First Conservative Blog

Do They Know it’s a Recession?

At a time when many Americans need money now, a shocking new analysis by USA Today of federal salary information shows a dramatic increase in the number of federal employees who are making six-figure incomes. The numbers make it seem as if these workers are far from feeling the effects of the recession.

Employees previously making $ 100,000 or more saw an increase of between 14 and 19 percent in their salaries, before factoring in bonuses and overtime pay. That’s an awful lot of money for those that already are well off – and at a time when more people are hurting than ever.

And the Rich Get …Well, You Know the Rest

The number of civilian employees in the Defense Department earning $ 150,000 salaries increased from 1,868 at the end of 2007 to 10,100 in June of the current year. This news can be hard to swallow at a time when millions of Americans have lost their jobs and are struggling to make ends meets. A lot of people would love to be working, but can’t find even a basic job.

Conversely, federal hiring has been on a steady rise in recent months. In the last 18 months, the Transportation Department has bumped 1,689 people to over $ 170,000 – compared to only ONE person earning that before now.

Is this where it Ends?

Perhaps this would be easier to stomach if this were the extent of it. The truth is that the entire federal government is raising salaries, which is asinine considering we have a record deficit and debt. Six figure salaries are less common in these areas. Meanwhile in the rest of the country we desperately need money now.

How is this Justified?

According to Jessica Klement, the government affairs director for the Federal Managers Association, these employees work in industries that require greater amounts of training or skills, and are working for less then their private sector counterparts. The USA Today reports that Klement said these workers, according to Klement, made 26 percent less than counterparts in the private sector.

Does their Story Hold Water?

USA Today also looked at federal employee salary stats from the Office of Personnel Management (except workers in Congress, Postal Service, the White House, the military, and at “intelligence” agencies – their track record justifies quotes). From the study they found that the average private sector salary was $ 41,331 and the average federal employee is making $ 71,206.

Shocking, but True

For the majority of Americans who really need money now, this is going to be some tough news to hear. The previous administration approved pay increases of 3 percent in January of 2008 and 3.9 percent in January of 2009 across the board for federal employees. The recommendation of President Obama is to take this down to 2 percent for the beginning of 2010, which may still sound high but is actually the lowest increase since 1975. These raises, among others and modified pay systems, have led to these egregious salary increases.

Author’s Note:

Conservative Blog readers seek out columns with conservative humor.  Unfortunately, there isn’t any way to make the Stimulus funny.  Still, these are important arguments, so I hope that this can give readers some ammunition to use against liberal neighbors who can’t understand why people are angry and upset at the Obama Recession.

Thanks for reading!

MAS

—————————–

Why The Stimulus Creates No Jobs

President Obama rolled out His new employment plan this week, promising to utilize unspent TARP money to stimulate job growth.  Like the health care disaster being debated in Congress, the President was light on details of His jobs program.  And when confronted with the fact that TARP dollars were loans to banks and when repaid to the taxpayers, the President fell back on the tried and true “we have to do something” excuse previously used to justify horrible decisions.

So Christmas appears to have arrived early for the Obama administration – a couple hundred billion dollars that they didn’t have to raise through taxation.  Of course none of the other spending has been paid for via taxation either, but Congress is fairly sure to go along with the President’s request to use these funds to further destroy the economy.

On the plus side, there were a couple curious inclusions in the President’s plan, such as Capital Gains reduction.  The obvious follow up question that the lefties in the press ignored:  “If reducing taxes creates jobs in small business, why would it not work for the overall economy in general?”  Of course Reagan proved that tax reductions are the only way a government can successfully improve gross employment.

How does Obama get away with this?  The answer of course lies with the media lapdogs assigned to cover this President’s every move.  To make their own jobs easier, those in the media refuse to ask any difficult questions.  This enables Obama to get away with absurd and sure-to-fail strategies.  Count on CNN to cover for Him.  There are several fundamental economic reasons though, that the Stimulus and its ugly step children fail to create jobs and in fact, restrict job growth.

Let’s start with the concept of ‘growth.’  Think about it.  Some of the best paid jobs in America surround economic and business growth. Project Managers, Architects and Engineers all require a customer base that has access to capital and is willing to accept some degree of risk to invest in new projects.  New projects of course require new workers.  The absence of new project work causes the massive layoffs witnessed over the past year.  Without new projects, America is reduced to a service-based economy where the only jobs are low-level service sector positions.  Democrats used to rail against an economy where citizens just ‘flipped each other’s burgers’ for employment.  Curious that the Stimulus has created just the situation for which they demonized Regan and conservatives.  Leave it to liberals to make a disaster real.

Currently, Architects have very little to design and Engineers have nothing to build.  Until general ‘growth’ is established, this situation won’t change and any recovery is certain to be relatively ‘jobless.’  But what drives growth?  Three elements contribute to a growth economy, without which growth is impossible.  These are:

• Reasonably Priced Capital
• Steady (low) Taxation
• Confidence

Reasonably Priced Capital:

Government borrowing for abominations such as the Stimulus and yes, Health Care, only drives up the cost of capital needed for a free economy.   This is a factor of simple supply and demand.  As the federal government competes for money on world financial markets to cover the shortfall between revenues and expenditures, the price of capital is driven upwards.  This also limits the amount of capital available to private industry and small business.  And as we all learned before we went to college, scarcity causes rising prices.

Investors with good ideas and plans requiring capital are then priced out of the market for new development, construction and expansion – leaving the Architects and Engineers without work.  Even if private capital can be found to drive larger projects, most industries are rightfully reluctant to take on that level of risk because the people they expect to be future customers may require financing to purchase their machines, condos and buildings.  Potential investors are wise to hang onto their money.

Taxation:
Tax policy impacts the pool of capital available for investment.  Where in the world do Democrats and liberals think that capital comes from?  Capital comes from private sources and if the Federal government intervenes to extort large sums of it from wealthier citizens, the pool of capital shrinks.  A shrinking capital pool creates additional scarcity and only adds to the upward pressure on interest rates which exacerbates the growth and job creation problem.  With Democrats firmly in control of the government, investors are moving significant sums to offshore investments and depleting the pool of resources available for American growth.

Confidence:
Businesses are wise to hold their funds owing to great uncertainty as to whether Obama and the Democrats will use their current governmental authority to extort their wealth via taxation.  With Health Care – which can only result in exceptionally increased taxation or inflation, Cap and Trade – which will drastically elevate energy and production costs, just two of the major concerns.  Any businessperson investing her or his own money is smart to hang on to it or move it overseas until there is some degree of certainty that they will be able to keep anything they earn in the US.  Again, as wealthy investors withhold capital and invest instead in speculative enterprises – such as land, gold etc., the pool of capital is reduced.

Won’t Stimulus Spending Spur Growth?
The government and liberal argument that Stimulus spending will improve the economy by injecting cash and credit into the system, fails in one crucial and critical way.  Stimulus spending is primarily done by state government and other governmental entities.  This only exacerbates the jobs problem because state and local governments – although offering some temporary relief to the contractor that has the political connections to get one of the ‘shovel ready’ projects – uses the Stimulus funds to pay for workers that don’t produce anything.

Government Produces no Wealth:
After a bridge is built or a road is constructed, the population has collective use of that asset.  That is important.  However after construction is compete, the contractor is now without work.   When the government project is over, the jobs value is essentially finished.

Private enterprise uses capital to create ‘Leverageable’ Assets.  In other words, if a builder constructs a building, he must hire an architect and engineer and all the construction personnel to build it.  When the building is complete, the developer can then borrow against the value of his newly created asset (provided there is reasonably priced capital available) and hire the engineers and architects to build additional buildings and employing more contractors than before.  This is job growth.

Government spending produces no ‘Leverageable’ Assets.  Additionally, government incurs the collective debt that must eventually be paid for.  In other words, government spending may keep teachers and government workers employed, but these employees don’t build anything that can be used to keep the growth and employment cycle moving.  Sure, teachers go to the grocery store and spend like everyone else, but the consumer economy doesn’t produce the kind of good paying growth jobs that were available not so long ago – they produce the ‘burger flipper’ positions Democrats love to hate.  Government workers will also buy cars, but not on the scale that can save General Motors.   And eventually, the federal funding runs out and the bill comes due; a huge bill that Team Obama unceremoniously dumped in the laps of our children.

This is all a long way of saying that the jobs lost in the Obama Recession are directly due to Democrat policies.  They are not coming back any time soon and it will take a courageous Republican Congress and administration to undo the horrific damage done to the free world economy.   Even then it will take years.

Obama Summit – Assigning the Blame

President Obama hosted a ‘Jobs Summit’ on Thursday this week ostensibly to identify new ways to create jobs for more Americans.  It hasn’t dawned on the brain trust running the Federal Government that if there was a way to do this, in two hundred years of history, there had to be someone that has accomplished this in the past.

And actually, they have!  Unfortunately for Team Obama, the solution was clearly identified by none other than conservative and arch enemy of the lefty libs, Ronald Regan.  Coming into office on the heels of the last feeble-minded Democrat to occupy the Oval Office, Ronald Regan introduced tax cuts, limited government and reduced regulation.  (I know..Clinton qualifies as just as ‘feeble minded’ but Newt Gingrich kept Clinton’s budget balanced for most of his Presidency.)  The result of Regan’s economic policies was an unprecedented boom in employment and upward mobility.   But for a progressive, man-of-the-people President, learning from a conservative president though is akin to acknowledging that conservatives defeated the Soviet Union.

Now that another Democrat has emerged selling Jimmy Carter’s economic peanut oil, a new conservative resurgence is on the distant horizon.  In the meantime, those interested in earning a better life for themselves and their families are compelled whittle away their days working at Starbucks or UPS, waiting for American voters to get a brain and throw out the current crop of Democrats.

But seriously, what about those that need jobs or want to improve their economic situation now?  President Obama at least understands that citizens aren’t willing to remain without opportunity to earn an income stream that offers a chance to trade in the ’79 Pinto for a Lexus.  Unfortunately for team Obama and the lefties running Washington, the Stimulus Bill has stolen capital required for economic growth and channeled that money into non-wealth building spending by individual states.  History shows that two economic disasters will result from excessive government borrowing – inflation and high interest rates which kills jobs growth. Additionally, increasing taxes on the wealthy only leads to additional job losses (another historical fact).  So what is a Progressive President to do?

Obama will no doubt fall back on what He does best – blame others.  Only this time, he has recruited a team of experts to come up with things to blame.  Union leaders of course will blame ‘corporate greed.’  ACORN will blame racism, discrimination and maltreatment of the poor.  Senate and House Democrats will continue to dredge up class warfare issues to increase animosity amongst the population.  Although these aren’t solutions to the jobs problem, they are useful because these are the only things the President has to work with.

The real reason for this “Jobs Summit” then was to come up with a litany of ills that can be blamed on others.  Since Obama is approaching his one year anniversary in office, the tried and until now true tactic of blaming George W. Bush is looking more and more childish – even to the childish Chris Mathews, whose leg has returned to delivering normal sensation to its owner.

Barack Obama has now come face to face with the reality that all Democrats ultimately confront – liberal policies fail in America.  They actually fail everywhere else as well, but some societies such as in the UK and France, have chosen to live with them for while anyway.  The only thing Obama can do to hang on to His power is to come up with credible excuses.  But sooner or later, someone from MSNBC will ask the President when He will take responsibility for His actions on the economy.

With the country’s mood now soured on additional government spending, Team Obama is backed into a corner… they can’t really implement another Stimulus and they certainly won’t cut spending or tax rates.   This leaves the only available action to utilize friends in the media to blame others and to ultimately change the subject.

This is a process already underway.  Jobs figures released Friday morning show the unemployment rate supposedly dropping by two tenths of one percent.   Wowee!  Unfortunately, if unemployment were measured in the same way as they were under the Peanut Farmer’s reign the figure would be closer to 15 to 17%.  At the end of the week, Obama and company were left to celebrate the fact that only 11,000 jobs were lost during the past month.   Had this happened under GW Bush, Chris Mathews would have thrown up on his desk.

While losing only 11,000 jobs is certainly a step in the right direction, no consideration is given to the real reasons unemployment figures are dropping.  The simple reason is that people have exhausted their unemployment benefits.  When someone drops off his state’s unemployment role, it is assumed that he is no longer unemployed.  He therefore is not added to the number of unemployed.  As the first major waves of layoffs occurred about one year ago, these workers are now exhausting their benefits, leaving the incorrect impression that unemployment is declining when in fact unemployment is still increasing.

Team Obama fully understands this and is using its efforts to take over and ruin American health care to take the weak-minded media off the unemployment issue.  This will only work so long though.  As James Goober Carter discovered, when voters understand the damage liberalism does to the country and the economy, conservatism makes a huge come back.  Stay tuned!

Conservative Blog post for November 4, 2009

————————–

Obama’s New Paradox – Create More Hope or Fear?

EJ Dionne writes this morning that President Obama needs to invest a little time in creating an atmosphere of ‘hope’ in the country.  Dionne captured this quote from New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg following Governor Jon Corzine’s loss on Tuesday: 

“There are two things happening,” the New Jersey Democrat noted. “One is fear. The other is punishment. Voters fear for themselves and their families, and they want to punish anyone who got them into this condition.” 

This brilliant observation underscores why the GOP – if it can maintain a clear conservative message in 2010 – will absolutely wallop liberal and even so called ‘moderate’ incumbents.  Voters should indeed punish those that make their lives difficult.  It may surprise Dionne that this is the entire reason for electing leaders.  Those that serve us well receive continued employment.  Those that don’t get to stand in the unemployment line with the rest of us.

The really interesting part of this though surrounds what President Obama did or did not do to create his party’s election disasters in Virginia and New Jersey.  Exit polls repeatedly note that the condition of the economy and government spending are top areas of concern.  The fear generated by driving the economy into stagnation by state and federal governments was clearly acknowledged by voters on Tuesday.  And as Lautenberg notes, voters want to punish those that got them into this condition.   At least voters are now paying attention.

President Obama has created a hugely problematic condition for his party.  In order to win election, He had to gin up animosity and ‘fear’ about the Bush administration and about conservative leadership.  Then he had to gin up more fear about the economy to get the Stimulus passed.  And Rahm Emmanuel’s famous quote about never allowing a good crisis to go to waste kept the fear machine in high gear.  It now seems that no one at the White House figured out that sooner or later, voters would want to see some results from mortgaging their grandchildren’s future.

So what does the President do now?  He has already spent a huge amount of our money on the Stimulus package which will only produce bloated state governments and rapidly increasing inflation in 2010.  Job recovery is already choked off because the pressure the Stimulus borrowing puts on interest rates only drives commercial finance costs upwards.  And without an assurance that reasonably priced capital will be available for growth and expansion, business will not have any reason to grow and hire workers. 

President Obama certainly added to the atmosphere of fear, but now that trail is well-worn and voters are sick and tired of hearing about how after one full year, the current economic problems are still the fault of George W. Bush.  Even CNN is bound to be skeptical of administration claims that this is simply the situation the White House ‘inherited.’ 

Democrats are at their core – emotionalists.  As fear is the most powerful of emotions, Democrats have continually endeavored to increase the level of fear in the population to the point where it reached an apex in Virgina and New Jersey.   Now that these elections are concluded, the focus of voter anger is squarely directed at the Obama administration.   One year is plenty of time to start making a positive difference in the economy and there is absolutely no doubt in anyone’s mind that the economy has only worsened, despite the 3rd quarter GDP numbers being propped up by Cash for Clunkers and a trillion dollar Stimulus bill.   And the 2010 inflation will only make matters worse. 

Inspiring ‘Hope’ would take the energy out of the drive for taking over health care and driving energy taxes through the roof.   Hope would imply that the economy is improving.  Even Wunderkind Tim Geithner understands that the economy will not improve next year and only offers vague promises of stagnant jobs growth.    Besides, if Obama comes out with a modern “Morning in America” speech, it will only provide fodder for the Tea Partiers and others who understand what life is really like in American neighborhoods.  And deep down, every Obama administrator understands that a liberal takeover of institutions like health care and energy production cannot be achieved in an atmosphere of optimism. 

So look for the fear and the absolutely irrational blaming of GW Bush to continue.  MSNBC will certainly help in the effort, but the interesting player will be CNN.  After turning in a solid last place performance on election night, the CNN wizards may finally be compelled to look at what their fawning adoration of this President has done to their ratings – as well as explore how this may impact their paychecks.  

CNN is now the confirmed laughing-stock of cable news – losing even to the lunatics at MSNBC.  Unless the network returns to some form of investigative and honest journalism, the organization is headed for a terrible financial disaster.  Looking critically at the Obama administration is about this network’s only ticket out of the sewage pool it has flung itself into.  Should CNN decide to abandon its role in Obama worship, they have a shot at survival.   This would make CNN an unreliable partner with the White House for ginning up the fear they need to justify continued government expansion.

Obama really has no choice.  There will be few messages of hope in 2010 and fear should continue to be the dominant theme for 2010.  Without it, Obama can’t take over health care or energy.  But Americans want results.  One year plenty of time to wait.  And come next November, the ‘Hope and Change’ voters bring will be sweeping the House clear and putting a stop to Obama’s reckless government expansion.

Conservative Blog video post – lest we forget what we are up against – even after a couple decent wins yesterday.

Duration : 0:3:16

Read the rest of this entry »

Conservative Blog Post – November 4 supplemental..

Another interesting reader question:

Would Obama be comfortable in Canada’s Liberal Party?

Reply:

Probably… He would be more comfortable as a member of the Canadian Socialist Party.

Obama’s Foreign Policy – Consequences of Walking Away

Earlier this week, it was also revealed that New Jersey school children were being taught to mindlessly worship Barack Obama with a little nursery rhyme.  This isn’t unusual.  The Russians now have their own version, going something like:

Barack Hussein Obama
Is Russia’s greatest friend
When we move on Eastern Europe
He will want to talk again

President Obama gave his dream speech to the United Nations yesterday, and then claimed to score a big ‘win’ regarding sanctions against Iran.  Wowee!  The President got what He wanted!  Unfortunately, what the President actually wanted and what would be a positive change in Iran are two different things.  Obama’s new BFFs in Moscow agreed to the ‘possibility of sanctions.’  They didn’t agree to anything in the way of meaningful action. 

Democrats in general and President Obama in particular have a very different view of what actually is ‘accomplishment.’  This is why most Democrats are terrible business people.  “Accomplishment” to most people means doing something.  “Accomplishment” in this instance though, refers to getting the Russians to say something different – like that sanctions against Iran can be considered.  It took Obama surrendering the Eastern European missile defense shield to get the phraseology changed. 

This morning at the G-20, Obama expressed surprise and outrage that Iran had been operating a second Uranium enrichment plant.  Using this as an excuse to show his leadership, the Prez reiterated a call for talks about sanctions.   The Russians – seeing the value Obama now brings to their own power grab efforts – readily agreed to making this a key part of the October 1 talks.  For its part Iran seemed okay with this as well, seeing that such talks produce inconclusive results.  Talks also will take weeks if not months to produce any sanction effort which would then be fairly easily defeated by working with China and others who need Iranian oil.    In the meantime, Iran will have completed its nuclear development.

Israel is considering its options carefully.  The Jewish State’s leaders are shaking their heads in dismay at the amateurish conduct of their greatest ally.  If the US didn’t know about any second nuclear enrichment site, what else are they totally in the dark about?  (Things like:  does Obama actually understand that Iran’s government is out to kill every Jew in Israel?)  This can only increase the sense of anxiety and drive the need for Israel to act unilaterally.  Israel has learned the hard way that talking in diplomatic venues such as the UN usually produces disastrous results. 

Russia really doesn’t care in all this except that Iran owes them quite a bit of money for their help in building the nuclear program.  The Russians effectively leveraged their refusal to talk about sanctions into surrender in Eastern Europe by the US President.   After accepting surrender, Russia is free to talk about other things that bother the United States. 

Now that Putin has effectively intimidated the US President onto the back bench of world politics and proved that this US President is a man of inaction, Russia will do whatever it can to keep Obama in his place – including pushing the illusion that the President is some great world leader.   Supporting the President’s call for ‘talks’ is quite different from taking any action.  And, as Josef Stalin once noted, Democrats are nothing more than ‘useful idiots.’  Putin will be taking advantage by giving Obama all the talks the President wants – just as long as action isn’t required.  And with Obama, it won’t be.   Obama has become an asset to the former Soviet Union. 

Obama to the Rescue – of the GOP – Three Ways Obama Helps Republicans

Following His theatrical –if misleading – address to the nation last Wednesday, President Obama sought to galvanize support for taking over the US Health Care industry.  Instead he added fortitude and backbone to the resistance.

Despite Congressman Wilson pointing out Obama’s inaccurate statement regarding coverage for illegal aliens, the speech failed to change public opinion.  (It is telling that despite a flood of contributions to Wilson’s congressional opponent from lunatic lefties anxious to feel better about themselves, the South Carolina district he represents remains firmly in support of their GOP rep.)

By refusing to come clean on several obvious issues, such as coverage for illegal aliens and the outrageous cost of His proposals, Obama unwittingly united the opposition yet again.  Supporters of His efforts to ruin American Health Care for most citizens were already united behind him – all 32% of the population.  Unfortunately for the Prez, the opposition just got stronger.  Obama has only himself to blame.

Failing to answer questions after 23 speeches on the matter is tantamount to lying.  Most voters who aren’t committed leftists keep waiting for answers as to how this thing is really to be paid for, where in the world –specifically – can $500 billion in savings be found within the Medicare program and how can government health boards (seriously) NOT act as death panels when their main duty will be to enforce cost controls and regulation on seniors needing treatment.   If there are no practical and realistic answers offered, most people that think for themselves conclude that the ones offering the plan really don’t know how it will work and are therefore not to be trusted.

Obama and his minions have simply not answered questions and are burning up what is left of the trust the voters left with them last year.    Other than simply denying that ‘bad things’ will occur, Obama and the leftist Democrats offer no substantive argument that will move public opinion.  Some Democrats – particularly in the Senate – seem smart enough to understand this and are already at work crafting a bit of legislation that will allow Obama to save face by claiming a win on health care reform without actually delivering very much. 

Still, the damage may be done.  Democrats know they will lose seats in the mid-term elections next year.  However, their President is putting them in the untenable position of supporting a plan that has no logical expectation of delivering the results Obama is promising.  Pelosi doesn’t care…she will be re-elected by her lunatic fringe district.  However, people like Ben Nelson (D-NE) and Mary Landrieu (D-LA) do care – they represent entire states that do not support the health care takeover.

Conservative candidates in relatively red states like Nebraska and Louisiana (now that the Bayou Democrat’s election-stealing network has been broken up) are already running against the President.  Obama offers such a clear example of liberalism out-of-control and elitist government that refuses to answer questions or provide specific details regarding important matters, that any Democrat is painted with this image.  And in the Bayou State, Obama is already dragging Democrat prospects into the alligator pit.  Senator Vitter – beset by his own personal misbehavior – is mounting a VERY strong candidacy for re-election by simply presenting himself as one who opposes the Obama policies.  Right now, he is looking tough to beat.

Democrats knew they would have an uphill battle to maintain their House and Senate margins.  Unfortunately for them, Obama has given every conservative candidate a clear illustration of what liberalism means to America.  Americans are rightfully scared enough to at least pay attention.

Obama is adding to a potential GOP Revival in three central ways, including:

Arrogance – By stating that “we will call you out for your inaccuracies” the President is acting like a bully who is in fact, unwilling to talk about specific details.  Besides, this is an empty threat.  Republican opponents seem all too willing to have this conversation, as they have actually read the bills.  Democrats –especially those who have read the bills – are absolutely afraid to discuss the implications publicly.  Obama seems to either have not read the legislation or is absolutely dishonest about what the language means.  To Democrat’s credit though, the bills are written so poorly and in such legalese that Obama thought that as any good lawyer does– He could interpret it any way which suited Him.  This just isn’t good enough for American voters.  And should the attempt be made in the Senate to pass the Health Care disaster bill via reconciliation – look for a major GOP sweep next fall.

Attitude – A standard political tactic – if you are not for this plan, you are ignorant.  Unfortunately, the grass roots nature of the town hall resistance movement really is “grass-roots.”  For all its attempts to be a good organizer the GOP has great difficulty organizing a picnic – much less setting up the kind of opposition Congressional lefties ran into in their home districts last month.  For Obama and Pelosi to accuse the opposition of being Republican plants or being just plain ignorant is insulting to the very people to whom Obama owes his job.   They won’t forget.

Ineptitude – Team Obama believes that a good speech solves all problems.  They fail to distinguish between a good speech and good theatrics.  Obama is great at the latter – horrible at the former.  A good speech generally includes details and specifics to make a logical point.  Unfortunately, in the delivery of 23 major addresses on Health Care, no specifics and certainly little logic have emerged.  This just makes Democrats who support the plan look silly.  They can’t answer a simple question about the ‘reasonableness’ of finding $500 billion in savings from Medicare without ridiculing whoever asked the question.  The biggest fear on the part of Team Obama is that Joe Biden gets off the reservation and starts commenting on Health Care legislation.  Republicans would need no further assistance.

Health Care Reform Speech– Obama’s Top Five Tactics

Support for Health Care takeover is quickly slipping away.  To stop the slide, President Obama has scheduled yet another prime time speech to inspire the nation to accept His wisdom over voter’s personal judgment.  Unfortunately for members of Congress, they will be required to attend this Speech.  After two disastrous press conference appearances, the President had to come up with a bigger and better way to roll out the teleprompter and make one more pitch for taking over one sixth of the US economy.    Whether the President will actually roll out any new ideas is a mystery.  The networks weren’t going to forgo reruns of Hannah Montana to cove another presser, so He had to make this a speech before a joint session of the US Congress.

Obama advisors have hung on to the childish belief that a strong personality and effective communication are more important than facts.  The plain fact is that the current health care proposals will result in:

• exceptionally high costs to taxpayers,
• rationing of care,
• IRS involvement in the health care industry,
• restrictions on freedom of choice regarding end of life issues, and
• on and on

Congress made the mistake of letting the public read the bills Democrats were proposing.  Rational discussion of the proposal then led to the logical conclusion that all of these ‘really bad’ things will in fact become reality should the Democrat’s plan become law.  The only chance the Democrats had was to withhold the content of the legislation until after it was passed.   Team Obama believes that a good speech can overcome these realities.

How stupid does the President believe the American people are?  We will certainly find out Wednesday evening.  Basing His decision to speak to the country before a joint session of Congress, President Obama will employ five –until recently- tried and true Democrat tactics to regain support for taking over the American health care industry.   However, unless  He plainly removes the ‘public option’ from the legislation – a point he went the opposite direction on in his AFL-CIO speech over the weekend – Obama will show that he doesn’t respect American’s ability to reason for themselves.  Should He take this tack, He may ruin the rest of his Presidency.  And to quote a famous pirate, “one can only hope.”

So here are the top five predicted tactics that the President will employ to save the movement to ruin American Health Care:

5.  Demonize – the opposition – A tactic that brings back memories of Ted Kennedy vs. Robert Bork and Bill Clinton vs. anyone with a brain, President Obama will accuse conservatives and Republicans of not offering their own version of health care reform.  Conservatives believe that another version of taking over the health care system is not acceptable and of course have not offered an alternative.   Two Republican ideas already shot down in Congress were:

• Restricting care to US Citizens only by requiring some proof of citizenship, and
• Allowing insurance carriers to compete nationwide – something not currently allowed

The failure of these options indicates that Congressional lefties intend to provide health care to illegal aliens at taxpayer expense and intend to restrict consumer’s ability to purchase plans from better carriers in other states.   The latter option also ensures a lower degree of competition which results in higher prices and costs to American consumers.

4.  Paint a grand vision – for American Society – President Obama believes that He won the election because of his ‘Hope and Change’ message.  The slogan worked even though it was void of specifics.  The problem with health care is that Democrats committed their ideas to paper in the proposed legislation and now that the specifics are available to anyone who can read.  Most of those that did read the bills are very much against the proposals.    Obama believes that painting the vision of a grand and kind nation that takes better care of its illegal aliens than it does of its senior citizens will turn into a sure winner in 2012.  Obama better hope that these senior citizens won’t be around to vote in 2012.

3.  Engage in high theater and drama – by telling stories – The Hollywood lefties have offered a bit of advice to the President in that a good performance will go a long way to convince people to take action that is not in their best interest.  The President will no doubt have one or two (possibly more) heart touching, tear jerking stories of those who suffered terribly because of a lack of health insurance.  Of course the media will fail to validate any of these stories.  Theater and drama are hallmarks of Democrat administrations, but as movie producers have known for generations, the same film only draws well for one or two weekends.  After that, the support withers considerably.   Obama is doing yet another ‘rerun’ of his past health care speeches.  Past reruns haven’t fared well and have only driven support lower.  This speech may send support straight into the tank.  “One can only hope.”

2.  Make it Personal – After all, the Obama Presidency is all about Obama.  After the passing of the last Kennedy, there is no longer any unofficial American Royalty.  MSNBC loser Chris Mathews opined that Obama is the “last Kennedy brother” because Teddy anointed Him during the last election.  Despite the complicity of most in the Washington/New York media club, Americans really don’t want a royal system of government run by decrees and executive edicts.  Obama and the Democrats would very much like such a system as long as they are the ones in power.  Look for the President to bring up his family’s health history as part of the theater and drama act in a last ditch effort to make the story compelling, personal and worthy of throwing one’s own common sense and judgment out the window. 

1.  Simply deny – that bad things will happen (IRS involvement, Rationing, End-of-Life, No Freedom of Choice). This is perhaps the most interesting tactic to expect. Obama and the Congressional supporters who tried to force-feed health care takeover to the American voters have simply denied that the bad things will happen.  Obama has time and again stated that rationing won’t happen, you will be able to keep your insurance plan if you like it, and on and on.  What kind of argument is this?  As the Monty Python troop noted long ago, “simply denying something isn’t an argument.”    Obama is indeed becoming worthy of an appearance on Monty Python’s Flying Circus – if only they were still taping.  Repeating the same message over and over hasn’t been effective and won’t be in the future.  If Obama can’t provide specific examples of how and why rationing will not occur, and how 500ish billion can be cut from Medicare (for redistribution to illegal aliens and others who can afford insurance but won’t pay for it) without causing a restriction on available treatment to seniors, He will certainly lose this argument as well.

Obama is up against the crushing weight of logic in the Health Care Debate.   Americans are over the ‘Hope and Change’ message and want specifics that can be debated.  And when they are debated in a free and open forum, Americans should be over the ‘health care takeover’ as well.  One can only hope.

Obama’s Health Care Failure – Why the Message is Failing to Change Minds

If Democrats thought that the nightmare of townhall meetings was over, the President announced yesterday that He will be delivering a speech on heath care next week.  After the drubbing congressional lefties took over the past several weeks as a result of Obama’s handling of the issue, this speech should only re-ignite resistance.  After all, the President doesn’t offer specifics on how it all will work.  That is a job for little people.  In the end though, there really isn’t much the President can say  that would soften the anti-Democrat mood. 

But why did the resistance to health care legislation hit such a fevered pitch in the first place? Here are the top ten reasons the Obama communication plan that pushed the health care debate – has utterly failed. 

10.  Believing that Health Care is “All About Obama” – As evidenced by the school-video issue, the President’s team believes that He only has to set the policy direction for the country and His will “be done.”  The difficult part about this is that Obama has never held a real job and doesn’t understand that even though leadership makes decisions, carrying them out has consequences.  American seniors have figured out some of these consequences and they don’t like any of them. 

9.  Economic Dishonesty - Obama’s reluctance to discuss the source of cost savings only contributes to distrust.  Cutting billions from Medicare to redistribute elsewhere has only one consequence – rationing of care.  Rationing of care is the ONLY way that any cost savings will be achieved.  Seniors in particular understand street-level economics and also understand that enjoyment of their later years will be severely hurt by any of the health care bills currently being considered.

8.  Lies -  Democrats always seem surprised when voters don’t accept their positions.  Not discussing specific issues such as rationing and ultimate cost leaves constituents feeling that they are being lied to.  And if Arelen Specter is doing the talking – they are.  Lying to one’s voters is a sure ticket to political unemployment.

7.  SEIU – Union thugs sent to intimidate seniors makes really bad news coverage.   As most Americans know, if you have to send out bullies to rally for a cause, the cause is probably disastrous to your interests.  It is curious though that the big guys in purple shirts can’t intimidate Grandma and Grandpa from attending the town halls and making their feelings known.

6.  Charlie Rangel – Although not directly related to health care legislation, it was revealed yesterday that the congressman may have ‘forgotten’ to declare something like half of his income on his tax filings.  As a leading Democrat, Rangel only brings the spotlight to Democrats’ ‘do as I say, not as I do’ method of running the government.  This is just another reason to not trust the Democrat leadership.

5.  Jobless Claims – If Obama’s Stimulus program is working so well, why are so many still out of work?  The public isn’t buying the argument that Obama inherited the recession from GWB any more.  Belief is setting in that the Stimulus and federal spending are making the economic problems worse.   Jobs are still being shed by the hundreds of thousands and it is more apparent that Obama and the Democrats have no idea why their plan isn’t working.  If the Stimulus isn’t creating jobs, why should the public believe they should be trusted to write health care legislation?

4.  Taxation – Democrats typically villify the ‘rich’ as the ones who should be penalized and pay for benefits to the rest of us.  Unfortunately, the ‘rich’ are the ones who do the hiring and provide job creation.  With the failure of the Stimulus causing an already disastrous jobs situation, Americans now understand that any additional taxation – regardless of whom the tax is levied against – will ony make matters worse.

3. Taxation II – Obama has been clear about receiving a health care legislation package that would be “deficit neutral.”  Unfortunately, now that Democrats have had to publicly acknowledge that the proposal would be hugely expensive, even after rationing of care to seniors, the public is highy distrustful of anything the Democrats have to say regarding the federal budget.  These were the folks that in just a few short months have managed to misjudge the defict by a total of two trillion dollars.

2.  Dishonesty II – Statements that individuals can keep the health care plan they have if they are happy with it are simply untrue.  As any senior or anyone who has balanced a checkbook understands, offering a cheaper alternative with a government option will cause businesses to cease providing health benefits to their workers.  To maintain a competitive cost structure, businesses will HAVE to throw their workers onto the government plan.  So the health care plan that you would be able to keep – simply will not be available.  The problem for Democrats is that there are far too many people in America that have run businesses and organizations that fully understand that a government option will be an unparalelled disaster for those that already have good health services.

1.  Cancelling ‘Freedom of Choice’ – This term usually refers to those wishing to make the abortion procedure available to all based on the patient’s right to privacy.  Now however, the Obama administration along with congressional Democrats is restricting ‘choice’ as it applies to senior citizens nearing the end of their lives.  If certain medical procedures will be allowed only according to a government formula, seniors will no longer have ‘choice’ in how they continue to live their lives.  And even though the President has decreed that this will not happen, He has not presented a single reason that restricted treatment options will not occur.