Cars didn't cost nearly as much in the past, when they didn't have air-conditioning, power steering and high-tech safety features. Homes were cheaper when they were smaller, had fewer bathrooms and lacked such conveniences as built-in microwave ovens.We would like to have all these things without the rising costs that come with them. But only with medical care is such wishful thinking taken seriously, with government regarded as a sort of fairy godmother who will give us the benefits without the costs.
Here is a good part:
The cost of developing a new pharmaceutical drug is now about a billion dollars. Neither political rhetoric nor government bureaucracies will make those costs go away.Here is another:
Politicians may talk about "bringing down the cost of medical care," but they seldom even attempt to bring down the costs. What they bring down is the price-- which is to say, they refuse to pay the costs.
Anybody can refuse to pay any cost. But don't be surprised if you get less when you pay less.
One thing that I think he misses in all this is that I don't believe the President wants to reduce the cost of health care. I think he just wants control. Rising costs are his friend in this. Of course the President and members of congress that support this don't attempt to bring down costs because that would do away with the "need" for socialized medicine and it would solve the "crisis" that they believe only government should be able to solve.
If the first two hadn't jumped up and moved I probably never would have seen the third one.
With cost estimates already as high as $1.6 trillion . . .
The Democrat-led House pressed Thursday for enough votes to pass landmark legislation that would combat global warming by forcing U.S. companies to reduce their carbon-dioxide emissions, expanding expensive renewable-energy sources and trimming consumers' choices on new light bulbs and hot tubs.I'll bet the hot tubs are flying off the shelves of Lowe's and Home Depot as I type this. I wish I could afford a new one. Ours is 10 years old this year. I just put some money into a new heater and control panel.
Electricity rates will necessarily skyrocket.How much more do you want to pay?
President Hussein Obama
For weeks, Michelle Obama had been telling her staff and closest confidantes that she wasn't having the impact she wanted.
She is a woman of substance, with a background in law, public policy and management, who found herself relegated to role model in chief. The West Wing of the White House -- the fulcrum of power and policy -- had not fully integrated her into its agenda. She wanted more.A "woman of substance"? She's a lawyer but I wasn't aware that being a lawyer turned you into a "woman of substance". I guess you learn something new every day.
Although Obama's job-approval ratings have soared, the first lady -- a Harvard-educated lawyer -- wasn't satisfied with coasting.That is sort of a double whammy. The President's job-approval ratings have soared? I didn't know that. I thought people were actually starting to wake up. Of course the writer had to throw in the little attempt to inspire awe in the peons from flyover country by bringing up the lawyer business again.
The president's advisers acknowledge that Michelle Obama was ill-served in the early days of the 2008 campaign, when opponents were able to portray her as unpatriotic, haughty and a caricature of an angry black woman. She was horrified to learn that she had become a liability to the candidate for saying that for the first time in her life, she was proud of her country.
Obama took another step toward re-creating her Chicago life on a world stage.If there is any way to make Washington, D.C. life any worse and more corrupt it is to inject Chicago life into it.
At work, Obama runs her office like a business in which she is chief executive.The obvious difference between how this chick runs "her" office and how a real chief executive runs a business is that a real executive has to actually show a profit.
The president rebuffed that, arguing that "we can set up a public option where they're collecting premiums just like any private insurer and doctors can collect rates," but because the public plan will have lower administrative costs "we can keep them [private insurance companies] honest."Are you kidding? Does this guy that was elected President of the United States of America ACTUALLY think that a government run program will have lower administrative costs than a plan run by a business that has to make a profit?
Obama said he didn't understand those advocates of the free market who constantly say the private sector can do things better and are yet worried about this plan.When the government is involved it is not a free market!! Get that through that thick head of yours Mr. President.
"It's difficult to compete against a player who's also the person refereeing the game," Williams said.The President had this to say:
"If we are smart, we should be able to design a system in which people still have choices of doctors and choices of plans that make sure that necessary treatment is provided but we don't have a huge amount of waste in the system," he said.If we are smart we will keep the government out of this and that will reduce the amount of waste in the system.
If spending plans aren't approved, state workers may not receive their paychecks and some government offices may shut down.
Leaders are at odds over how to contend with a deficit that exceeds $3 billion.
(Governer) Brewer is hoping lawmakers will send her a budget before Arizona has to start shutting down non-essential state services.Am I the only person in the nation that thinks ALL non-essential state services should be shut down permanently? Why is a state spending people's money on things that aren't essential?
Obama, who described health costs as the "primary driver" of the federal deficit, said the country will spend $1 out of every $5 on health care within the next 10 years if the government does not mandate reform.
"If any bill arrives from Congress that is not controlling costs, that is not a bill I can support," he said, adding that coverage for uninsured and underinsured Americans should be a right, not a privilege.Should be a right, not a privilege!!!? What is he talking about? Did I miss that in the Constitution? Maybe that is included in Amendment 3 1/2? It's probably an emanation from a penumbra.
"If private insurers say that the market place provides the best quality healthcare, then why is it that the government is suddenly going to drive them out?" Obama said.Why doesn't the President enlighten us as to why the government would like to drive private insurers out of the market? Because he knows that the American people wouldn't like the answer.
A sweeping bill unveiled in the Democratic-controlled House last week is being weighed in hearings that got under way Tuesday. The draft legislation, written without Republican help, would require all Americans to purchase health insurance and would put new requirements on employers, too.
Looming large is the question of cost.
Initial estimates had Senate plans topping $1.6 trillion over 10 years, and senators are working to scale back. Curbs on Medicare and Medicaid spending are assured, and a range of taxes are under consideration, along with the possibility of fees on employers who don't cover their employees.
Concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty.
Entrepreneurs and their small enterprises are responsible for almost all the economic growth in the United States.
Freedom is never more than 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.
Government always finds a need for whatever money it gets.
Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.
Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
Governments tend not to solve problems, only to rearrange them.
I've never been able to understand why a Republican contributor is a 'fat cat' and a Democratic contributor of the same amount of money is a 'public-spirited philanthropist'.
Inflation is as violent as a mugger, as frightening as an armed robber and as deadly as a hit man.
I hope we once again have reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts.
No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth!
One way to make sure crime doesn't pay would be to let the government run it.
Protecting the rights of even the least individual among us is basically the only excuse the government has for even existing.
Republicans believe every day is the Fourth of July, but the democrats believe every day is April 15.
The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would steal them away.
The problem is not that people are taxed too little, the problem is that government spends too much.
There seems to be an increasing awareness of something we Americans have known for some time: that the 10 most dangerous words in the English language are, "Hi, I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help."
There are those in America today who have come to depend absolutely on government for their security. And when government fails they seek to rectify that failure in the form of granting government more power. So, as government has failed to control crime and violence with the means given it by the Constitution, they seek to give it more power at the expense of the Constitution. But in doing so, in their willingness to give up their arms in the name of safety, they are really giving up their protection from what has always been the chief source of despotism — government. Lord Acton said power corrupts. Surely then, if this is true, the more power we give the government the more corrupt it will become. And if we give it the power to confiscate our arms we also give up the ultimate means to combat that corrupt power. In doing so we can only assure that we will eventually be totally subject to it. When dictators come to power, the first thing they do is take away the people's weapons. It makes it so much easier for the secret police to operate, it makes it so much easier to force the will of the ruler upon the ruled.
If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth. And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except to sovereign people, is still the newest and most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election. Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.
The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn't so.
In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. From time to time we've been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. Well, if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else? All of us together, in and out of government, must bear the burden.
You and I, as individuals, can, by borrowing, live beyond our means, but for only a limited period of time. Why, then, should we think that collectively, as a nation, we're not bound by that same limitation? We must act today in order to preserve tomorrow.
I intend to go right on appointing highly qualified individuals of the highest personal integrity to the bench, individuals who understand the danger of short-circuiting the electoral process and disenfranchising the people through judicial activism.
"We the people" tell the government what to do, it doesn't tell us. "We the people" are the driver, the government is the car. And we decide where it should go, and by what route, and how fast. Almost all the world's constitutions are documents in which governments tell the people what their privileges are. Our Constitution is a document in which "We the people" tell the government what it is allowed to do. "We the people" are free.
Every now and then when I was in government, I would remind my associates that "When we start thinking of government as 'us' instead of 'them,' we've been here too long." By that I mean that elected officeholders need to retain a certain skepticism about the perfectibility of government.
I have left orders to be awakened at any time in case of national emergency, even if I'm in a cabinet meeting.
For the National Socialist movement to be in the Adopt-a-Highway program is well within their rights, but obviously there were people raising the concern that this is the wrong message for people to see driving down a Missouri highway, that there are National Socialists out here.
Let me also say that -- let me also address a illegitimate concern that's being put forward by those who are claiming that a public option is somehow a Trojan horse for a single-payer system. I'll be honest; there are countries where a single-payer system works pretty well. But I believe -- and I've taken some flak from members of my own party for this belief -- that it's important for our reform efforts to build on our traditions here in the United States. So when you hear the naysayers claim that I'm trying to bring about government-run health care, know this: They're not telling the truth.The quote is from the President and comes from the official White House transcript of the President's comments to the AMA.
You can spend your money better than the government can spend your money.
President George W. Bush
Government does not create wealth.
Therapy isn't going to cause terrorists to change their mind.
You don't know what's going to come when you're president. You just have to be ready for it.That doesn't apply just to Presidents. Everyone should try to be ready for whatever is coming.
The Federal Reserve, already arguably the most powerful agency in the U.S. government, will get sweeping new authority to regulate any company whose failure could endanger the U.S. economy and markets under the Obama administration's regulatory overhaul plan.
The most likely candidate for elimination is the Office of Thrift Supervision, whose failure to detect and forestall problems at Countrywide, IndyMac, Washington Mutual and other freewheeling mortgage lenders is thought to have contributed to the financial crisis.I'm all for eliminating as many federal agencies as possible, but not when the power is simply shifted to another bigger agency. If government intervention makes things worse then the obvious solution is more government intervention.
There's no doubt that we've got a serious problem in terms of our long-term deficits and debtYou mean he actually realizes this!!? The guy has more brains than I thought.
"I am concerned about the long-term issue of our structural deficit and our long-term debt because if we don't get a handle on that then there's no doubt that at some point whether it's the Chinese, the Koreans, the Japanese, whoever else has been snatching up Treasuries are going to decide that this is too much of a risk," he told Bloomberg.
"You're starting to see the engines of the economy turn," Obama said on Bloomberg.Yeah, the engines of the economy are starting to turn alright. They are starting to turn Tango Uniform.
"It's going to take a long time. We had a huge deleveraging that took place, but I'm confident that if we take the steps that are necessary on healthcare, on energy, on education. If we get a strong financial regulatory system in place so people have confidence in the markets again, that we will end up seeing a recovery shortly."Did his teleprompter wig out again? First he says "It's going to take a long time." Then he says "we will end up seeing a recovery shortly." Make up your mind.
Florida health officials say the state's first swine flu fatality was a 9-year-old Miami-Dade County boy who suffered from asthma.Fermin Leguen, the chief physician for the county's health department, says the boy was brought to a hospital on June 8 within 24 hours of showing flu-like symptoms. The boy died at the hospital the next day.
The doctor says it took health officials a week to test tissue samples and confirm he had the swine flu virus.
The boy died about four days after he was last in school. Neither his name nor the name of his school have been released.
State health officials say Florida currently has 417 confirmed cases of the swine flu virus, including 143 in Miami-Dade County.
I guess they don't want everyone to keep their kids home from school. Did asthma contribute to his death? I don't know but I wouldn't be surprised if that is the case.
The biggest problem with this Swine flu is that it was not in the flu shots people got. If it mutates into something nasty then we could have a problem but for right now it still doesn't seem to be a big deal.
Don't build your house in a flood zone.If more people took that to heart we could avoid so much misery and expense.
Be sure you hit him hard the first time.If you are going to hit a person or an animal you then don't just play around. Make the first one count and you may not need a second one.
When you are buying a truck or a tractor always get one a little bigger and more powerful than you think you need.I would add that when you are buying a trailer you should probably get one with a higher load capacity than you think you need. The obvious exception to all this is if you will be using the truck, tractor, or trailer in tight places.
Don't put your foot under a lawn mower and disconnect the spark plug before you start to work on it.It sounds obvious but I hear of people being injured every year while working on a mower, power saw, or tractor. If you are using any kind of power tool or big machinery and you get something stuck in it or have a problem the first thing to do is disconnect the spark plug for a gasoline engine or pull the fuel shutoff if it is a diesel. Then use a stick or other tool to reach in and clear it instead of sticking your hand or foot in. If possible make sure you have someone around to help when you are working on big equipment like farm tractors and make sure that they know how to run and stop the equipment.
Don't trust a jack.When you jack up your vehicle to work under it then put something under it to hold it up in case the jack fails. Jack stands are not very expensive. My dad used sections of railroad tie that he cut off about two feet long. He would stack them up in a pyramid shape. This is good advice even when changing a tire. If you've ever had a truck fall off a jack when the tire is off and had the hub sink so the frame is resting on the ground then you know what I mean.
Don't cut towards yourself.In some situations you have no choice, but as a general rule you want the sharp side of things facing away from you.
When you use a match to look under the seat of an outhouse make sure the match is really out before you throw it in the hole.He made a late night trip to the outhouse one night and the next morning there was just a hole with a bunch of ashes around it.
The Pentagon's second-in-command says North Korea's missiles could threaten the continental United States if the reclusive rogue nation continues to develop its weapons.Not that this is really news. When a dictator decides he wants to run with the big dogs there are two outcomes:Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn agreed with an assessment by Sen. John McCain that the U.S. should be prepared for a "worst-case scenario" with North Korea.
Pentagon officials also told the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday that North Korea is working with other nations, including Iran and potentially Syria, to develop ballistic missiles.
ABCNEWS Senior Vice President Kerry Smith on Tuesday responded to the RNC complaint, saying it contained 'false premises':Who does this guy think he's fooling?
"ABCNEWS prides itself on covering all sides of important issues and asking direct questions of all newsmakers -- of all political persuasions
ABC TURNS PROGRAMMING OVER TO OBAMA; NEWS TO BE ANCHORED FROM INSIDE WHITE HOUSE
Tue Jun 16 2009 08:45:10 ET
On the night of June 24, the media and government become one, when ABC turns its programming over to President Obama and White House officials to push government run health care -- a move that has ignited an ethical firestorm!
Highlights on the agenda:
ABCNEWS anchor Charlie Gibson will deliver WORLD NEWS from the Blue Room of the White House.
The network plans a primetime special -- 'Prescription for America' -- originating from the East Room, exclude opposing voices on the debate.
The bad news is that we're on the road to Hell. The good news is that we're making great time.I don't know where I picked that up. Maybe someone can tell me so I can credit the author.
The overall operating rate fell to 68.3 percent in May, a record low dating to 1967.
Production in the manufacturing sector fell 1 percent in May. That was down from a revised drop of 0.6 percent in April, double what the Fed initially estimated.The hard times aren't over yet.
There is no doubt in my mind that as soon as "public option" (coverage that the government forces other people to pay for, which sounds a lot like socialized medicine to me) becomes available then many employers will dump their current coverage as a cost cutting measure. While that coverage is part of your total compensation I wouldn't expect many employers to give you a raise or increase your other benefits when they drop medical coverage.One such "scare tactic" the president cited Monday was an assertion that he favors socialized medicine.
Obama again denied that, although he did say he thought that a "public option" should be available as a choice for those who currently have no insurance coverage.
But the bill, White House aides say, is one that is largely unavoidable because of the security and communication needs required by the modern president.So why does the President have to travel to Chicago to push his agenda? Why not economize a little and do speeches live from the White House? Teleconferences and videoconferences are a lot cheaper than flying in a jet and they create a lot less pollution. Imagine that, the President could save us a lot of money and "save the planet" at the same time.
Perhaps aware of the costs of Air Force One, the Obama family has used the plane for just one recreational trip to Chicago in his first five months in office.The President's family has only made ONE recreational trip to Chicago in his first five months in office, while the evil W "routinely flew to visit his ranch" blah, blah, blah.
As expensive as that trip was, it is still roughly half the distance President George W. Bush routinely flew to visit his ranch near Crawford, Texas.
