First Conservative Blog

Conservative Blog post for Monday, October 26.

Weekend Ostrich Award – Health Care

For choosing to bury one’s head in the sand, Washington’s Jim McDermott wins this weekend’s Ostrich Award for finding some reason to opine that Obamacare is “gaining support.”

From the Sunday NYT   “the mentality in the country is different,” (as opposed to when Hillary launched her effort to take over American health care) said Mr. McDermott, a psychiatrist who has served in Congress for two decades. “In 1993, we were talking about the uninsured as ‘them.’ Now it turns out this is for us. When a bank like Washington Mutual in Seattle lays off 3,000 people, they lose health insurance. Millions of people with insurance are asking, ‘What if I lose my job?’ ”

Actually, because of the Congressman’s past support of the Stimulus, many workers are asking “how can I get a job?”   Most people that currently have health care are primarily worried about what their new health care would cost.   The ads run by Obamacare advocates claim that medical decisions will be made by “you and your doctor.”  What they don’t say is what treatments you will be allowed to receive and when you would be allowed to receive it.   You and your doctor may decide on having a hip replacement surgery, but the Obamacare boards may very well deny your application based on their cost/benefit analysis.  You and your doctor decided to get a hip replaced, but the government wouldn’t cover the cost.

Many of us remember the psych majors who couldn’t get a real job.  McDermott still hasn’t found one.

Reverse Ostrich Award – Jobs

This one is a ‘Reverse Ostrich Award’ owing to the story’s rather surprising source.   Carolyn Lochhead, Chronicle Washington Bureau from the SF Chronicle of all places is getting one right…. “Forget a jobless recovery,” she writes, “the economy may be entering a recovery with job losses.” 

Of course this sent the leftists who by definition flunked free enterprise economics scurrying.  

Top White House economist Christina Romer of UC Berkeley (where leftist Econ majors are held in the same esteem as God) told Congress on Thursday that employment growth could remain “painfully weak” through next year, and that the largest effect from the $787 billion stimulus enacted in February, mainly aid to states, is past. By mid-2010, she said, the stimulus will no longer contribute to growth.

Romer will be interested to learn that the stimulus is strangling growth right now because of the inevitable inflationary expectation that occurs when the federal government commits to borrow an incredible sum of money and has to resort to printing at least some of what it needs.  Additionally, business is holding back on long term investment because federal government competition in the world financial markets to fund the Stimulus spending is only driving interest rates up.  Engineers, architects and other professionals that rely on the availability of reasonably priced, long term capital availability are cutting staffs as current contracts expire.  They won’t be hiring back any time soon.

Lochhead points out one other issue that those in San Francisco endeavor to ignore.

“Economists are puzzled as to why job growth has slowed, citing everything from higher health care costs, to higher productivity, to Chinese currency manipulation.  The answer is, we don’t know,” said Tim Bartik, a liberal economist with the Upjohn Institute for Employment Research in Michigan who is proposing a tax credit for employers who hire new workers.  (Where have we heard this before?) At a cost of $21,000 per job created, he said, a tax credit is far cheaper than the average $112,000 cost of each job created by the stimulus, as calculated by the administration.” Most currently unemployed taxpayers could do very well investing this $112K in a new business of their own. 

This is interesting not only in the description of Bartik as a ‘liberal economist’ but in that he supposedly understands the concept of tax credits.  This blasphemy will not go unpunished in Nancy Pelosi’s district.

This is a ‘Must Read‘ because of the source and unusual content coming from the hub of radical leftist America. 

Obama Hangover

Democrats are facing the possibility of a couple fairly major election losses in the next two weeks.  Governors races in Virginia and normally reliably blue New Jersey have the White House political machine on edge. 

Democrats have reason to be seriously worried.  Losing both elections could be that elusive anchor to reality that the Obama administration struggles to avoid.  When voters pay attention to issues like health care and energy costs instead of political platitudes such as ‘hope and change,’ Democrats are sure losers.

“Democrats are finding that the electricity of 2008 is tough to recapture”  reports the LA Times.  Terming the phenomenon “Obama Hangover,” the Times goes on to manufacture another excuse for a possible Democrat loss – the voters are just overwhelmed and tired. 

Well… not everyone is overwhelmed and tired.  Conservatives are about as energized as at any time since 1984.  An Obama Hangover may spur reasonable and rational behavior in the voting booth for several years to come.