FINAL VOTE RESULTS FOR ROLL CALL 165

(Democrats in roman; Republicans in italic; Independents underlined)

      H R 3590      RECORDED VOTE      21-Mar-2010      10:49 PM

      QUESTION:  On Motion to Concur in Senate Amendments
      BILL TITLE: Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

Ayes Noes PRES NV

Democratic 219 34    
Republican   178    
Independent        
TOTALS 219 212    

---- AYES    219 ---

Ackerman Grijalva Obey
Andrews Gutierrez Olver
Baca Hall (NY) Ortiz
Baird Halvorson Owens
Baldwin Hare Pallone
Bean Harman Pascrell
Becerra Hastings (FL) Pastor (AZ)
Berkley Heinrich Payne
Berman Higgins Pelosi
Bishop (GA) Hill Perlmutter
Bishop (NY) Himes Perriello
Blumenauer Hinchey Peters
Boccieri Hinojosa Pingree (ME)
Boswell Hirono Polis (CO)
Boyd Hodes Pomeroy
Brady (PA) Holt Price (NC)
Braley (IA) Honda Quigley
Brown, Corrine Hoyer Rahall
Butterfield Inslee Rangel
Capps Israel Reyes
Capuano Jackson (IL) Richardson
Cardoza Jackson Lee (TX) Rodriguez
Carnahan Johnson (GA) Rothman (NJ)
Carney Johnson, E. B. Roybal-Allard
Carson (IN) Kagen Ruppersberger
Castor (FL) Kanjorski Rush
Chu Kaptur Ryan (OH)
Clarke Kennedy Salazar
Clay Kildee Sánchez, Linda T.
Cleaver Kilpatrick (MI) Sanchez, Loretta
Clyburn Kilroy Sarbanes
Cohen Kind Schakowsky
Connolly (VA) Kirkpatrick (AZ) Schauer
Conyers Klein (FL) Schiff
Cooper Kosmas Schrader
Costa Kucinich Schwartz
Costello Langevin Scott (GA)
Courtney Larsen (WA) Scott (VA)
Crowley Larson (CT) Serrano
Cuellar Lee (CA) Sestak
Cummings Levin Shea-Porter
Dahlkemper Lewis (GA) Sherman
Davis (CA) Loebsack Sires
Davis (IL) Lofgren, Zoe Slaughter
DeFazio Lowey Smith (WA)
 DeGette Luján Snyder
Delahunt Maffei Speier
DeLauro Maloney Spratt
Dicks Markey (CO) Stark
Dingell Markey (MA) Stupak
Doggett Matsui Sutton
Donnelly (IN) McCarthy (NY) Thompson (CA)
Doyle McCollum Thompson (MS)
Driehaus McDermott Tierney
Edwards (MD) McGovern Titus
Ellison McNerney Tonko
Ellsworth Meek (FL) Towns
Engel Meeks (NY) Tsongas
Eshoo Michaud Van Hollen
Etheridge Miller (NC) Velázquez
Farr Miller, George Visclosky
Fattah Mitchell Walz
Filner Mollohan Wasserman Schultz
Foster Moore (KS) Waters
Frank (MA) Moore (WI) Watson
Fudge Moran (VA) Watt
Garamendi Murphy (CT) Waxman
Giffords Murphy (NY) Weiner
Gonzalez Murphy, Patrick Welch
Gordon (TN) Nadler (NY) Wilson (OH)
Grayson Napolitano Woolsey
Green, Al Neal (MA) Wu
Green, Gene Oberstar Yarmuth

THROW ALL THESE SCUMBAGS

OUT IN NOVEMBER 2010, AND THE
COMING ELECTIONS !!!!
WE WILL NOT FORGET WHO YOU ARE AND WHAT YOU DID
TO AMERICA & THE PEOPLE OF AMERICA !!!

*****

---- NOES    212 ---

Aderholt Foxx Minnick
Adler (NJ) Franks (AZ) Moran (KS)
Akin Frelinghuysen Murphy, Tim
Alexander Gallegly Myrick
Altmire Garrett (NJ) Neugebauer
Arcuri Gerlach Nunes
Austria Gingrey (GA) Nye
Bachmann Gohmert Olson
Bachus Goodlatte Paul
Barrett (SC) Granger Paulsen
Barrow Graves Pence
Bartlett Griffith Peterson
Barton (TX) Guthrie Petri
Berry Hall (TX) Pitts
Biggert Harper Platts
Bilbray Hastings (WA) Poe (TX)
Bilirakis Heller Posey
Bishop (UT) Hensarling Price (GA)
Blackburn Herger Putnam
Blunt Herseth Sandlin Radanovich
Boehner Hoekstra Rehberg
Bonner Holden Reichert
Bono Mack Hunter Roe (TN)
Boozman Inglis Rogers (AL)
Boren Issa Rogers (KY)
Boucher Jenkins Rogers (MI)
Boustany Johnson (IL) Rohrabacher
Brady (TX) Johnson, Sam Rooney
Bright Jones Ros-Lehtinen
Broun (GA) Jordan (OH) Roskam
Brown (SC) King (IA) Ross
Brown-Waite, Ginny King (NY) Royce
Buchanan Kingston Ryan (WI)
Burgess Kirk Scalise
Burton (IN) Kissell Schmidt
Buyer Kline (MN) Schock
Calvert Kratovil Sensenbrenner
Camp Lamborn Sessions
Campbell Lance Shadegg
Cantor Latham Shimkus
Cao LaTourette Shuler
Capito Latta Shuster
Carter Lee (NY) Simpson
Cassidy Lewis (CA) Skelton
Castle Linder Smith (NE)
 Chaffetz Lipinski Smith (NJ)
Chandler LoBiondo Smith (TX)
Childers Lucas Souder
Coble Luetkemeyer Space
Coffman (CO) Lummis Stearns
Cole Lungren, Daniel E. Sullivan
Conaway Lynch Tanner
Crenshaw Mack Taylor
Culberson Manzullo Teague
Davis (AL) Marchant Terry
Davis (KY) Marshall Thompson (PA)
Davis (TN) Matheson Thornberry
Deal (GA) McCarthy (CA) Tiahrt
Dent McCaul Tiberi
Diaz-Balart, L. McClintock Turner
Diaz-Balart, M. McCotter Upton
Dreier McHenry Walden
Duncan McIntyre Wamp
Edwards (TX) McKeon Westmoreland
Ehlers McMahon Whitfield
Emerson McMorris Rodgers Wilson (SC)
Fallin Melancon Wittman
Flake Mica Wolf
Fleming Miller (FL) Young (AK)
Forbes Miller (MI) Young (FL)
Fortenberry Miller, Gary

REWARD THESE PEOPLE WHO PLACED PEOPLE’ BUSINESS

FIRST AS THEY REMEMBERED WHO THEY REPRESENT AND
WHY THEY ARE IN DC. THANK YOU FOR DOING WHATS RIGHT
FOR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. American Citizens.

*****
BART STUPAK THE TRAITOR AND HIS GANG OF
(WHORES) SELLOUTS THAT DID THE TRICK
FOR THE O’PIMP & MADAME PELOSI….and for
sure THEY WILL PAY FOR THEIR BETRAYL TO
AMERICA & THE AMERICAN PEOPLE !

Traitor in chief ‘BENEDICT ARNORLD’ STUPID Stupak

Fellow SCUMBAGS : Rep. Steve Driehaus (D-Ohio), Reps. Jim

Cooper (Tenn.), Paul Kanjorski (Pa.), Marcy Kaptur (Ohio),
Nick Rahall (W.Va.), Alan Mollohan (W.Va.) , Kathy
Dahlkemper (Pa), Rep. Joe Donnelly (Ind), Reps. Bobby Rush
(Ill.) and Loretta Sanchez (Calif.), James Clyburn (D-S.C),
Rep. Jan Schakowsy (D-Ill.), Rep. Lois Capps (D-Calif). 
Stupak, Dems reach abortion deal
By Jared Allen and Jeffrey Young - 03/21/10 03:33 PM ET

Democrats have reached a deal on an executive order on

abortion that could hand them a victory on healthcare.

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) announced a deal at a press

conference. He said the deal means Democrats will have the
216 votes they need to win a healthcare reform vote on the
floor.

"We're well past 216," he said at the press conference. 

"Eight or nine" Democrats, including Stupak, will support the

healthcare bill because of the deal, according to an anti-
abortion rights Democrat.

"We've changed [our votes]," said Rep. Steve Driehaus

(D-Ohio), who appeared at the press conference with
Stupak.

Driehaus said he's seen the executive order and can now vote
for the healthcare bill.  He said Stupak has signed off, as well.

Driehaus spoke minutes before the press conference in the

Speaker's Lobby.
Separately, two other undecided Democrats said they would
vote for healthcare reform: Reps. Jim Cooper (Tenn.)
and Paul Kanjorski (Pa.).

Besides Driehaus and Stupak, other Democrats attending the

press conference, who will now support the bill, were Reps.
Marcy Kaptur (Ohio), Nick Rahall (W.Va.), Alan
Mollohan (W.Va.) and Kathy Dahlkemper (Pa.). All
said they would vote for the healthcare bill.

Stupak said Rep. Joe Donnelly (Ind.), who was unable to

attend the press conference, will also vote yes.

That puts Democrats ever so close to the 216 votes they need to
win a series of floor votes, according to The Hill's whip count.

By The Hill's count, 35 Democrats are no votes or likely no

votes. Democrats can afford to lose 37 members.

Two other Democrats are undecided: Reps. Bobby Rush

(Ill.) and Loretta Sanchez (Calif.).
Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said he expects
Rush to vote yes.

Stupak said on Fox News afterward that the executive order

was a "very strong statement" that wouldn't replace statutory
language -- his preference -- but acknowledged that he couldn't
get such language through the Senate.

"All the safeguards we were looking for, the principle we

fought for all these months, will be enforced through this
exeuctive order," Stupak said. "It's a good agreement."
Stupak also stressed that fixes to the bill could be enacted
between now and 2014.

Pro-abortion-rights Democrats lined up behind the deal,

signaling that healthcare reform's biggest and last hurdle had
been overcome.

"It looks like it's a go," Rep. Jan Schakowsy (D-

Ill.) said after exiting Pelosi's office. "Assuming that there's
no final, final, final, final shenanigans that go on with the
Stupak people, I think we're OK."

Rep. Lois Capps (D-Calif.), the author of the abortion

language initially approved in the House Energy and
Commerce Committee that Stupak's November floor
amendment replaced, was also satisfied.

"I'm pleased that we seem to be getting to the end," said

Capps. "I'm thankful that we're to the point where now we can
concentrate on healthcare reform and we're ready to take a
vote."

House Republicans responded, saying the executive order

would not have the authority to implement its own abortion
language.

"The law of the land trumps any Executive Order,

which can be reversed or altered at the stroke of a
pen by this or any subsequent President without
any congressional approval or notice," House
Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said in a
statement. "Moreover, while an Executive Order
can direct members of the executive branch, it
cannot direct the private sector."
Outside groups on both sides of the abortion divide do not
appear poised to support an agreement between the two
Democratic camps. The National Right to Life Committee and
the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops each issued statements
rejecting the notion of using an executive order as a bulwark
against taxpayer dollars being used to fund abortion services.

Meanwhile, abortion rights advocates like the Planned

Parenthood Federation of America and NARAL already
opposed the Senate language Obama's order would ostensibly
affirm.

As the Democrats reached their agreement, Republicans enter

House floor in single file, each asking for unanimous consent to
revise and extend their remarks in opposition to "this flawed"
healthcare bill. The Republicans can still throw their biggest
roadblock later tonight with their motion to recommit.
This story was updated at 5:37 p.m.

Molly K. Hooper and Walter Alarkon contributed to this story.

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/88143-stupak-dems-reach-abortion-deal-eight-or-
nine-will-vote-yes

___________________________________________________________________

*****
20 WAYS OBAMACARE WILL TAKE AWAY
OUR FREEDOMS
With House Democrats poised to pass the Senate
health care bill with some reconciliation changes
later today, it is worthwhile to take a
comprehensive look at the freedoms we will lose.
Of course, the overhaul is supposed to provide us
with security. But it will result in skyrocketing
insurance costs and physicians leaving the field in
droves, making it harder to afford and find
medical care. We may be about to live Benjamin
Franklin’s adage, “People willing to trade their
freedom for temporary security deserve neither
and will lose both.”
The sections described below are taken from HR
3590 as agreed to by the Senate and from the
reconciliation bill as displayed by the Rules
Committee.
1. You are young and don’t want health
insurance? You are starting up a small business
and need to minimize expenses, and one way to do
that is to forego health insurance? Tough. You
have to pay $750 annually for the “privilege.”
(Section 1501)
2. You are young and healthy and want to pay for
insurance that reflects that status? Tough. You’ll
have to pay for premiums that cover not only you,
but also the guy who smokes three packs a day,
drink a gallon of whiskey and eats chicken fat off
the floor. That’s because insurance companies will
no longer be able to underwrite on the basis of a
person’s health status. (Section 2701).
3. You would like to pay less in premiums by
buying insurance with lifetime or annual limits on
coverage? Tough. Health insurers will no longer
be able to offer such policies, even if that is what
customers prefer. (Section 2711).
4. Think you’d like a policy that is cheaper
because it doesn’t cover preventive care or
requires cost-sharing for such care? Tough.
Health insurers will no longer be able to offer
policies that do not cover preventive services or
offer them with cost-sharing, even if that’s what
the customer wants. (Section 2712).
5. You are an employer and you would like to
offer coverage that doesn’t allow your employers’
slacker children to stay on the policy until age 26?
Tough. (Section 2714).
6. You must buy a policy that covers ambulatory
patient services, emergency services,
hospitalization, maternity and newborn care,
mental health and substance use disorder services,
including behavioral health treatment;
prescription drugs; rehabilitative and habilitative
services and devices; laboratory services;
preventive and wellness services; chronic disease
management; and pediatric services, including
oral and vision care.
You’re a single guy without children? Tough,
your policy must cover pediatric services. You’re
a woman who can’t have children? Tough, your
policy must cover maternity services. You’re a
teetotaler? Tough, your policy must cover
substance abuse treatment. (Add your own
violation of personal freedom here.) (Section
1302).
7. Do you want a plan with lots of cost-sharing and
low premiums? Well, the best you can do is a
“Bronze plan,” which has benefits that provide
benefits that are actuarially equivalent to 60% of
the full actuarial value of the benefits provided
under the plan. Anything lower than that, tough.
(Section 1302 (d) (1) (A))
8. You are an employer in the small-group
insurance market and you’d like to offer policies
with deductibles higher than $2,000 for
individuals and $4,000 for families? Tough.
(Section 1302 (c) (2) (A).
9. If you are a large employer (defined as at least
101 employees) and you do not want to provide
health insurance to your employee, then you will
pay a $750 fine per employee (It could be $2,000 to
$3,000 under the reconciliation changes). Think
you know how to better spend that money?
Tough. (Section 1513).
10. You are an employer who offers health flexible
spending arrangements and your employees want
to deduct more than $2,500 from their salaries for
it? Sorry, can’t do that. (Section 9005 (i)).
11. If you are a physician and you don’t want the
government looking over your shoulder? Tough.
The Secretary of Health and Human Services is
authorized to use your claims data to issue you
reports that measure the resources you use,
provide information on the quality of care you
provide, and compare the resources you use to
those used by other physicians. Of course, this will
all be just for informational purposes. It’s not like
the government will ever use it to intervene in
your practice and patients’ care. Of course not.
(Section 3003 (i))
12. If you are a physician and you want to own
your own hospital, you must be an owner and
have a “Medicare provider agreement” by Feb. 1,
2010. (Dec. 31, 2010 in the reconciliation changes.)
If you didn’t have those by then, you are out of
luck. (Section 6001 (i) (1) (A))
13. If you are a physician owner and you want to
expand your hospital? Well, you can’t (Section
6001 (i) (1) (B). Unless, it is located in a country
where, over the last five years, population growth
has been 150% of what it has been in the state
(Section 6601 (i) (3) ( E)). And then you cannot
increase your capacity by more than 200%
(Section 6001 (i) (3) (C)).
14. You are a health insurer and you want to raise
premiums to meet costs? Well, if that increase is
deemed “unreasonable” by the Secretary of
Health and Human Services it will be subject to
review and can be denied. (Section 1003)
15. The government will extract a fee of $2.3
billion annually from the pharmaceutical
industry. If you are a pharmaceutical company
what you will pay depends on the ratio of the
number of brand-name drugs you sell to the total
number of brand-name drugs sold in the U.S. So,
if you sell 10% of the brand-name drugs in the
U.S., what you pay will be 10% multiplied by $2.3
billion, or $230,000,000. (Under reconciliation, it
starts at $2.55 billion, jumps to $3 billion in 2012,
then to $3.5 billion in 2017 and $4.2 billion in
2018, before settling at $2.8 billion in 2019
(Section 1404)). Think you, as a pharmaceutical
executive, know how to better use that money, say
for research and development? Tough. (Section
9008 (b)).
16. The government will extract a fee of $2 billion
annually from medical device makers. If you are a
medical device maker what you will pay depends
on your share of medical device sales in the U.S.
So, if you sell 10% of the medical devices in the
U.S., what you pay will be 10% multiplied by $2
billion, or $200,000,000. Think you, as a medical
device maker, know how to better use that money,
say for R&D? Tough. (Section 9009 (b)).
The reconciliation package turns that into a 2.9%
excise tax for medical device makers. Think you,
as a medical device maker, know how to better use
that money, say for research and development?
Tough. (Section 1405).
17. The government will extract a fee of $6.7
billion annually from insurance companies. If you
are an insurer, what you will pay depends on your
share of net premiums plus 200% of your
administrative costs. So, if your net premiums and
administrative costs are equal to 10% of the total,
you will pay 10% of $6.7 billion, or $670,000,000.
In the reconciliation bill, the fee will start at $8
billion in 2014, $11.3 billion in 2015, $1.9 billion in
2017, and $14.3 billion in 2018 (Section
1406).Think you, as an insurance executive, know
how to better spend that money? Tough.(Section
9010 (b) (1) (A and B).)
18. If an insurance company board or its
stockholders think the CEO is worth more than
$500,000 in deferred compensation? Tough.
(Section 9014).
19. You will have to pay an additional 0.5%
payroll tax on any dollar you make over $250,000
if you file a joint return and $200,000 if you file an
individual return. What? You think you know
how to spend the money you earned better than
the government? Tough. (Section 9015).
That amount will rise to a 3.8% tax if
reconciliation passes. It will also apply to
investment income, estates, and trusts. You think
you know how to spend the money you earned
better than the government? Like you need to ask.
(Section 1402).
20. If you go for cosmetic surgery, you will pay an
additional 5% tax on the cost of the procedure.
Think you know how to spend that money you
earned better than the government? Tough.
(Section 9017).
By David Hogberg, March 22, 2010.

http://blogs.investors.com/capitalhill/index.php/home/35-
politicsinvesting/1563-20-ways-obamacare-will-take-away-our-freedoms

____________________________________________________________________
Just Do the Math and See What You Are on the Hook
for :
The fifth column in power is taking over 1/6th of the economy and
bankrupting the greatest nation in the history of man.

They reamed Bush for money spent going to war to protect this nation
against jihad -- and then these moochers and destroyers rout the nation.

Healthcare by the Numbers

$1.2 trillion:  The total cost of the bill between 2010 and
2020 (though the real costs do not start until 2014),
including $940 billion in coverage subsidies, $144.2
billion in additional mandatory spending, $70 billion in
discretionary spending in the Senate bill, and $41.6
billion in unrelated education spending.
 
$208 billion:  The cost of a ten year patch for the
Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) to prevent reduction in
Medicare physician payments.  This cost is hidden
because it was included in the earlier Democrat bill, but
was dropped to provide a better cost estimate.  It is
expected to move separately and would bring the true
cost of the takeover to $1.4 trillion.
 
$569.2 billion:  Tax increases in the legislation, including
$48.9 billion in new tax increases in the reconciliation
bill alone.
 
$52 billion:  The amount of new taxes on employers who
cannot afford to pay their employees health care,
imposed at a time when unemployment is 9.7 percent.
 
12:  The number of new tax increases in the bill that
violate President Obama’s pledge that, “Under my plan,
no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any
form of tax increase.”
 
46%:  The percentage of families making less than
$66,150 who will be forced to pay the individual
mandate tax.
 
16,500:  The estimated number of IRS auditors, agents
and other employees that may be needed to collect the
hundreds of billions in new taxes levied on the
American people.
 
$20 billion:  The estimated amount of money that the
IRS and HHS will need for the cost of additional
regulations, bureaucracy, and red tape over the next ten
years.  This spending is not included in CBO’s cost
estimate of H.R. 4872.
 
$53 billion:  The amount of revenue this bill raids from
Social Security to appear as if it actually reduces the
deficit.
 
$202.3 billion:  The amount of money cut from the
Medicare Advantage program for seniors to help offset
the costs of a new entitlement.
 
$436 billion:  The amount of federal subsidies in the bill
that will go directly to insurance companies to provide
health care in the exchange.
 
1 out of 22:  The number of times the Senate has not
somehow amended a reconciliation bill passed by the
House, and thus required further House action.
 
63%:  The percentage of physicians surveyed who feel
that health reform is needed, but are opposed to this
sweeping overhaul legislation.
 
$9 billion:  The amount that the Ways and Means
Committee estimated Medicare would spend annually
after 25 years when it was passed in 1965.  In reality,
Medicare spent $67 billion in 1990, or seven times the
initial cost estimate.
 
$1.55 trillion:  The projected FY 2010 deficit—11 times
the ten year “savings” Democrats claim the bill will
produce by spending more than $1 trillion for this
government takeover of health care.
Posted by Pamela Geller on Saturday, March 20, 2010 at 12:20 PM

http://www.gop.gov/blog/10/03/20/important-health-care-takeover-by

_____________________________________________________________________

Price: Obamacare Means 159 New Gov't

Agencies
Saturday, 20 Mar 2010 12:06 PM

The new government agencies that will be created as the

result of Obamacare will worsen the quality of American
medical care by restricting physicians and hospitals to use
their best judgment, according to Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., a
physician and chairman of the Republican Study
Committee.

In fact, he says, the bill would create 159 new governemnt

agencies to regulate insurance and medical care for
Americans.

Writing for AOL News, Price says in an op-ed that the

healthcare overhaul being contemplated by House
Democrats will sacrifice “the quality of health care that has
made this nation's practice of medicine the envy of the
world.”

“Quality remains one of the six principles of patient-

centered health care that Republicans have advocated,”
Price writes. “Yet, all Americans find in the Democrats'
government-centered vision are various boards of
bureaucrats -- not practicing physicians -- determining what
is considered quality care.”

The plan will take away the right of individuals to make the
best decisions about their healthcare in consultation with
their physician.

“An individual patient is far better served when health care

decisions are informed by the advice of their doctor, not the
dictates of Washington,” Price writes. “So when one reads
the details of the legislation pending before Congress and
finds the creation of 159 new government offices and
programs, there is little else to feel but fear and concern for
what will happen to the level of quality care in this
country.”

The GOP has pushed a series of common-sense measures,

Price says, that include tort reform and efforts to reduce
waste and mismanagement in government programs like
Medicare.

“Republicans are championing reform with no new

bureaucratic boards making medical decisions, no $500
billion cuts to Medicare, no new mandates, and no one
standing between you and your doctor,” Price writes. “We
can fix what ails our current system without destroying it if
we abide by the principle that quality in health care must
not be sacrificed.”

_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________

The President Health Proposal: Taxing Investment Income

Posted February 25th, 2010 at 5:00pm in Health Care with 8 comments

In preparation for today’s bipartisan Health Care

Summit, President Obama released his own version of
health care reform earlier this week.  The President’s
proposal includes several high-ticket provisions for
expanding coverage.  Since he has promised time and
again not to raise taxes on the middle-class in order to
pay for health care reform, the President’s bill imposes
a Medicare tax on the investment income of high-
individuals to off-set some of the cost of expanding
Medicaid and  financing other provisions of his health
agenda.
But, as Heritage analysts Karen Campbell and
Guinevere Nell explain in a recent paper, these new
taxes would have widespread adverse effects for all
Americans, not just the wealthy that they target.  This is
partially due to the very nature of a tax:
“A well-established economic regularity is that if you
tax something, you get less of it. For example,
policymakers in the Senate recently proposed a tax on
“Cadillac” health insurance plans. The justification was
that it would not only generate revenue to help pay for
subsidized insurance but also reduce demand for high-
priced premiums, putting downward pressure on all
health insurance premiums.”
The Cadillac health insurance plan tax is intended to
reduce the usage of high-cost insurance plans. 
Similarly, the President’s proposal’s tax on tanning
beds discourages their use; the same is the case with
cigarette taxes.  In several instances, taxes are imposed
as punitive measures.  So why on earth would the
President impose a tax that would discourage
investment, delaying recovery from the current
economic downturn?
Moreover, Campbell and Nell lay out several ways in
which this tax would hit average American households
hard.  First, the tax would reduce overall household
wealth of American families by $274 billion per year. 
“The value of the investment portfolios of many
households–not just the high-income households that
directly pay the tax–are reduced by the tax on
investment income.”
Second, reducing investment would decrease capital in
the U.S. economy, which would reduce potential for
economical growth.  This affects not only the rate of job
creation and wage increase:  it would have a dramatic
effect on the ability of the federal government to borrow
money.  According to Campbell and Nell, “A lower U.S.
economic potential also harms the ability of the
government to borrow, because investors lend to the
U.S. based on the expected potential of the U.S.
economy. Thus a lower potential economy puts upward
pressure on government interest rates in order to
attract financing for the nation’s deficit.”  Raising
government interest rates will add further to the
financial burden on taxpayers.
“Because investment is what drives productivity and
economic growth, less investment–even if only slightly
less–leads to lower productivity, slower economic
growth, weaker wages and salaries, and lower
household wealth. How much less depends on the
underlying supply and demand for investment.”
President Obama’s health care proposal would expand
health coverage—but is the detriment to the U.S.
economy and the burden on the taxpayer worth the
cost?
http://blog.heritage.org/2010/02/25/the-president-health-proposal-taxing-
investment-income/#comments

___________________________________________________________________

Obama’s Health Plan Has Dangerous New Taxes

Posted February 23rd, 2010 at 6:35pm in Entitlements, Health Care with 20 comments 
The health care plan President Obama recently released
is mostly a combination of the different plans passed by
the House of Representatives and the Senate. But in one
major way it breaks with long-standing precedent,
proposing a fundamental wrong-headed change to both
entitlement policy and tax policy. He proposes for the
first time to tax capital income to support entitlement
programs.
Payroll taxes have always applied just to wages and
salaries and the revenue those taxes raise has gone
solely to pay for entitlements like Social Security and
Medicare. The deal has always been that we pay payroll
taxes during our working years and receive the benefits
they fund after we retire. President Obama’s health
care plan would shatter this compact forever.
The Hospital Insurance (HI) portion of the payroll tax
is 2.9 percent on all wages and salary that is paid half
(1.45 percent) by workers and half (the remaining 1.45
percent) by employers. It is supposed to pay only for the
hospital insurance portion of Medicare benefits that
retirees receive. President Obama’s plan adopts this
break with long-held policy and doubles down by
further severing the link between HI and Medicare
benefits. Obama’s plan not only increases the HI tax on
wages and salaries for high-income earners similar to
the Senate bill, it also applies the HI tax to investment
income for the first time. Obama’s unprecedented plan
would levy the current 2.9 percent HI tax on what the
administration obnoxiously refers to as “unearned”
income, which includes capital gains, interest,
dividends, annuities, royalties and rents for families
earning more than $250,000 a year ($200,000 for single
filers).
Applying the HI tax to investment income would also
continue to transform entitlements and how they are
paid for. Using the revenue raised by levying the HI tax
on investment income would open the floodgates for
future rate increases to pay for other new spending
programs. Adding a new revenue stream for Congress
to tap when it needs more money is always dangerous
and should be resisted at all costs, otherwise expanding
government will be too easy for Congress.
Yet this is likely the reason President Obama wants to
levy the HI tax on investment. Applying the HI tax
separately to investment income will forever give
Congress yet another tax to hike whenever it wants to
fund a new program. If Congress can raise payroll taxes
easily to pay for any spending it desires, payroll taxes
will no longer be used to pay for entitlements, but as an
ATM for Congress to go back each time it needs more
cash.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/02/23/obama%E2%80%99s-health-plan-has-dangerous-
new-taxes/
___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________

Obama’s Health Plan – Taxes, Taxes Everywhere

Posted February 24th, 2010 at 12:59pm in Entitlements, Health Care with 3 comments

The White House recently released President Obama’s

health care reform proposal. The plan incorporates a
mixture of the many tax increases passed by the House
and Senate, hiking taxes by almost $750 billion over ten
years. This is on top of $1.3 trillion in other tax
increases the President recently proposed in his 2011
budget. Not that there is ever a good time to raise taxes,
but doing so as the economy is still emerging from a
deep recession is particularly ill-advised and will likely
prolong full recovery. Moreover, the President’s
proposal deviates from his stated goal to address the
soaring spending and debt problem the nation faces by
piling on massive new spending and taxes.
Payroll tax hikes: Obama accepted the Senate’s plan to
break long-held policy by raising the Hospital
Insurance (HI) portion of the payroll tax on high-
income earners to pay for a new and unrelated health
care entitlement. He then doubled-down on this
dangerous new precedent by separately applying the HI
tax to investment income for the first time. The tax code
already taxes investment too much. Higher taxes still on
dividends, interest and business income increases the
cost of capital which will further depress investment
and thus job creation. Ironic to propose this at the very
time the President wants employers to create jobs.
Medicare payroll tax would hit seniors: His proposed
tax hike on investment will hammer seniors particularly
hard because their investment income is a major
supplement to their pension and Social Security checks.
Seniors also sell assets to raise income, so raising the tax
on capital gains further reduces their resources. Lastly,
raising the taxes on capital income and capital gains will
lower asset values. Nearly 30 percent of all stocks are
held in retirement savings plans. Most of the seniors
that rely on the income from these plans for their
livelihood are not “fat cat” investors that have been the
target of other populist tax hikes. They are people that
spent their working years saving money for their own
retirement in mutual funds, 401(k)s, IRAs, and other
savings vehicles. This would just punish them for a
lifetime of careful planning and saving.
Cadillac tax: The President also adopted an excise tax
on “Cadillac” health insurance plans similar to that in
the Senate plan. Obama’s proposal would levy a 40%
tax on plans that cost over $10,200 a year for
individuals and $27,500 for families, but wouldn’t be
effective until 2018. The delay will no doubt give unions
and other favored groups time to negotiate their way
out of the tax through collective bargaining or gain a
complete legislative exemption at some point in the
future before the tax kicks in. It also means delaying
political pain. All the same criticisms of the excise tax
apply as before. For example, insurers will embed the
tax in the price of their plans. This will hide its cost
from their customers. The tax will also fall heavily on
middle and low-income workers whose taxes President
Obama pledged not to increase. The President would
have been better off capping the value of health
insurance employers can provide their employees tax
free. This is something that has wide support among
policy experts on the right and the left and would be a
real show towards openness to the bipartisan ideas he is
purporting.
Still more taxes: Just like the Senate and the House, his
plan incorporates a multitude of other tax hikes and
fees that will go towards paying for the monstrously
expensive bill. Some will raise taxes on people making
less than $250,000 a year, breaking a key campaign
pledge. Prime examples include:
• Excise tax on medical device manufacturers;
• Fee on brand name pharmaceuticals;
• 10 percent tax on tanning services;
• Reduce the amount families can place in Flexible
Spending Accounts (FSA) and increase the penalties for
non-medical deductions from Health Savings Accounts
(HSA); and
• Higher taxes on health insurance companies and
producers of medicine.
Each of these taxes will fall explicitly on those making
less than $250,000 or will be passed down to them. And
this is just a sample of the taxes that will hit those
making less than $250,000 in the President’s plan.
There are many more. In fact, the mandate on all
individuals to purchase health insurance could also be
considered another steep tax hike on those making less
than $250,000.
Bottom Line: There is never a good time to raise taxes,
but even the talk of doing so now continues to cause
uncertainty in the economy. Sadly, the President’s plan
is no better than those of the House or Senate: massive
new benefits paid for by a myriad of harmful new taxes.
Better to drop this plan and start over. Without
crushing new taxes.
http://blog.heritage.org/2010/02/24/obama%E2%80%99s-health-plan-taxes-taxes-
everywhere/

___________________________________________________________________

Dems Stiff Soldiers: Health Care Will NOT Protect Military Health Plans

Trillions for his goons, the unions, the ACORNS, the AmericCorps that
suck the lifeblood out of the hard-working American, the soul of
America -- the ones who play by the rules .... and now the military.
Democrats' Plan Will NOT Protect Military Health Plans
From House Republican Policy:

9.2 million military personnel, families and retirees don't

deserve a back room deal? 

"Although the health care legislation passed by the House

explicitly exempted TRICARE from being affected, the Senate bill
did not. Unfortunately, the parliamentary rules of tof the
reconciliation process did not allow for the inclusion of language
that specficially protects these programs." -- Armed Services
Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-MO)
Background:  On March 18, 2010, just days before the House votes on the Democrats’
government takeover of health care, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike
Skelton (D-MO) announced he would introduce legislation to preemptively state that
TRICARE and the Department of Defense non-appropriated fund (NAF) health plans
meet all of the health care requirements currently under consideration by Congress for
individual health insurance.  TRICARE and the NAF health plans programs provide
health coverage to members of the military and their families, military retirees and their
families, and employees of U.S. military post/base exchanges.  Chairman Skelton even
stated he would also insert this legislative language into the national defense
authorization bill, reiterating the threat the health care bill currently poses to military
health plans.  This is an explicit admission that the final Democrat health care bill does
not protect these plans.

Military Protections Scrapped:  The Senate-passed health care bill, which the House is
expected to “deem” passed on March 21, 2010, omitted protections for military
health plans that were included in the House bill.  Specifically, the Senate language
does not appear to give the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (VA) health care
system specific protection from interference by other government agencies
administering the various authorities contained in the massive bill, as it pertains to
“minimum essential coverage.”  The minimum essential coverage language in the
Senate bill does cover “the veterans health care program under chapter 17 of title
38, United States Code,” but it is unclear whether that covers veterans’ survivors
and dependents.

The final bill would leave it up to a bureaucrat at the Department of the Treasury to
determine whether TRICARE meets the minimum standards under the Democrats’
individual health insurance mandate.  If that bureaucrat decides against TRICARE,
service members and their families would have to buy some other health coverage or pay
a penalty.
In an effort to bolster support for the House health care takeover back in August 2009,
the White House advertised that bill’s exemption for 9.2 million military personnel,
families, and retirees covered under TRICARE and the military health plan.  In August,
the White House website stated that:

Health reform legislation that is being considered would enable those who are covered by
TRICARE to meet the shared responsibility requirement for individuals to have
insurance, thereby exempting such members of the uniformed services and dependants
from being assessed penalties.  If enacted, the President will ensure that this exemption is
implemented aggressively.

Of course, the final health care bill does not include this promised exemption for military
plans.

According to Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Buck McKeon (R-CA), “We
need to fix this problem immediately—before Congress passes and the President signs
the legislation.  By forgoing the traditional legislative process, Democrat leaders in
Congress—and the President who is pushing for immediate passage of the bill—
have reneged on assurances that the Senate legislation would be fixed in a
conference committee.  Our military personnel deserve to know they will continue to
receive the same level of care they so rightly deserve.”

Veterans groups would seem to agree.  Thomas Tradewell Sr., the national commander of
the Veterans of Foreign Wars stated that, “I remain worried because a free press and an
even freer Internet continue to fuel speculation that both systems could be lost and/or
absorbed into a larger national healthcare plan.”

Perverse Priorities:  The Democrats’ government takeover of health care is chock-

full of backroom deals for favored constituencies such as Louisiana, Connecticut,
Nebraska and insurance companies.  In their desperate headlong rush to pass a bill,
however, Democrats have neglected to protect the integrity and independence of the DoD
and VA health care systems and protect all of their health care beneficiaries.  U.S. service
members and veterans deserve better.

____________________________________________________________________
Obama's New Health Care Army - The IRS
New tax mandates and penalties included in Obamacare
will cause the greatest expansion of the Internal
Revenue Service since World War II, according to a
release from Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas.
A new analysis by the Joint Economic Committee and
the House Ways & Means Committee minority staff
estimates up to 16,500 new IRS personnel will be
needed to collect, examine and audit new tax
information mandated on families and small businesses
in the ‘reconciliation’ bill being taken up by the U.S.
House of Representatives this weekend. (more)
The new fascism, same as the old fascism.
Obamacare Grants IRS Perilous Power, GOP Says

The Internal Revenue Service would gain sweeping new

powers under President Obama's healthcare reform
proposals, in what Republicans on the House Ways and
Means Committee are calling a "dangerous expansion"
of IRS powers.

That's according to a nine-page Republican report from

the Committee on Ways and Means on Thursday. It's
titled "The Wrong Prescription" Democrats' Health
Overhaul Dangerously Expands IRS Authority."

Among the new powers the IRS would assume, the

report says: The authority to confiscate tax refunds, to
impose fines of over $2,200 per taxpayer, and to verify
whether taxpayers' health insurance coverage is
"acceptable."

One measure of the scope of the IRS' new

responsibilities under the healthcare overhaul: The
agency might have to hire as many as 16,500 additional
auditors, agents, and other employees in order to
administer the program, according to Rep. Dave Camp,
R-Mich., the ranking Republican on the Ways and
Means Committee.

"It is a very dangerous expansion of the IRS' power and

reach into the lives of virtually every American," Camp
said in a statement released Thursday afternoon.

The Ways and Means report portrays healthcare

reform as having a wide-ranging impact on how the IRS
operates, including:
IRS agents would be tasked with determining whether
Americans had obtained the insurance coverage
required under the individual mandate.
Individuals could be fined $2,250 or 2 percent of
income, whichever is greater, if you are unable to prove
you have "minimum essential coverage."
The IRS would be empowered to confiscate tax refunds
if necessary.
Audits probably would increase as a result of the
legislation's new requirements.
The budget for IRS operations will balloon by $10
billion in the next decade in order to administrate the
new program.
Nearly half of the new individual mandate taxes will be
paid "by Americans earning less than 300 percent of
poverty, $66150 for a family of four.
A statement that Democrats are sure to dispute, the
report, which Camp and fellow GOP Rep. Charles
Boustany of Louisiana prepared, sayshealthcare reform
would "fundamentally alter the relationship between
the IRS and taxpayers."

Essentially, the Republicans state, the reform bill makes

the IRS responsible for "tracking the monthly health
insurance status of roughly 300 million Americans."
____________________________________________________________________

H.R. 4872, THE HEALTH CARE & EDUCATION

AFFORDABILITY RECONCILIATION ACT of 2010
SECTION-BY-SECTION ANALYSIS
 

Title I – Coverage, Medicare, Medicaid and

Revenues
Subtitle A – Coverage
Sec. 1001.  Affordability.  Improves the
financing for premiums and cost sharing for
individuals with incomes up to 400% of the
federal poverty level.  Subsection (a)
improves tax credits to make premiums more
affordable as a percent of income; and
subsection (b) improves support for cost
sharing, focusing on those with incomes
below 250% of the federal poverty level. 
Starting in 2019, constrains the growth in tax
credits if premiums are growing faster than
the consumer price index, unless spending is
more than 10% below current CBO
projections.
Sec. 1002.  Individual responsibility. 
Modifies the assessment that individuals who
choose to remain uninsured pay in three
ways: (a) exempts the income below the filing
threshold, (b) lowers the flat payment from
$495 to $325 in 2015 and from $750 to $695 in
2016 and (c) raises the percent of income that
is an alternative payment amount from 0.5 to
1.0% in 2014, 1.0 to 2.0% in 2015, and 2.0 to
2.5% for 2016 and subsequent years to make
the assessment more progressive.
Sec. 1003.  Employer responsibility. 
Improves the transition to the employer
responsibility policy for employers with 50 or
more full-time equivalent workers (FTE) by
subtracting the first 30 full time employees
from the payment calculation (e.g., a firm
with 51 workers that does not offer coverage
will pay an amount equal to 51 minus 30, or
21 times the applicable per employee
payment amount). The provision also changes
the applicable payment amount for firms
with more than 50 FTEs that do not offer
coverage to $2,000 per full-time employee.  It
also eliminates the assessment for workers in
a waiting period, while maintaining the 90-
day limit on the length of any waiting period
beginning in 2014.
Sec. 1004.  Income definitions.  Modifies the
definition of income that is used for purposes
of subsidy eligibility and the individual
responsibility requirement.  The
modifications conform the income definition
to information that is currently reported on
the Form 1040 and to the present law income
tax return filing thresholds.  The provision
also extends the exclusion from gross income
for employer provided health coverage for
adult children up to age 26.
Sec. 1005.  Implementation funding.  Provides
$1 billion to the Secretary of Health and
Human Services to finance the administrative
costs of implementing health insurance
reform.
 
Subtitle B – Medicare
Sec. 1101.  Closing the Medicare prescription
drug “donut hole”.  Provides a $250 rebate
for all Medicare Part D enrollees who enter
the donut hole in 2010.  Builds on
pharmaceutical manufacturers' 50% discount
on brand-name drugs beginning in 2011 to
completely close the donut hole with 75%
discounts on brand-name and generic drugs
by 2020.
Sec. 1102.  Medicare Advantage payments. 
Freezes Medicare Advantage payments in
2011.  Beginning in 2012, the provision
reduces Medicare Advantage benchmarks
relative to current levels.  Benchmarks will
vary from 95% of Medicare spending in high-
cost areas to 115% of Medicare spending in
low-cost areas.  The changes will be phased-in
over 3, 5 or 7 years, depending on the level of
payment reductions.  The provision
creates an incentive system to
increase payments to high‐quality plans by
at least 5%.  It also extends CMS authority
to adjust risk scores in Medicare Advantage 
for observed differences in coding patterns
relative to  fee-for‐service.
Sec. 1103.  Savings from limits on MA plan
administrative costs.  Ensures Medicare
Advantage plans spend at least 85% of
revenue on medical costs or activities that
improve quality of care, rather than profit
and overhead.
Sec. 1104.  Disproportionate share hospital
(DSH) payments. Advances Medicare
disproportionate share hospital cuts to begin
in fiscal year 2014 but lowers the ten-year
reduction by $3 billion.
Sec. 1105.  Market basket updates.  Revises
the hospital market basket reduction that is
in addition to the productivity adjustment as
follows: -0.3 in FY14 and -0.75 in FY17, FY18
and FY19.   Removes Senate provision that
eliminates the additional market basket for
hospitals based on coverage levels.  Providers
affected are inpatient hospitals, long-term
care hospitals, inpatient rehabilitation
facilities, psychiatric hospitals and outpatient
hospitals.
Sec. 1106.  Physician ownership-referral. 
Changes to December 31, 2010 the date after
which physician ownership of hospitals to
which they self refer is prohibited and
provides a limited exception to the growth
restrictions for grandfathered physician
owned hospitals that treat the highest
percentage of Medicaid patients in their
county (and are not the sole hospital in a
county).
Sec. 1107.  Payment for Imaging Services.
Sets the assumed utilization rate at 75 percent
for the practice expense portion of advanced
diagnostic imaging services. 
Subtitle C – Medicaid
 Sec. 1201. Federal funding for States. Strikes
the provision for a permanent 100% federal
matching rate for Nebraska for the Medicaid
costs of expansion populations. Provides
federal Medicaid matching payments for the
costs of services to expansion populations at
the following rates in all states: 100% in 2014,
2015, and 2016; 95% in 2017; 94% in 2018;
93% in 2019; and 90% thereafter. In the case
of expansion states, reduces the state share of
the costs of covering nonpregnant childless
adults by 50% in 2014, 60% in 2015, 70% in
2016, 80% in 2017, 90% in 2018. In 2019 and
thereafter, expansion states would bear the
same state share of the costs of covering
nonpregnant childless adults as non-
expansion states (e.g., 7% in 2019, 10%
thereafter).
Sec. 1202. Payments to primary care
physicians.  Requires that Medicaid payment
rates to primary care physicians for
furnishing primary care services be no less
than 100% of Medicare payment rates in
2013 and 2014 (the first year of the Senate
bill’s   Medicaid coverage expansion to all
individuals with incomes under 133% of
poverty).  Provides 100% federal funding for
the incremental costs to States of meeting this
requirement.
Sec. 1203.  Disproportionate share hospital
payments.  Lowers the reduction in federal
Medicaid DSH payments from $18.1 billion to
$14.1 billion and advances the reductions to
begin in fiscal year 2014.  Directs the
Secretary to develop a methodology for
reducing federal DSH allotments to all states
in order to achieve the mandated reductions. 
Extends through FY 2013 the federal DSH
allotment for a state that has a $0 allotment
after FY 2011.
Sec. 1204.  Funding for the territories. 
Increases federal funding in the Senate bill
for Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Guam,
American Samoa, and the Northern
Marianas Islands by $2 billion.  Raises the
caps on federal Medicaid funding for each of
the territories.  Allows each territory to elect
to operate a Health Benefits Exchange.
Sec. 1205. Delay in Community First Choice
Option. Postpones from October 1, 2010 until
October 1, 2011 the effective date of the
option established for State Medicaid
programs to cover attendant care services
and supports for individuals who require an
institutional level of care
Sec. 1206.  Drug rebates for new formulations
of existing drugs.  For purposes of applying
the additional rebate, narrows the definition
of a new formulation of a drug to a line
extension of a single source or innovator
multiple source drug that is an oral solid
dosage form of the drug.
Subtitle D – Reducing  Fraud, Waste, and
Abuse
Sec. 1301.  Community Mental Health
Centers.  Establishes new requirements for
community mental health centers that
provide Medicare partial hospitalization
services in order to prevent fraud and abuse.
Sec. 1302. Medicare prepayment medical
review limitations. Streamlines procedures to
conduct Medicare prepayment reviews to
facilitate additional reviews designed to
reduce fraud and abuse.
Sec. 1303. CMS-IRS data match to identify
fraudulent providers.  Allows the Secretary of
Treasury to share IRS data with HHS
employees to help screen and identify
fraudulent providers or providers with tax
debts, and to help recover such debts. 
Provides strict controls on the use of such
information to protect taxpayer privacy.
Sec. 1304.  Funding to fight fraud, waste and
abuse.  Increases funding for the Health Care
Fraud and Abuse Control Fund by $250
million over the next decade.  Indexes funds
to fight Medicaid fraud based on the increase
in the Consumer Price Index.
Sec. 1305.  90-day period of enhanced
oversight for initial claims of DME suppliers.
Requires a 90-day period to withhold
payment and conduct enhanced oversight in
cases where the HHS Secretary identifies a
significant risk of fraud among DME
suppliers.
Subtitle E – Revenues
Sec. 1401.  High-cost plan excise tax.  Reduces
the revenue collected by the tax by 80
percent.   This is achieved by:  delaying the
application of the tax until 2018, which gives
the plans time to implement and realize the
cost savings of reform; increasing the dollar
thresholds to $10,200 for single coverage and
$27,500 for family coverage ($11,850 and
$30,950 for retirees and employees in high
risk professions);  excluding stand-alone
dental and vision plans from the tax; and
permitting an employer to reduce the cost of
the coverage when applying the tax if the
employer’s age and gender demographics are
not representative of the age and gender
demographics of a national risk pool.  Under
the modified provision, the dollar thresholds
are indexed to inflation and the dollar
thresholds are automatically increased in
2018 if CBO is wrong in its forecast of the
premium inflation rate between now and
2018.
Sec. 1402.  Medicare tax.  Modifies the tax to
include net investment income in the taxable
base.  Currently, the Medicare tax does not
apply to net investment income.    The
Medicare tax on net investment income does
not apply if modified adjusted gross income is
less than $250,000 in the case of a joint
return, or $200,000 in the case of a single
return.  Net investment income is interest,
dividends, royalties, rents, gross income from
a trade or business involving passive
activities, and net gain from disposition of
property (other than property held in a trade
or business).  Net investment income is
reduced by properly allocable deductions to
such income. 
Sec. 1403.  Delay of the annual limitation on
contributions to a health FSA.  Delays the
provision by two years until 2013.
Sec. 1404.  Brand name pharmaceuticals. 
Delays the industry fee on sales of brand
name pharmaceuticals for use in government
health programs by one year to 2011, and
increases revenue raised by the fee by $4.8
billion.
Sec. 1405.  Excise tax on medical device
manufacturers.  Delays the tax by two years
to 2013 and converts the industry fee to an
excise tax on the first sale for use of medical
devices at a rate of 2.9 percent.  Exempts
from the tax Class I medical devices,
eyeglasses, contact lenses, hearing aids, and
any device of a type that is generally
purchased by the public at retail for
individual use.
Sec. 1406.  Health insurance providers.
Delays the industry fee by 3 years to 2014 and
modifies the annual industry fee for revenue
neutrality.  In the case of tax-exempt
insurance providers, provides that only 50
percent of their net premiums that relate to
their tax-exempt status are taken into account
in calculating the fee.  Provides exemptions
for voluntary employee benefit associations
(VEBAs) and nonprofit providers more than
80 percent of whose revenues is received from
Social Security Act programs that target low
income, elderly, or disabled populations.
Sec. 1407.  Delay of elimination of deduction
for expenses allocable to Medicare part D
subsidy.  Delays the provision by two years to
2013. 
Sec. 1408.  Elimination of unintended
application of cellulosic biofuel producer
credit. Adds an additional revenue provision. 
In 2008, Congress enacted a $1.01 per gallon
tax credit for the production of biofuel from
cellulosic feedstocks in order to encourage the
development of new production capacity for
biofuels that are not derived from food source
materials.  Congress is aware that some
taxpayers are seeking to claim the cellulosic
biofuel tax credit for unprocessed fuels, such
as black liquor.  The provision would limit
eligibility for the tax credit to processed fuels
(i.e., fuels that could be used in a car engine
or in a home heating application). 
Sec. 1409.  Codification of economic
substance doctrine and penalties.  Adds an
additional revenue provision.  The economic
substance doctrine is a judicial doctrine that
has been used by the courts to deny tax
benefits when the transaction generating
these tax benefits lacks economic substance. 
The courts have not applied the economic
substance doctrine uniformly. The provision
would clarify the manner in which the
economic substance doctrine should be
applied by the courts and would impose a
penalty on understatements attributable to a
transaction lacking economic substance. 
Sec. 1410.  Time for payment of corporate
estimated taxes.  Provides for a one-time
adjustment to corporate estimated taxes for
payments made during calendar year 2014. 
Sec. 1411.  No impact on Social Security trust
funds.  Provides that Title II of the Social
Security Act (the old age, survivor, and
disability benefits program (OASDI)) is not
amended or modified by the bill.
Subtitle F – Other Provisions
Sec. 1501.  TAA for communities.
Appropriates $500 Million a year for fiscal
years 2010 through 2014 in the Community
College and Career Training Grant program
for community colleges to develop and
improve educational or career training
programs. Ensures that each state receives at
least 0.5 percent of the total funds
appropriated.
 
Title II – Health, Education, Labor, and
Pensions
Subtitle A – Education
Section 2001. Short Title; References.
Provides that this subtitle may be cited as the
“SAFRA Act,” and that, except as otherwise
provided, whenever an amendment to, or
repeal of, a section or other provision, the
reference shall be considered to be made to a
section or other provision of the Higher
Education Act of 1965.
Part I—Investing in Students and Families
Section 2101. Federal Pell Grants.  Amends
the Higher Education Act to include
mandatory funding for the Pell Grant.  This
provides additional mandatory funding to
augment funds appropriated to increase the
federal maximum Pell Grant award by the
change in the Consumer Price Index.  The
mandatory component of the funding is
determined by inflating the previous year’s
total and subtracting the maximum award
provided for in the appropriations act for the
previous year or $4860, whichever is greater. 
Beginning in the 2018-2019 academic year,
the maximum Pell award will be at the 2017-
2018 level.
Section 2102. Student Financial Assistance. 
This section provides $13.5 billion in
mandatory appropriations to the Federal Pell
Grant program.
Section 2103. College Access Challenge Grant
Program.  This section amends section 786 of
the Higher Education Act by authorizing and
appropriating $150 million for fiscal years
2010 through 2014 for the College Access
Challenge Grant program created under the
College Cost Reduction and Access Act of
2007.  Provides that the allotment for each
State under this section for a fiscal year shall
not be an amount that is less than 1.0 percent
of the total amount appropriated for a fiscal
year.
Section 2104.  Investment in Historically
Black Colleges and Universities and Minority
Serving Institutions.  This section amends
section 371(b) of the Higher Education Act by
extending funding for programs under this
section created under the College Cost
Reduction and Access Act of 2007 for
programs at Historically Black Colleges and
Universities and minority-serving institutions
through 2019, including programs that help
low-income students attain degrees in the
fields of science, technology, engineering or
mathematics by the following annual
amounts: $100 million to Hispanic Serving
Institutions, $85 million to Historically Black
Colleges and Universities, $15 million to
Predominantly Black Institutions, $30 million
to Tribal Colleges and Universities, $15
million to Alaska, Hawaiian Native
Institutions, $5 million to Asian American
and Pacific Islander Institutions, and $5
million to Native American non-tribal serving
institutions.
Part II—Student Loan Reform
Section 2201.  Termination of Federal Family
Education Loan Appropriations.  This section
terminates the authority to make or insure
any additional loans in the Federal Family
Education Loan program after June 30, 2010.
Section 2202. Termination of Federal loan
Insurance Program.  This section is a
conforming amendment with regard to the
termination of the FFEL program, limiting
Federal insurance to those loans in the
Federal Family Education Loan program for
loans first disbursed prior to July 1, 2010.
Section 2203. Termination of Applicable
Interest Rates.  This section makes a
conforming amendment with regard to the
termination of the FFEL program limiting
interest rate applicability to Stafford,
Consolidation, and PLUS loans to those loans
made before July 1, 2010.
Section 2204. Termination of Federal
payments to Reduce Student Interest Costs. 
This section makes a conforming amendment
with regard to the termination of the FFEL
program by limiting subsidy payments to
lenders for those loans for which the first
disbursement is made before July 1, 2010.
Section 2205. Termination of FFEL PLUS
Loans.  This section makes a conforming
change with regard to the termination of the
FFEL program for federal PLUS loans by
prohibiting further FFEL origination of loans
after July 1, 2010.
Section 2206. Federal Consolidation Loans. 
This section makes conforming changes with
regard to the termination of the FFEL
program for federal consolidation loans.  This
section also provides that, for a 1 year period,
borrowers who have loans under both the
Direct Lending program and the FFEL
program, or who have loans under either
program as well as loans that have been sold
to the Secretary, may consolidate such loans
under the Direct Lending program regardless
of whether such borrowers have entered
repayment on such loans.
Section 2207. Termination of Unsubsidized
Stafford loans for Middle-Income
Borrowers.  This section makes conforming
changes with regard to the termination of the
FFEL program for Unsubsidized Stafford
loans by prohibiting further FFEL
origination of loans after July 1, 2010.      
Section 2208. Termination of Special
Allowances.  This section makes conforming
changes with regard to the termination of the
FFEL program by limiting special allowance
payments to lenders under the FFEL
program to loans first disbursed before July
1, 2010.
Section 2209. Origination of Direct Loans at
Institutions Outside the United States.  This
section provides for the origination of federal
Direct Loans at institutions located outside of
the United States, through a financial
institution designated by the Secretary. 
Section 2210.  Conforming amendments. 
This section makes conforming technical
changes with regard to the termination of the
FFEL program for Department of Education
agreements with Direct Lending institutions.
Section 2211. Terms and Conditions of
Loans.  This section makes conforming
technical changes with regard to the
termination of the FFEL program to clarify
the terms and conditions of Direct Loans.
Section 2212. Contracts.  This section directs
the Secretary to award contracts for servicing
federal Direct Loans to eligible non-profit
servicers.  In addition, this section provides
that for the first 100,000 borrower loan
accounts, the Secretary shall establish a
separate pricing tier.  Specifies that the
Secretary is to allocate the loan accounts of
100,000 borrowers to each eligible non-profit
servicer.  The section also permits the
Secretary to reallocate, increase, reduce or
terminate an eligible non-profit servicer’s
allocation based on the performance of such
servicer.  In addition, this section
appropriates mandatory funds to the
Secretary to be obligated for administrative
costs of servicing contracts with eligible non-
profit servicers.  This section also requires the
Secretary to provide technical assistance to
institutions of higher education participating
or seeking to participate in the Direct
Lending program.  This section appropriates
$50 million for fiscal year 2010 to pay for this
technical assistance. Additionally, this section
authorizes the Secretary to provide payments
to loan servicers for retaining jobs at location
in the United States where such servicers
were operating on January 1, 2010.  This
section appropriates $25,000,000 for each of
fiscal years 2010 and 2011 for such purpose.
Section 2213.  Agreements with State-Owned
Banks.   This section amends Part D of Title
IV to direct the Secretary to enter into an
agreement with an eligible lender for the
purpose of providing Federal loan insurance
on student loans made by state-owned banks.
Section 2214.  Income-Based Repayment. 
The section amends the Income-Based
Repayment program to cap student loan
payments for new borrowers after July 1,
2014 to 10% of adjusted income, from 15%
percent, and to forgive remaining balances
after 20 years of repayment, from 25 years.
Subtitle B – Health
Sec. 2301.  Insurance Reforms.  Extends the
prohibition of lifetime limits, prohibition on
rescissions, and a requirement to provide
coverage for non-dependent children up to
age 26 to all existing health insurance plans
starting six months after enactment. Starting
in 2014, extends the prohibition on excessive
waiting periods to existing health plans. For
group health plans, prohibits pre-existing
condition exclusions in 2014 (for children,
they are prohibited starting six months after
enactment), restricts annual limits beginning
six months after enactment, and prohibits
them starting in 2014. For coverage of non-
dependent children prior to 2014, the
requirement on group health plans is limited
to those adult children without an employer
offer of coverage.
Sec. 2302.  Drugs Purchased by Covered
Entities.  Repeals the underlying 340B
expansion to inpatient drugs and exemptions
to GPO exclusion.  Exempts orphan drugs
from required discounts for new 340B
entities. 
Sec. 2303.  Community Health Centers. 
Increases mandatory funding for community
health centers to $11 billion over five years
(FY 2011 – FY 2015).

Prepared by Committees on Ways & Means, Energy & Commerce, and Education &
Labor, March 18, 2010

___________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________

Pinocchio Pelosi
Published October 5, 2009
Its time for the Speaker of the House to resign, as
she neither speaks for nor represents the People’s
House.
After months of calling Americans racists, Nazis,
astroturfers, and radical right wing extremists,
and accusing Tea Party patriots of inciting
violence, how can Nancy Pelosi even dare to call
herself the  ‘Speaker of the House’?  Of whose
house?  This must be The Audacity of Botox,
puffed up beyond all belief.
Her promises, like her inflated self, are empty, full
of hot, stale, air–look at what she promised in
2006.  “the most open and most ethical Congress
in history. “  Heh.
This woman from the smallest district in the
nation, representing a tiny slice of America, is as
far away from America as she can be.  In fact, she
is another one of the ’stealth’  ‘democratic
socialists’ in the Congress, with known ties to and
reverence of communist organizers in the United
States.
This post is intended to lend weight to the effort to
first, remove Nancy Pelosi as the speaker of the
house, and second, to ensure her election defeat in
2010.  Thankfully, the Patriotic Resistance has
developed a resource page for ‘politicians to watch
in 2010′ and one of them delves into Nancy Pelosi.
In my view, the work on Pelosi relates entirely to
the Constitution and the protection of our
Republic: we now have avowed communists in the
White House, the Senate and House, and in the
shadow czar government that Obama has
assembled and that Congress is enabling.
Spotlight on the Speaker
(a) Extraordinary & Unnecessary  Bias and
Partisanship
One of the key architects of Obama’s ‘victory’ in
2008 was Nancy Pelosi.  She, like many other so-
called “democrats” as super delegates, chastised
people to vote for ‘the people’s choice’ and then
changed her mind and chastised people the other
way when Clinton won the popular vote.
As Chair of the Democratic National Convention,
she manipulated the vote on the convention floor
in favor of Obama.  Most crucially, Nancy Pelosi
signed the documents allowing Obama to be on
the state ballots as the Democratic Presidential
nominee, the subject of the must read post by jbjd,
The End Game.  On January 8th, 2009, she
presided over the joint session of Congress to
certify the electoral vote despite the petitions of
hundreds, if not thousands, of citizens to certify
Obama’s eligibility before concluding the vote.
Nancy Pelosi has exercised no leadership during
tenure.  She has misrepresented legislation,
imposed silly partisan rules that allow her to
prevent legislation from even being presented on
the floor or in committee by any opponent, and
openly calls her constituents racists, bigots, and
frauds.
This is conduct unbecoming of a “Speaker of the
House”… acting like a Chicago thug transplanted
to San Francisco.
(b)  “You Lie!”
When Joe Wilson rightly called out ‘you lie!’ to
Obama, Nancy Pelosi looked in disbelief, and of
course, ‘made him’ apologize…for telling the truth
of course.  She is a petty tyrant as a Speaker, for
sure.  But when a fellow democrat  Alan Grayson
accused the republican health care plan of
‘wanting seniors to die quickly’–precisely the
democrats plan–she refused to have him apologize.
She refused to have him apologize for telling a lie,
but demanded that Wilson apologize for telling
the truth.  Hmmm.
And I don’t believe for a minute it had anything to
do with a Presidential address (Wilson) vs.  a
statement on the House floor (Grayson).  “No
Protocol Pelosi” has not a leg to stand on.
(c)  The Speaker of the House is Calling us Idiots,
and Worse
So Pelosi represents a tiny district in California,
composed of a small, tiny, segment of the
population, and she calls the rest of America
thugs?

(As of march 23, 2010, Pelosi’ approval rating is 11%.)

___________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________
IMPEACHMENT of OBAMA & PELOSI
IS IN ORDER

Impeach Obama & Pelosi

By Jeffrey T Kuhner
Washington Times
March 19, 2010

The Democrats are assaulting the very pillars of our

democracy. As the debate on Obamacare reaches the long,
painful end, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is confronting a
political nightmare. She may not have the 216 votes necessary
to pass the Senate's health care bill in the House.

Hence, Mrs. Pelosi and her congressional Democratic allies are

seriously considering using a procedural ruse to circumvent
the traditional constitutional process. Led by Rep. Louise M.
Slaughter, New York Democrat and chairman of the House
Rules Committee, the new plan - called the "Slaughter
Solution" - is not to pass the Senate version on an up-or-down
vote. Rather, it is to have the House "deem" that the legislation
was passed and then have members vote directly on a series of
"sidecar" amendments to fix the things it does not like.

This would enable House Democrats to avoid going on the

record voting for provisions in the Senate bill - the
"Cornhusker Kickback," the "Louisiana Purchase," the tax on
high-cost so-called "Cadillac" insurance plans - that are
reviled by the public or labor-union bosses. If the
reconciliation fixes pass, the House can send the Senate bill to
President Obama for his signature without ever having had a
formal up-or-down vote on the underlying legislation.

Many Democrats could claim they opposed the Senate bill

while allowing it to pass. This would be an unprecedented
violation of our democratic norms and procedures, established
since the inception of the republic. Article 1, Section 7 of the
Constitution stipulates that for any bill to become a law, it
must pass both the House of Representatives and the Senate.
That is, not be "deemed" to have passed, but actually be voted
on with the support of the required majority. The bill must
contain the exact same language in both chambers - and in the
version signed by the president - to be a legitimate law. This is
why the House and Senate have a conference committee to iron
out differences of competing versions. This is Civics 101.
The Slaughter Solution is a dagger aimed at the heart of our
system of checks and balances. It would enable the Democrats
to establish an ominous precedent: The lawmaking process can
be rigged to ensure the passage of any legislation without
democratic accountability or even a congressional majority. It
is the road to a soft tyranny. James Madison must be turning
in his grave.

Mr. Obama is imposing a leftist revolution. Since coming to

office, he has behaved without any constitutional restraints.
The power of the federal government has exploded. He has de
facto nationalized key sectors of American life - the big banks,
financial institutions, the automakers, large tracts of energy-
rich land from Montana to New Mexico. His cap-and-trade
proposal, along with a newly empowered Environmental
Protection Agency, seeks to impose massive new taxes and
regulations upon industry. It is a form of green socialism:
Much of the economy would fall under a command-and-
control bureaucratic corporatist state. Mr. Obama even wants
the government to take over student loans.

Yet his primary goal has always been to gobble up the health
care system. The most troubling aspect of the Obamacare
debate, however, is not the measure's sweeping and radical
aims - the transformation of one-sixth of the U.S. economy,
crippling tax increases, higher premiums, state-sanctioned
rationing, longer waiting lines, the erosion of the quality of
medical care and the creation of a huge, permanent
administrative bureaucracy. Rather, the most alarming aspect
is the lengths to which the Democrats are willing to go to
achieve their progressive, anti-capitalist agenda.

Obamacare is opposed by nearly two-thirds of the public, more

than 60 percent of independents and almost all Republicans
and conservatives. It has badly fractured the country,
dangerously polarizing it along ideological and racial lines.
Even a majority of Democrats in the House are deeply
reluctant to support it.

Numerous states - from Idaho to Virginia to Texas - have said

they will sue the federal government should Obamacare
become law. They will declare themselves exempt from its
provisions, tying up the legislation in the courts for years to
come.

Mr. Obama is willing to devour his presidency, his party's

congressional majority and - most disturbing - our democratic
institutional safeguards to enact it. He is a reckless ideologue
who is willing to sacrifice the country's stability in pursuit of a
socialist utopia.

The Slaughter Solution is a poisoned chalice. By drinking from

it, the Democrats would not only commit political suicide. They
would guarantee that any bill signed by Mr. Obama is
illegitimate, illegal and blatantly unconstitutional. It would be
worse than a strategic blunder; it would be a crime - a moral
crime against the American people and a direct abrogation of
the Constitution and our very democracy.

It would open Mr. Obama, as well as key congressional leaders

such as Mrs. Pelosi, to impeachment. The Slaughter Solution
would replace the rule of law with arbitrary one-party rule. It
violates the entire basis of our constitutional government -
meeting the threshold of "high crimes and misdemeanors." If
it's enacted, Republicans should campaign for the November
elections not only on repealing Obamacare, but on removing
Mr. Obama and his gang of leftist thugs from office.

It is time Americans drew a line in the sand. Mr. Obama

crosses it at his peril.
Jeffrey T. Kuhner is a columnist at The Washington Times and president of the Edmund
Burke Institute, a Washington think tank. He is the daily host of "The Kuhner Show" on
WTNT 570-AM (www.talk570.com) from noon until 3 p.m.

____________________________________________________________________

Barack Obama: Super Hero Falls to

Earth
Posted by admin on March 4, 2010 · Comments (30) 

Barack Obama was feted by many as a messiah. His

supporters compared him to Jesus.
He even equated himself to Superman, saying at a
dinner that he had been “born on Krypton and sent
here … to save the planet Earth.” The remark was
presented as a joke, but the effect of Obama’s ego is no
laughing matter.
Now, just over a year into his term, his legislative
agenda lies in ruins. Despite poll after poll showing that
Americans’ main priority is jobs, the president has
focused on taking over the U.S. healthcare system.
Observing the wreckage, noted political pundit Charlie
Cook candidly told Politico, “I think choosing to take a
Captain Ahab-like approach to healthcare — I’m going
to push for this even in the worst downturn since the
Great Depression — is roughly comparable to Bush’s
decision to go to war [in Iraq], It basically destroyed the
first year of a presidency.”
What a fall, from “Super Hero” to obsessed Captain
Ahab chasing his great white whale.
To save his whale, Obama and his legislative allies
Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are resorting to bare
knuckled politics. The aptly named “nuclear option,” a
classic piece of legislative trickery involving the
reconciliation fast-track, which he denounced while
campaigning, has become his final option.
Rather than a white whale, we should call ObamaCare
his white elephant. Even if it passes, most
knowledgeable legal scholars believe it will be ruled
unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
Matt Patterson, in an analysis prepared for the National
Center for Public Policy Research, says the bill is
unconstitutional for multiple reasons: “Both the House
and Senate versions of ObamaCare contain penalty
taxes on Americans who do not have government-
approved health insurance, the so-called ‘individual
mandate.’ Such a tax would function as a direct, or
capitation, tax, as opposed to a tax on activity, such as
excise or income taxes, and would therefore fall outside
Congress’ authority to tax income granted by the 16th
Amendment to the Constitution.”
The Constitution places strict restrictions on Congress’
power to lay capitation taxes under Article I, Sec. 9,
which reads “No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall
be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or
Enumeration herein before directed to be taken.”
Exemptions for some people built into the Senate bill’s
individual mandate tax would make it impossible for
ObamaCare to meet this constitutional standard.
Patterson summarizes this way, “Some of the finest
legal minds in the country have concluded that the
enforcement provisions of ObamaCare’s individual
mandate would violate the both spirit and the letter of
the U.S. Constitution. Apparently, President Obama
and members of Congress think they are smarter than
these scholars — and smarter than the authors of the
Constitution.”
The penalties for following Obama on his search for
Moby Dick will be brutal for Democrats in Congress.
With over 60 percent of Americans opposed to
Obamacare the fall campaign could turn into a
referendum on this unwise scheme. Senior citizens are
understandably upset by the massive $400 Billion-plus
cuts in Medicare mandated in the plan. Democrats are
predicted to lose dozens of congressional seats, and they
could even lose their Senate or House majorities.
Even if the Democrats don’t lose their majorities, and
the new Congress doesn’t have the votes to repeal
ObamaCare, the Supreme Court is likely to do the job.
And they should; the bill isn’t just unconstitutional, full
of new taxes, too big and unmanageable — it is un-
American.
http://www.impeachobamacampaign.com/?tag=nancy-pelosi

____________________________________________________________________
Questions about Impeaching Obama
Posted by admin on January 5, 2010 · Comments (197) 

We receive hundreds of questions a day here at

impeachobamacampaign.com. Between me and the dedicated
and talented Inga O’Connor, we try to answer them all.
Because these questions are often times similar, I would like
use today’s blog posting to answer some of these questions.

Cindy S writes:

“I would like to make a video to post on YouTube in order to

let people know what to do to get Obama impeached if they so
desire.  My question is:  Will you give me permission to use
some of your written material in my video?  I believe this
would be very successful in getting this accomplished.”

Dear Cindy,

You are always welcome to use any material you find on any of
the websites I publish. I publish for the purpose of informing
people, and by forwarding, quoting and otherwise spreading
the message, you are helping the cause. The other websites that
I publish are Westernjournalism.com, exposeobama.com,
exposeharry.com, richguysclub.com, soundmoneyinstitute.com,
thewhitehousewatch.com and floydbrown.com. I also post lots
of photos at my flckr.com photo stream that you can use.

I would only request that you attribute the material to the

original source. Some of the material I publish is owned by
others and I always attribute the material to the original
source and would appreciate you doing likewise.

Cajun writes:

So how many signatures are needed to impeach this sucker? 

There doesn’t seem to be any type of register showing the
number of signatures already in place. What about impeaching
Pelosi & Reid and whoever else isn’t for Americans?

Dear Cajun,

Presidents are not impeached by signatures. The purpose of

gathering the signatures is to demonstrate public support so we
can make the case to Members of Congress to introduce
Articles of Impeachment. I am currently working hard to find
a Congressman or woman who will have the courage to file the
articles that have been drafted by our legal team. None have
agreed to do it yet.
Also, a successful campaign for impeachment will take at least
a year because the makeup of Congress must change if we are
going to have the necessary votes to impeach. Right now, we
are building toward impeachment in 2011 after we elect a pro-
impeachment majority in Congress.

As for the number of signatures collected, currently we have

collected 150,000 validated signatures. We collect signatures
both online and directly through the mail. 105,000 petitions
have been collected online and 45,000 have been directly
signed.

As for Pelosi and Reid, if we change Congress, they will be of

greatly diminished importance. A bigger problem is Joseph
Biden. He will become President if he is not impeached along
with Barack Hussein Obama. But if we have commanding
majorities in both houses of Congress, we can impeach them
both and appoint a caretaker President like Gerald Ford was,
until the next general elections.

Ruth M writes

“I have to say that “Warm Regards”, is certainly a strange

concluding salutation for some of the frightening information
you have recently emailed to us. I thank you immensely for all
your work, but we are getting very scared. Something needs to
be done. Very Soon. If you want it done by us, let us know
what to do. Some will start going off the deep end very soon, I
fear.”

Dear Ruth,

My salutation is not a reflection of my feeling about the

material I present; it is a reflection of how I feel about the
Patriots who have stood with us, calling for impeachment. I
believe the people that I communicate with are the most
informed, dedicated and American loving people on earth. I
deeply respect and appreciate everyone who takes the time to
sign our petition, pass a petition on to others, or even listens to
our arguments in favor of impeachment.

We are making progress. I am very pleased that we are ahead

of all the goals we set for the collection of petitions. I am
traveling to Washington DC this month to meet with Members
of Congress to request their support in person. We also have
the impeachment truck preparing to tour the country.

With almost every passing day we have new reasons to remove

this inexperienced, bumbling, leftist radical from the
presidency. Barack Hussein Obama has become a collective
embarrassment and the best way to handle this problem is
using the tool given to us by the Founding Fathers. That tool is
impeachment.

Let me leave you with a quote from America’s first president,

George Washington:

The Power under the Constitution will always be in the People.

It is entrusted for certain defined purposes, and for a certain
limited period , to representatives of their own chusing; and
whenever it is executed contrary to their Interest, or not
agreeable to their wishes, their Servants can, and undoubtedly
will be recalled. (To Bushrod Washington, November 10, 1787)

_____________________________________________________________________
————————————————————————————————————

Obamacare and the end of freedom

Posted by admin on November 8, 2009 · Comments (2) 

On Saturday Barack Obama held a pep rally with

members of the Democratic caucus. They heeded
his commands and late that night, under the cover
of darkness, the US House of Representatives
struck a blow against freedom.
They voted to pass Obamacare, an
unconstitutional, 1900 page monstrosity of a bill
that will kill jobs and disrupt private healthcare
for citizens who currently have health insurance.
But I think most insidiously it forces everyone to
buy a healthcare plan designed by these same
politicians. A bill they had the arrogance and
hypocrisy to exempt themselves from
participating in.
Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and everyone else
who voted for this bill should be ashamed. Instead
they are triumphant.
James Simpson writing in the American Thinker
captured the cost we will all pay for their
arrogance when he wrote Saturday:
“The Congressional Budget Office has estimated
the 10 year (2010-2019) cost of the House
Democrats’ bill at $1.055 trillion. As usual, there
is so much budget gimmickry in these estimates as
to make them virtually meaningless.
The Democrats are dishonest on so many levels
about this healthcare "reform" it is almost
impossible to untangle all their lies. Let’s start by
clarifying some basic truths.
First, who pays for healthcare right now? That’s
right, the taxpayers who foot the bill not only for
their own healthcare, but for illegal immigrants,
the poor and seniors as well. (Some seniors
continue to pay a premium for Medicare but it
still doesn’t cover all the costs).
Who is feeling the pain of the rapid annual growth
in healthcare costs that the Democrats claim so
desperately to want to fix? Right, these same
taxpayers.
Some will argue that employers pick up most of
the tab. That is true when employers offer
healthcare policies to their employees, but it is an
illusion. Businesses must make a profit to remain
alive, so every cost they pick up is passed on to the
consumer in higher prices. So, in reality, we pay.”
It is disheartening to see so many have been
hoodwinked by the propaganda machine
supporting government controlled healthcare.
Supporters of this scheme are jubilant. Obama
himself writing to his loyal army of activists said:
“So this is a night to celebrate — but not to rest.
Those who voted for reform deserve our thanks,
and the next phase of this fight has already
begun.”
And Obama was right about a fight, within
minutes of the vote his political machine called
"Organizing for America" was sending millions of
deceptive emails lambasting Republicans as tools
of greedy insurance firms. According to ABC
News the emails were sent only into Republican
Members districts and read like this:
"Unfortunately, your representative," which then
names the Member of Congress, "caved to intense
pressure from insurance industry lobbyists and
voted against health reform."
The emails are deceptive ABC reports because, “A
Democratic official says the email is not being sent
to constituents of the 39 Democratic Members of
Congress who voted against the measure Saturday
night.” Obama’s political hacks only attack
Republicans. No surprise there.
One group that is truly joyful is the
homosexual/transgender lobby. They get
everything from Obama and friends that they
wanted in the Obamacare bill. They now have
special early access to Medicaid for HIV positive
people. You only get the early Medicaid benefit if
you have HIV not if you have cancer, heart
disease, diabetes or a raft of other diseases that
attack the less sexually promiscuous.
The only good news from the weekend was the
announcement that the House bill is DOA in the
US Senate. NEWSMAX reported:
“The glow from a health care triumph faded
quickly for President Barack Obama on Sunday
as Democrats realized the bill they fought so hard
to pass in the House has nowhere to go in the
Senate.
Speaking from the Rose Garden about 14 hours
after the late Saturday vote, Obama urged
senators to be like runners on a relay team and
"take the baton and bring this effort to the finish
line on behalf of the American people."
The problem is that the Senate won’t run with it.
The government health insurance plan included in
the House bill is unacceptable to a few Democratic
moderates who hold the balance of power in the
Senate.
If a government plan is part of the deal, "as a
matter of conscience, I will not allow this bill to
come to a final vote," said Sen. Joe Lieberman,
the Connecticut independent whose vote
Democrats need to overcome GOP filibusters.
"The House bill is dead on arrival in the Senate,"
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said dismissively.
Democrats did not line up to challenge him.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has
yet to schedule floor debate and hinted last week
that senators may not be able to finish health care
this year.”
As you can see, we have our work cut out for us as
we continue to battle the Obama socialist agenda
as we gear up for the 2010 elections and the
campaign for impeachment.

____________________________________________________________________
Obama and Pelosi Deaf to Voters
Posted by admin on November 5, 2009 · Comments (1) 

I am still feeling good about Tuesday. We have heard so much bad news out of
Washington DC this year, it is important to savor the good news. It is clearer today that
Obama and Pelosi are not listening. The only leader that even feigns concern is the
corrupt leader of the Democrats in the US Senate, Harry Reid. Reid who is up for re-
election this fall in Nevada went so far as to say he wouldn’t be “bound by timelines”
concerning Obamacare. That’s a far cry from what president Obama said just last week.
Specifically, that he was “absolutely confident” it would pass by the end of the year.

If there was any doubt that Obamacare is in trouble, the results of Tuesday’s election
should have provided the knockout blow. Below is my nationally syndicated column
about Tuesday’s results.
The Conservative Resurgence Begins

The American people have spoken, and a wave of change has begun. After last Tuesday’s
election, Speaker of the House, Democrat Nancy Pelosi tried to claim victory. The
leftwing media tried portraying the Republicans as a party at war. But the American
people, specifically moderates and Independents, swung towards the Republicans in
significant numbers. The electoral tides have shifted and if the Republican Party doesn’t
waste this opportunity, they will ride the wave of economic discontent to major victories
in 2010.

Specifically, the Republicans swept the two governorships up for election in 2010.
Although the GOP lost a competitive House seat in NY, the loss was a result of a corrupt
nominating process, not conservative ideas. As C. Edmund Wright puts it “The
Democrats did not lose a 2-1 squeaker last night. They lost two huge races, saw an
overall evaporation of 25 basis points of support — and lost by nearly 500,000
cumulative votes in the three high-profile elections.”

The best news of the day came from Virginia. Conservative candidate Bob McDonnell,
an outspoken fiscal and social conservative, trounced Democrat Creigh Deeds by nearly
20%. The Republicans also defeated at least six incumbent democrats in the House of
Delegates and won the important Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General’s races by
comfortable margins. All three of the statewide candidates in Virginia, Bob McDonnell,
Bill Bolling for Lt. Governor, and Ken Cuccinelli for Attorney General, were outspoken
conservatives. The leftwing media tried downplaying Obama’s involvement in the
Virginia rout, but Obama had personally campaigned for Deeds, and over the weekend
Obama signed a personal letter urging 300,000 of his supporters to support the Democrat.
Evidently his calls fell on deaf ears as Independents broke two to one in favor of the
Republican candidate.

The news out of New Jersey was equally dismal for Democrats. Goldman Sachs
millionaire John Corzine who had purchased his previous elections and outspent his
opponent Chris Christie, by a three to one ratio, was rejected by the usually reliably
Democratic electorate of New Jersey. This was a major setback for Obama as he had
campaigned for Corzine multiple times including just a day before voters went to the
polls. Just as in Virginia, voters in New Jersey threw out the incumbent and voted for a
believer in limited government.

Of the three closely watched elections, the only loss for conservatives came in upstate
New York. Doug Hoffman, a hero of the conservative tea party movement was defeated
49% to 45%. This race was a boondoggle for Republicans, as the party bosses nominated
a liberal who ended up dropping out of the race and endorsing the Democrat. If Hoffman
had been able to run as a Republican he probably would have won the election. If the
party bosses had nominated a real Republican – rather than a Democrat in disguise – the
Republican candidate would have been in a good position to winl.
The message from these results to the Republican Party and conservatives is that they
need to stick together. The only way they lose in 2010 is if they sabotage themselves.
Conservative candidates should compete in the primary system, and avoid launching third
party bids for office. Senator John Cornyn states that the NRSC won’t interfere in
competitive primaries, which is exactly what the party needs. If conservatives and
moderates are both able to have a fair opportunity in the primary, and the loser agrees to
support the winner, Republicans will emerge united and victorious.

The message to Democrats is crystal clear. Voters are sick and tired of what is happening
in Washington. The White House announced that Barack Obama didn’t bother watching
the election returns. Maybe this is because Rahm Emanuel and the sycophants that
surround Obama don’t have the courage to tell him his leftist agenda is unpopular.
Government run Health care is unpopular. Huge new energy taxes are unpopular. His
dithering in Afghanistan is unpopular. His bailouts and America’s rampant joblessness is
unpopular.

Barack Obama should be watching the election returns. If he was listening he would learn
from Tuesday and take America down a less radical path. *

____________________________________________________________________
Obama vs. Bush: The Red Ink Showdown
Posted by admin on February 1, 2010 · Comments (55) 

“By the time I took office, we had a one-year deficit of over $1 trillion and projected
deficits of $8 trillion over the next decade,” Obama said in his State of the Union speech.

“The Bush administration’s swing from surpluses to deficits added more debt in its eight
years than all the previous administrations in the history of our republic combined,”
David Axelrod, a senior strategist for Obama, wrote in The Washington Post.

The theme is clear. According to the Obama Administration deficits as far as the eye can
see are the fault of one man: George W. Bush. They relentlessly push this message from
the Obama White House. Let’s do a little fact checking.

First it is important to understand that an Administration only suggests a budget. Under

our form of government, Congress is actually in charge of appropriating money. Hence,
you have a mad scramble every two years, when committee assignments are passed out
with Members of Congress elbowing each other to get a seat on the aptly named
“Committee on Appropriations”.
So when Obama uses speeches to whine about the “fiscal disaster” he inherited from
Bush, he should actually be complaining about the Democratic Congress run by Nancy
Pelosi and Harry Reid that appropriated and adopted the budget during the later years of
the Bush term.

As the party that controlled Congress since January 2007, it is the Democrats that have
held all the cards in the budget debate. They essentially wrote the budgets for FY 2008,
FY 2009, as well as FY 2010 and FY 2011. Oh, and if we need to remind him, Barack
Obama served in these Democratic majorities, so he cannot feign ignorance of the
process.

George W. Bush’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB)

during those years were constantly in conflict with the
appropriators over spending too much money.

In FY 2009, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid actually bypassed

Bush entirely, passing only continuing resolutions to keep
government running until Barack Obama could take office.
Then once Obama was safely in office they passed a massive
omnibus spending bill to complete the FY 2009 budgets.

So what did the deficits look like during the time period
Congress was controlled by the Democrats? In the FY 2007
budget, the last of the budgets written by Republicans the
deficit was the lowest in the last five years, and it was the
fourth straight decline in deficit spending.

Once Democrats in Congress took control, the budgets and

deficits exploded.

The budget just unveiled by Obama’s team is so large and so

out of control, he should be embarrassed to compare it to any
of the Bush budgets.

In a nutshell, the deficit will surge to a record-breaking $1.56

trillion. This tops the last shocking $1.41 trillion in red ink.
And as Karl Rove pointed out in the Wall Street Journal, when
measured against economic output, Obama looks even worse.
“Mr. Bush’s deficits ran an average of 3.2 percent of GDP,
slightly above the post-World War Two average of 2.7 percent.
Mr. Obama’s plan calls for deficits that will average 4.2
percent over the next decade,” Rove wrote.

The deficit will remain above $1 trillion, even in 2011 when

Obama’s so-called “budget freeze” begins. This is because in
an Obama freeze spending in a multitude of programs actually
goes up.

So the next time you hear the Whiner-in-Chief complain about

his predecessor, remember the Congress that appropriated the
funds were the Congresses in which he served in the majority.

So who inherited what?

____________________________________________________________

Thomas Jefferson: “A government big enough to

give you everything you want, is big enough to
take away everything you have.”
And here we sit today, with just such a government. A few votes
on cap-and-trade and health care and we are there, with a distant
uncaring government in Washington running roughshod over every
individual in middle America. When I was a young boy, my
parents took me and escaped a communist country under threat of
arrest and who knows what else to come to the land of opportunity.
They had the opportunity for freedom and self-determination. I had
the opportunity for freedom and self-determination. Will my
children? Will their children?

I saw this interesting post over at The Minority report by David

Heinz: Have We Become The People Our Founding Fathers
Warned Us About?

Our founding fathers were distrustful, and rightly so, of a strong

centralized government, far from the control of the citizens,
running roughshod over the rights of the individual.

“Taxation without Representation” was more than just

revolutionary rhetoric, but a founding principle on which local
control of government was based. The original Boston Tea Party
was more than a protest against taxes; it was a statement of
independence and liberty against tyranny.

They had experience with, and had just fought a war to gain
independence from a tyrannical government that ruled with an iron
fist, imposing the will of a distant monarch on an unwilling
citizenry. Our founding fathers understood much about tyranny –
they had a long world history of tyranny from which to observe
and to learn.

But what those patriarchs most feared was the “soft bigotry of low
expectations” that would become the federal government today.
Thomas Jefferson warned about a government with too much
power. “A government big enough to give you everything you
want, is big enough to take away everything you have.”

Benjamin Franklin contrasted the difference between individual

freedom and the security of government thus; “Those who would
give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety,
deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

They warned about the emergence of the concept of a nanny state

that would do for all its citizens what they rightly should be willing
to do for themselves. Again, a cautionary statement from Thomas
Jefferson, “The democracy will cease to exist when you
take away from those who are willing to work and
give to those who would not.”
A cradle to grave dependency upon government to fulfill the
simple wants and needs best left to the individual to either achieve
or to fail was the greatest fear of those great men who had literally
risked everything to obtain freedom for the people of this nation.

"And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on

the Protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each
other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor."

Little could our founding fathers fathom the idea that “sacred
Honor” would become an outdated concept, sneered upon by
leaders in Washington, DC itself, who would find it necessary to
apologize for American Exceptionalism to a world desperately in
need of that very quality.

Benjamin Franklin might have summed it up best when he said,

"None but a virtuous people are capable of liberty, all others are in
need of a master; revolutions cannot take place without danger
when the people have not sufficient virtue."

The question today must become – do WE THE PEOPLE OF THE

UNITED STATES still retain sufficient virtue to retain our
freedoms – to deserve the blessings of liberty that our founding
fathers shed their blood to obtain for all of their progeny?

Many, yes. A majority maybe. Probably. But there is an entire

segment of our population that is either already addicted to
government dependency, or are well on their way to being so.
Many in the government wait in hiding with a simple proposition:
"hey pal. First hit's free." There's also this lesson from EFF posted
by Steven Foley also at The Minority Report:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVUmRVFZN48

_______________________

Have We Become The People Our

Founding Fathers Warned Us About?
By David Hinz - Posted on July 4th, 2009
Tagged: Op-Ed

Our founding fathers were distrustful, and rightly so, of a

strong centralized government, far from the control of the
citizens, running roughshod over the rights of the individual.

“Taxation without Representation” was more than just

revolutionary rhetoric, but a founding principle on which local
control of government was based. The original Boston Tea
Party was more than a protest against taxes; it was a statement
of independence and liberty against tyranny.
They had experience with, and had just fought a war to gain
independence from a tyrannical government that ruled with an
iron fist, imposing the will of a distant monarch on an
unwilling citizenry. Our founding fathers understood much
about tyranny – they had a long world history of tyranny from
which to observe and to learn.

But what those patriarchs most feared was the “soft bigotry of
low expectations” that would become the federal government
today. Thomas Jefferson warned about a government with too
much power. “A government big enough to give you everything
you want, is big enough to take away everything you have.”

Benjamin Franklin contrasted the difference between

individual freedom and the security of government thus;
“Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little
Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

They warned about the emergence of the concept of a nanny

state that would do for all its citizens what they rightly should
be willing to do for themselves. Again, a cautionary statement
from Thomas Jefferson, “The democracy will cease to exist
when you take away from those who are willing to work and
give to those who would not.”

A cradle to grave dependency upon government to fulfill the

simple wants and needs best left to the individual to either
achieve or to fail was the greatest fear of those great men who
had literally risked everything to obtain freedom for the people
of this nation.

"And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance

on the Protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to
each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor."

Little could our founding fathers fathom the idea that “sacred
Honor” would become an outdated concept, sneered upon by
leaders in Washington, DC itself, who would find it necessary
to apologize for American Exceptionalism to a world
desperately in need of that very quality.

Benjamin Franklin might have summed it up best when he

said, "None but a virtuous people are capable of liberty, all
others are in need of a master; revolutions cannot take place
without danger when the people have not sufficient virtue."

The question today must become – do WE THE PEOPLE OF

THE UNITED STATES still retain sufficient virtue to retain
our freedoms – to deserve the blessings of liberty that our
founding fathers shed their blood to obtain for all of their
progeny?

____________________________________________________________________
When Policy Favors Equality Above All Else.
Inequality-
Left-wingers are obsessed with economic inequality. Far
too many of them believe that America is a brutal land
where the rich only get rich at the expense of the poor, as if
wealth is a zero sum game. Far too many imagine an
America that is unfair and mean. Far too many fail to
recognize the fact that America remains the land of
opportunity, with unparalleled upward mobility. Far too
many resent or ignore the fact that Americans can take
great risks and achieve fantastic dream-like success. Far too
many believe that socialist confiscation and redistribution
of wealth will solve America's inequality "problem."
They even sometimes offer unsolicited and random
comments like this on blogs:
Huh--may be the the fact that a lot of working-class
Americans are not seeing the benefits of the economy's
strength. We're pretty much leading the world in terms of
income inequality, if you didn't know, because of our
currently regressive tax policies.
Sigh.
No.
To the extent that Americans actually believe that
nonsense, it's due to an unconscionable and unethical media
failure. In recent years, Americans have consistently rated
their own current and future economic situations as rosy, all
while telling pollsters how bad they believe the overall
economy to be doing.
There's no way, with the widely enjoyed economic success
America has experienced over the past few years, that these
numbers should be so low. No way, other than a media
dominated by liberals, disseminating consistently liberal
viewpoints, to an unwitting audience
No matter how awesome things are going, there will be
Marxists who want to go and ruin it with-- among other
things-- "a heavy progressive or graduated income tax."
For example, The Economic Policy Institute, an ultra-
liberal think tank owned by big labor, produced the
following graph, tweaked slightly by yours truly (.pdf):
So... that's the inequality we're supposed to work toward
eliminating. Tim Worstall notes:
All those punitive tax rates, all that redistribution, that
blessed egalitarianism, the flatter distribution of income,
leads to a change in the living standards of the poor of
precisely ... nothing.
Apparently it has not yet dawned on the socialists that
American inequality coincides with, contributes to, and is a
result of American greatness. We've always been a society
predicated on inequality. As Don King might say, "only in
America" can almost anyone with a good idea or some
talent, simply willing to take calculated risks, get rich
beyond their wildest dreams. This goes for entertainers,
athletes, and entrepreneurs, alike.
But America is about more than chasing fabulous riches.
The regular old middle class American dream is eminently
attainable.
Indeed, Rich Lowry explains that, in an economy with
4.5% unemployment, simply working (rather than not
working) is the key to avoiding poverty:
The key difference between the richest and poorest
households, Reynolds finds, is simply work: “Most income
in the top fifth of households is from two or more people
working full time. Most income in the bottom fifth is from
government transfer payments.” According to the Census
Bureau, there are almost six times as many full-time
workers in the top households as in the bottom, and 56.4
percent of the bottom households didn’t have anyone
working at all in 2004.
The "working poor" theorem just doesn't hold up. And with
7 million net new jobs since the 2003 tax cuts, the non-
working poor theorem also doesn't hold up.
More from Lowry:
“The vanishing middle class” is another claim Reynolds
doesn’t buy. If the middle class is perpetually defined as
those earning between $35,000 and $50,000, it will
constantly be vanishing as people get richer. In this vein,
one liberal study complained that 31.3 percent of families
earned more than $75,000 in 2002, whereas only 11.1
percent earned that much in 1969. “By this measure,” it
concluded, “America’s broad middle class has been
shrinking.” No, members of the middle class were getting
richer.
Our middle class is doing so well that, statistically-
speaking, many liberals find it difficult to continue using
the "middle class" nomenclature. To the extent that the
American middle class is disappearing, it's that it is on the
move-- upward.
America has lower unemployment and a faster growing
economy (on top of an already-larger economy) than any
other industrialized country in the world.
And after a few years of lagging wage growth, the case for
raising the minimum wage has taken a major blow, with a
brisk rise in American wages over the past year:

Indeed, the picture looks far better if you account for after-
tax income. The tax relief every American has seen under
this administration has led to after-tax, after-inflation
income growth of 9.4% per person.
When left-wingers complain about inequality, they are
really just complaining about success. When they want the
United States to be more like Europe (with its wonderful
equality), they really just hate precisely what makes
America great. Their policy remedies for inequality amount
to the worst sort of punitive socialism, and we should reject
them outright.

http://www.willisms.com/archives/2006/12/trivia_tidbit_o_382.html

____________________________________________________________________

Speech Accepting the Republican Presidential Nomination

delivered 16 July 1964, San Francisco

Presidential Nomination Acceptance Address

[AUTHENTICITY CERTIFIED: Text version below transcribed directly from audio]
My good friend and great Republican, Dick
Nixon, and your charming wife, Pat; my
running mate, that wonderful Republican who
has served us so well for so long, Bill Miller and
his wife, Stephanie; to Thurston Morton who's
done such a commendable job in chairmaning
this Convention; to Mr. Herbert Hoover, who I
hope is watching; and to that -- that great
American and his wife, General and Mrs.
Eisenhower; to my own wife, my family, and to
all of my fellow Republicans here assembled,
and Americans across this great Nation.
From this moment, united and determined, we
will go forward together, dedicated to the
ultimate and undeniable greatness of the
whole man. Together -- Together we will win.
I accept your nomination with a deep sense of
humility. I accept, too, the responsibility that
goes with it, and I seek your continued help
and your continued guidance. My fellow
Republicans, our cause is too great for any
man to feel worthy of it. Our task would be too
great for any man, did he not have with him
the hearts and the hands of this great
Republican Party, and I promise you tonight
that every fiber of my being is consecrated to
our cause; that nothing shall be lacking from
the struggle that can be brought to it by
enthusiasm, by devotion, and plain hard work.
In this world no person, no Party can
guarantee anything, but what we can do and
what we shall do is to deserve victory, and
victory will be ours.
The good Lord raised this mighty Republic to
be a home for the brave and to flourish as the
land of the free -- not to stagnate in the
swampland of collectivism, not to cringe before
the bullying of communism.
Now, my fellow Americans, the tide has been
running against freedom. Our people have
followed false prophets. We must, and we
shall, return to proven ways -- not because
they are old, but because they are true. We
must, and we shall, set the tides running again
in the cause of freedom. And this party, with
its every action, every word, every breath, and
every heartbeat, has but a single resolve, and
that is freedom -- freedom made orderly for
this Nation by our constitutional government;
freedom under a government limited by the
laws of nature and of nature's God; freedom
balanced so that order lacking liberty [sic] will
not become the slavery of the prison shell
[cell]; balanced so that liberty lacking order
will not become the license of the mob and of
the jungle.
Now, we Americans understand freedom. We
have earned it; we have lived for it, and we
have died for it. This Nation and its people are
freedom's model in a searching world. We can
be freedom's missionaries in a doubting world.
But, ladies and gentlemen, first we must renew
freedom's mission in our own hearts and in our
own homes.
During four futile years, the administration
which we shall replace has -- has distorted and
lost that vision. It has talked and talked and
talked and talked the words of freedom, but it
has failed and failed and failed in the works of
freedom.
Now, failures cement the wall of shame in
Berlin. Failures blot the sands of shame at the
Bay of Pigs. Failures mark the slow death of
freedom in Laos. Failures infest the jungles of
Vietnam. And failures haunt the houses of our
once great alliances and undermine the
greatest bulwark ever erected by free nations
-- the NATO community. Failures proclaim lost
leadership, obscure purpose, weakening will,
and the risk of inciting our sworn enemies to
new aggressions and to new excesses.
And because of this administration we are
tonight a world divided; we are a Nation
becalmed. We have lost the brisk pace of
diversity and the genius of individual creativity.
We are plodding along at a pace set by
centralized planning, red tape, rules without
responsibility, and regimentation without
recourse.
Rather than useful jobs in our country, our
people have been offered bureaucratic "make
work"; rather than moral leadership, they have
been given bread and circuses. They have
been given spectacles, and, yes, they've even
been given scandals.
Tonight, there is violence in our streets,
corruption in our highest offices, aimlessness
amongst our youth, anxiety among our elders,
and there's a virtual despair among the many
who look beyond material success for the inner
meaning of their lives. And where examples of
morality should be set, the opposite is seen.
Small men, seeking great wealth or power,
have too often and too long turned even the
highest levels of public service into mere
personal opportunity.
Now, certainly, simple honesty is not too much
to demand of men in government. We find it in
most. Republicans demand it from everyone.
They demand it from everyone no matter how
exalted or protected his position might be. Now
the -- the growing menace in our country
tonight, to personal safety, to life, to limb and
property, in homes, in churches, on the
playgrounds, and places of business,
particularly in our great cities, is the mounting
concern, or should be, of every thoughtful
citizen in the United States.
Security from domestic violence, no less than
from foreign aggression, is the most
elementary and fundamental purpose of any
government, and a government that cannot
fulfill this purpose is one that cannot long
command the loyalty of its citizens.
History shows us -- it demonstrates that
nothing, nothing prepares the way for tyranny
more than the failure of public officials to keep
the streets safe from bullies and marauders.
Now, we Republicans see all this as more,
much more, than the result of mere political
differences or mere political mistakes. We see
this as the result of a fundamentally and
absolutely wrong view of man, his nature, and
his destiny. Those who seek to live your lives
for you, to take your liberties in return for
relieving you of yours, those who elevate the
state and downgrade the citizen must see
ultimately a world in which earthly power can
be substituted for Divine Will, and this Nation
was founded upon the rejection of that notion
and upon the acceptance of God as the author
of freedom.
Now those who seek absolute power, even
though they seek it to do what they regard as
good, are simply demanding the right to
enforce their own version of heaven on earth.
They -- and let me remind you, they are the
very ones who always create the most hellish
tyrannies. Absolute power does corrupt, and
those who seek it must be suspect and must
be opposed. Their mistaken course stems from
false notions, ladies and gentlemen, of
equality. Equality, rightly understood, as our
founding fathers understood it, leads to liberty
and to the emancipation of creative
differences. Wrongly understood, as it has
been so tragically in our time, it leads first to
conformity and then to despotism.
Fellow Republicans, it is the cause of
Republicanism to resist concentrations of
power, private or public, which -- which
enforce such conformity and inflict such
despotism. It is the cause of Republicanism to
ensure that power remains in the hands of the
people. And, so help us God, that is exactly
what a Republican President will do with the
help of a Republican Congress.
It is further the cause of Republicanism to
restore a clear understanding of the tyranny of
man over man in the world at large. It is our
cause to dispel the foggy thinking which avoids
hard decisions in the delusion that a world of
conflict will somehow mysteriously resolve
itself into a world of harmony, if we just don't
rock the boat or irritate the forces of
aggression -- and this is hogwash.
It is further the cause of Republicanism to
remind ourselves, and the world, that only the
strong can remain free, that only the strong
can keep the peace.
Now, I needn't remind you, or my fellow
Americans regardless of party, that
Republicans have shouldered this hard
responsibility and marched in this cause
before. It was Republican leadership under
Dwight Eisenhower that kept the peace, and
passed along to this administration the
mightiest arsenal for defense the world has
ever known. And I needn't remind you that it
was the strength and the [un]believable will of
the Eisenhower years that kept the peace by
using our strength, by using it in the Formosa
Straits and in Lebanon and by showing it
courageously at all times.
It was during those Republican years that the
thrust of Communist imperialism was blunted.
It was during those years of Republican
leadership that this world moved closer, not to
war, but closer to peace, than at any other
time in the last three decades.
And I needn't remind you -- but I will -- that
it's been during Democratic years that our
strength to deter war has stood still, and even
gone into a planned decline. It has been during
Democratic years that we have weakly
stumbled into conflict, timidly refusing to draw
our own lines against aggression, deceitfully
refusing to tell even our people of our full
participation, and tragically, letting our finest
men die on battlefields, unmarked by purpose,
unmarked by pride or the prospect of victory.
Yesterday, it was Korea. Tonight, it is Vietnam.
Make no bones of this. Don't try to sweep this
under the rug. We are at war in Vietnam. And
yet the President, who is the Commander-in-
Chief of our forces, refuses to say -- refuses to
say, mind you, whether or not the objective
over there is victory. And his Secretary of
Defense continues to mislead and misinform
the American people, and enough of it has
gone by.
And I needn't remind you -- but I will -- it has
been during Democratic years that a billion
persons were cast into Communist captivity
and their fate cynically sealed.
Today -- Today in our beloved country we have
an administration which seems eager to deal
with communism in every coin known -- from
gold to wheat, from consulates to confidences,
and even human freedom itself.
Now the Republican cause demands that we
brand communism as the principal disturber of
peace in the world today. Indeed, we should
brand it as the only significant disturber of the
peace, and we must make clear that until its
goals of conquest are absolutely renounced
and its relations with all nations tempered,
communism and the governments it now
controls are enemies of every man on earth
who is or wants to be free.
Now, we here in America can keep the peace
only if we remain vigilant and only if we remain
strong. Only if we keep our eyes open and
keep our guard up can we prevent war. And I
want to make this abundantly clear: I don't
intend to let peace or freedom be torn from
our grasp because of lack of strength or lack of
will -- and that I promise you, Americans.
I believe that we must look beyond the
defense of freedom today to its extension
tomorrow. I believe that the communism which
boasts it will bury us will, instead, give way to
the forces of freedom. And I can see in the
distant and yet recognizable future the outlines
of a world worthy of our dedication, our every
risk, our every effort, our every sacrifice along
the way. Yes, a world that will redeem the
suffering of those who will be liberated from
tyranny. I can see -- and I suggest that all
thoughtful men must contemplate -- the
flowering of an Atlantic civilization, the whole
of Europe reunified and freed, trading openly
across its borders, communicating openly
across the world.
Now, this is a goal far, far more meaningful
than a moon shot.
It's a -- It's a truly inspiring goal for all free
men to set for themselves during the latter half
of the twentieth century.
I can also see -- and all free men must thrill to
-- the events of this Atlantic civilization joined
by its great ocean highway to the United
States. What a destiny! What a destiny can be
ours to stand as a great central pillar linking
Europe, the Americas, and the venerable and
vital peoples and cultures of the Pacific. I can
see a day when all the Americas, North and
South, will be linked in a mighty system, a
system in which the errors and
misunderstandings of the past will be
submerged one by one in a rising tide of
prosperity and interdependence. We know that
the misunderstandings of centuries are not to
be wiped away in a day or wiped away in an
hour. But we pledge,  we pledge that human
sympathy -- what our neighbors to the South
call an attitude of "simpatico" -- no less than
enlightened self'-interest will be our guide.
And I can see this Atlantic civilization
galvanizing and guiding emergent nations
everywhere.
Now I know this freedom is not the fruit of
every soil. I know that our own freedom was
achieved through centuries, by unremitting
efforts of brave and wise men. And I know that
the road to freedom is a long and a challenging
road. And I know also that some men may
walk away from it, that some men resist
challenge, accepting the false security of
governmental paternalism.
And I -- And I pledge that the America I
envision in the years ahead will extend its
hand in health, in teaching and in cultivation,
so that all new nations will be at least
encouraged -- encouraged! -- to go our way,
so that they will not wander down the dark
alleys of tyranny or the dead-end streets of
collectivism.
My fellow Republicans, we do no man a service
by hiding freedom's light under a bushel of
mistaken humility.
I seek an America proud of its past, proud of
its ways, proud of its dreams, and determined
actively to proclaim them. But our example to
the world must, like charity, begin at home.
In our vision of a good and decent future, free
and peaceful, there must be room, room for
deliberation of the energy and the talent of the
individual; otherwise our vision is blind at the
outset.
We must assure a society here which, while
never abandoning the needy or forsaking the
helpless, nurtures incentives and opportunities
for the creative and the productive. We must
know the whole good is the product of many
single contributions.
And I cherish a day when our children once
again will restore as heroes the sort of men
and women who, unafraid and undaunted,
pursue the truth, strive to cure disease,
subdue and make fruitful our natural
environment and produce the inventive
engines of production, science, and
technology.
This Nation, whose creative people have
enhanced this entire span of history, should
again thrive upon the greatness of all those
things which we, we as individual citizens, can
and should do. And during Republican years,
this again will be a nation of men and women,
of families proud of their role, jealous of their
responsibilities, unlimited in their aspirations --
a Nation where all who can will be self-reliant.
We Republicans see in our constitutional form
of government the great framework which
assures the orderly but dynamic fulfillment of
the whole man, and we see the whole man as
the great reason for instituting orderly
government in the first place.
We see -- We see in private property and in
economy based upon and fostering private
property, the one way to make government a
durable ally of the whole man, rather than his
determined enemy. We see in the sanctity of
private property the only durable foundation
for constitutional government in a free society.
And -- And beyond that, we see, in cherished
diversity of ways, diversity of thoughts, of
motives and accomplishments. We don't seek
to lead anyone's life for him. We only seek --
only seek to secure his rights, guarantee him
opportunity -- guarantee him opportunity to
strive, with government performing only those
needed and constitutionally sanctioned tasks
which cannot otherwise be performed.
We Republicans seek a government that
attends to its inherent responsibilities of
maintaining a stable monetary and fiscal
climate, encouraging a free and a competitive
economy and enforcing law and order. Thus,
do we seek inventiveness, diversity, and
creative difference within a stable order, for we
Republicans define government's role where
needed at many, many levels -- preferably,
though, the one closest to the people involved.
Our towns and our cities, then our counties,
then our states, then our regional compacts --
and only then, the national government. That,
let me remind you, is the ladder of liberty, built
by decentralized power. On it also we must
have balance between the branches of
government at every level.
Balance, diversity, creative difference: These
are the elements of the Republican equation.
Republicans agree -- Republicans agree
heartily to disagree on many, many of their
applications, but we have never disagreed on
the basic fundamental issues of why you and I
are Republicans.
This is a Party. This Republican Party is a Party
for free men, not for blind followers, and not
for conformists.
In fact, in 1858 Abraham Lincoln said this of
the Republican party -- and I quote him,
because he probably could have said it during
the last week or so: "It was composed of
strange, discordant, and even hostile
elements" -- end of the quote -- in 1858. Yet --
Yet all of these elements agreed on one
paramount objective: To arrest the progress of
slavery, and place it in the course of ultimate
extinction.
Today, as then, but more urgently and more
broadly than then, the task of preserving and
enlarging freedom at home and of
safeguarding it from the forces of tyranny
abroad is great enough to challenge all our
resources and to require all our strength.
Anyone who joins us in all sincerity, we
welcome. Those who do not care for our cause,
we don't expect to enter our ranks in any case.
And -- And let our Republicanism, so focused
and so dedicated, not be made fuzzy and futile
by unthinking and stupid labels.

I would remind you that extremism in

the defense of liberty is no vice.
And let me remind you also that
moderation in the pursuit of justice is
no virtue.
Why the beauty of the very system we
Republicans are pledged to restore and
revitalize, the beauty of this Federal system of
ours is in its reconciliation of diversity with
unity. We must not see malice in honest
differences of opinion, and no matter how
great, so long as they are not inconsistent with
the pledges we have given to each other in and
through our Constitution.
Our Republican cause is not to level out the
world or make its people conform in computer
regimented sameness. Our Republican cause is
to free our people and light the way for liberty
throughout the world.
Ours is a very human cause for very humane
goals.
This Party, its good people, and its
unquenchable devotion to freedom, will not
fulfill the purposes of this campaign, which we
launch here and now, until our cause has won
the day, inspired the world, and shown the
way to a tomorrow worthy of all our
yesteryears.
I repeat, I accept your nomination with
humbleness, with pride, and you and I are
going to fight for the goodness of our land.
Thank you.

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/barrygoldw
ater1964rnc.htm

___________________________________________
 Ronald Reagan

A Time for Choosing (aka "The Speech")

Air date 27 October 1964, Los Angeles, CA

Audio mp3 of Address

 click for pdf 
 
[AUTHENTICITY CERTIFIED: Text version below transcribed directly from audio (2)]

Program Announcer: Ladies and gentlemen, we take

pride in presenting a thoughtful address by Ronald
Reagan. Mr. Reagan:
Reagan: Thank you. Thank you very much.
Thank you and good evening. The sponsor has
been identified, but unlike most television
programs, the performer hasn't been provided
with a script. As a matter of fact, I have been
permitted to choose my own words and discuss
my own ideas regarding the choice that we
face in the next few weeks.
I have spent most of my life as a Democrat. I
recently have seen fit to follow another course.
I believe that the issues confronting us cross
party lines. Now, one side in this campaign has
been telling us that the issues of this election
are the maintenance of peace and prosperity.
The line has been used, "We've never had it so
good."
But I have an uncomfortable feeling that this
prosperity isn't something on which we can
base our hopes for the future. No nation in
history has ever survived a tax burden that
reached a third of its national income. Today,
37 cents out of every dollar earned in this
country is the tax collector's share, and yet our
government continues to spend 17 million
dollars a day more than the government takes
in. We haven't balanced our budget 28 out of
the last 34 years. We've raised our debt limit
three times in the last twelve months, and now
our national debt is one and a half times bigger
than all the combined debts of all the nations
of the world. We have 15 billion dollars in gold
in our treasury; we don't own an ounce.
Foreign dollar claims are 27.3 billion dollars.
And we've just had announced that the dollar
of 1939 will now purchase 45 cents in its total
value.
As for the peace that we would preserve, I
wonder who among us would like to approach
the wife or mother whose husband or son has
died in South Vietnam and ask them if they
think this is a peace that should be maintained
indefinitely. Do they mean peace, or do they
mean we just want to be left in peace? There
can be no real peace while one American is
dying some place in the world for the rest of
us. We're at war with the most dangerous
enemy that has ever faced mankind in his long
climb from the swamp to the stars, and it's
been said if we lose that war, and in so doing
lose this way of freedom of ours, history will
record with the greatest astonishment that
those who had the most to lose did the least to
prevent its happening. Well I think it's time we
ask ourselves if we still know the freedoms
that were intended for us by the Founding
Fathers.
Not too long ago, two friends of mine were
talking to a Cuban refugee, a businessman
who had escaped from Castro, and in the midst
of his story one of my friends turned to the
other and said, "We don't know how lucky we
are." And the Cuban stopped and said, "How
lucky you are? I had someplace to escape to."
And in that sentence he told us the entire
story. If we lose freedom here, there's 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 the sovereign people, is still the
newest and the 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 capitol can plan our lives for us
better than we can plan them ourselves.
You and I are told increasingly we have to
choose between a left or right. Well I'd like to
suggest there is no such thing as a left or
right. There's only an up or down: [up] man's
old -- old-aged dream, the ultimate in
individual freedom consistent with law and
order, or down to the ant heap of
totalitarianism. And regardless of their
sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those
who would trade our freedom for security have
embarked on this downward course.
In this vote-harvesting time, they use terms
like the "Great Society," or as we were told a
few days ago by the President, we must accept
a greater government activity in the affairs of
the people. But they've been a little more
explicit in the past and among themselves; and
all of the things I now will quote have
appeared in print. These are not Republican
accusations. For example, they have voices
that say, "The cold war will end through our
acceptance of a not undemocratic socialism."
Another voice says, "The profit motive has
become outmoded. It must be replaced by the
incentives of the welfare state." Or, "Our
traditional system of individual freedom is
incapable of solving the complex problems of
the 20th century." Senator Fulbright has said
at Stanford University that the Constitution is
outmoded. He referred to the President as "our
moral teacher and our leader," and he says he
is "hobbled in his task by the restrictions of
power imposed on him by this antiquated
document." He must "be freed," so that he
"can do for us" what he knows "is best." And
Senator Clark of Pennsylvania, another
articulate spokesman, defines liberalism as
"meeting the material needs of the masses
through the full power of centralized
government."
Well, I, for one, resent it when a
representative of the people refers to you and
me, the free men and women of this country,
as "the masses." This is a term we haven't
applied to ourselves in America. But beyond
that, "the full power of centralized
government" -- this was the very thing the
Founding Fathers sought to minimize. They
knew that governments don't control things. A
government can't control the economy without
controlling people. And they know when a
government sets out to do that, it must use
force and coercion to achieve its purpose. They
also knew, those Founding Fathers, that
outside of its legitimate functions, government
does nothing as well or as economically as the
private sector of the economy.
Now, we have no better example of this than
government's involvement in the farm
economy over the last 30 years. Since 1955,
the cost of this program has nearly doubled.
One-fourth of farming in America is responsible
for 85% of the farm surplus. Three-fourths of
farming is out on the free market and has
known a 21% increase in the per capita
consumption of all its produce. You see, that
one-fourth of farming -- that's regulated and
controlled by the federal government. In the
last three years we've spent 43 dollars in the
feed grain program for every dollar bushel of
corn we don't grow.
Senator Humphrey last week charged that
Barry Goldwater, as President, would seek to
eliminate farmers. He should do his homework
a little better, because he'll find out that we've
had a decline of 5 million in the farm
population under these government programs.
He'll also find that the Democratic
administration has sought to get from
Congress [an] extension of the farm program
to include that three-fourths that is now free.
He'll find that they've also asked for the right
to imprison farmers who wouldn't keep books
as prescribed by the federal government. The
Secretary of Agriculture asked for the right to
seize farms through condemnation and resell
them to other individuals. And contained in
that same program was a provision that would
have allowed the federal government to
remove 2 million farmers from the soil.
At the same time, there's been an increase in
the Department of Agriculture employees.
There's now one for every 30 farms in the
United States, and still they can't tell us how
66 shiploads of grain headed for Austria
disappeared without a trace and Billie Sol Estes
never left shore.
Every responsible farmer and farm
organization has repeatedly asked the
government to free the farm economy, but
how -- who are farmers to know what's best
for them? The wheat farmers voted against a
wheat program. The government passed it
anyway. Now the price of bread goes up; the
price of wheat to the farmer goes down.
Meanwhile, back in the city, under urban
renewal the assault on freedom carries on.
Private property rights [are] so diluted that
public interest is almost anything a few
government planners decide it should be. In a
program that takes from the needy and gives
to the greedy, we see such spectacles as in
Cleveland, Ohio, a million-and-a-half-dollar
building completed only three years ago must
be destroyed to make way for what
government officials call a "more compatible
use of the land." The President tells us he's
now going to start building public housing units
in the thousands, where heretofore we've only
built them in the hundreds. But FHA [Federal
Housing Authority] and the Veterans
Administration tell us they have 120,000
housing units they've taken back through
mortgage foreclosure. For three decades,
we've sought to solve the problems of
unemployment through government planning,
and the more the plans fail, the more the
planners plan. The latest is the Area
Redevelopment Agency.
They've just declared Rice County, Kansas, a
depressed area. Rice County, Kansas, has two
hundred oil wells, and the 14,000 people there
have over 30 million dollars on deposit in
personal savings in their banks. And when the
government tells you you're depressed, lie
down and be depressed.
We have so many people who can't see a fat
man standing beside a thin one without coming
to the conclusion the fat man got that way by
taking advantage of the thin one. So they're
going to solve all the problems of human
misery through government and government
planning. Well, now, if government planning
and welfare had the answer -- and they've had
almost 30 years of it -- shouldn't we expect
government to read the score to us once in a
while? Shouldn't they be telling us about the
decline each year in the number of people
needing help? The reduction in the need for
public housing?
But the reverse is true. Each year the need
grows greater; the program grows greater. We
were told four years ago that 17 million people
went to bed hungry each night. Well that was
probably true. They were all on a diet. But now
we're told that 9.3 million families in this
country are poverty-stricken on the basis of
earning less than 3,000 dollars a year. Welfare
spending [is] 10 times greater than in the dark
depths of the Depression. We're spending 45
billion dollars on welfare. Now do a little
arithmetic, and you'll find that if we divided the
45 billion dollars up equally among those 9
million poor families, we'd be able to give each
family 4,600 dollars a year. And this added to
their present income should eliminate poverty.
Direct aid to the poor, however, is only running
only about 600 dollars per family. It would
seem that someplace there must be some
overhead.
Now -- so now we declare "war on poverty," or
"You, too, can be a Bobby Baker." Now do they
honestly expect us to believe that if we add 1
billion dollars to the 45 billion we're spending,
one more program to the 30-odd we have --
and remember, this new program doesn't
replace any, it just duplicates existing
programs -- do they believe that poverty is
suddenly going to disappear by magic? Well, in
all fairness I should explain there is one part of
the new program that isn't duplicated. This is
the youth feature. We're now going to solve
the dropout problem, juvenile delinquency, by
reinstituting something like the old CCC camps
[Civilian Conservation Corps], and we're going
to put our young people in these camps. But
again we do some arithmetic, and we find that
we're going to spend each year just on room
and board for each young person we help
4,700 dollars a year. We can send them to
Harvard for 2,700! Course, don't get me
wrong. I'm not suggesting Harvard is the
answer to juvenile delinquency.
But seriously, what are we doing to those we
seek to help? Not too long ago, a judge called
me here in Los Angeles. He told me of a young
woman who'd come before him for a divorce.
She had six children, was pregnant with her
seventh. Under his questioning, she revealed
her husband was a laborer earning 250 dollars
a month. She wanted a divorce to get an 80
dollar raise. She's eligible for 330 dollars a
month in the Aid to Dependent Children
Program. She got the idea from two women in
her neighborhood who'd already done that very
thing.
Yet anytime you and I question the schemes of
the do-gooders, we're denounced as being
against their humanitarian goals. They say
we're always "against" things -- we're never
"for" anything.
Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not
that they're ignorant; it's just that they know
so much that isn't so.
Now -- we're for a provision that destitution
should not follow unemployment by reason of
old age, and to that end we've accepted Social
Security as a step toward meeting the
problem.
But we're against those entrusted with this
program when they practice deception
regarding its fiscal shortcomings, when they
charge that any criticism of the program
means that we want to end payments to those
people who depend on them for a livelihood.
They've called it "insurance" to us in a hundred
million pieces of literature. But then they
appeared before the Supreme Court and they
testified it was a welfare program. They only
use the term "insurance" to sell it to the
people. And they said Social Security dues are
a tax for the general use of the government,
and the government has used that tax. There
is no fund, because Robert Byers, the actuarial
head, appeared before a congressional
committee and admitted that Social Security as
of this moment is 298 billion dollars in the
hole. But he said there should be no cause for
worry because as long as they have the power
to tax, they could always take away from the
people whatever they needed to bail them out
of trouble. And they're doing just that.
A young man, 21 years of age, working at an
average salary -- his Social Security
contribution would, in the open market, buy
him an insurance policy that would guarantee
220 dollars a month at age 65. The
government promises 127. He could live it up
until he's 31 and then take out a policy that
would pay more than Social Security. Now are
we so lacking in business sense that we can't
put this program on a sound basis, so that
people who do require those payments will find
they can get them when they're due -- that the
cupboard isn't bare?
Barry Goldwater thinks we can.
At the same time, can't we introduce voluntary
features that would permit a citizen who can
do better on his own to be excused upon
presentation of evidence that he had made
provision for the non-earning years? Should we
not allow a widow with children to work, and
not lose the benefits supposedly paid for by
her deceased husband? Shouldn't you and I be
allowed to declare who our beneficiaries will be
under this program, which we cannot do? I
think we're for telling our senior citizens that
no one in this country should be denied
medical care because of a lack of funds. But I
think we're against forcing all citizens,
regardless of need, into a compulsory
government program, especially when we have
such examples, as was announced last week,
when France admitted that their Medicare
program is now bankrupt. They've come to the
end of the road.
In addition, was Barry Goldwater so
irresponsible when he suggested that our
government give up its program of deliberate,
planned inflation, so that when you do get your
Social Security pension, a dollar will buy a
dollar's worth, and not 45 cents worth?
I think we're for an international organization,
where the nations of the world can seek peace.
But I think we're against subordinating
American interests to an organization that has
become so structurally unsound that today you
can muster a two-thirds vote on the floor of
the General Assembly among nations that
represent less than 10 percent of the world's
population. I think we're against the hypocrisy
of assailing our allies because here and there
they cling to a colony, while we engage in a
conspiracy of silence and never open our
mouths about the millions of people enslaved
in the Soviet colonies in the satellite nations.
I think we're for aiding our allies by sharing of
our material blessings with those nations which
share in our fundamental beliefs, but we're
against doling out money government to
government, creating bureaucracy, if not
socialism, all over the world. We set out to
help 19 countries. We're helping 107. We've
spent 146 billion dollars. With that money, we
bought a 2 million dollar yacht for Haile
Selassie. We bought dress suits for Greek
undertakers, extra wives for Kenya[n]
government officials. We bought a thousand TV
sets for a place where they have no electricity.
In the last six years, 52 nations have bought 7
billion dollars worth of our gold, and all 52 are
receiving foreign aid from this country.
No government ever voluntarily reduces itself
in size. So, governments' programs, once
launched, never disappear.
Actually, a government bureau is the nearest
thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth.
Federal employees -- federal employees
number two and a half million; and federal,
state, and local, one out of six of the nation's
work force employed by government. These
proliferating bureaus with their thousands of
regulations have cost us many of our
constitutional safeguards. How many of us
realize that today federal agents can invade a
man's property without a warrant? They can
impose a fine without a formal hearing, let
alone a trial by jury? And they can seize and
sell his property at auction to enforce the
payment of that fine. In Chico County,
Arkansas, James Wier over-planted his rice
allotment. The government obtained a 17,000
dollar judgment. And a U.S. marshal sold his
960-acre farm at auction. The government said
it was necessary as a warning to others to
make the system work.
Last February 19th at the University of
Minnesota, Norman Thomas, six-times
candidate for President on the Socialist Party
ticket, said, "If Barry Goldwater became
President, he would stop the advance of
socialism in the United States." I think that's
exactly what he will do.
But as a former Democrat, I can tell you
Norman Thomas isn't the only man who has
drawn this parallel to socialism with the
present administration, because back in 1936,
Mr. Democrat himself, Al Smith, the great
American, came before the American people
and charged that the leadership of his Party
was taking the Party of Jefferson, Jackson, and
Cleveland down the road under the banners of
Marx, Lenin, and Stalin. And he walked away
from his Party, and he never returned til the
day he died -- because to this day, the
leadership of that Party has been taking that
Party, that honorable Party, down the road in
the image of the labor Socialist Party of
England.
Now it doesn't require expropriation or
confiscation of private property or business to
impose socialism on a people. What does it
mean whether you hold the deed to the -- or
the title to your business or property if the
government holds the power of life and death
over that business or property? And such
machinery already exists. The government can
find some charge to bring against any concern
it chooses to prosecute. Every businessman
has his own tale of harassment. Somewhere a
perversion has taken place. Our natural,
unalienable rights are now considered to be a
dispensation of government, and freedom has
never been so fragile, so close to slipping from
our grasp as it is at this moment.
Our Democratic opponents seem unwilling to
debate these issues. They want to make you
and I believe that this is a contest between two
men -- that we're to choose just between two
personalities.
Well what of this man that they would destroy
-- and in destroying, they would destroy that
which he represents, the ideas that you and I
hold dear? Is he the brash and shallow and
trigger-happy man they say he is? Well I've
been privileged to know him "when." I knew
him long before he ever dreamed of trying for
high office, and I can tell you personally I've
never known a man in my life I believed so
incapable of doing a dishonest or dishonorable
thing.
This is a man who, in his own business before
he entered politics, instituted a profit-sharing
plan before unions had ever thought of it. He
put in health and medical insurance for all his
employees. He took 50 percent of the profits
before taxes and set up a retirement program,
a pension plan for all his employees. He sent
monthly checks for life to an employee who
was ill and couldn't work. He provides nursing
care for the children of mothers who work in
the stores. When Mexico was ravaged by the
floods in the Rio Grande, he climbed in his
airplane and flew medicine and supplies down
there.
An ex-GI told me how he met him. It was the
week before Christmas during the Korean War,
and he was at the Los Angeles airport trying to
get a ride home to Arizona for Christmas. And
he said that [there were] a lot of servicemen
there and no seats available on the planes.
And then a voice came over the loudspeaker
and said, "Any men in uniform wanting a ride
to Arizona, go to runway such-and-such," and
they went down there, and there was a fellow
named Barry Goldwater sitting in his plane.
Every day in those weeks before Christmas, all
day long, he'd load up the plane, fly it to
Arizona, fly them to their homes, fly back over
to get another load.
During the hectic split-second timing of a
campaign, this is a man who took time out to
sit beside an old friend who was dying of
cancer. His campaign managers were
understandably impatient, but he said, "There
aren't many left who care what happens to
her. I'd like her to know I care." This is a man
who said to his 19-year-old son, "There is no
foundation like the rock of honesty and
fairness, and when you begin to build your life
on that rock, with the cement of the faith in
God that you have, then you have a real start."
This is not a man who could carelessly send
other people's sons to war. And that is the
issue of this campaign that makes all the other
problems I've discussed academic, unless we
realize we're in a war that must be won.
Those who would trade our freedom for the
soup kitchen of the welfare state have told us
they have a utopian solution of peace without
victory. They call their policy
"accommodation." And they say if we'll only
avoid any direct confrontation with the enemy,
he'll forget his evil ways and learn to love us.
All who oppose them are indicted as
warmongers. They say we offer simple answers
to complex problems. Well, perhaps there is a
simple answer -- not an easy answer -- but
simple: If you and I have the courage to tell
our elected officials that we want our national
policy based on what we know in our hearts is
morally right.
We cannot buy our security, our freedom from
the threat of the bomb by committing an
immorality so great as saying to a billion
human beings now enslaved behind the Iron
Curtain, "Give up your dreams of freedom
because to save our own skins, we're willing to
make a deal with your slave masters."
Alexander Hamilton said, "A nation which can
prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a
master, and deserves one." Now let's set the
record straight. There's no argument over the
choice between peace and war, but there's
only one guaranteed way you can have peace
-- and you can have it in the next second --
surrender.
Admittedly, there's a risk in any course we
follow other than this, but every lesson of
history tells us that the greater risk lies in
appeasement, and this is the specter our well-
meaning liberal friends refuse to face -- that
their policy of accommodation is appeasement,
and it gives no choice between peace and war,
only between fight or surrender. If we continue
to accommodate, continue to back and retreat,
eventually we have to face the final demand --
the ultimatum. And what then -- when Nikita
Khrushchev has told his people he knows what
our answer will be? He has told them that
we're retreating under the pressure of the Cold
War, and someday when the time comes to
deliver the final ultimatum, our surrender will
be voluntary, because by that time we will
have been weakened from within spiritually,
morally, and economically. He believes this
because from our side he's heard voices
pleading for "peace at any price" or "better Red
than dead," or as one commentator put it, he'd
rather "live on his knees than die on his feet."
And therein lies the road to war, because those
voices don't speak for the rest of us.
You and I know and do not believe that life is
so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased
at the price of chains and slavery. If nothing in
life is worth dying for, when did this begin --
just in the face of this enemy? Or should Moses
have told the children of Israel to live in
slavery under the pharaohs? Should Christ
have refused the cross? Should the patriots at
Concord Bridge have thrown down their guns
and refused to fire the shot heard 'round the
world? The martyrs of history were not fools,
and our honored dead who gave their lives to
stop the advance of the Nazis didn't die in
vain. Where, then, is the road to peace? Well
it's a simple answer after all.
You and I have the courage to say to our
enemies, "There is a price we will not pay."
"There is a point beyond which they must not
advance." And this -- this is the meaning in the
phrase of Barry Goldwater's "peace through
strength." Winston Churchill said, "The destiny
of man is not measured by material
computations. When great forces are on the
move in the world, we learn we're spirits -- not
animals." And he said, "There's something
going on in time and space, and beyond time
and space, which, whether we like it or not,
spells duty."
You and I have a rendezvous with destiny.
We'll preserve for our children this, the last
best hope of man on earth, or we'll sentence
them to take the last step into a thousand
years of darkness.
We will keep in mind and remember that Barry
Goldwater has faith in us. He has faith that you
and I have the ability and the dignity and the
right to make our own decisions and determine
our own destiny.
Thank you very much.

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/ronaldreaganatimeforchoos
ing.htm

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