The article can be found here:  http://economics.gmu.edu/wew/articles/08/DestroyingLiberty.htm

If you are somehow not familiar with Walter E. Williams, you can get to know him better here.

http://economics.gmu.edu/wew/articles.html

You can read current and past articles by Dr. Williams there, including this excellent current article; http://economics.gmu.edu/wew/articles/09/ConstitutionalContempt.htm

 Okay.. not really.  But that would be the necessary comparison for the President to justify requiring people to buy health insurance as in the following article (not to mention as in the Pelosi bill).

 http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/11/interview-with-the-president-jail-time-for-those-without-health-care-insurance.html

 As I think we all know (except maybe for those too privileged to ever really have to worry about such things) car insurance is only required as far as minimum liability is concerned.

That is, we have a legal obligation to make sure others we may hurt are covered but we are free to take our chances with our own lives and our own cars.

But, the healthcare bill requires that we insure ourselves and not just others we might accidentally hurt.  The President’s car insurance analogy is flawed and we should not accept it as evidence of precedent for requiring coverage and penalizing people who don’t get insured.

Meanwhile, I have to wonder… is the real problem with our healthcare system that “wealthy” people are opting out of health insurance and getting care at emergency rooms or free clinics?  Or, is the truth of the matter that they need to force more people to pay into the system (whether they need it or not) to subsidize the system?

Speaker Nancy Pelosi has reportedly told fellow Democrats that she’s prepared to lose seats in 2010 if that’s what it takes to pass ObamaCare, and little wonder. The health bill she unwrapped last Thursday, which President Obama hailed as a “critical milestone,” may well be the worst piece of post-New Deal legislation ever introduced.

In a rational political world, this 1,990-page runaway train would have been derailed months ago. With spending and debt already at record peacetime levels, the bill creates a new and probably unrepealable middle-class entitlement that is designed to expand over time. Taxes will need to rise precipitously, even as ObamaCare so dramatically expands government control of health care that eventually all medicine will be rationed via politics.

Yet at this point, Democrats have dumped any pretense of genuine bipartisan “reform” and moved into the realm of pure power politics as they race against the unpopularity of their own agenda. The goal is to ram through whatever income-redistribution scheme they can claim to be “universal coverage.” The result will be destructive on every level—for the health-care system, for the country’s fiscal condition, and ultimately for American freedom and prosperity.

.•The spending surge. The Congressional Budget Office figures the House program will cost $1.055 trillion over a decade, which while far above the $829 billion net cost that Mrs. Pelosi fed to credulous reporters is still a low-ball estimate. Most of the money goes into government-run “exchanges” where people earning between 150% and 400% of the poverty level—that is, up to about $96,000 for a family of four in 2016—could buy coverage at heavily subsidized rates, tied to income. The government would pay for 93% of insurance costs for a family making $42,000, 72% for another making $78,000, and so forth.

At least at first, these benefits would be offered only to those whose employers don’t provide insurance or work for small businesses with 100 or fewer workers. The taxpayer costs would be far higher if not for this “firewall”—which is sure to cave in when people see the deal their neighbors are getting on “free” health care. Mrs. Pelosi knows this, like everyone else in Washington.

Even so, the House disguises hundreds of billions of dollars in additional costs with budget gimmicks. It “pays for” about six years of program with a decade of revenue, with the heaviest costs concentrated in the second five years. The House also pretends Medicare payments to doctors will be cut by 21.5% next year and deeper after that, “saving” about $250 billion. ObamaCare will be lucky to cost under $2 trillion over 10 years; it will grow more after that.

• Expanding Medicaid, gutting private Medicare. All this is particularly reckless given the unfunded liabilities of Medicare—now north of $37 trillion over 75 years. Mrs. Pelosi wants to steal $426 billion from future Medicare spending to “pay for” universal coverage. While Medicare’s price controls on doctors and hospitals are certain to be tightened, the only cut that is a sure thing in practice is gutting Medicare Advantage to the tune of $170 billion. Democrats loathe this program because it gives one of out five seniors private insurance options.

As for Medicaid, the House will expand eligibility to everyone below 150% of the poverty level, meaning that some 15 million new people will be added to the rolls as private insurance gets crowded out at a cost of $425 billion. A decade from now more than a quarter of the population will be on a program originally intended for poor women, children and the disabled.

Even though the House will assume 91% of the “matching rate” for this joint state-federal program—up from today’s 57%—governors would still be forced to take on $34 billion in new burdens when budgets from Albany to Sacramento are in fiscal collapse. Washington’s budget will collapse too, if anything like the House bill passes.

• European levels of taxation. All told, the House favors $572 billion in new taxes, mostly by imposing a 5.4-percentage-point “surcharge” on joint filers earning over $1 million, $500,000 for singles. This tax will raise the top marginal rate to 45% in 2011 from 39.6% when the Bush tax cuts expire—not counting state income taxes and the phase-out of certain deductions and exemptions. The burden will mostly fall on the small businesses that have organized as Subchapter S or limited liability corporations, since the truly wealthy won’t have any difficulty sheltering their incomes.

This surtax could hit ever more earners because, like the alternative minimum tax, it isn’t indexed for inflation. Yet it still won’t be nearly enough. Even if Congress had confiscated 100% of the taxable income of people earning over $500,000 in the boom year of 2006, it would have only raised $1.3 trillion. When Democrats end up soaking the middle class, perhaps via the European-style value-added tax that Mrs. Pelosi has endorsed, they’ll claim the deficits that they created made them do it.

Under another new tax, businesses would have to surrender 8% of their payroll to government if they don’t offer insurance or pay at least 72.5% of their workers’ premiums, which eat into wages. Such “play or pay” taxes always become “pay or pay” and will rise over time, with severe consequences for hiring, job creation and ultimately growth. While the U.S. already has one of the highest corporate income tax rates in the world, Democrats are on the way to creating a high structural unemployment rate, much as Europe has done by expanding its welfare states.

Meanwhile, a tax equal to 2.5% of adjusted gross income will also be imposed on some 18 million people who CBO expects still won’t buy insurance in 2019. Democrats could make this penalty even higher, but that is politically unacceptable, or they could make the subsidies even higher, but that would expose the (already ludicrous) illusion that ObamaCare will reduce the deficit.

• The insurance takeover. A new “health choices commissioner” will decide what counts as “essential benefits,” which all insurers will have to offer as first-dollar coverage. Private insurers will also be told how much they are allowed to charge even as they will have to offer coverage at virtually the same price to anyone who applies, regardless of health status or medical history.

The cost of insurance, naturally, will skyrocket. The insurer WellPoint estimates based on its own market data that some premiums in the individual market will triple under these new burdens. The same is likely to prove true for the employer-sponsored plans that provide private coverage to about 177 million people today. Over time, the new mandates will apply to all contracts, including for the large businesses currently given a safe harbor from bureaucratic tampering under a 1974 law called Erisa.

The political incentive will always be for government to expand benefits and reduce cost-sharing, trampling any chance of giving individuals financial incentives to economize on care. Essentially, all insurers will become government contractors, in the business of fulfilling political demands: There will be no such thing as “private” health insurance.

***
All of this is intentional, even if it isn’t explicitly acknowledged. The overriding liberal ambition is to finish the work began decades ago as the Great Society of converting health care into a government responsibility. Mr. Obama’s own Medicare actuaries estimate that the federal share of U.S. health dollars will quickly climb beyond 60% from 46% today. One reason Mrs. Pelosi has fought so ferociously against her own Blue Dog colleagues to include at least a scaled-back “public option” entitlement program is so that the architecture is in place for future Congresses to expand this share even further.

As Congress’s balance sheet drowns in trillions of dollars in new obligations, the political system will have no choice but to start making cost-minded decisions about which treatments patients are allowed to receive. Democrats can’t regulate their way out of the reality that we live in a world of finite resources and infinite wants. Once health care is nationalized, or mostly nationalized, medical rationing is inevitable—especially for the innovative high-cost technologies and drugs that are the future of medicine.

Mr. Obama rode into office on a wave of “change,” but we doubt most voters realized that the change Democrats had in mind was making health care even more expensive and rigid than the status quo. Critics will say we are exaggerating, but we believe it is no stretch to say that Mrs. Pelosi’s handiwork ranks with the Smoot-Hawley tariff and FDR’s National Industrial Recovery Act as among the worst bills Congress has ever seriously contemplated.

Link to article and additional info: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703399204574505423751140690.html

This bill is over 6,600% larger than our founding document.
Yes, six thousand six hundred percent larger than the Constitution of the United States of America.

UPDATE @ 2:17 p.m. EST
Link at House Committee on Rules
Link at Open Congress

Do people have a right to health care?

The proponents of such a right seem to mean that people have a right to medical treatment even if they cannot afford it or, alternatively, have a right to require someone else to pay some or all of their health insurance costs.

Whatever that means precisely, they must be referring to a right that exists independently of laws passed by Congress. After all, a law can always be changed, so any “rights” it creates are really privileges granted by the government. A true right, however, cannot be taken away by a majority of the voters.

This makes the existence of a health care right an important issue. If it exists, certain health care policies naturally follow, and policy makers cannot rescind those policies if circumstances or technology change.

So what is the basis for such a right? Some argue that health care is necessary for the enjoyment of basic rights, such as life and liberty, and therefore is itself a protected right. But saying the government must provide health care so people can enjoy those rights is like saying it must provide guns so people can enjoy the right to keep and bear arms.

Such a right also seems inconsistent with the theory of rights in The Declaration of Independence. That document asserts the “self evident” principle that individuals have equal rights inherent in the nature of human beings. These natural rights, as they are called, derive from the idea of self-ownership – you own yourself and therefore have the right to be left alone as long as you honor the equal rights of others to be left alone. But a health care right would be a right to force others to give you things.

One could argue such a right exists because of some general moral obligation to help people in need. But while you may feel morally obligated to give money to someone who is truly in need, does that person have a right to your money?

Whatever the justification, if we accept such a right, what about rights to other necessities, such as food, clothing, and shelter? Admittedly, the government already subsidizes those things for poor people, but the subsidies have always been privileges, not permanent rights. (The Supreme Court says people don’t even have a right to Social Security benefits.)

And what would be the scope of a health care right? Would it cover all medical treatments? (If the right exists, how do you deny a particular treatment?) Would illegal immigrants have the right? After all, they have basic rights as “persons” under the Constitution.

We should insist on answers to these questions in assessing whether this right exists. Otherwise, we may inadvertently accept a concept of rights that is inconsistent with our founding principles and has no clear limits.

Mr. Painter lives in Cincinnati and is a corporate attorney.

It was fun.

Myself and Mike Wilson sat down with Coleman and Nathan who have posted on the CTP blog.

We talked about a number of personal things just getting to know each other, both very cool people. Both are well read, have a good sense of history and take a big picture into account in their thinking. Both were very reasonable in conversation stating points clearly and with good context.

Proving – a group of reasonable people, even with opposing view points, can sit down and have civil a conversation.

We talked about things all across the political and historical spectrum, and I wanted to share a few basic areas of agreement. Hopefully these things could serve as a starting point for future conversations.

We didn’t always agree on the exact methods in reaching some shared goals, but we did agree on the goal itself.

So, let me focus on a few of the areas leaving out methods for now:

1.Healthcare
The current system needs tweaking. Costs increasing at the current rate (well past other goods and services in the economy) is not a good thing.

Insurance companies are part of the problem. Mini monopolies have been formed in each state and the lack of competition contributes to more aggressive price increases and potentially, collusion.

2.Term limits
Extended time in office for anyone is a dangerous thing and leads to corruption.

Coleman brought up an interesting point and that is – the nature of House of the Representatives is by default a more representative position than the Senate so a system of term limits couldn’t be done in the same way.

3. Corruption
No party has a monopoly on this. Respective lobbies to both parties have way too much influence in Washington.

The funniest part in my mind is both claim innocence and point a finger at the other side. Seriously? I know they all believe the American people are a bunch of idiots and fall for this stuff.

4. Transparency
Legislation to require at least one week of public posting for any bill moving through Congress before it is voted on. Some special circumstances for emergencies could be determined. But, this is an Obama supported campaign promise we all agree with it. Hopefully it happens!!

5. Wars – Iraq and Afghanistan
Execution and management of the wars for the most part was horrible. Primary functions of the military are greatly overstated in these conflicts contributing to many of the governmental problems we now see.

Regardless of justification for entering into either war, the fundamental questions are currently – what are the obligations to the countries where troops are currently located? And, what is the desired end result? These are the questions that have to shape war policy.

6. Role of US in the world from a military standpoint.
We can’t enter every single conflict trying to play police, peacemaker or nation builder (depending on situations). US foreign policy should more clearly defined, and other nations should to do their fair share not using the US in this way either. In essence too much dependence on the US in the UN or NATO isn’t a good thing.

7. Problems with the Republicans and Democrats
Parties for extended periods of time were becoming single issue parties with no room for any opposing viewpoints in their platforms – guns rights, healthcare stances, abortion, gay rights, etc.

These were all things that forced a natural polarization of the American people and party system. This was not necessarily healthy and introduced influence and funding from very specific special interests on which respective parties came to depend.

There were a few more conversations, but hopefully this gives you a sense of the starting point.

These are baby steps. I would love to have a few ideas come out of these conversations we could all get behind – not based on party, but based on principles!

The most powerful thing in the US can be a united American people on certain issues. Just imagine that.

So, we all agreed we’d like to sit down again, invite more people and make this a regular thing!

I think we just formed a Cincinnati Roundtable…the newest and greatest think tank going.

It’s got to start somewhere. Coleman and Nathan – thanks for helping to get the baby steps going. I’d love your feedback and additions, so I look forward to any comments.

For anyone else wanting to sit down like this – open invite. I think I’ll put together a monthly schedule for meetings of any interested parties. Only basic ground rules will be civil debate!

To provide some additional context for the event: Organizing for America had 45 people in attendance and the Tea Party had about 15. This was a march for their group, and an educational opportunity for us (though admittedly a few people brought signs from our group). Our people were assigned to corners passing out literature, and theirs were gathering for a march showing signs and flags in support of the public option.

We respect their first amendment right to voice their opinion, and are happy to see them taking part in a necessary dialogue for the American people.

But, a few curious things took place at this event which made me think – who represents who?

1. One of the OFA supporters brought a young girl over to us, and said “You see. This is what hate looks like.” Moments later she began yelling at us, and said we should just wait on the side “until your people get out of church.”

2. Two individuals held a huge banner which read, “Healthcare for All. People not Profit. www.socialistworker.org”

3. Most other attendees held signs saying things like public option now, or everyone deserves healthcare. Most were very friendly and stated their point clearly.

Also important to the conversation about representation is a very level headed guy named, Justin, who was filming the event and interviewing people. Justin said he wasn’t with Organizing for America, and was friendly, well-spoken and engaging. We had a fairly lengthy conversation (most of which he filmed) about tons of subjects.

In this conversation, there was no real depth because he kept changing subjects. Or, what I like to call the shotgun approach to dialogue I experience every time I speak with someone from the left. Meaning – no room for content, just take quick shots all over the place to cover a lot of area, making sure the subject is changed as soon discussion becomes substantive.

But, despite this somewhat sporadic conversation, he seemed like a reasonable person.

Part of our conversation addressed what the American people wanted, or what view is more representative of Americans. Good question.

On one hand we have the very radical element to the left. Hate-filled and yelling names and innuendos. This was the same element that chose to display the socialstworker.org banner.

We also have the very level headed people like Justin, stating their points clearly.

And, our last representatives of the day were the Tea Party supporters advocating free market solutions to healthcare reform. Mix of educational materials and signs about socialism and Marxism related to the public option in healthcare.

One other very curious thing to me was the giant socialist banner that lead their group in the march. Seriously, most followed behind the giant yellow banner, proudly displayed. It was pretty strange.

So – who represents who?

I made the point that OFA had weeks to organize this pro-public option march and still mustered only 45 people. If the Cincinnati Tea Party took weeks to organize a march, I can assure you – thousands would have attended. We have proved this time and time again.

Is that significant? Is that indicative of the levels of respective support?

Does it mean OFA isn’t well organized or doesn’t have as many people supporting them as I thought?

Does the fact that the socialist signs lead the group indicate something about the organization?

These are legitimate questions. You be the judge.

It does indicate one thing for sure – rather than forcefully and suspiciously pushing through a bill through Congress for which there is no majority support of any kind – we need to continue a healthy debate on the subject, not use shady backroom deals and loopholes to get something through the legislative process which deserves more transparency than perhaps any other debate taking place in the nation.

I’d also like to offer some bi-ideological support (yes, I know that’s not a word) for President Obama’s campaign promise of 1 week of public viewing for every bill coming out of Congress. I will definitely credit President Obama with that great idea which we should all support.

It’s official: Rush Limbaugh has withdrawn as a minority participant in a group that is trying to buy the St. Louis Rams. This follows opposition to Rush’s participation from Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and, shamefully, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. Such opposition, in turn, was fueled by false claims that Limbaugh has made various racist statements in the past.

Saul Alinsky would be proud.  As the good folks at Powerline point out, Rush is on the air 15 hours a week for 20 years and they had to make things up to demonize him.   Read the whole thing.

Note to the political types on both sides – we don’t care that you think your cause is good and noble.  If you have to lie in order to push your agenda, it’s wrong.  Period.

I’m not a Rush fan (can’t listen to talk radio during the day anyway) but I did hear about his broadcast of the clips contained at the following link.  Please listen to the following for the two clips from WJR radio.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKb78kJhaMw

Amazing!  So now we live in a land where people think Obama is the source of free money.  Like one person said in the last clip, that’s why she voted for him.  Just like, I’m sure you all remember, this lady said…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P36×8rTb3jI

I just can’t stop shaking my head.

Update:  A friend forwarded me the following link about the “Obama Money” videos and sound bites.  This gives more background about what was going on, as many may not be aware, and offers a different perspective.

http://www.examiner.com/x-22153-Cleveland-Pop-Culture-Examiner~y2009m10d8-Obama-money-Detroit-videos-getting-national-attention-due-to-Rush-Limbaugh-riling-up-folks

While I appreciate the above author’s reference to Jesus wanting us to help the poor, situations like this help illustrate some points about why funneling that money through government is a bad idea.  (BTW: contrary to the above author, I bet most of those complaining give to their churches, local food pantries, and other groups that help the poor.)

The problems with government handouts (particularly those that are long term) are many so I’ll just stick with the point most applicable to this situation for now.

When people get money from “the government” instead of through local charitable organizations, there is a natural tendency for them to forget the fact that other real people are giving up that money, voluntarily or not, so that they can get the help.  As such, the responsibility to do better and not rely on such handouts in the future is not so keenly felt.

If people rely more on local charity with local donors, in their times of need, they are more likely (still not an absolute) to associate that money with the actual donors.  I believe most, then, would be less likely to come back over and over but would more likely work harder at avoiding the situations that cause the need. 

But, when we disassociate the money from the source… bad behavior happens.  Keep in mind, as I have mentioned in other blogs or comments, I spent some time in some rough neighborhoods I my youth.

I can remember an acquaintance that shoplifted and said it was no big deal because she only stole from big stores who could “write off” the loss.

I can remember another acquaintance that participated in a home burglary and said it was no big deal because the insurance company would pay for it.

Such disassociations are natural and easy rationalizations… and are not to be encouraged.

How many of the people lined up for “Obama money” really appreciated the true source of that money?  How many thought about that money mostly coming from real people who are working hard, spending responsibly, and may also be struggling to make ends meet?