The biggest reason that we have been given as proof that we need healthcare reform is the skyrocketing costs of healthcare. The president has claimed that his plan will help to slow the rising costs of healthcare. He has claimed that by spending trillions of dollars on reform we would save money over the long run.
Much like the spin on the stimulus package, which failed to provide the “shovel ready” jobs that it promised, it appears as though healthcare reform will not provide the promised savings. At least that is what the latest report from the Congressional Budget Office said.
The CBO has estimated that healthcare reform will save $2 billion over ten years and while that sounds wonderful it is only a fraction of the $1 trillion that healthcare reform will cost. Obama’s plan will spend $1 trillion to save $2 billion. Does that sound like a wise investment? It sure as hell doesn’t to me.
Here is what Mitch McConnell had to say about this report:
The President said that rising health care costs are an imminent threat to our economy and that any reform must reduce these long-term costs. But CBO has made clear once again that the Democrats’ bills in Congress aren’t reducing costs and in fact could just make the problem worse
I think that statement sums it up quite well. Under the president’s plan we are going to raise taxes during a recession that will cost the American people damn close to $1trillion. The only thing that this will accomplish is to assure that the country’s economy will keep sliding downhill.
As if we needed another reason to oppose this bill. The CBO’s assessment of the costs of Obama’s healthcare reform bill should be the final nail in the coffin to this legislation.
Latest Rasmussen Poll Has President Obama Under 50%
According to the latest Rasmussen tracking poll Barack Obama’s approval rating has fallen under 50% for the first time. Rasmussen is one of the most reliable and accurate polls because they count likely voters and not adults or Americans. This poll talks to voters and not people who most likely will not vote.
This has to be a little disturbing to the president, he has burned off all of the political capital and good will that he had in January as he continues to slide further to the left. He has fallen back to earth much faster than president Bush did this early in his first term.
According to Rasmussen, under 30% of voters strongly approve of the president’s policies while 40% strongly disapprove, while voters who either somewhat agree or disagree with his policies is a toss up, with 49% who approve and 50% who disapprove. This it the first time that Obama has been under 50%.
The president’s problem appears to be, and I alluded to it above, that he is sliding to the left and the more he slides to the left the more his approval ratings drop. When President Obama first took over there was talk that he would govern from the center, to center left but that has not been the case and as the following numbers show, he is appearing to be more liberal than some of the moderates and Independents thought that he was.
The President is now seen as politically liberal by 76%. That’s up six points from a month ago, 11 points since he was elected, and the highest total to date. Forty-eight percent (48%) now see him as Very Liberal, up 20 points since he was elected
I wrote that it is Independents and moderates who are now beginning to think that the president is more liberal than they thought, the poll doesn’t break those numbers down but I am assuming that conservatives knew how liberal he was from the beginning.
I believe that the country as a whole is not as liberal as President Obama, and I think that so many people were so fed up and angry at President Bush and the Republicans that they decided to give Obama a chance, now that they realize how liberal he actually is his numbers are coming down, and I have to say they have fallen quickly in the last two weeks.
And with 53% (and growing daily, 53% is up eight points from last month) of Americans opposed to the healthcare reform bill and only 25% who think that the stimulus bill has helped the economy it doesn’t look like Obama’s numbers are going to get better any time soon. Those two bills represent an inconceivable amount of money and with the economy so bad Americans are not going to want to see further spending by this administration.
Americans see the economy as the biggest issue and 75% of Americans believe the stimulus bill did not work, in other words President Obama has failed on what most Americans consider to be the highest priority.
With only 20% of the public who feels that healthcare should be a priority of the president’s people must be wondering why the president is focused on healthcare when he should be focusing more attention on the economy.
The governor of Texas, Rick Perry, has stated that he would consider invoking state’s rights in order to resist Obama’s nationalized healthcare reform bill. He claims that the healthcare reform bill will be disastrous to Texas and he is right, but it will also be disastrous to all other states and to every taxpaying American worker.
This is not the first time that Rick Perry has stood up for the independent rights of Texas in the recent past. But he is now predicting that there will be other states that follow Texas’ lead on this issue and resist the implementation of the healthcare reform bill.
When Obama’s healthcare reform bill passes, and it probably will pass eventually unless we can delay in until after the 2010 elections, there looks to be a major confrontation between Texas, (and hopefully other states will join the fight), and the overreaching, out of control federal government.
I hope that the governor is not just posturing, I hope that he means what he says, and I hope that if the healthcare reform bill does pass that Rick Perry will be a man of his word and stand up to the federal government. I hope that he tells Obama that enough is enough and that he takes his case all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary.
But most of all I hope that other states will follow suit and throw away the bonds of an overreaching federal government. A federal government that somewhere along the line got last and doesn’t understand the role that was laid out for it in the constitution.
Today Barack Obama called Sgt. Crowley of the Cambridge police department and invited him to the White House. He also showed up at the White House press briefing and said that he regretted his choice of words.
“I wanted to make clear in my choice of words I think I unfortunately gave an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department or Sgt. Crowley specifically,” Obama said. “And I could have calibrated those words differently.”
He claims that the words he used “gave the impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department or Sgt. Crowley specifically.” Really? No shit!
The reason that these words gave that impression is because that is exactly what he was doing. He was maligning the police department. What other conclusion can you come to when he said the police acted “stupidly?” There is no other conclusion to draw other than he was maligning the police department and Sgt. Crowley.
He still doesn’t admit that what he said was wrong or that the sentiment that he expressed was wrong and inappropriate. He is still standing behind the spirit of the words, he only regrets the wording that he used.
This is not acceptable.
As for inviting Sgt. Crowley to the White House to try to smooth things over, it is a good start but it is far from enough. If this is all that he plans on doing then this also is not acceptable.
Barack Obama went on national television and told millions of Americans, and who knows how many others across the world, that Sgt. Crowley acted “stupidly.” He defamed Sgt. Crowley in front of millions of people and now he wants a private meeting to straighten things out.
Sgt. Crowley should tell the president that he insulted him in front of the world and that he should apologize in front of the world. It is only fair. For Barack Obama to insult a man in public and apologize in private, (if he apologizes to Crowley at the White House at all), shows us that Barack Obama is a coward as well we have already learned he is arrogant and irresponsible during this episode.
Barack Obama admitted that he did not know the facts of the case and he admitted that he had a bias and yet he still proceeded to comment on this case. He had no business commenting on a case in which he did not know the details and now he is surprised by the outrage that is being expressed all across the country. He wants this issue to go away and yet he is unapologetic and not willing to admit that what he said was wrong and frankly stupid.
If Barack Obama wants this to go away then he needs to stand in front of the American people and admit he was wrong. He needs to apologize and admit what he said was stupid and he needs to beg Sgt. Crowley for forgiveness and hope that Sgt. Crowley finds his begging sincere enough to forgive him.
Until all of those things happen the president can rest assured that the American people will not forget that he called a police officer stupid and backed the claim that Crowley was a racist without ever seeing the facts.
Sgt. Crowley, the president may not stand behind you, but the American people do.
There Will be no Vote on Healthcare Reform Before the August Recess– Don’t let this Opportunity Slip Away
Cross posted on Grizzly Groundswell
Harry Reid recently said that there will be no vote in the senate on healthcare reformuntil after the August recess. Today we learned that negotiations in the House of Representatives on healthcare reform broke down as the Blue Dog Democrats claimed that they were lied to by their more liberal counterparts in the house.
It is beginning to look more and more like we may get a short reprieve from this legislation and that there will be no vote before Barack Obama’s imposed deadline.
This news has afforded us the opportunity to let our voices be heard. While the congress is on their August hiatus it is up to every single American who opposes this legislation to let their voices be heard. It is time to write letters, email, and call your representatives and voice you extreme displeasure with this legislation. It is time to stop this bill while we have the chance.
If enough people do this there is still a chance that the politicians will listen but we have to be forceful in our campaign. We have to be harsh and we have to be definitive. Write your representatives and let them no in no uncertain terms that if the vote FOR this legislation you will vote AGAINST them in their re-election bid. This is the only thing that these people understand.
If you sit idly by and watch this legislation pass than you are to blame for its passage. We need to make sure that our representatives return from their recess shell shocked and unwilling to risk their political future on this legislation.
We have done this once before, on immigration reform, and we can do it again. A recess gave us the opportunity to stop immigration reform and when the politicians returned from that recess they had heard our message loud and clear. Immigration reform was stopped and if we do the same with this latest opportunity we can stop healthcare reform.
Call, write, and email your representatives during this recess. Be heard, don’t let this legislation pass without a fight. This could be our last chance to stop it, do not miss this opportunity. It could be our last chance.
I wroe about the Thune amendment and the interesting twist that was about to occur with this legislation here. Dick Durbin and Chuck Shumer were trying to organize a filibuster on this amendment as it seemd to have wide bipartizan support while Harry Reid, who faces an uphill re-election campaign and was scared to death to hand his constituents a second amendment defeat, supported a vote on the amendment.
In the end a vote was taken on the amendment and Dick Durbin and Chuck Schumer were right about the wide ranging support that this legislation had. The vote was 58-39 in favor of the amendment, but unfortunatly that was two votes short of the sixty needed to pass the amendment. The amendment failed.
I find it surprising that President Obama is facing some criticism about the comment that he made about the Cambridge police during his press conference last night, I thought that the media would bury this. But there are a few prominent people speaking out against Obama’s words, including Bill Cosby, who claimed that is was shocking to hear Obama say that Cambridge police acted “stupidly” for trying to do their jobs. The media simply cannot ignore this story.
The part of Obama’s comments that disturb me the most is that after he proclaimed that the Cambridge police acted “stupidly” he admitted that he did not know the facts of the case. Obama had no business commenting on something as serious as this issue without knowing the facts.
New Hampshire’s motto, live free or die, has been under attack before and now it is under attack once again. This time it is under attack from “The Governor’s Task Force for the Recruitment and Retention of a Young Workforce for the State of New Hampshire.”
From a New Hampshire Union Leader editorial on the subject, this is what the above mentioned task force says about New Hampshire’s motto:
Our State portrays an unfriendly message that every individual has to succeed on their own, rather than count on a support system for assistance (Live Free or Die is not a friendly, supporting message that appeals to young people)
Believing in individual freedom is somehow unfriendly and unpopular with young people while becoming dependant on a “support system” IE big government is what appeals to young people?
Giving up personal freedom to acquiesce to government is supposed to give us more freedom? I don’t get it.
Here is the Union Leader editorial reprinted in full, it sums up my feelings on this issue:
The original number that was given to us when President Bush introduced the TARP fund was $700 billion, that in itself was $700 billion too much in the first place and we all knew that that was only the beginning. We all knew that number would grow. And grow it has.
The latest estimate projects that the taxpayers could be on the hook for a total of $23.7 trillion. Here is what California representative Brian Bilbray had to say:
Your report really demonstrates that we have entered into a very, very scary territory, a brave new world where Washington decides what happens on Wall Street and Main Street, and hopefully sometime in the future, we can find a way to have an exit strategy
I would say that it is a scary new world instead of a brave new world. The cost of the disastrous TARP bill continues to rise and once again it is ordinary Americans who will foot the bill.
I am so disgusted that I just can’t write any more about this tonight.
Cambridge police officers arrested a Harvard professor, Henry Gates, when he was seen breaking into a house in a high crime neighborhood. Henry Gates claimed that he was locked out of his house and was trying to force his way in. He was, but when officers asked him to show them his ID he refused and became belligerent. He was arrested for disorderly conduct.
This situation would have quickly ended had Gates simply shown his ID and then thanked the cops for trying to protect his house and his family, but instead he cried racism. He is black and the officers are white.
Today President Obama was asked about the incident and he said that the Cambridge police “acted stupidly.” But then amazingly he said that “I don’t know all the facts.”
President Obama doesn’t know all of the facts but he knows enough to declare that the Cambridge police acted stupidly? President Obama should have no commentedthis question if he didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. These police officers were trying to do their duty and for that the president of the United States of America tells them in front of the country that their actions were stupid just before he admitted that he didn’t know all of the facts.
Professor Gates is demanding an apology from the Cambridge police but if anyone should be apologizing it should be President Obama to the Cambridge police officers that were trying to uphold their sworn duty.
