It looks like the House will vote on Obamacare on Sunday. That’s when the House Democrat leadership believes it will have twisted enough arms and paid off enough of their colleagues to have the votes. Will they have a straight up and down vote or will they resort the the Slaughter Rule?
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) today released a preliminary estimate of the financial impact of the bill that it admits it pretty much meaningless. Apparently a revised estimate will be released Friday or Saturday. The preliminary estimate projects a 10 year savings that is equal to about 2 weeks of 2010 deficits. Of course, this is all based on the deception of combining ten years of tax increases and Medicare cuts with six years of Obamacare “benefits.”
Democrats have also said that they are just getting started. Nancy Pelosi: “Kick open that door, and there will be other legislation to follow. We’ll take the country in a new direction.” So any projection of the current bill whether we know what’s in it or not is meaningless since it is just the first step toward European-style socialism.
President Obama has postponed his trip to Indonesia until June presumably so that he can pressure Democrats to support Obamacare with the argument that a “No” vote would ruin his presidency. As Rush Limbaugh has pointed out, this is the behavior of Third World dictators who “destroy their countries to save face or make them look better.”
What will happen after the vote? It all depends. If the vote is on the Slaughter Rule and the President signs the Senate bill, it’s constitutionality will be challenged immediately and some states may refuse to recognize it as law. If Senate Democrats try to adopt the House’s “fixes”, Senate Republicans will offer amendments and the process will continue for a while.
The cleanest outcome would be a “No” vote on Sunday. We could sing “Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead” and start the debate on real health care reform.
Arkansas Senator Blanche Lincoln gives us a first taste of what a Democrat in a vulnerable position will do to have a chance in November. She isn’t going to win a lot of friends within her party with her first campaign add.
Lincoln depicts her fellow politicians as a bunch of kids fighting and throwing money into the air.
Then she tells us about her accomplishments in Washington: voting 1) against money for Wall Street, 2) against the auto company bailout, 3) against the public option health care plan and 4) against the cap & trade bill.
Ok, but isn’t this how Republicans voted (except that they didn’t support Obamacare after an explicit public option was dropped)? Aren’t Republican being accused by Obama of being obstructionists and the party of “no”? So now Democrats who want to have a chance in November try to sound like Republicans?
The reason Barack Obama has not been able to pass much of his agenda is not because of Republican stopping him. After all, his party has a huge majority in the House and, until the election of Scott Brown, had enough votes in the Senate to stop a Republican filibuster. No, the real reason why Obama cannot pass his initiatives is because he is so far to the left of mainstream America that Democrats with a survival instinct from moderate districts and states are stopping him.
Watch and enjoy:
And she ends with: “I don’t answer to my party, I answer to Arkansas.”
How utterly clueless can a politician be before his career is over? Harry Reid on the latest unemployment numbers: “Only 36,000 people lost their jobs today, which is really good.”
Reid was trying to make the point that the number of jobs lost now is a lot less than the jobs lost in 2009. But 36,000 people out of work is “really good”? Really good would be if the American economy would stop being restraint the burden and uncertainty created Obama, Reid & company and there would be a net increase in jobs.
Reid will have a strong Republican challenge in November if he doesn’t decide to retire before then. He has stated that men without jobs become abusive toward women. If he finds himself without a job after the election, we can just hope that he doesn’t beat his wife.
Marco Rubio on Neil Cavuto on Obama’s ideology and Obamacare:
Rubio on why the rush and the secrecy on specifics: “The less public scrutiny something receives the worse the idea usually is. That is why they are not allowing people to fully vet it.”
While Charlie Crist doesn’t want to scrap Obamacare even though he is unable to say what he likes about it, Marco Rubio, his opponent in the Republican primary for US Senate from Florida, is clear in his rejection of Obamacare and in how he would reform health care:
Florida Governor Charlie Crist again demonstrates why he doesn’t deserve support from conservatives and Tea Party independents. In an interview with the Palm Beach Post he stated President Obama should not scrap the current health care proposal and then is unable to identify a single part of the current proposal that is worth keeping:
Gov. Charlie Crist, a Republican U.S. Senate candidate, told The Palm Beach Post editorial board on Friday that, unlike many Republicans in Washington, he didn’t think President Obama should scrap his health care reform proposal:
“There may be parts of it that you don’t have to scrap. There are three parts of it that I would like to see scrapped: It would raise taxes significantly, it would raise rates significantly and it would take half-a-trillion dollars out of Medicare.
“I think the real issue here, as it relates to health care, is that people want it to not cost so much and people want to have access to it. I think there is a consensus of agreement that the health care that is delivered in America is good. But it’s not easy to get it and it’s too expensive when you do get it.”
Asked if there were any parts of the bill he liked, Crist said:
“I don’t think a whole lot. Watching the discussion yesterday (Thursday) you get a chance to sort of see more of it be ferreted out. You know, I’m the kind of guy … I’m pragmatic. The stimulus is a great example. We needed the money. Every other Republican governor took it, too. I was just maybe a little more honest and straight forward about it. Well, shame on me for being honest. But, you know, as it relates to health care, if there are good ideas, I’m willing to look at them. And I would take that same approach to any issue in Washington.”
Asked again if there were any parts he liked he said:
“Not at present. No.”
Not one good idea?
“There may be. There may be. You know, I’m pretty focused on Florida right now. I mean, after the session I’ll be more focused on the issues in Washington. But I’ve got to do my first job first.”
So understanding how major legislation in Washington that will have huge impacts on the state’s finances and on Floridians is not part of Charlie Crist’s current job as governor? And a candidate for US Senate doesn’t need to understand major legislation currently considered by the Senate?
It is time for the voters in Florida to retire Charlie Crist in the Republican primary for US Senate. Then again, maybe Crist will confirm rumors that he plans to leave the Republican Party and self-destruct on his own.
Just today, Senator McCain offered up the oldest Washington stunt in the book – you pass the buck to a commission to study the problem. But here’s the thing – this isn’t 9/11. We know how we got into this mess. What we need now is leadership that gets us out. I’ll provide it, John McCain won’t, and that’s the choice for the American people in this election.
Feb. 18 (Bloomberg) — President Barack Obama signed an executive order creating an 18-member bipartisan panel to suggest steps to reduce the federal government’s record debt and deficits that he said threaten to “hobble our economy.”
Whether it is government spending, health care or any other issue, Obama’s “hope and change” continues to be nothing more than ordinary stunts that politicians with a vested interested in a growing government have applied for decades when they want to kick any serious decisions down the road, preferably beyond the next election.
If Obama were serious about reducing the federal deficit and debt, he wouldn’t need a commission that will provide its conclusions more than 9 months from today, on December 1, 2010, conveniently after the November 2010 elections. He could instead reverse his policies that have taken annual deficits from a couple of hundred billions to trillions for the next decade. Of course, as a radical leftist, he cannot bring himself to cut spending, regulations and taxes. Government size and control of American society must grow.
True “hope and change” are coming in the November 2010 elections if Republicans can consistently run on a limited government platform and can win the support and energy of the Tea Party movement. If Republicans falter in their opposition to Obama’s policies and the Tea Party movement splinters into supporting third party candidates, Democrats will win big.
Tea Party patriots have a natural home in the Republican Party. They can bring out the best in Republicans and transform the party to focus on limiting government to its essential functions including a strong defense against Islamofascism and other external threats.
Republican will disappoint at times. It is unfortunate that Scott Brown voted for the $15 billion jobs bill in the Senate. That doesn’t mean we should regret his election which may have resulted in the death of Obamacare. Brown is still on the right side of health care, the stimulus, runaway spending and a strong national defense. A staunch conservative / libertarian couldn’t have been elected in Massachusetts. We got the best we could get in the election of Scott Brown.
Tea Party patriots should study the 1992 presidential election where Ross Perot ran as a third party candidate and helped elect Bill Clinton. Republican saved us from Clinton’s potential excesses two years later when they took over the House of Representatives running on New Gingrich’s Contract for America and Clinton governed as a moderate Democrat for the rest of his presidency.
Obama is not a Bill Clinton who came from a conservative state. The only way to stop him is to win Congressional majorities in 2010 and deny him a second term in 2012.
Rubio embraces the tea party movement and defines ground rules for collaboration with Democrats:
From tea parties to the election in Massachusetts, we are witnessing the single greatest political pushback in American history. Now, the political class tries to make sense of all of this, but they can’t, because never has the political class or the mainstream media that covers them been more out of touch with the American people than they are today. You see, 2010 is not just a choice between Republicans and Democrats. It’s not just a choice between liberals and conservatives. 2010 is a referendum on the very identity of our nation.
And the issues are so big, so consequential, so generational that many of the old rules of political engagement will not apply. For example, a long list of early establishment endorsements will not spare you a primary. Clever one line slogans aren’t going to spare you the need to discuss policy issues in detail. And the old, tired political attacks that worked once in the past aren’t going to get you elected this time.
And the reason is simple because people get it, because they understand that if we get this wrong, there may be no turning back for America. That’s why the second thing leaders want — the second thing that people want are leaders that will come here to Washington, D.C. and stand up to this big government agenda, not be co-opted by it.
After all, the U.S. Senate already has one Arlen Specter too many. And after all, America already has a Democrat Party, it doesn’t need two Democrat parties.
Now, look, it’s true, Americans do want leaders that will come to Washington, D.C. and work together to get things done, but that comes with a very important caveat, it depends what they’re trying to do. If they’re working to lower tax rates, simplify the tax code, they want us to work together. If they’re working to get control of a runaway of a federal debt and annual deficits, they want us to work together.
If they’re working to defeat radical Islam and the threat that it poses through terrorism, they want us to work together.
However, however, if the goal is to abandon America’s free enterprise economy, if the goal is to convert America into a submissive member of the international community, if the goal is not to fix America, but to change America, then they want leaders that are going to come up here and fight it every step of the way.
Rubio on what makes America unique:
Let me close by saying this. For many of us who were born and raised in this country, including me, it’s sometimes easy — sometimes easy to forget how special America really is. But I was raised by exiles, by people who know what it is like to lose their country, by people who have a unique perspective on why elections matter, or lack thereof, by people who clearly understand how different America is from the rest of the world. And they’ve taught me this my whole life.
And they taught me, by word and by deed, that what makes America great is not that we have more rich people than anybody else. What makes America great is that there are dreams that are impossible everywhere else but are possible here. And why is that? It’s because of the choices that people that came before us made.
Almost every other country in the world chose to have the government run the economy. They chose to allow government to decide which companies survive and fail. They chose to allow government to determine which industries are to be rewarded. But the problem is that when government controls the economy, those who can influence government keep winning, and everybody else just stays the same. And so in those countries, the employee never becomes the employer, the small business can never compete with a big business, and no matter how hard your parents work or how many sacrifices they make, if you weren’t born into the right family in those countries, there’s only so far you can go.
Now, we’ve had our excesses here in America, but for the better part of 234 years, Americans have chosen something very different, Americans chose individual liberty instead of the false security of government. Americans chose a limited government that exists to protect our rights, not to grant them.
Americans chose a free enterprise system designed to provide a quality of opportunity, not compel a quality of results. And that is why this is only place in the world where you can open up a business in the spare bedroom of your home.
That is why this is the only place in the world where a company that started as an idea drawn out on the back of a cocktail napkin can one day be publicly traded on Wall Street. That’s why this is the only country in the world where today’s employee is tomorrow’s employer. And yet, there are still people in American politics who, for some reason, cling to this belief that America is better off adopting the economic policies of nations whose people who immigrate here from there.
Rubio’s conclusion on the choice we have:
It’s a clear choice between two very different futures. And the task this year for us is to make sure that Americans choose the right one. You see — my four children, your children and grandchildren are members of the most important generation in American history. If we succeed in convincing the American people to follow up, theirs will be the most prosperous generation in the history of our country. But if we fail, they will be the first to inherit a diminished nation.
The final verdict on our generation will be written by Americans who haven’t even been born yet. Let us make sure they write that we made the right choice, that in the early years of this century, faced with troubling and uncertain times, there were those who believed that the great American story had run its course. But we did not agree. Fear did not lead us to abandon our liberty. Uncertainty did not lead us to abandon the entrepreneurial spirit. We fought for and held on to those things that made us exceptional. And because we did, there was still one place in the world where the individual was more important than the state. Because we did, there was still at least one place in the world where who you come from does not determine where you get to go.
Let us ensure that history’s record of this time is clear that like those Americans that came before us, we rose to face the challenges of our time. Like those Americans who came before us, we made the right choice. And because we did, at least for one generation more the American miracle lived on.
Thank you all. And God bless you. Thank you for having me.
On Wednesday, more than 80 conservative thinkers and organization heads will come together to ratify a joint manifesto ahead of the 2010 elections. Dubbed the Mount Vernon Statement, its goal is to unite the right — economic, social, and national security conservatives — under a set of shared principles. The idea is to make different conservative groups feel part of the same team and also to bind them in a common intellectual enterprise.
Participants read like a virtual who’s who of conservative movement heavyweights: former Attorney General Edwin Meese, American Conservative Union Chairman David Keene, Heritage Foundation President Edwin Feulner, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform, among many others. But the final product will be short on policy wonkery.
Unlike the Contract With America, the Mount Vernon Statement is not a detailed legislative agenda. Instead, it intended as a set of philosophical principles that can serve as the foundation for policy formulation later.
You can read the full text of the Mount Vernon Statement here and sign it.
The Tea Party movement’s Contract From America “is a grassroots-generated, crowd-sourced, bottom-up call for real economic conservative and good governance reform in Congress.”
The Contract from America serves as a clarion call for those who recognize the importance of free market principles, limited government, and individual liberty. It is the natural extension of a movement that began in the local communities and quickly spread across America in response to unprecedented government expansion, reckless spending, and a blatant disregard by our leaders of the nation’s founding principles.
During the past several months, hundreds of thousands of Americans have debated thousands of ideas to solve our nation’s most pressing problems. It has been an open process and has provided a genuine opportunity to give voice to a broad cross section of concerned Americans.
Now we enter the next phase; to narrow the list and let America draft the final version of the Contract from America. Click here to vote on your priorities. The final document will be unveiled on Thursday, April 15, 2010. Together, we can and will make a difference.
Go to the website and vote on your top priorities.
Former state House Speaker Marco Rubio has now jumped to a 12-point lead over Governor Charlie Crist in Florida’s Republican Primary race for the U.S. Senate.
A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely GOP Primary voters in the state finds Rubio leading Crist 49% to 37%. Three percent (3%) prefer another candidate, and 11% are undecided.
For more coverage on the grassroots campaign of Marco Rubio click here.
Democrats have also said that they are just getting started. Nancy Pelosi: “Kick open that door, and there will be other legislation to follow. We’ll take the country in a new direction.” So any projection of the current bill whether we know what’s in it or not is meaningless since it is just the first step toward European-style socialism.
President Obama has postponed his trip to Indonesia until June presumably so that he can pressure Democrats to support Obamacare with the argument that a “No” vote would ruin his presidency. As Rush Limbaugh has pointed out, this is the behavior of Third World dictators who “destroy their countries to save face or make them look better.”
