MSNBCs Rachel Maddow lecturing us on economics, jobs and how stimulus works in Early 2009

How Economic Stimulus works (for Dummies like us)

From January 2009 till passage, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow dedicated her program to the passage of the Economic Recovery Act, which she called over and over ‘the stimulus'. She gave us statistics on how bad the economy was, how urgent action was required and how that action must be government 'pork' project spending. She also explained how handing out money to the poor created the most jobs the fastest and it would give us the biggest bang for our buck, claimed that we would get $1.73 of stimulus for every tax dollar ($1.00) given away because the poor would spend each whole dollar. (Wow! Are we rich yet??). She also lectured us on how Republican economic ideas were repudiated in the 2008 election results, and how everyone knows tax cuts do not stimulate the economy. I posted some examples of her lectures below, as she says herself 'for dummies like us'.

Those Wasteful Tax Cuts that uncaring Republicans Wanted

Night after night Rachel Maddow and her 'expert' guests criticized the democratic congress and Obama for including 'all those wasteful tax cuts' in the recovery bill just to appease Republicans, repeating that tax cuts don't work. After all, she said over and over, 'tax cuts are just wasteful spending' (????, LOL reference below.) What they were calling 'republican tax cuts' on her MSNBC show was really the tax credits in the bill. They were not talking about tax cuts to small businesses, or capital gains tax cuts, or even broad based income tax cuts. They were talking about either literally sending out 'tax credit' checks to those that pay no income taxes (like thousands of dead people), or temporarily changing withholding of federal income taxes by a few dollars a month for those that don't make too much, while claiming the credits were huge tax cuts added only to appease republican demands. Reference : ( White House On Tea Parties: "We Passed The Biggest Tax Cut In History", Huffpost-April 15, 2009)
To make matters worse, many will have to pay that money back when they file their tax returns in 2009. I know many liberals in Maryland that repeated to me that Obama gave in to Republicans on tax cuts and then got no Republican votes in return for this great act in bi-partisionship(they don't watch Fox News Channel or read FreeRepublic). Yet, you can see in the last clip posted, Maddow says Obama got about what he asked for in the Recovery bill. Happy ending right?

'Mission Accomplished' with the Economy Saved. Our New Crisis: Health Care Reform

Once the Democrats were successful at this bill's passage, Maddow stopped talking about the economy, about job losses, even as unemployment climbed over 10%. The urgent unemployment crisis was over on her show. We now had a urgent health care crisis to deal with. Just like she had previously beat the drum night after night for urgent action on the stimulus before, she started demanding urgent action on the Democrat's Health Care Reform bill including a public option. Americans, previously unemployed in masses requiring immediate, bold and expensive action (when unemployment rate was 7%), were now dying in masses with no health insurance, again requiring immediate, bold and expensive action. Except NOW they must be happily employed by Obama's stimulus even with a unemployment rate increased to over 10% according to Maddow's show themes. Just with no health insurance. We are literally dying from no health care while working at our new high paying stimulus jobs .


Here are a few gems/clips I found posted on youtube (some text highlights and links to the clips)

Maddow Guest Dean Baker : ”There is a lot of evidence that people save tax cuts particularly given the current environment. People just lost all their savings in the stock market and their house. They have to rebuild their savings if we send people a check they are likely to save it. That’s good for them but bad for the economy. We need spending right now and we know if the government spends it …. That gives a direct boost to the economy.“ Rachel Maddow Show: Stalled Stimulus(MSNBC January 06, 2009)


Maddow Guest David Sirota highlights :“Why are Obama and democrats adamant on finding republican support and in the process willing to water down the economic stimulus package with tax cuts that won’t create the types of jobs that more infrastructure spending would?”….”What is the cost of political aesthetics? What are the democrats willing to force the taxpayers to pony up in order to get the majority of republicans to vote for this thing? How much do we have to SPEND on tax cuts that don’t work in order to get that political aesthetics?”… “Every dollar wasted on a tax cut to appease a republican in a way that won’t create jobs is a dollar that should have gone to a real program like infrastructure that would have created jobs.”
Rachel Maddow Show - author David Sirota, stimulus package (MSNBC January 26, 2009)



Maddow:"We already made a big American group decision about whose ideas we wanted to fix the economy. …and Barrack Obama won the election and Democrats won really big majorities in both Houses of congress, “Yes we can” that whole bit. Americans had a chance to vote democrat or vote republican and they voted democrat in large part because they thought the republicans didn’t know what they were talking about when it came to the economy. …the election was a referendum on economic policy and democrats won that referendum. ..Throughout much of last week republicans cited a CBO report as evidence that Obama’s stimulus plan will not work. They said that the report showed that most of the money in the stimulus bill wouldn’t be spent quickly enough. It wouldn’t get into the economy until after next year. One detail about this CBO report is that it doesn’t exist."Rachel Maddow Show: Stimulus Showdown and Debunked Nonexistent CBO Report(MSNBC, January 26, 2009)


Maddow:“We are in this economic crisis because people aren’t buying enough. There is supply but no demand. People aren’t buying. Every day a job is lost someone has less money to buy stuff, which means that less stuff gets bought, which is worse for business, which gets more unemployment. This is something that snowballs, the timing does matter there is urgency…there is a big need to hurry.”…
”Republicans may not like it but the way to create jobs fast is through spending. The point of the spending is to save jobs by spending money, by buying stuff which is the thing that isn’t happening in the economy right now….In some cases the way to create jobs and to save jobs is to directly provide them. Literally that means giving money to people who will spend it in the economy that needs people to be spending money in it. That is stimulus: government spending programs. That is actually what economic stimulus is technically. Can I get a little help here? (She then plays THE classic clip of Obama saying 'stimulus IS spending, that is the point'. The stimulus bill IS a spending bill'.) Anytime someone says tax cuts when they are talking about stimulus. They ought to be laughed at..because it’s dumb. Despite the economically inconvenient truth that tax cuts are way less stimulative than spending; republicans have been running with it anyway.
"Every dollar we spend in infrastructure spending creates a $1.59 in economic activity. Why would we waste 59 cents on the dollar? Why would we waste our money on tax cuts when spending works better? “ …”What is the single most productive stimulus we know of? FOOD stamps! Every dollar spent on food stamps puts $1.73 back in the economy. We don’t know anything that is more stimulative than that. Giving people that have very little income extra money is like stimulus on steroids. That is money that will be spent, every dime of it. That’s the point”.”
Rachel Maddow Show - "...get out of the way of people who are actually trying to save the country."(MSNBC February 06, 2009 )


“Let me get really simple here for a second. The economy is in crisis because people aren’t buying enough stuff. There is supply, people make stuff to be sold and there is demand. Demand is buying. Right now there’s not enough buying. So what they teach you in the very easiest semester of the very easiest economics class is, because it’s really easy to understand even if you’re a complete dunderhead on more complicated macro-economic stuff is that the government can turn around an economic crisis caused by not enough demand, by making demand. Stimulating demand they call it, economic stimulus. Between rocket science and Duh, understanding rocket science is closer to Duh. It is not the most complicated policy idea. If no one has anything to spend, and the economy is collapsing because of it the government should spend. And it should try to spend in a way that gets everyone spending too……that’s a big neat tax cut you (to Republicans) got there guys but how about we get back to the idea of stimulus. You know to save ourselves from having to eat cat food while we live in our cars for the rest of our lives. It is reality check time here. Economic stimulus most efficiently is government spending. The most purely simulative type of spending would be to give envelopes full of cash to the poorest people in the country. Statistically they would be the most likely to spend it. ”..
Rachel Maddow - Reality Check - Econ 101(February 07, 2009)


This one was fun. You have to see it yourself as I did the night it was shown. Maddow goes over that day's (Feb 5, 2009) debate highlights on the Senate floor over the Economic Recovery package (she calls the stimulus.) She talks about needing to avoid the second great depression and how the debate between republicans and democrats is the fight between ‘soup-lines’ and ‘paychecks’. Each time a republican makes a point she says we are closer to ‘soup-lines’, each time a democrat makes a point she says we are moving toward 'paychecks'. Rachael Maddow: Stimulometer(MSNBC, February 05, 2009)


Maddow:"The stimulus package is just about a done deal. And what we got it’s hoped will result in about 3-4 million new jobs being created…..the bill is 789B dollars with 36% of it tax cuts(ie tax credits) . In other words the president got just about exactly what he asked for, the only thing he didn’t get he said he wanted was republican votes." {Rachel Maddow} Ms. Information: Stimulus Bill / NAACP(MSNBC, 12 February 2009)

Democrats 'Best' reasons for the Health Care Government Takeover Option

The most convincing Reasons to Support Democrats in 'fixing' Health care:

1) Medicare and Medicaid costs are skyrocketing bankrupting the country. We need to fix those programs by expanding the entitlements to many more people (especially those already sick) to fix the country's budget problems. Medicaid and medicare are the most efficient health care providers in the country. (See reference below.)
2) You are likely to lose your health insurance when you lose your job under democrats successful Economic Recovery 'jobs' bill (3.6 M jobs lost and 10% unemployment since bill passed) and will need the public government health care plan passed by the same people to cover you then.
3) We need a health care personal mandate because free-loaders use our emergency rooms for free. Note : reference below, Obama was against mandating insurance.
Naturally their mandates (for those free loaders) will force men to pay for pregnancy and birth related coverage as well as women's reproductive illnesses.
4) Health care reform will pay for itself because those that get 'free' health care will not get serious illnesses anymore , just like what happened with medicare as that pays for itself, right?.
5) Single payer liberals(progressives) like Barney Frank, Katrina Vanden Heuvel, MSNBC Ed Schulz, the Black congressional Caucus and even President Obama say that the 'public government run health care plan' will create competition', When you want to find out how to create competition you go to a 'single payer' liberal because they know what competition is all about ( hint: the word 'single'.).
6) Small businesses are being strangled by health insurance costs so we need the federal government to mandate that they give it to their employees.
7) We as a country spend too much on health care so we want to spend another trillion dollars on it and raise most of that money in new taxes. Those taxes on businesses will also help with creating those private sector jobs.
8) If consumers are unhappy with Obama's plan they can hold him 'accountable'. Of course he said the same thing before passage of the Economic Recovery Act and we now claims that it was big success (3.6 M jobs lost and 10% unemployment since bill passed). Plus the plan won't take effect until 2013 after Obama's re-election year.
9) The Democrats bills exclude illegals so they defeated every amendment that would exclude them.
10) Obama inspiring words : "Doing nothing is not an option", "If we do nothing things will get worse". Didnt he say this about the Economic Recovery Act? (reference below.)


Obama Health Care Speech: FULL VIDEO, TEXT September 9, 2009


"Finally, our health care system is placing an unsustainable burden on taxpayers. When health care costs grow at the rate they have, it puts greater pressure on programs like Medicare and Medicaid. If we do nothing to slow these skyrocketing costs, we will eventually be spending more on Medicare and Medicaid than every other government program combined. Put simply, our health care problem is our deficit problem. Nothing else even comes close. Nothing else. (Applause.)"

"And here's what you need to know. First, I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits -- either now or in the future. (Applause.) I will not sign it if it adds one dime to the deficit, now or in the future, period. And to prove that I'm serious, there will be a provision in this plan that requires us to come forward with more spending cuts if the savings we promised don't materialize. (Applause.) Now, part of the reason I faced a trillion-dollar deficit when I walked in the door of the White House is because too many initiatives over the last decade were not paid for -- from the Iraq war to tax breaks for the wealthy. (Applause.) I will not make that same mistake with health care."

Second, we've estimated that most of this plan can be paid for by finding savings within the existing health care system, a system that is currently full of waste and abuse. Right now, too much of the hard-earned savings and tax dollars we spend on health care don't make us any healthier. That's not my judgment -- it's the judgment of medical professionals across this country. And this is also true when it comes to Medicare and Medicaid

Link: Obama Health Care Speech: FULL VIDEO, TEXT September 9, 2009


Obama Opposes Health care personal mandate when it was Clinton's idea:

"Sen. Clinton's idea is that we should force everyone to buy insurance," Obama said in a statement released to CNN on Sunday. "She's not being straight with the American people because she refuses to tell us how much she would fine people if they couldn't afford insurance."


Link: Clinton, Obama battle it out over health care November 26, 2007

How Long can it all be Republicans fault??

The change, it had to come
We knew it all along
We were liberated from the fold, that's all
And the world looks just the same
And history ain't changed
'Cause the banners, they are flown in the next war

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
No, no!

Won't Get Fooled Again, The Who , Who's Next(1971)

Every president will blame the past one, either directly or indirectly (using media commentators or spokesmen.) And many times it is valid to do that. Most Americans agreed that G.W. Bush could not be (entirely) responsible for the successful Sept 11, 2001 attacks or the 2001 market crash. Much of what he had to work with his first nine months was left over from the Clinton administration. But liberals (progressives) to this day still say that the "September 11, 2001 attacks were on Bush's Watch" after only nine months in office and that Bush was left a booming economy by Clinton. Yet they also claim that this is not yet Obama's economy even now in October 2009, unless there is good news. Good news is always the Obama economy.

Well like it or not Obama inherited a huge mess. I know last December 2008 Rush-bo was claiming the stock market was crashing because Obama was elected. You may or may not believe that, but it really couldn't sell, especially after the Bush TARP speech last fall tanked the market. You may think the economy crash of late 2008 was all democrats fault, CRA, etc. Again, that couldn't possibly sell. Sadly the great Republican experiment 2001-2006 was not the happy story we were hoping to tell the next generations. Obama was left with many free passes from President Bush, the previous congresses and most of all Alan Greenspan and the Federal Reserve and he is copying those passes for future use. He will use them as long as he can; and in three years 2012 democrats will still be blaming Bush for anything that is bad. The Democrats failed American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 should seriously be hurting Obama much more than it is; and republicans need to keep pounding Democrats on it, and pound even more on the deficit and our destroyed future. How about the failed cash for clunkers program?? (Edmunds: Cash for Clunkers cost taxpayers $24k per car, not $4k )( Edmunds Inc) But even that will take time. Each month Obama owns a little more of every bit of the bad news. You can't make the hour-glass sand of public opinion run as fast you would like. Republicans had many years in power.

Obama is much more masterful at politics than republicans ever were. Note how in spite of the fact that republicans are completely out of power, and democrats have the 60 vote Senate majority (something republicans never had), that Obama is still making ‘republicans’ the issue on his failures to get bills passed. Republicans ‘just say no’. They ‘don't have a plan’ , they ‘want Obama to fail’. All of this SHOULD be considered completely irrelevant now. But Democrats are keeping republicans negatives high with this strategy. Do you remember Bush keeping attention on democrats obstruction in 2005 when democrats destroyed the Social Security reform by claiming republicans wanted to kill seniors?? Of course not! GWB was lame at fighting democrats politically after 2004 mostly playing defense. On the other side the Obama administration's War of FOX News makes no sense at all except maybe a strategy to keep the liberal base on their side. (FOXNews.com, October 18, 2009 White House Escalates War on Fox News)

According to Obama and democrats, any job created is Obama’s Economic Recovery package and any job that is lost is Bush's (GWBs) recession. That's how the 650,000 jobs were created or saved by the Obama stimulus, (below) all while we lost 3.6M jobs since stimulus package was passed. (White House: 3.6 Million Jobs Lost is “Quite Positive”), but those are Bushes job losses in this bad Bush economy.

"Politico.com announced on Oct. 30 that White House officials planned a Friday afternoon announcement for the same day claiming "at least 1 million jobs" had been saved or created....Other news outlets, including NPR and CNN, focused on a lower White House claim the same day saying that "more than 650,000 jobs have been saved or created" under the stimulus." at : Politico Says White House 'Under Pressure' Will Announce 1 Million Jobs 'Saved'

Why only claim only 1 Million jobs were saved or created?? How about claiming that 4 million were saved or created by the ‘Obama economy' while the ‘Bush economy’ lost 7 million jobs (still the net lost of 3 million jobs) at exactly the same time in 2009? Obama is still the hero in this narrative and he gets to extend our unemployment benefits too raising payroll taxes, just what we need with increasing unemployment. ( Payroll paradox : Our view: Why raise unemployment taxes now? The law offers no choice: Baltimore Sun) . And the federal minimum wage increased, democrats give everyone a raise too at the same time. That was actually a GW Bush/Pelosi bill raising the minimum raise while we have steep unemployment under Obama. Ironic, Huh??

How Long can it all be Republicans fault?? The answer will be that : "It will always be republicans fault." No matter how bad things get, unemployment, deficits, inflation, health care rationing or prices under democrats. We will be told that "Things would have been even worse without Obama. We tried free markets and capitalism and it failed under republicans, now we will try socialism (never tried before apparently) and so far it is working fine."

But if Democrats start losing elections, like next Tuesday November 3, 2009, then we will have a sign that the voters are turning again. But still...

Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again

Glenn Beck on this week of White House War on Fox News Channel

A great week for Glenn Beck show and FNC. Not so great for the Obama attack machine and democrats.

Clip 1 : Glenn Beck Clips 10-23-09 Seg1- GREAT! Running America the Chicago Way, Mafia & Baseball Bats

Welcome to the Glenn Beck program. Tonight here are the question we are going to talk about : Chicago type lessons and are they being applied ? And who is going to whacked, and why ?....

It's the Chicago way. If you don't know what that is let me play you a scene from the movie 'The Untouchables.' (Plays clip of Sean Connery and Kevin Costner talking about crushing the enemy.) What is that Barrack Obama promised on the campaign trail? 'A new kind of politics'? Well America didn't think the 'new' politics would be worse than the old politics. But here's what the new politics is: If you don't agree with the administration (Glenn waves a baseball bat threateningly) and you want to stand in the way of reform... No longer is it a gentlemen disagreement that can be debated. Oh no, no, no, you are going to play ball or get a beat down.

Some of the people that found out this week , Chamber of Commerce found out first hand. The White House didn't have a problem with the Chamber of Commerce ,when they were on board for the bailouts, the takeover of GM and the stimulus. 'You want to play ball, you know what I mean??' He even whispered sweet 'I love small businesses' in their ears. (Plays a clip of Obama praising small businesses) .... America cant live without them, he loves them. He loves the Chamber who represents three million businesses, 95% are small businesses. But when the Chamber comes out against the disastrous climate Cap and Trade bill, And then they got the gall to come out against universal health care. Well the president got out his baseball bat. (Waves the bat threateningly and plays a clip of Obama attacking the Chamber.) I thought he loves small businesses. Well he does, until they stop playing for the team....and the Chamber has money. That's bad.

And what do they know about health care? We will ask the doctors. ...
Entire clip at :




Direct link:Running America the Chicago Way, Mafia & Baseball Bats

or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gCIzC-vXKM


Clip 2 :Glenn Beck Clips 10-20-09 Seg1- Much of the American Media are Lapdogs Rather Than Watch Dogs

Welcome to the Glenn Beck program. Tonight the press and your freedom of speech is under attack on every front. The press is supposed to be a watchdog of freedom. Today we finally found one, ABCs Jake Tapper asked the crucial question today. 'Hey we noticed you treat FOX pretty poorly here'. We are going to give you the White House response coming up in just a second.... Thank you Jake Tapper for actually calling them out. Is anyone challenging the pathetic nature of these attacks? Does anyone see this as a bad thing for our Republic? Has a single one of these watchdogs..., and when I say watchdogs I mean that's what their supposed to be. Here's the press watchdog: 'ruff, ruff, ruff' .(Glenns is holding a little puppy dog). She's shivering she's so afraid of Obama. This is our press now so scared of Obama. Wouldn't it be better to have a really scary watchdog watching the government?? Entire clip at :




Direct link:Much of the American Media are Lapdogs Rather Than Watch Dogs

or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQnEVri3NTM

Clip 3 :Glenn Beck Clips 10-22-09 Seg1- Poll: 1st Time More People Disagree with Obama Than Agree

The Mao hotline is here so the White House can call in anytime. They haven't yet which is suspicious. You know I was thinking maybe its inconvenient for them to watch TV and do their work at the same time, and then I saw this clip from another network. Watch this (shows a Clip of Meeka on MSNBC show 'The Morning Joe' where she says: "The White House just did email us and say that the interaction with ABC Jake Tapper was not heated and I would say that they are making comments about Fox News in a very calm understated manner and we are the ones at MSNBC freaking out about it") Wait a minute. The White House is emailing a show no one watches and they can't call us. Maybe they could fax us if their phone lines are tied up with MSNBC. ....

Entire clip at :




Direct link:Poll: 1st Time More People Disagree with Obama Than Agree

or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgCVO3ZdVoQ

Clip 4 : Glenn Beck Clips 10-21-09 Seg1- Tactics the Admin Uses to Attack People and Organizations

The White House has our phone number. They haven't used it yet which makes me think they are issuing a smear campaign. You can call me any time and correct any of the mistakes you say we make. I would love to hear what they are. The Mao hotline. They haven't called yet so I thought maybe the phones are down so I brought carrier pigeons. You can call me or send carrier pigeons with all our mistakes so we can correct them...

I am going to expose two things that the white house does to totally control the debate...Here on these trees I listed three things : 1) Wrong thinking, 2) danger and 3) profit. They are the same three things that progressives use to discredit opponents on every single issue. Wrong thinking, danger and profit. They continually use this argument on everything. It doesn't matter what they are talking about. They disparage any dissent by saying those involved it's just wrong thinking saying: 'they are not smart enough, its the politics of the past'. Then you have the second one :'They are a danger, it's bad danger'. Then you have a third category: 'Those that are against it are against it for profit'. Meanwhile their (the progressives) goals are always right, their methods are always healthy, their motivation pure, enlightened and for the betterment of human kind and mother earth. Don't question them. Its these people (Wrong thinking, danger and profit) you have to worry about....

(Then Glenn Beck plays a number of democrat video clips as examples and show how each theme is an example democrat theme of Wrong thinking, danger and profit. Examples shown in clip : 1) Obama and oil company profits, 2) Hillary Clinton and oil company profits,3)Congressman Alan Grayson on how republicans want you to die, 4) Bill Maher on health insurance profits, 5) Obama on those opposing his health reform.) ....

Entire clip at :




Direct link:Tactics the Admin Uses to Attack People and Organizations

or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QnXw7nqaO4

Obama's vision of Competition (and other Obama-care dreams)

Pelosi July 17, 2009:"We have the support of the doctors (AMA), the nurses and the American people"

This past week Nancy Pelosi's House of Representatives has made public their draft of comprehensive health care plan, a.k.a. Obama-care. President Obama is doing campaign events and (scripted) town hall meetings promoting the any day now democrat success in passing a Obama-care bill. The Democratic National Committee is running campaign ads targeting wavering moderate-conservative Senate democrats to gin up pressure for them to fall in line and vote 'yes'. Obama and the democratic leadership are promoting a sense of urgency as they did with the Stimulus bill. Republicans are once again cut out of negotiations leaving democrats alone to get their members to fall in line behind another massively expensive bill , again similar to the Economic Recovery (Stimulus) (Economic Recovery and Middle-Class Tax Relief Act of 2009) bill.

What are the crisis arguments that Obama is using to once again get the public to rally behind him again?

Obama July 1, 2009 : "Unless we act, within a decade, one out of every $5 we earn will be spent on health care. And for those who rightly worry about deficits, the amount our government spends on Medicare and Medicaid will eventually grow larger than what our government spends today on everything else combined -- everything else combined."





Obama : " In the last nine years, premiums have risen three times faster than wages for the average family. I don't need to tell you this because you've seen it in your own lives. Even if you've got health insurance -- and 46 million people don't -- if you've got health insurance, you have seen your costs double. They've gone up three times faster than wages. If we do nothing, then those costs are just going to keep on going higher and higher."

They are "If we don't do anything now Medicaid and Medicare will grow larger than all the government spending today". "More and more people will lose their health insurance". "Small Companies will not be able to compete with those overseas" . Notice these are all negative-negative prediction arguments. If we don't pass this plan then these bad things will happen. Does this sound familiar? "If we don't pass TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) immediate the stock market will crash and the country will go into recession" and " If we don't pass this stimulus (economic recovery ) plan unemployment will exceed 8%" . The country sheepishly went along with those two bills and the negative predictions came true anyway, with trillions of dollar of debt and a takeover of the economy by the federal government. Notice we were promised few if any positive results from these massive government interventions into the economy that could be used as a measure of success. In both cases we were promised doom if we didn't fall in line. In both cases we were told that the failure of these bills was because things must have been worse before the bills than they thought, but both were a success. This makes it difficult to be optimistic about another expensive crisis bill.

Obama : "In recent years, over one-third of small businesses have reduced benefits and many have dropped coverage altogether since the early '90s -- not because small business owners don't want to provide benefits to their workers, but they just simply can't afford it; they don't have the money. If we don't act, that means that more people are going to lose coverage and more people are going to lose their jobs because those businesses are not going to be competitive."


Obama and democrats do promise some positive results on Obama-care. That we (who are we?) will pay less in health care insurance costs (as will the country as a whole) , we will get to keep our own health insurance if we are happy with it, and it will help bring the deficit under control. Unfortunately the specific details of the current democrat's draft bill's contradict all of these Obama's talking points. It looks like it will cost more, run up even bigger deficits and joblessness and will make it difficult to keep your doctor and health insurance plan. One example is that the abortion will be in the required minimum set of benefit your health insurance must provide to avoid the 8% payroll tax. The other is the current CBO (Congressional Budget Office)estimate of how much the current democrat plans will cost. Lastly is that the taxes to pay for it will fall on small businesses, as will the 8 % payroll taxes killing off any small business private sector jobs.


Obama :"I also strongly believe that one of the options in the exchange should be a public option, in order for us to create some competition for the private insurers to keep them honest. If they are in fact giving good service and providing high-quality coverage, then that's where people will want to go."


Being a (Peter) Schiff-ist free-marketeer I have to comment on a line Obama repeats over and over that "We need a public option to compete with the private health insurance companies to keep them honest". He says that if private insurance companies really offer a good deal that makes us happy then we will reject the public option. Yet what does he mean by compete? He means that the government will apply a number of mandates and regulations to what is already the most regulated private industry in America. He will require that the private insurance companies must accept already sick customers and provide a set of minimum set of benefits such as abortion. On the other side those on the public option will have the government impose the same price controls on doctors as medicare and medicaid. That will create a even bigger pool for the insurers to that will force the doctors to cost shift to those on private plans while forcing businesses to shift to the public plan. This is why the left is sure that the public plan will lead to a single payer system while Obama sells it as competition (an anti-socialist term.)

Bernie Sandors on FNC to Megan Kelly July 17, 2009: “ We have to do something or costs will destroy this country”, “We are spending MORE than any other country on health care and getting the least” ,”Only those rich fat cats on Wall Street who got big bonuses will have to pay to insure us all”


Let me propose a public option alternative to Obama-care to truly 'compete' with private insurance :
1) Obama care should get no tax money to support it. It needs to survive on it's insurance premiums alone like the private insurance he plans to compete with. That means no tax increases, especially not on job producers. The uninsured can be treated free on all the 'cost savings' and 'efficiency' of the publicly run government Obama-care option ,as can those already ill. Heck, healthy Obama supporters will sign up in droves to cost share with all the drug addicts and homosexuals that already have aids, right?
2) Private Health Insurance Companies should be given the freedom to offer insurance across state lines and not be required to provide a minimum set of benefits set by state law. Those minimum benefits will now be provided by Obama-care and will not be needed by private companies as with those that are all ready sick. Let the young and healthy be allowed to buy insurance at a price that is related to their risk and desired coverage using the private companies if they desire. Let private health insurance be like auto-insurance, based on risk.
3) Make everyone be required to have health insurance that covers emergency rooms. This mandate is required simply because both parties demand that anyone requiring emergency service be treated without payment (yet if you have assets or significant taxable income and don't pay they can destroy your credit rating, but otherwise it is free.) The mandate for this emergency room service takes care of the claim of Obama that we need to give free health care covering abortions because we pay for it anyway when the uninsured walk in an emergency room. I understand this is anti-libertarian but so is the current laws that drive up our taxes now.
4) The President, Vice President and Congress must give up their current government funded health care plans and either pay cash or be covered by the Obama-care government option as long as they are in office.

I know these ideas would never be passed by either party used to give-aways and were made to simply show that Obama-care claim of a government option to promote competition is complete political non-sense. Obama is going to tax your employer to pay for a government option to compete with the private insurance your employer gives you? Plus add costly mandates on that insurance?

Lastly. this is the first big political battle that counts. There was no chance to stop the stimulus politically. But this could be Obama's Stalingrad, he cant withdraw, he cant hold his supply lines as liberals in MSM are already talking about democrats proposal being a disaster likely to fail, at least without a re-write. This week MSNBC Hardball host Chris Mathews said it was mistake for democrats to go alone on the stimulus bill and should scrap the current health care bills and go bi-partition. MSNBC Ed Schulz rants daily about weak kneed democrats wavering on the government option and demands they cut republicans out completely and fall in line on a government option, as a way to get to single payer (Canadian/England care.) This is finally our moment to stop the Obama-revolution as Conservative Senator DeMint implied recently. Let's not blow it.

Moore's Sicko, England's Voter Revolution, and our Roadmap to Insolvency

Micheal Moore's Movie Sicko is playing on Showtime and the people's (the poor's) revolution he called for looks like the USA with Obama and Pelosi. I think it is a good reference for conservatives for the coming Health care reform battle as well as a warning for our possible future as a nation. In addition Moore's tour though Europe interviewing people that are extremely happy with the great free public services that their government provides while they all live rich lifestyles is Classic entertainment. Apparently there is no waiting with socialized medicine, in Europe they are treated immediately. The entire movie Sicko can be seen free here Sicko at Google.

Given the insolvency of Great Britain with the USA following there is a interview in the movie you should be familiar with. The scene starts with Narrator Michael Moore asking former Britain's Parliament member Tony Benn when the idea came that every citizen should have the right to free health care. He says "It all began with democracy. Before we had the vote all the power was in the hands of rich people. If you had money you had health care, education you could take care of yourself when you were old. Democracy gave the poor the vote and moved power from the market place to the polling place, from the wallet to the ballot. What we said is we had massive unemployment in the 1930s but not during the war (WWII) and If you can have full employment by killing Germans, why cant you have full employment by building schools, building hospitals, recruiting nurse, recruiting teachers? If you can find money to kill people, you can find money to help people."



Moore then talks about how the British pulled together after WWII devastation by providing free health care for everyone making a reference to America's pulling together after 9/11. More Tony Benn gems:"I think democracy is the most revolutionary thing in the world far more than socialist ideas because if you have power you use it to meet the needs of you and your community.”and "This idea of choice that Capitalists talk about all the time. Choice depends on the freedom to choose and if you are shackled with debt you don’t have the freedom to choose. People in debt become hopeless and hopeless people don’t vote. They always say that that everyone should vote but I think that if the poor in Britain or the United States turned out and voted for people that represented their interests there would be a real democratic revolution.” Moore also goes to France where he points out that the French government is terrified of the people who will demand their services and their four day week and march and protest for it.


The entire clip of Tony Benn is here:
Youtubelink :Sicko (Michael Moore) - Tony Benn


So Tony (and Moore) tells us that Britain pulled together after WWII and gave themselves free health care. He also says the people rose up and demanded government services on the basis that a country that could afford war with Germany can afford free health care and other free services. But we know England couldn't afford WWII. WWII destroyed the great British Empire and they lost their colonies as a result. Moore seems to be implying that WWII, Afghanistan and Iraq were all wars of choice and we can just choose free government services instead of War. England's war with Germany was not a luxury. In fact the further breaking of the government with new rights to free services made sure that Britain could never again fight a WWII by keeping it in a continuous bankrupt condition.

James Dale Davidson wrote a book in 1994 called The Great Reckoning: Protect Yourself in the Coming Depression that explained how Britain was THE world military and economy power for centuries but lost it's empire due to multiple wars and welfare spending that bankrupting the country. He pointed out how historically spending on war leads to more demands on the government for increased welfare spending which results in the end of the World Power. The United States took England's place as the military and economic world leader after WWII. Now in 2009, 60 years after England got their Moore revolution and the people demanded free health care from the government; the country is insolvent. Here's two articles about Britain's success in Micheal Moore's revolution: Budget 2009: Britain's debt will not be under control until 2032 and Britain: Brown’s fiscal stimulus no longer an option for G20 summit . To end this thought watch our favorite British Parliament member speech on British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's fiscal disaster and Moore's dream come true:

Daniel Hannan MEP: The devalued Prime Minister of a devalued Government("You have run out of our money"):




Youtubelink :Daniel Hannan MEP: The devalued Prime Minister of a devalued Government

Nancy Pelosi : “The CIA misled the Bush Administration (on torture and WMDs) just like with me”

At today’s House leadership press conference Speaker Nancy Pelosi was once again ambushed with questions about her CIA briefings on Enhanced interrogation Techniques. Today she stunned reporters when she said that the Bush White House was misled by the CIA on WMDs. She stated, “Former President George W Bush was misled into thinking Saddam had WMDs just like we were both misled on the CIA policy on torture. We need an investigation to find out if the CIA tortured prisoners to force them to say Iraq was producing WMDs to deceive the former White House into going to war.“ The House Speaker implied that the CIA conspired to trick both the President and the congress into invading Iraq. Reporters were in shock when the speaker defended the honor of the ex-president, “President Bush is an honorable man who only had the nation's best interest at heart and he was deceived on WMDs just as I was on the CIA torture policy. I will introduce a bill in congress to defund the CIA so this can never happen again.”

Pelosi also spoke on Valerie Plane/Joe Wilson scandal, “It is obvious that the Wilson/Plane scandal was all about classified leaks to hurt the President and his staff just like what is going on now with my investigation into CIA torture. We need an immediate investigation into both Plane’s and Wilson’s classified leaks relating to the production of WMDs in Iraq. In addition I call on President Obama to give a full pardon to Scooter Libby who was a victim of CIA leaks and lies just like I am. National Security trumps politics We are all Americans first. "