OBAMA MUST PASS HEALTH CARE, BUT IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH YOUR HEALTH

(Editor’s Note: The following opinions are Marty RicKard’s and not necessarily those of other Tea Party members.  Please feel free to reprint this article anywhere.)

Obama’s health care bill is absolutely vital to the Liberal Progressives.  They will fight to the last man to pass it.   Why?  Not because they care about your health, but because it finally give progressives total control of the voters in our nation.  Make no mistake, that’s what it is all about.

The Tea Party must FIGHT hard to keep government out of our health care.  WHY?  Think in terms of health care for our nation and its form of government, not just for our people.

Health Care would be the final massive beauracracy (make that voter pool) in this nation to allow Democrats to win every election throughout eternity.  At that point the Liberal Progressives could convert this nation to Socialism, or any other form of government, without opposition.

What is a government beauracracy?  It is a huge mass of roiling humanity that depends on the government for their income.  They are paid far more than they are worth, do far less than they are capable of doing  and they receive benefits that far exceed any in the private sector.  In any office where 100 are needed 200 are hired.  They are quickly unionized, control their own work environment and are almost impossible to discipline or dismiss (fire).  Since they are handsomely paid by BIG government they do whatever is necessary to keep big-government Democrats in office (read that keep their jobs).

Please don’t misunderstand, some hardworking, capable, beautiful people work for the government.  In fact, to coin an old cliché, some of my best friends are government employees, and thank God for them, but even these people can tell work-place stories that would curl your toenails.

Amtrak, Post Office, Fannie, Freddie, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security are all government beauracracies (voter pools).  All those beauracracies would be bankrupt if they had to operate in the private sector.  Why? Because it is hugely expensive to buy votes.

Obama is going to do his best to get some form of health care passed.  He must get the camel’s nose under the tent now.  It may be his last chance.  We must do everything possible to stop it, because wherever you find a camel’s nose, the rest of the camel can’t be far behind.  Please Tea Party Patriots, if you care about your nation, call, email, fax your opposition to government health care.

God Bless you,

Marty RicKard, National Real Tea Party President

Nancy Pelosi’s grip on House slips

POLITICO

By JONATHAN ALLEN | 3/9/10 4:39 AM EST

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has pooled an immense reservoir of goodwill over the years — but that hasn’t stopped some allies from bucking her in recent weeks. Photo: AP

POLITICO 44

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is not accustomed to the word she’s been hearing far more frequently in recent days: “no.”

Over the past two weeks, Pelosi has faced a series of subtle but significant challenges to her authority — revolts from Democrats on the Ways and Means Committee, the Congressional Black Caucus, the Blue Dog Coalition and politically vulnerable first- and second-term members.

The dynamic stems from an “every man for himself” attitude developing in the Democratic Caucus rather than a loss of respect for Pelosi, according to a senior Democratic aide. But it’s making Pelosi’s life — and efforts to maintain Democratic unity — harder.

And it’s noteworthy, in part, because Pelosi’s signature strength has been a firmer hand than past Democratic leaders — an aptitude for wielding raw power in a consensus-minded caucus.

But her inability — or unwillingness — to dictate when Rep. Charles Rangel would resign his Ways and Means Committee chairmanship and who would replace him is one sign that she is commanding the caucus with less authority.

Although he would give up his gavel the next day, Rangel defiantly pronounced he was still chairman after leaving a come-to-Jesus meeting last Tuesday night in Pelosi’s ceremonial office next to the House floor. Her first choice to succeed him, Pete Stark of California, was rejected by the Ways and Means Committee members, as was her plan to split power on the committee between Stark and Rep. Sander Levin of Michigan. Pelosi’s backers said that what she really wanted was to avoid a fight for the gavel — and that she succeeded by refusing to apply a heavy hand.

But a veteran Democratic lawmaker told POLITICO the denouement was “an indication that things aren’t all hunky-dory.”

That episode came immediately on the heels of Pelosi’s 180-degree turn on Rangel. After the ethics committee admonished him for breaking House gift rules, Pelosi issued a public message that she would stand by Rangel until the committee completed its look at other allegations against him.

“We’ll just see what happens next and what comes out of the ethics committee,” she said then.

But politically vulnerable Democrats sent a message right back: They would dump him if she didn’t.

Before leaders could gather last Tuesday to plan their week, politically imperiled Democratic lawmakers from around the country were making clear that they would vote with Republicans to strip Rangel of his chairmanship if Pelosi didn’t avert a floor vote by getting him to step down.

Even on legislative matters, Pelosi has been subject to low-grade insurrections. She was unable to send a $15 billion Senate-passed jobs bill directly to the president because members of the Congressional Black Caucus, the conservative Blue Dog Coalition and the Transportation Committee objected to some items that were in the bill and some that were absent.

CBC members said the measure shouldn’t even be called a “jobs bill” because, in their view, it would do little to create jobs.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/34100.html#ixzz0hh9KqXXM

Democrats, Reconciliation and 1/6th of the U.S. Economy

By JB Williams  Tuesday, March 9, 2010

As Obama and Emanuel work around the clock to strong-arm Democrats opposed to nationalized medicine, causing moderate Democrats like Evan Bayh and Eric Massa to retire or resign, the clock ticks on Obama’s window of opportunity.

Speaking from his WKPQ-FM radio show Sunday night, Massa told listeners – “He is an individual who would sell his mother to get a vote. He would strap his children to the front end of a steam locomotive,” Massa said of Emanuel’s desire to lock up vital votes on healthcare reform.

“You think that somehow they didn’t come after me to get rid of me because my vote is the deciding vote in the healthcare bill? Then, ladies and gentlemen, you live today in a world that is so innocent as to not understand what’s going on in Washington, D.C.”

If Obama cannot force House Democrats to reconcile their differences over the Senate version of the health care grab, they will be forced to resort to the reconciliation tool in order to advance their agenda.

As the nation has shifted against Obama’s effort to seize control of 1/6^th of the U.S. economy by passing off “socialized medicine” as some form of private health care reform, leftists have grown increasingly desperate to find a way to move their agenda forward against a rising tide of opposition from the citizenry.

It is a highly partisan initiative with NO hope of any bipartisan support, because only the most hardened Marxists see anything good in the federal confiscation of 1/6^th of the U.S. economy, by a government which has a long history of bankrupting every program it has ever run.

Still, Obama and company plan to go forward, using a legislative tool called “reconciliation.”

What is Reconciliation?

In short, reconciliation is a tool designed to block the filibuster on matters of the federal budget. It was first introduced in 1974, as a legislative procedure designed to end marathon budget debates by simply removing budget items at the root of the debate, and passing the agreeable portions of the budget by simple majority, thereby blocking a filibuster that would keep congress in perpetual debates until the government would shut down without a budget in place.

In other words, it was a tool for reducing federal spending by ending debate on disagreeable additions to the budget, hence its nick name, the Budget Reconciliation Act.

It is a “balanced budget” tool, which came into law via the Congressional Budget Act of 1974. It was not designed as a tool for Democrats or Republicans to run roughshod over the other, nor as a tool for the federal government to run roughshod over the taxpayers.

It is a limitation on debate that prevents a budget reconciliation bill from being filibustered in the Senate, which requires a three-fifths vote to end debate, and it has led to frequent attempts to attach amendments unrelated to the budget to the reconciliation bills. Abuses quickly became rampant within the halls of congress.

The Byrd Rule of ‘85, ‘86 and ‘90

In response to congressional abuses of the reconciliation tool, the Byrd Rule allows Senators to raise points of order which can only be waived by a three-fifths majority of Senators, against provisions in the reconciliation bills that are “extraneous,” where extraneous is defined in the rule according to one of six provisions. Provisions are considered extraneous if they:

• do not produce a change in outlays or revenues;
• produce changes in outlays or revenue which are merely incidental to the non-budgetary components of the provision;
• are outside the jurisdiction of the committee that submitted the title or provision for inclusion in the reconciliation measure;
• increase outlays or decrease revenue if the provision’s title, as a whole, fails to achieve the Senate reporting committee’s reconciliation instructions;
• increase net outlays or decrease revenue during a fiscal year after the years covered by the reconciliation bill unless the provision’s title, as a whole, remains budget neutral; or
• contain recommendations regarding the OASDI (social security) trust funds

Obviously, something as massive as the complete confiscation of the entire U.S. Health Industry, representing 1/6^th of the entire U.S. economy, reaches far beyond the confines of the powers and intent of the reconciliation tool.

But as has been the case throughout the Obama administration, tools put in place for one thing are being perverted and used for the exact opposite purposes, to achieve a goal wholly at odds with the original intent and purpose of the tool.

Both Democrats and Republicans have used Reconciliation

“I can rob a bank because Johnny robbed a bank too!” –

It’s true that both sides of the political aisle have used reconciliation as a means to close budget debates. The key is, “to close budget debates.”

Democrat President Bill Clinton was the first to attempt the use of reconciliation as a means to pass a massive expansion of the federal government by way of Hillary Care in 1993.

The people rejected socialized medicine in 1993 and Senator Byrd (D) single handedly stopped Clinton from using reconciliation to pass Hillary Care 1993, insisting that the health care plan was “out of bounds for a process that is theoretically about budgets,” and an effort to curb runaway spending.

Byrd would know, since it was Byrd who authored and passed the Byrd Rule in an effort to stop the abuse of the reconciliation tool. The Byrd Rule was adopted in 1985 and amended in 1990. Its main effect has been to prohibit the use of reconciliation for provisions that would increase the deficit beyond 10 years after the reconciliation measure. (From Wikipedia)

Beyond a Budget Debate

Since 1980, a reported 23 reconciliation bills have passed, 17 of them signed into law by Republican presidents, and all of them budget related, used to close endless debate and pass a federal budget.

In 1999, the Senate for the first time used reconciliation to pass legislation that would increase deficits: the Taxpayer Refund and Relief Act 1999. This act was passed when the Government was expected to run large surpluses: it was subsequently vetoed by President Clinton. A similar situation happened in 2000, when the Senate again used reconciliation to pass the Marriage Tax Relief Reconciliation Act 2000, which was also vetoed by Clinton. At the time, the use of the reconciliation procedure to pass such bills was controversial. (From Wikipedia)

During the administration of President George W. Bush, Congress used reconciliation to enact three major tax cuts, each of which was predicted by the Congressional Budget Office to substantially increase federal deficits. These tax cuts were set to lapse after 10 years to satisfy the Byrd Rule.

Efforts to use reconciliation to open oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge failed.

So why would Democrats attempt to use reconciliation to pass the biggest government grab of private sector industry in U.S. history?

Desperate Times call for Desperate Action

To go forward with an overt Marxist agenda, progressives must do so against the will of most American citizens, who are fed up with such heavy handed tactics from their elected SERVANTS!

But progressives (aka Marxists) can’t back up, because the people who put them and keep them in power are very dangerous folks. The international cabal behind the current American administration is already notably disappointed that their chosen “messiah” has thus far failed to deliver on their international agenda, despite controlling all branches of the federal government.

Obama has been rejected at every turn, by the Olympic Committee, at Copenhagen, in New Jersey, Virginia and Massachusetts. His recent stop to stump for Democrat Senator Harry Reid has resulted in Reid running even further behind in the polls. To say the very least, he’s no Bill Clinton in terms of political gravitas.

The 20% of Americans who seek a Marxist future based upon government confiscated and redistributed “social justice,” are quite disappointed that Obama was unable to ram through American Marxism before the people awakened and took note.

The international powerbrokers, who put the empty suit with a blank résumé in the Oval Office, thought that their hundred year effort to destroy American freedom and prosperity had reached its utopian peak with the election of Barack Obama. Yet fourteen months later, none of the Marxist (progressive) ideals of the Democratic Socialists of America had been achieved.

Final Weeks Struggle to Improve the Health Care Bill. A flyer with talking points and an explanation of the issues. – January 12, 2010 – writes DSAUSA…

“The fight for universal, comprehensive national health care has been a central part of the American Left’s political life for over a century. For the past twenty-five years, Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) has consistently advocated a single-payer or “Medicare for All” approach to universal health care that would eliminate the wasteful and inhumane private insurance industry. – Congress is on the verge of passing legislation that would affirm the principle that the government has a responsibility to guarantee meaningful health care for its citizens.” (DSAUSA)

Bottom line, socialists in search of other people’s assets for their own self-enrichment, are not very nice people. Asking the government to rob their neighbors instead of robbing them on their own, only demonstrates their general lack of individual backbone. Collectivists work together, because there is strength in numbers and alone, well, if they could take care of themselves, they wouldn’t be after your earnings, would they..?

If Democrats proceed to use the reconciliation tool intended to curb federal spending, as a means of exploding the size of government by confiscating 1/6^th of the U.S. economy, I suspect that the American majority will react unkindly.

The best the left can hope for is defeat in the upcoming elections.

American citizens are very tolerant by nature. But one thing they won’t tolerate is heavy-handed tyrannical misuse of institutional procedures for the purpose of driving America off of a cliff.

I sincerely hope that most Democrats are smart enough to walk away from this anti-American operation, before the citizens run out of patience. Actually, don’t walk—RUN!

Census: A Little Too Personal

by Ron Paul

Recently by Ron Paul: My Plan for a Freedom President

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Last week Congress voted to encourage participation in the 2010 census. I voted “No” on this resolution for the simple, obvious reason that the census – like so many government programs – has grown far beyond what the framers of our Constitution intended. The invasive nature of the current census raises serious questions about how and why government will use the collected information. It also demonstrates how the federal bureaucracy consistently encourages citizens to think of themselves in terms of groups, rather than as individual Americans. The not so subtle implication is that each group, whether ethnic, religious, social, or geographic, should speak up and demand its “fair share” of federal largesse.

Article I, section 2 of the Constitution calls for an enumeration of citizens every ten years, for the purpose of apportioning congressional seats among the various states. In other words, the census should be nothing more than a headcount. It was never intended to serve as a vehicle for gathering personal information on citizens.

But our voracious federal government thrives on collecting information. In fact, to prepare for the 2010 census state employees recorded GPS coordinates for every front door in the United States so they could locate individuals with greater accuracy! Once duly located, individuals are asked detailed questions concerning their name, address, race, home ownership, and whether they periodically spend time in prison or a nursing home – just to name a few examples.

From a constitutional perspective, of course, the answer to each of these questions is: “None of your business.” But the bigger question is – why government is so intent on compiling this information in the first place?

The Census Bureau claims that collected information is not shared with any federal agency; but rather is kept under lock and key for 72 years. It also claims that no information provided to census takers can be used against you by the government.

However, these promises can and have been abused in the past. Census data has been used to locate men who had not registered for the draft. Census data also was used to find Japanese-Americans for internment camps during World War II. Furthermore, the IRS has applied census information to detect alleged tax evaders. Some local governments even have used census data to check for compliance with zoning regulations.

It is not hard to imagine that information compiled by the census could be used against people in the future, despite claims to the contrary and the best intentions of those currently in charge of the Census Bureau. The government can and does change its mind about these things, and people have a right to be skeptical about government promises.

Yet there are consequences for not submitting to the census and its intrusive questions. If the form is not mailed back in time, households will experience the “pleasure” of a visit by a government worker asking the questions in person. If the government still does not get the information it wants, it can issue a fine of up to $5000.

If the federal government really wants to increase compliance with the census, it should abide by the Constitution and limit its inquiry to one simple question: How many people live here?

Running on Empty

by Butler Shaffer
by Butler Shaffer
Recently by Butler Shaffer: A Suicide Attack on the IRS

Conservative, n.: A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.

~ Ambrose Bierce

It is not surprising that, when culture is in collapse, so too is the level of thinking upon which it is based. This is doubtless the social equivalent of the proposition that water can never rise higher than its source. For a civilization to be creative and to thrive, it must have a substructure capable of producing the values that can sustain it. Our present civilization is dying because it no longer has such a base of support.

Western society has become so thoroughly politicized that it is difficult to imagine any area of human activity that can be said to be beyond the reach of the state. People’s diets, weight levels, child-raising practices, treatment of pets, how he can express anger, whether one can make alterations to his/her home – including replacing a lawn with rocks or plants: these are but a handful of private decisions intruded upon by the state. Other than complaints voiced by those directly affected by the state’s intervention, there are few who consistently defend the liberty of individuals to live as they choose.

A free, orderly, and productive society is held together not by the armed might of the police and military, nor by the dictates of rulers or the edicts of judges, but by a shared sense of the conditions that foster rather than inhibit life. At the core of such thinking is a belief in the innate worthiness and inviolability of each person, an attitude that manifests itself in terms of respect for one another’s property boundaries, within which each of us is free to pursue our respective self-interests. Peace and liberty are the inevitable consequences of living in a society so constituted.

Sadly, as our world has become increasingly infected by the virus of institutionalism – and its coercive agent, the state – men and women have intensified their attachments to these organizational forms. As we see in the repeated failures of government schools and the criminal justice system to meet the expectations so many have of them, people continue to invest heavily in the promotion of such governmental interests. The more such agencies fail, in other words, the more most people are willing to support them, an absurdity that provides such programs with an incentive to fail.

As the business world has experienced the consequences of moving from the self-disciplining nature of a free market system to the mercantilist coziness of the modern corporate–state arrangement, we find the same institutionally-serving impulses to use governmental force to benefit failing firms. Under the mantra “too big to fail,” the corporate–state establishment has been able to bamboozle most Americans into believing that it is in their individual interests to be forced to support business enterprises that lack the resiliency, creativity, and other capacities to respond to competition; that they should be compelled to do what more and more would not choose to do in the marketplace.

I went to an Internet site and found a listing of now-defunct American auto manufacturers. Their numbers ran to some fifty-one pages. I am certain that, at their demise, the owners of such firms might have wished for the kinds of government-funded bailouts that their successors now enjoy. I can understand – although do not accept – the kind of thinking that would like to be on the receiving end of such state largess. It is not unlike Linus – in an early Peanuts cartoon – contemplating his death. After declaring “I’m too young to die,” he finally admits “I’m too me to die!”

What I do not understand, however, is the innocence – the gullibility, if you prefer – of so many men and women who have brought themselves to share in the institutional mindset that the organizational system is to be more highly-valued and defended than the marketplace processes that created such enterprises in the first place. Such thinking is a symptom of just how deeply the virus of institutionalism has infected American society.

For various reasons that go beyond a principled criticism of our centrally-directed, vertically-structured society, the institutional order is in a state of turbulence. Political, corporate, and educational systems are increasingly unable to meet even the most meager of popular expectations. Our world is becoming more and more decentralized, with vertical systems being challenged – and even replaced – by horizontal networks governed by autonomous and spontaneous human activity. In the face of such changes, the establishment has become desperate to reinforce its crumbling walls. Because the state is defined in terms of its monopoly on the use of violence, it is not surprising to see it escalating the use of brute force in an effort to maintain its position.

Because, as Randolph Bourne advised us, “war is the health of the state,” governments have sought to reinforce the support they enjoy from Homo Boobus by engaging in what the historian Charles Beard called the “perpetual war for perpetual peace.” Whether such wars be undertaken for so-called defensive or preventive purposes is no longer a relevant consideration. The core offense at the Nuremberg Trials was the starting of a war; such aggression now serves, among many Americans, as an occasion for slapping bumper-stickers on their cars with the vulgar message: “support the troops.” The war frenzy brings forth such displays of flag-waving as will cause the statists to give serious consideration to using nuclear weapons against Iran, as well as to warble idiotically: “bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” during the 2008 presidential campaign!

The general absence of criticism over “preventive warfare” has led the defenders of statism to extend the practice to “preventive detention,” by which men and women can be thrown into prisons and held without trial – or even charges filed against them – and without benefit of the writ of habeas corpus. While being so held, the captives may be subjected to all kinds of torture, a practice the statists wish to distinguish by calling it by a different name!

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In an effort to plumb the shallowness of the minds of most Americans, the statists have reiterated the proposition, first enunciated by George W. Bush and continued under the Obama administration, that American citizens could be targeted for assassination as part of the “global war on terror.” Just who the targeted persons might be, or who would have the authority to authorize their murder, was left unsaid. At long last, we have come full-circle from the political wisdom offered by Pogo Possum in the 1950s: “we has met the enemy, and they is us.”

What next in the offing? Shall we soon be hearing of concentration camps, complete with gas chambers, to which Americans – or anybody else – might be sent for the “final solution” to the terrorism problem? Of course, the terminology will have to be cleaned up a bit, just as it was for the Japanese-Americans who, during World War II, were sent to “relocation centers” for the offense of having the politically-incorrect ancestors! As a recent bumper-sticker reads: “there will never be concentration camps in America; they’ll be called something else.”

Nor would modern death-camps have to be specialized to the elimination of so-called “terrorists.” What about other enemies of governmental programs? After all, if former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright can rationalize the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children in furtherance of her more mundane policies, how many millions might be sacrificed to such nobler ends as, well, saving the planet?

At last! A project to which Al Gore could be put in charge; one that would allow him to realize his life’s dream: to be in control of all life on the planet. How better to reduce carbon emissions on the planet than to systematically exterminate their contributors (i.e., human beings)? Of course, enough people would have to be left living in order to provide the energies with which to serve the state. But this is simply a matter of careful calculation to be engaged in by neo-philosopher-kings!

Will there be no end to the efforts of statists to keep upping the ante in their quest for absolute control over their fellow humans? Is there any indecency or atrocity which most Americans would be unwilling to embrace? Is there a moral threshold that most would refuse to cross?

As America continues to unravel, expect even more intensive efforts by the statists to regain and solidify their power. Look, further, to increasing numbers of your neighbors who sense that something is terribly wrong – quite evil – in America that must be resisted. To whom can we look for an assessment of the problem? Do the conservatives have anything to offer? Sadly, they are still too strongly attached to the kinds of thinking that got us where we are (e.g., the war system and police-state authority). As I read or listen to them, I find little more than name-calling, jingoism, and fear-mongering coming forth from those who lost their passion for liberty once the Soviet Union collapsed.

For the time being, at least, most of the liberal community is still in too much of a stupor over the election of a black president to be of much use in confronting the wrongdoing of the current state. The so-called moderates (i.e., the worst of all “extremists,” who congenitally insist upon compromises between equally untenable positions) are, as in most matters, of little benefit. Nor will much assistance be found within most of academia, so many of whose members are in a terminal state produced by the institutional virus. The mainstream media will likewise prove to be a dry hole for enlightenment: they are the voices of the establishment; their job is to reinforce your institutional commitments. The Internet, by contrast, continues to be the best source of alternative thinking, what with entry into this medium being so easy. It is, perhaps, the best spur to individualized thinking since Gutenberg upset the established order of his day.

Because of the uncertain and unpredictable nature of complex systems, I don’t know of anyone – including myself – who has a monopoly on “all the answers” to what plagues us, both personally and socially. What we need to focus on, instead, are those who might have a better set of questions to ask as we try to distill a free, peaceful, and orderly society out of the carefully-organized insanity into which we find ourselves twisted and knotted. Perhaps it would do us well to recall the lessons from an etymological dictionary: that the words “peace,” “freedom,” “love,” and “friend,” have interconnected histories. Might our ancient ancestors have known what we have long-since forgotten as we traipse about in search of one divisive ideology after another?

March 9, 2010

Butler Shaffer [send him e-mail] teaches at the Southwestern University School of Law. He is the author of the newly-released In Restraint of Trade: The Business Campaign Against Competition, 1918–1938 and of Calculated Chaos: Institutional Threats to Peace and Human Survival. His latest book is Boundaries of Order.

Copyright © 2010 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.

Obama Launches Attack on Insurance Industry for Final Push on Health Reform

Monday, 08 Mar 2010 12:22 PM

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President Barack Obama accused insurance companies of placing profits over people and said Republicans ignored long-festering problems when they held power as he sought to build support Monday for swift passage of legislation stalled in Congress.

“How much higher do premiums have to rise before we do something about it?” said Obama, making the first in an expected string of out-of-town trips to pitch his plan to remake the health care system.

The president said dismissively that Republican critics in Congress say they want to do something about rising health care costs, but said they did not when they held power. “You had 10 years. What happened. What were you doing?” he said to applause from an audience at Arcadia University.

Obama made his appeal as Democratic leaders in Congress worked on a rescue plan for sweeping changes in health care that seemed earlier in the year to be on the brink of passage. The two-step approach calls for the House to approve a Senate-passed bill despite opposition to several of its provisions, and both houses to follow immediately with a companion measure that makes a series of changes.

The White House has said it wants the legislation wrapped up by March 18, but that seems unlikely. The companion bill has not yet been made public, and a protracted debate is expected in the Senate, where Republicans vow to resist even though they will not be able to block passage by mere talk.

Obama’s stated goals across more than a year of struggle has been to extend coverage to millions who lack it, ban insurance industry practices such as denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing conditions and cut costs.

Republicans dismissed Obama’s argument instantly. “The American people have heard all this rhetoric from the president before, and they continue to say loudly and clearly they do not want a massive government takeover of health care,” said House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio.

Obama has long identified the insurance industry as an obstacle to changes along the lines he seeks, but the administration’s actions and rhetoric seem to have escalated in recent days.

The president’s proposal would give the government the right to rein in excessive premiums increases — a provision included after one firm announced a 39 percent increase in the price of individual policies sold in California. Separately, Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and Human Services, convened a White House meeting with insurance executives last week, and followed up with a letter released in advance of Obama’s speech.

It asked companies to “post on your Web sites the justification for any individual or small group rate increases you have implemented or proposed in 2010.”
© Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Romney: Obama’s Healthcare Plan ‘Makes No Sense at All’

Monday, 08 Mar 2010 07:13 PM

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By: Jim Meyers

Former Massachusetts governor and 2008 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney tells Newsmax that America needs to change course or face the “unthinkable consequences” of its decline.

He also asserts that President Obama’s policies have extended and deepened the recession, says his healthcare reform plan “makes no sense at all,” and declares that Sarah Palin is definitely qualified to become president.

Romney has a new book out, “No Apology: The Case for American Greatness,” offering a dramatic new blueprint for the nation to confront our most critical issues. He dropped by Newsmax’s office to discuss a wide range of issues, including the economy, the stimulus package, government bailouts, healthcare, John McCain, and the tea party movement.

Editor’s Note: See the full Newsmax.TV interview with Mitt Romney below

Special: Get Mitt Romney’s New Book, “No Apology” – Incredible FREE Offer – Click Here Now.

Romney served as governor from 2003 until 2007. A successful businessman, he also was president and CEO of the committee that organized the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, and is considered a front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination in 2012.

Romney tells Newsmax.TV about “No Apology”:

“This is a book about what I have seen as a result of my years in the business world, some 25 years, traveling a good deal overseas, and my recognition that what is happening internationally very much threatens America’s economic lead and ultimately threatens our ability to preserve freedom and promote liberty around the world.

“So I have described the fact that America needs to remain strong, that we need to stop apologizing for who we are and acknowledge that what we have and what we have done has lifted the world out of poverty and has also provided liberty to million, billions of people.

“We need to shore up the bases of our strength. If we don’t, we could find ourselves passed by China or by others. And the consequences of America following the same path of decline that other great nations have in the past are really unthinkable.”

Romney says the economy will recover from the recession, as it always does. But he maintains that the $787 billion stimulus package has not been as effective as it could have been, and Obama’s actions during his first year in office “had the effect of extending the recession and deepening the recession.”

Romney cites Obama’s claim that, if the stimulus passed, it would hold unemployment at 8 percent, and if not, unemployment would rise to 10 percent.

“Well, it got to 10 percent and we still have $787 billion we’ve got to pay back to the people we borrowed it from,” he says, adding that America has become “increasingly vulnerable as a result of our overspending.”

While Massachusetts governor, Romney put in place healthcare reform that has provided all state residents with healthcare insurance. That plan has some similarities with President Obama’s healthcare plan, “but some very big differences,” he says.

He points out that Massachusetts did not raise taxes to pay for the plan, while Obama’s plan would. Obama would cut Medicare, while Massachusetts did not. Obama has sought the power to put price controls in place, but Massachusetts did not.

“Ours is a state-based plan,” he says.

“We took responsibility for dealing with an issue and we solved it our own way. States should be allowed to approach their care for the poor in the way they think best, rather than have President Obama and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid apply a one-size-fits-all plan for the entire country.

“The way President Obama has gone about it makes no sense at all.”

Turning to foreign policy, Romney tells Newsmax.TV that Obama “was simply wrong to go across the world as the new president of the United States establishing who he was by, if you will, distancing himself from the United States of America.

“He said the United States has been dismissive of other nations, derisive; we don’t listen to the concerns of other nations; we’ve dictated to other nations. He’s wrong. America has freed other nations from dictators.”

Romney criticizes Obama for canceling plans for a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic, and for speaking out against Israel at the United Nations.

But he says he is pleased that Obama reversed course on Iraq.

“As the candidate who I believe was the most anti-war candidate among the Democratic contenders, and who promised to pull our troops out immediately, he has instead adopted President Bush’s strategy in Iraq. Thank heavens. That’s the right course.

“He voted against the surge in Iraq. He said it wouldn’t work. In Afghanistan he’s now applying the surge. I appreciate that as well.

“So he’s done some things well, some things not so well. But where he’s done well is where he’s adopted the policies and positions of Senator McCain and President Bush.”

Other highlights of the Newsmax interview:

• Romney says he’s not sure Sarah Palin will run for president in the future, but asserts that she is qualified for that role and says she “has brought a great deal of energy and passion to our party.”
• Romney disagrees with Rush Limbaugh’s claim that he erred in backing Sen. John McCain in his re-election campaign in Arizona against a more conservative GOP candidate, citing McCain’s “wisdom and judgment” and adding that McCain has the better chance to win the general election.
• Obama’s plan of allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire at the beginning of next year is really “a new tax hike, a substantial tax hike on people who pay a lot of taxes,” Romney says. It will encourage Americans to sell assets this year ahead of the hike, he explains, resulting in “a lot of excess revenues this year.” But the year after “will be pretty tough for the government.”
• Asked about TARP bailouts, Romney says businesses that get in trouble should be allowed to fail, as long as that doesn’t lead to a collapse of the financial system. So Bush’s move to put TARP in place to prevent a collapse was “the right thing to do… At this stage, it has done its job,” he adds. “It should be stopped and the funds that remain in TARP and are paid back to TARP should be used to pay down our debt and to reduce our spending.”
• The tea party movement will have a serious impact on the November elections, according to Romney.“I’m really pleased that the silent majority is silent no longer,” he declares. But he cautions that if a conservative tea party candidate runs in a general election, that would siphon votes away from a Republican candidate, and “divide and fail is the result. “That would hand over the country to Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, and that would be very sad indeed.” Romney hopes that tea party candidates will instead run in primaries, and if they lose will back the more conservative candidate in the general election.
• Libertarians such as Ron Paul have an influence on the GOP, and “we welcome his participation in our party,” Romney says. “We’re a big-tent party.”
• “Liberals like President Obama believe that, if there’s a problem in our country, if some aspect of our economy is having some difficulties, the right course is to have government play a more active role, really to have government take it over and run it,” Romney says. “That’s a course that I think is entirely wrong. If there’s an area in the economy that’s not working well, the right course is typically to say, How do you get government out of it? How do you make it work more like a market?”
• Discussing the race for the U.S. Senate seat from Florida between Gov. Charlie Crist and former House Speaker Marco Rubio, Romney says: “I like both of those individuals. I haven’t decided whether to endorse one or the other or neither, but I hope whoever wins the primary is able carry on very effectively in the general election.

“We need more Republican senators in Washington very badly right now.”