Obama’s tapped-out trust

A week of scandals has encouraged members of the press to wring their hands in disgust.  I find this rather amusing as most of the press corps is culpable in the current presidential administration’s crimes.  The following link is to a Washington Post opinion article published on 5/16/13.  The author is George F. Will:

http://tinyurl.com/bltvs43

Here are some highlights:

The scandals are interlocking and overlapping in ways that drain his authority. Everything he advocates requires Americans to lavish on government something that his administration, and big government generally, undermines: trust.

Liberalism’s agenda has been constant …..The agenda always is: Concentrate more power in Washington, more Washington power in the executive branch and more executive power in agencies run by experts. Then trust the experts to be disinterested and prudent with their myriad intrusions into, and minute regulations of, Americans’ lives. Obama’s presidency may yet be, on balance, a net plus for the public good if it shatters Americans’ trust in the regulatory state’s motives.

Because Obama’s entire agenda involves enlarging government’s role in allocating wealth and opportunity, the agenda now depends on persuading Americans to trust him, not their lying eyes. In the fourth month of his second term, it is already too late for that.

Great Moments in Government Regulation

Dr. Mark J. Perry is a professor of economics and finance in the School of Management at the Flint campus of the University of Michigan.  He writes a blog titled Carpe Diem.  He recently posted a happy little story about government regulation strangling a small business start up.  You can read the entire story here:

http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2012/08/great-moments-in-government-regulations.html

I am very impressed with Dr. Perry's closing paragraph that paraphrases our President's recent explanation of business success:

Look, if you’ve been unsuccessful, you didn’t get there on your own. If you were unsuccessful at opening or operating a small business, some government official along the line probably contributed to your failure.  There was an overzealous civil servant somewhere who might have stood in your way with unreasonable regulations that are part of our American system of anti-business red tape that allowed you to not thrive.  Taxpayers invested in roads and bridges, but you might have faced city council members who wouldn’t allow you to use them.  If you’ve been forced to close a business – it’s often the case that you didn’t do that on your own.  Somebody else made that business closing happen or prevented it from opening in the first place. You can thank the bureaucratic tyrants of the nanny state.

2016: Obama’s America

A new film "2016: Obama’s America" based on the book "The Roots of Obama’s Rage" by Dinesh D’Souza is currently playing in movies theaters.  To watch a trailer for this movie click on this link:

http://2016themovie.com/media/

To view a video of Dinesh D'Souza discussing his movie click on this link:

http://youtu.be/juGoLKZjPQU

To find a movie theater showing this film click here:

http://2016themovie.com/theaters/

Yes, you did build that

On 7/13/12 in Roanoke,  Virgina our President made the following statement during a speech:

There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me, because they want to give something back.  They know they didn’t ---look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own.  You didn’t get there on your own.  I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart.  There are a lot of smart people out there.  It must be because I worked harder than everybody else.  Let me tell you something – there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.
If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help.  There was a great teacher somewhere in your life.  Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive.  Somebody invested in roads and bridges.  If you’ve got a business. you didn’t build that.  Somebody else made that happen.

Of course President Obama has it exactly backwards. Business people created the wealth that the government confiscated to build infrastructure. The state cannot produce anything. Its very existence comes from the fruits of others.

Everyone wants to live at the expense of the state. They forget that the state lives at the expense of everyone.  - Frederic Bastiat

Judicial activism and unintended consequences

President Obama's recent comments about the US Supreme Court's review of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) (commonly referred to as Obama care)  has led to what I assume are unintended consequences.  The highlight of his Rose Garden statement on 4/2/12 was:

“I’d just remind conservative commentators that for years what we’ve heard is, the biggest problem on the bench was judicial activism or a lack of judicial restraint — that an unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law,” Obama said during a Rose Garden news conference. “Well, this is a good example. And I’m pretty confident that this court will recognize that and not take that step.”

The initial consequence of this comment is to display this Presidential Administration's disdain for the separation of powers.  We are protected from imperial rule by the fact that our three branches of government hold each other in check.  The US Supreme Court has as it's most important function the ability to overturn laws passed by Congress and Signed by the President that are unconstitutional.  The fact the our current President finds this an act of "judicial activism" by "an unelected group of people" is an affront to our concept of limited government.

The unintended consequence of this statement is to draw attention to a little publicized section of PPACA.   There is currently a case before the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals contesting Section 6001 of PPACA.  This case has now received nationwide publicity as Judge Jerry Smith a member of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has brought President Obama's statement into the trial.  The details of Judge Smith's ruling are in this Associated Press article:

Judge upset by Obama's comments on health care law

What the Judge has to say about President Obama's comment means little in this discussion.  What is of great importance is the case before the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.  The case before the appeals court was brought in part by a spine and joint hospital in East Texas that is challenging the constitutionality of a portion of the health care law that restricts physician-owned hospitals from expanding or building new facilities.

The full text of PPACA can be viewed at this link:

http://housedocs.house.gov/energycommerce/ppacacon.pdf

You will find the text of section 6001 by entering 639 as the page number in your pdf reader.

We all are now aware that PPACA Section 6001 prevents physician-owned hospitals from expanding or building new facilities.  This is an act of Congress that has been advertised as a means to expand health care availability and reduce its cost.  In reality the law restricts competition in the field of health care.  If the supply of a service is reduced or artificially prevented from increasing then the price for that service will increase.  There can be no other outcome.

Nancy Pelosi was not kidding when she said that we would have to pass the bill to find out what is in it.  It is turning out that we have to litigate the bill to find out what is in it.

You only run twice

A well made funny short video:

http://youtu.be/-Czo5Vf8KZs

Just cut it

The Cato Institute is running the following full page advertisement in these publications, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Examiner and Politico:

http://www.cato.org/files/DownsizingAd.pdf

If my math is correct the federal spending cuts suggested in this ad would total $650 billion per year.  That’s a lot of money, even in Washington D.C.

Difficult sheep to shear

Alan Reynolds of the Cato Institute had the following article published in the Wall Street Journal on 3/30/10:


http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=11631

This article lists all of the health care tax increases that will affect individuals in the highest tax brackets. Alan has it exactly correct when he makes the following statements:

Add it up and the government is counting on squeezing an extra $1.2 trillion over 10 years from a tiny sliver of taxpayers who already pay more than half of all individual taxes.

It won't work. It never works.

Punitive tax rates on high-income individuals do not increase revenue. Successful people are not docile sheep just waiting to be shorn.

In short, the belief that higher tax rates on the rich could eventually raise significant sums over the next decade is a dangerous delusion, because it means the already horrific estimates of long-term deficits are seriously understated. The cost of new health-insurance subsidies and Medicaid enrollees are projected to grow by at least 7% a year, which means the cost doubles every decade — to $432 billion a year by 2029, $864 billion by 2039, and more than $1.72 trillion by 2049. If anyone thinks taxing the rich will cover any significant portion of such expenses, think again.

The federal government has embarked on an unprecedented spending spree, granting new entitlements in the guise of refundable tax credits while drawing false comfort from phantom revenue projections that will never materialize.

The basic economic principle of lower tax revenue generated by higher tax rates was explained by Economist Arthur Laffer. For a brief explanation of the “Laffer Curve” see the following:

http://www.conservapedia.com/Laffer_curve

Blatantly contradictory objectives

In the following Washington Post article Robert J. Samuelson examines the contradictions in the health care reform bill:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/15/AR2009111502212.html

The following paragraph leads us to one of my favorite topics:

• The disconnect between what President Obama says and what he's doing is so glaring that most people could not abide it. The president, his advisers and allies have no trouble. But reconciling blatantly contradictory objectives requires them to engage in willful self-deception, public dishonesty, or both.
  

What Robert Samuelson is trying to tell us is that the health care debate and the Obama administration’s proposals are a classic example of George Orwell’s concept of doublethink from his novel 1984. Doublethink is defined as Reality Control. The power to hold two completely contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accept both of them.

A Nobel gesture

Coming to a neighborhood near you soon will be some of the most dangerous criminals of modern society. You can read the details here:

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE59E4X120091015?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews

The Federal Government will move ruthless criminals dedicated to the death and destruction of the USA from a fortress prison in Cuba to prisons in our major cities. This will make Europeans happy. This is the type of nonsensical self destructive behavior that is required for us to keep the Europeans happy. In return the Europeans will show their gratitude by giving our political leaders prizes.

It's a 12-day miracle!

Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass has an enlightening commentary about the Nobel Peace Prize. The article can be read here:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-kass-11-oct11,0,6621520.column

John’s commentary is of course satirical in nature, but he points out a remarkable fact:

• Isn't it great that President Barack Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize?
  
• He'd been in office only 12 days when the Nobel nominations were due. That's a mere 288 hours for Obama to have been credentialed as President Peace.

If you are not familiar with John Kass’s writing you may have missed his original column about “hopium” (note that the date of this column is 7/30/2008):

http://archives.chicagotribune.com/2008/jul/30/news/chi-kass-30-jul30

"the image of success"

Charles Krauthammer’s latest column in the Washington Post comments on how President Obama manipulates foreign policy to enhance his self image:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/01/AR2009100104208.html?nav=rss_opinion/columns

Some of the highlights of this article are:

• Don't take it from me. Take it from Sarkozy, who could not conceal his astonishment at Obama's naivete. On Sept. 24, Obama ostentatiously presided over the Security Council. With 14 heads of state (or government) at the table, with an American president at the chair for the first time ever, with every news camera in the world trained on the meeting, it would garner unprecedented worldwide attention.
  
• Unknown to the world, Obama had in his pocket explosive revelations about an illegal uranium enrichment facility that the Iranians had been hiding near Qom. The French and the British were urging him to use this most dramatic of settings to stun the world with the revelation and to call for immediate action.
  
• Obama refused. Not only did he say nothing about it, but, reports the Wall Street Journal (citing Le Monde), Sarkozy was forced to scrap the Qom section of his speech. Obama held the news until a day later -- in Pittsburgh.
• And from Obama's star turn as planetary visionary: "The administration told the French," reports the Wall Street Journal, "that it didn't want to 'spoil the image of success' for Mr. Obama's debut at the U.N."

Cato Experts Dissect Obama's Health Care Town Hall Meeting

A friend of ours sent me the following video in which Michael Tanner and Michael Cannon of the Cato Institute analyze and refute President Obama’s health care claims:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-1ZfFBMf8s

What's in a name?

There is much debate in today’s reporting that the Obama Administration is backing away from its support of the “Public Option” for health insurance.

Do not believe this public relations stunt. Listen to what has been said:

• 
  There is no reform without a public health insurance plan. Handing the private insurance companies 50 million more lives to cover and giving them a monopoly over health insurance coverage for working people is not reform.
  Healthcare for America Now! (HCAN)
  
• The only health care reform worth doing is the public option. If you give away the public option you have no health care reform.
  Howard Dean
  
• We do not see real, systemic change in the health-care system if there is not a robust public option…The public option is going to happen.
  Nancy Pelosi
  
• Any plan I sign must include an insurance exchange: a one-stop shopping marketplace where you can compare the benefits, cost and track records of a variety of plans – including a public option…
  Barack Obama

The Obama Administration is committed to moving the USA to a single payer health care system. The first step on this path is to institute a “Public Option”. Faced with vocal opposition to the “Public Option” plan the administration will find a new route to get to the single payer system. The first step on this new route is now called an insurance co-op.

Do not be fooled by this rebranding. The insurance co-op will be a government controlled health insurance system. The co-ops will be able to price private insurance out of the market. Eventually only the government will pay for health care.

What's in a name? That which we call a “Public Option” by any other name would smell as foul.

The Great 'Prevention' Myth

The following article by Charles Krauthammer debunks the latest health care policy claims:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/13/AR2009081302898.html?nav=rss_opinion/columns

The following paragraphs summarize this article:

• The central contradiction of Obamacare was fatally exposed: From his first address to Congress, Obama insisted on the dire need for restructuring the health-care system because out-of-control costs were bankrupting the Treasury and wrecking the U.S. economy -- yet the Democrats' plans would make the problem worse.
  
• Desperation time. What do you do? Sprinkle fairy dust on every health-care plan, and present your deus ex machina: prevention.
  
• Obama followed suit in his Tuesday New Hampshire town hall, touting prevention as amazingly dual-purpose: "It saves lives. It also saves money."
  
• Reform proponents repeat this like a mantra. Because it seems so intuitive, it has become conventional wisdom. But like most conventional wisdom, it is wrong. Overall, preventive care increases medical costs.
  
• This inconvenient truth comes, once again, from the CBO. In an Aug. 7 letter to Rep. Nathan Deal, CBO Director Doug Elmendorf writes: "Researchers who have examined the effects of preventive care generally find that the added costs of widespread use of preventive services tend to exceed the savings from averted illness."

In the case of health care, as always, the proponents of big government programs are basing their arguments on false assumptions.

“Never insult me with that question”

Mayor Daley is giving us an insight into the thought process of a successful politician. He has never liked answering questions but he recently explained why:

http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/clout_st/2009/08/daley-declines-to-answer-questions-about-insiders-olympics-deal.html

It turns out that Mayor Daley feels personally insulted when asked an uncomfortable question. Here is his quote:

• Daley, however, said he would only be taking questions on the city's construction plans.
  
  "I'm sorry I can't answer questions every day. Every day, I do it enough," Daley said.
  
  Asked by a Tribune reporter when he would be available to talk about Scott's project, Daley said the question insulted him.
  
  "Oh, I do it everyday, you've been with me every day. Never insult me with that question," Daley said. "You're insulting me because every day I'm here, you're never here. And don't print that, so I know you'll print it."
  
  Daley's press staff then ended the news conference.

Keep Mayor Daley’s perspective on answering questions in mind when you scrutinize the responses given by President Obama and his administrators during the debate over health care.

The health-care wedge

The following Wall Street Journal article summarizes the folly of the Obama Administration’s efforts to control the health care system:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204619004574324361508092006.html

Here are the reasons why the Administration’s proposals must be defeated:

• 
  The health-care wedge is an economic term that reflects the difference between what health-care costs the specific provider and what the patient actually pays. When health care is subsidized, no one should be surprised that people demand more of it and that the costs to produce it increase. Mr. Obama’s health-care plan does nothing to address the gap between the price paid and the price received. Instead, it’s like a negative tax: Costs rise and people demand more than they need.
  
• The bottom line is that when the government spends money on health care, the patient does not. The patient is then separated from the transaction in the sense that costs are no longer his concern. And when the patient doesn’t care about costs, only those who want higher costs—like doctors and drug companies—care.
  
• Thus, health-care reform should be based on policies that diminish the health-care wedge rather than increase it. Mr. Obama’s reform principles—a public health-insurance option, mandated minimum coverage, mandated coverage of pre-existing conditions, and required purchase of health insurance—only increase the size of the wedge and thus health-care costs.
  
• According to research I performed for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a $1 trillion increase in federal government health subsidies will accelerate health-care inflation, lead to continued growth in health-care expenditures, and diminish our economic growth even further. Despite these costs, some 30 million people will remain uninsured.
  
• Implementing Mr. Obama’s reforms would literally be worse than doing nothing.

The next three paragraphs brilliantly outline the correct plan to improve our health care system:

• 
  Rather than expanding the role of government in the health-care market, Congress should implement a patient-centered approach to health-care reform. A patient-centered approach focuses on the patient-doctor relationship and empowers the patient and the doctor to make effective and economical choices.
  
  A patient-centered health-care reform begins with individual ownership of insurance policies and leverages Health Savings Accounts, a low-premium, high-deductible alternative to traditional insurance that includes a tax-advantaged savings account. It allows people to purchase insurance policies across state lines and reduces the number of mandated benefits insurers are required to cover. It reallocates the majority of Medicaid spending into a simple voucher for low-income individuals to purchase their own insurance. And it reduces the cost of medical procedures by reforming tort liability laws.
  
  By empowering patients and doctors to manage health-care decisions, a patient-centered health-care reform will control costs, improve health outcomes, and improve the overall efficiency of the health-care system.

A fishy request from the White House

Macon Phillips, the Director of New Media for the White House recently posted this message on the White House blog:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Facts-Are-Stubborn-Things/

This blog post contains the following paragraph:

• There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.

What does the White House intend to do with the list of email addresses and websites that it will collect from this call to action?

CIA Assassination Program

This is an interesting article discussing the recent action by CIA director Leon Panetta:


http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20090715_u_s_reaction_cia_assassination_program?utm_source=SWeeklyS&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=090715&utm_content=readmore


The following paragraphs give an overview of this article:

• That a program existed to assassinate al Qaeda leaders should certainly come as no surprise to anyone.


• Furthermore, since 2002, the CIA has conducted scores of strikes against al Qaeda targets in Pakistan using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) like the MQ-1 Predator and the larger MQ-9 Reaper. These strikes have dramatically increased over the past two years and the pace did not slacken when the Obama administration came to power in January. So far in 2009 there have been more than two dozen UAV strikes in Pakistan alone.


• During the 2004 and 2008 presidential elections in the United States, every major candidate, including Barack Obama, stated that they would seek to kill bin Laden and destroy al Qaeda. Indeed, on the campaign trail, Obama was quite vocal in his criticism of the Bush administration for not doing more to go after al Qaeda’s leadership in Pakistan. This means that, regardless of who is in the White House, it is U.S. policy to go after individual al Qaeda members as well as the al Qaeda organization.


• In light of these facts, it would appear that there was nothing particularly controversial about the covert assassination program itself, and the controversy that has arisen over it has more to do with the failure to report covert activities to Congress. The political uproar and the manner in which the program was canceled, however, will likely have a negative impact on CIA morale and U.S. counterterrorism efforts.


• Furthermore, there are certain parts of the world — including some countries considered to be U.S. allies — where it is very difficult for the United States to conduct counterterrorism operations at all. These difficulties have been seen in past cases where the governments have refused U.S. requests to detain terrorist suspects or have alerted the suspects to the U.S. interest in them, compromising U.S. intelligence efforts and allowing the suspects to flee.


• The fear that details of a sensitive program designed to assassinate al Qaeda operatives in foreign countries could be leaked was probably the reason for the Bush administration’s decision to withhold knowledge of the program from the U.S. Congress, even though amendments to the National Security Act of 1947 mandate the reporting of most covert intelligence programs to Congress. Given the imaginative legal guidance provided by Bush administration lawyers regarding subjects such as enhanced interrogation, it would not be surprising to find that White House lawyers focused on loopholes in the National Security Act reporting requirements.


• In April we discussed how some of the early actions of the Obama administration were having a chilling effect on U.S. counterterrorism programs and personnel. Expanding the minimum reporting requirements under the National Security Act will serve to turn the thermostat down several additional notches, as did Panetta’s overt killing of the covert program. It is one thing to quietly kill a controversial program; it is quite another to repudiate the CIA in public. In addition to damaging the already low morale at the agency, Panetta has announced in a very public manner that the United States has taken one important tool entirely out of the counterterrorism toolbox: Al Qaeda no longer has to fear the possibility of clandestine American assassination teams.

The actions of our Presidential Administration and Congress are diminishing the ability of our security agencies to pursue and eliminate terrorist threats. Congress does not need and should not be given broader oversight powers.

The decline and fall of the Wall Street Empire

The following article is by Luigi Zingales a business school professor at the University of Chicago. (As you may remember President Obama was a faculty member of the University of Chicago Law School.) This article discusses the ebb and flow of financial centers:

http://www.forbes.com/2009/07/13/wall-street-changed-opinions-contributors-luigi-zingales.html

Professor Zingales' outlook for the future of New York as the financial capital of the world can be summed up in these 2 parpgraphs:

• The biggest threat of all to the Big Apple's financial supremacy, however, comes from Washington. The Founding Fathers wisely decided that the nation's political capital should be separate from its financial capital (in both senses of the word). Now this splendid segregation has ended. If the outcome of the Chrysler bankruptcy is any indication, Washington is willing to flex its muscle in financial decisions, altering the substance of contracts freely agreed to by private parties. In so doing, the national government has undermined the certainty of the rule of law, which was the American capital market's strongest asset.
• 
  Unfortunately, since Washington is the source of the problem, New York City can do little by itself to defend its position. Perhaps the city's best bet is to offer favorable tax treatment to the financial industry--but to do that, it had better first put its finances in order.