by me here). Laffer said 30M would remain uninsured. Moreover, once people are insured, they will then seek care more often. Ultimately, we can not cover more patients without rationing care.

Of course, on the privacy matter Rothman claimed he did not want to see my personal finances (although he’d be happy to have a beer with me!). He contended that the language in the bill might just be, well, fuzzy.

Such responses represent the pattern for most of these ‘listening sessions.’ Congressman Rothman ever on the defensive and always seeming to have a prepared response to anything hurled his way.

At the end of the day, though, I don’t think that the Congressman was really ‘listening.’ For, as I tuned in to his responses, what I heard was that he would go back to Washington to ‘change the bill’ when what he should have been hearing was ‘We don’t want this!’ 

So, I have little faith that Congressman Rothman will speak for his constituents on this issue when he returns to D.C. and reconvenes with his colleagues on the Hill. Ultimately, this will come down to those ‘blue dogs’ who are more likely to face the wrath of the voters next year should they vote on the wrong side of this issue.

In the meantime, we must remain vigilant and continue to put pressure on our senators and representatives. We can not let up.

Cross-posted at Red County and Conservatives with Attitude!

After the Rothman Listening Session in Wallington, I was interviewed by RNN-TV for their show ‘Richard French Live.’ Here is their report (which skews left in my humble opinion). I appear at the beginning of the second part.

I think the reporter’s comments that people were closed-minded about the debate were silly. Why on earth should we be open-minded about government intrusion in our lives? Should we also be open-minded about the 1st Amendment? Should we be open-minded about putting criminals in jail?

There are some things in this life where there is no gray area. Our Founding Fathers made it clear that the national government only held certain enumerated powers. The national government is supposed to protect our liberty – which includes our property; or that which we have created and/or earned. When the government takes away our hard-earned money to pay for someone else’s health care then we are losing our liberty and the national government is doing precisely what it should not be doing.

The RNN reporter needs some lessons in constitutional principles before making a statement that people ought to be open-minded about offering health insurance. The Founders didn’t intend senators and representatives to be insurance salesmen. They intended us to be free and for free enterprise to be just that – free of government intrusion.

By the way, I didn’t have a ’script.’ I went to the listening session with armed with facts in order to make my case as strongly as possible.

Hey, want a summer job? You can make $500 a week over the August recess to protest for Obamacare! Yes, who are the true astroturfers, my friends? If this doesn’t make it clear…

And someone needs to confront Nancy Pelousy with this one. I can’t wait to hear what she has to say.

Cross-posted at Conservatives with Attitude!