Quotations Between August 18-26

Quotations Between August 18-26, 2009
To Accompany the August 26, 2009 edition of Tidbits
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2009/tidbits090826.htm
Bob Jensen at Trinity University

U.S. Debt/Deficit Clock --- http://www.usdebtclock.org/

Nothing would do more to save the GOP than for President Obama literally turn Bush and Cheney over the The Hague in handcuffs for war crimes. Let's indeed take these war crimes all the way to the top and let MSNBC and The New York Times and the rest of the liberal media have a field day. Nothing could do more for conservatism at this point in time.

You buy it, you own it
Afghanistan has quietly passed a law permitting Shia men to deny their wives food and sustenance if they refuse to obey their husbands' sexual demands, despite international outrage over an earlier version of the legislation which President Hamid Karzai had promised to review. The new final draft of the legislation also grants guardianship of children exclusively to their fathers and grandfathers, and requires women to get permission from their husbands to work.
John Boone, "Afghanistan passes 'barbaric' law diminishing women's rights," The Guardian, August 14, 2009 ---
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/aug/14/afghanistan-womens-rights-rape

An Afghan vote monitoring group says Taliban militants in Afghanistan's south cut off the fingers of two Afghan voters, carrying out a gruesome pre-election threat. Nader Nadery of the Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan says Saturday two voters in southern Kandahar province—the Taliban's spiritual birthplace—lost their fingers. Nadery says the two fingers sliced off had been dipped in purple indelible ink, an anti-fraud measure, but one that identified voters to militants in dangerous, insurgent-held areas.
Breitbart, August 22, 2009 ---
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9A7PJK00&show_article=1&catnum=0
Jensen Comment
It might've been worse. They could've been waterboarded.

You know about the Taliban? Over here, we call them "healthcare protesters."
David Letterman comparing us to Obamacare protesters to militants that cut off fingers and throw acid in faces of young girls ---
http://michellemalkin.com/2009/08/21/david-lettermans-latest-publicity-stunt-youre-the-taliban/

The Journal of Economic Literature recently described the last quarter century of rapid economic growth and rising living standards as "The Age of Friedman," after Milton Friedman, the Nobel Prize winning economist. The editors could as fairly have called it the Age of Friedmans to include Milton's wife of 68 years and collaborator, Rose Friedman, who died Tuesday at age 98. Rose was small in stature like Milton—both were less than five-feet tall—but their ideas were of towering impact. That was especially true in the postwar era through the 1970s, when statist economists dominated most universities and national capitals. The Friedmans re-popularized the principles of economic freedom, which led to the Reagan-Thatcher ascendancy and the spread of capitalist ideas to China, Eastern Europe and even dirigiste India. Rose carried half the load on many of Milton's major works, as he was quick to acknowledge. They co-wrote "Free to Choose," an international best seller in 1980 that was adapted into a popular documentary on PBS.
"Rose of Freedom: The only person who ever won a debate with Milton Friedman," The Wall Street Journal, August 20, 2009 --- Click Here
You can read about Rose Friedman at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rose_Friedman
Jensen Comment
At Trinity University a heckler of sorts was interfering with Milton Friedman's presentation. The Lilliput (diminutive) Rose Friedman walked down to the heckler's chair and hit him on the shoulder very lightly with her shoe.

Senators Whitewashing Each Others' Crimes: What would you expect among the "most criminal class?"
The three Republican and three Democratic Senators say they conducted an exhaustive probe and inspected 18,000 pages of documents. They say they found "no substantial credible evidence as required by Committee rules" that the Senators received mortgage rates or services that weren't commonly available to the public, and thus did not violate the Senate gift ban. We'll have to take their word that the evidence wasn't "substantial," because they didn't release those documents, nor did they encourage Mr. Dodd to release any of his records. Readers will recall that in February Mr. Dodd staged a peek-a-boo release with selected reporters but did not allow anyone to have copies of the documents. If the evidence was so clear-cut, why the months of stonewalling? . . . We'd also like to know what committee members thought of Robert Feinberg, the former Countrywide loan officer who told us last year that Mr. Dodd received, and knew he was receiving, preferential treatment. The Washington Post reported last month that Mr. Feinberg told the same thing, under oath, to Senate investigators and said that Mr. Conrad also knew he was receiving special treatment. Mr. Feinberg said the same to the minority staff of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Does the committee think he's lying, or that his testimony simply wasn't "substantial" enough? Again, we don't know because the letters released by the ethics committee don't mention Mr. Feinberg. Mr. Dodd is running for his sixth term next year and will no doubt claim this as vindication. Voters will have to decide if a Banking Committee Chairman who allowed himself even to be considered a VIP by the nation's foremost subprime lender deserves it.
"The Countrywide Senators," The Wall Street Journal," August 16, 2009 --- Click Here
Bob Jensen's Fraud Updates are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm

Friends of Angelo
Executives at Countrywide Financial Corp., one of the biggest names of the housing boom, routinely violated internal company policies to provide below-market rates on home loans to the politically connected and powerful, according to a congressional report to be released today. Loan documents show how far Calabasas-based Countrywide went to give loans to VIPs through a special program known as "Friends of Angelo," named after former Chief Executive Angelo R. Mozilo, according to congressional investigators.
Zachary A. Goldfarb, "Report details Countrywide's efforts to benefit VIPs," Los Angeles Times, March 18, 2009 ---
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-countrywide19-2009mar19,0,4389863.story?track=rss

Executives manually overrode the company's computer software that routinely warned that certain additional fees would be necessary to accommodate below-market rates. That was in addition to lengthy discussions on the merits of giving a special deal to a particular borrower, missives from Mozilo to employees telling them to give VIPs breaks and other activities.

A report by House Republicans on the investigation was obtained by the Washington Post in advance of its release.

Recipients of special loans included Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), former U.N. Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke, former Fannie Mae Chief Executive James A. Johnson and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson.

Countrywide, which handed out many of the loans that turned out to be toxic waste on the books of banks, faltered in 2007 at the onset of the financial crisis and was sold to Bank of America Corp.

Bank of America said it would cooperate fully with any official inquiry into this Countrywide program.

Most recipients of VIP loans have said in news accounts that they had no idea they were receiving a special deal. But the report states that Countrywide clearly indicated to borrowers they were getting special deals, usually by including business cards indicating the loan came from a VIP unit.

Robert Feinberg, a 12-year Countrywide employee who processed VIP loans, told investigators that it was standard practice to tell borrowers, "Your loan was specially priced by Angelo."
Jensen Comment
Because the name “Countrywide Financial” has become synonymous with fraudulent mortgage brokering, Bank of America is tearing down the Countrywide logo on all of Countrywide’s places of business.

Boys having sex earlier, more often than girls
In the study, boys reported their first sexual intercourse at younger ages (averaging 12.48) than girls (13.16). Boys also had nearly 10 percent higher frequency of intercourse than girls and were also more likely to experience sexual debut (20 percent to 14 percent) between the two years when the first two waves of data were collected. Recent national research has found that 13 percent of girls and 15 percent of boys have had sex by the time they're 16. Lohman says that means the rate of sex among her low-income sample is only slightly higher among the girls, but almost double among the boys.
"Low-income kids report first sexual intercourse at 12 years old in new study," PhysOrg, August 13, 2009 --- http://www.physorg.com/news169399090.html

Maine lobstermen are cutting competitors' trap lines, sinking boats and, in one case, shooting each other. Law-enforcement officials and people in Maine's tight-knit coastal communities say economic pressure on the state's 5,000 active lobstermen may be fueling the tension. With prices for the state's crustaceans at the lowest level since the early 1990s, lobstermen are having trouble covering bait, fuel and equipment costs, they say. Lobsterman Keith Simmonds, of Owls Head, Maine, suspects rivals sank his boat, First Light, on Aug. 5.
"With Lobster Prices Low, Things Get Ugly in Maine," The Wall Street Journal, August 15, 2009 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125029228857633393.html

Ahmad Vahidi, nominated Thursday by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to serve as Iran's defense minister, is a suspected international terrorist sought by Interpol in connection with a deadly 1994 attack on a Jewish community center in Argentina. Mr. Vahidi, a former commander of the elite unit of the Revolutionary Guard known as the Quds Force, was one of 15 men and three women named to Cabinet posts by Mr. Ahmadinejad as he begins his second term in office. The choice is likely to further chill relations between Iran and the international community, especially Israel. Interpol, the international police agency based in Lyon, France, placed Mr. Vahidi and four other Iranian officials on its most-wanted list in 2007 at the request of Argentine prosecutors, who say the men played a role in planning the July 1994 attack on the seven-story community center in Buenos Aires. The bombing, which killed 85 people, is thought to have been carried out by members of Hezbollah, a Lebanese militia and political party with close links to Iran.
"The Terrorist AT Defense," August 20, 2009 --- Click Here

Judging from the evidence released, it uncovered facts that show that my role in the U.S. attorneys issue was minimal and entirely proper. I did not conceive of the idea of removing certain U.S. attorneys, did not select those to be removed, and did not see the lists of U.S. attorneys Justice was considering to replace. I had no idea who was on the final list until Justice sent it to the White House in November 2006. No fair-minded person can review the thousands of pages of documents and testimony and conclude that I drove the process. Instead, the committee seems to have found only evidence that discredits the idea that I orchestrated the firings to protect Republicans or punish Democrats. The committee found nothing to indicate that I ordered U.S. attorneys in Arizona, California or Wisconsin to be removed to sabotage investigations of Republicans, as some Judiciary Democrats have alleged.
Karl Rove, "'Closing in on Rove' Why John Conyers, the New York Times and the Washington Post owe me an apology," The Wall Street Journal, August 19, 2009 --- Click Here
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203550604574360500363745662.html?mod=djemEditorialPage

"Setback for Enhanced Geothermal Energy," by Kevin Bullis, MIT's Technology Review, August 20, 2009 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/energy/24020/?nlid=2291

In a study sure to ruffle the feathers of the Global Warming cabal, Professor Richard Lindzen of MIT has published a paper which proves that IPCC models are overstating by 6 times, the relevance of CO2 in Earth’s Atmosphere. Dr. Lindzen has found that heat is radiated out in to space at a far higher rate than any modeling system to date can account for. Editorial: The science is in. the scare is out. Recent papers and data give a complete picture of why the UN is wrong.
"Carbon Dioxide irrelevant in climate debate says MIT Scientist," Examiner, August 18, 2009 --- Click Here

Professor Richard Lindzen of MIT’s peer reviewed work states “we now know that the effect of CO2 on temperature is small, we know why it is small, and we know that it is having very little effect on the climate.”

The global surface temperature record, which we update and publish
every month, has shown no statistically-significant “global warming”
for almost 15 years. Statistically-significant global cooling has now
persisted for very nearly eight years. Even a strong el Nino – expected
in the coming months – will be unlikely to reverse the cooling trend.

More significantly, the ARGO bathythermographs deployed
throughout the world’s oceans since 2003 show that the top 400
fathoms of the oceans, where it is agreed between all parties that at
least 80% of all heat caused by manmade “global warming” must
accumulate, have been cooling over the past six years. That now prolonged
ocean cooling is fatal to the “official” theory that “global
warming” will happen on anything other than a minute scale. - SPPI

If for no other reason than this: the IPCC assumes that the concentration of CO2 in 2100 will be 836 ppmv (parts per million volume). However, current graphs based on real data show that CO2 concentrations will only be 570 ppmv in 2100, cutting the IPCC’s estimates in half right there.

Continued in article

What's wrong with Detroit?
Chrysler Group LLC is planning to build the Fiat 500 small car at a plant in Mexico, according to a report published Monday. The automaker could also build an engine for the 500 at a plant in Trenton, Michigan, and is weighing building another compact car similar to the 500 in the U.S., according to The Wall Street Journal, which cited anonymous sources familiar with the matter. Chrysler spokesman Gualberto Ranieri declined to comment Monday.
"Report: Chrysler to build Fiat 500 in Mexico," Boston Harold, August 17, 2009 --- Click Here
Also see http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSTRE57G0HG20090817

Glancing over the New York Times Book Review Sunday, one finds three of the top four non-fiction best-sellers were written by conservatives -- columnist Michelle Malkin, talk-show host Mark Levin and Fox News contributor Dick Morris. At No. 10, in its 40th week on the list, is Bill O'Reilly's memoir. No. 1 best-seller in paperback: Glenn Beck's "Common Sense."
Pat Buchanan, "Populist Right Rising," Townhall, August 18, 2009 --- http://townhall.com/columnists/PatBuchanan/2009/08/18/populist_right_rising
Jensen Comment
But the liberals will do well in elections until the GOP can come up with political leaders who have IQs greater than 50.

"'The Clunkers of the Power-Plant World' Old Coal-Fired Facilities Could Escape New Rules," by Kari Lydersen, The Washington Post, August 17, 2009 --- Click Here

"Those are the clunkers of the power-plant world," said Brian Urbaszewski, director of environmental health programs for the Respiratory Health Association of Metropolitan Chicago. "What we're dealing with here is the Cuban auto fleet -- a bunch of facilities built in the 1950s and early 1960s that are continuing to be rebuilt over and over. That's not the way the law was intended to work."

Advocates hope the climate-control legislation pending in Congress would force these plants to close. But they also warn that, depending how various aspects of the bill play out, it could instead motivate companies to increase their reliance on archaic plants.

If a climate-change bill drives up the cost of opening new plants, but provides free emissions allowances or potential carbon offsets for existing facilities, companies could have an incentive to squeeze even more power out of their old plants, many of which are running well below capacity.

Some environmental groups are urging the Senate to include in its version of the legislation provisions to prevent that. But the legislation passed by the House in late June -- known as the American Clean Energy and Security Act -- mandates a 50 percent carbon reduction by 2025 for new plants, but puts no site-specific carbon-reduction requirements on existing facilities.

Eric Schaeffer, executive director of the Environmental Integrity Project and former director of the Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Regulatory Enforcement, said the new legislation is widely viewed as a panacea. "But by establishing requirements for new plants and then effectively exempting the old ones," he said, "you create the same disconnect that has created problems under the Clean Air Act."

But Dan Riedinger, spokesman for the Edison Electric Institute industry group, said power companies will probably close their oldest plants if a cap is put on carbon, since it would be least efficient to invest in carbon capture or other greenhouse-gas-reduction technology at those plants.

Ever greater numbers of Americans are disconnecting their home telephones, with momentous consequences MUCH has been made of the precipitous decline of America’s newspapers. According to one much-cited calculation, the country’s last printed newspaper will land on a doorstep sometime in the first quarter of 2043. That is a positively healthy outlook, however, compared with another staple of American life: the home telephone. Telecoms operators are seeing customers abandon landlines at a rate of 700,000 per month.
The Economist, August 13, 2009 --- http://www.economist.com/businessfinance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14214847

Jesus, the Great Healer, wants Obamacare according to MSNBC (even if top preachers are "dreadfully silent"). Watch the video ---
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/08/13/msnbc-host-hey-wouldnt-jesus-want-us-to-have-universal-health-care/

So the present (health care) system is an unsustainable disaster, but you can keep your piece of it if you want. And the Democrats wonder why selling health care reform to the public has been so hard?
Ramesh Ponuru, "Obamacare's Fatal Flaw: Democrats claim thier plans will save money, but they have too many conflicting goals," Time Magazine August 17, 2009, Page 35

Dr. Anne Doig (incoming President of the Canadian Medical Association) says patients are getting less than optimal care and she adds that physicians from across the country - who will gather in Saskatoon on Sunday for their annual meeting - recognize that changes must be made. "We all agree that the system is imploding, we all agree that things are more precarious than perhaps Canadians realize,"
Jennifer Graham, "Overhauling health-care system tops agenda at annual meeting of Canada's doctors," The Canada Press, August 15, 2009 --- Click Here

The Lie: Leading graduates of medical schools will still be attracted to complicated specialties.
Every medical student learns an old adage: You can skimp on some medicine, but you can't skimp on obstetrics or anesthesiology. An elderly surgeon explained it to me this way, "In surgery, people die in days and weeks—a doctor has time to fix a mistake. But in obstetrics and anesthesiology, they die in minutes and seconds." Twenty years ago, I became an anesthesiologist. Since then, whenever death has loomed in the operating room only to be sidestepped at the last moment, I think back on that wise surgeon. Indeed, the old adage explains why an anesthesiologist's life resembles a soldier's life. A soldier plays cards around the campfire, then goes out on routine patrol and ends up dead. The anesthesiologist jokes around with the surgeons and nurses, then, because of some unforeseen complication, his or her patient dies on the table. Although I have not personally faced such a disaster, I know anesthesiologists who have. Incredibly, Congress's proposed health-care reform plan risks skimping on anesthesia. According to one of the health-care bills in Congress, H.R. 3200, the public option would reduce reimbursement for anesthesia by over 50%. More broadly, the bill reflects the incorrect assumptions progressive politicians have made about the mindset of today's doctors and how the health-care system operates.
Ronald Dwirkin, "An Anesthesiologist's Take on Health-Care Reform: Expect a two-tier medical system and needless ER deaths if Congress and the White House have their way," The Wall Street Journal, August 19, 2009 --- Click Here
Jensen Comment
Rumor has it that trial lawyers ghost wrote this section of H.R. 3200. The most lucrative lawsuits in medical malpractice are in the specialties of obstetrics and anesthesiology. It really serves tort lawyers well to have the most incompetent and low paid physicians obstetrics and anesthesiology. Other lies in H.R. 3200 are listed at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Health.htm

The Lie: Surgeons bill Medicare $50,000 for a foot amputation.
American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons Responds to False Allegations of President Obama
"Orthopedic Surgeons respond to Obama on amputation comment," by Thomas Lifson, The American Thinker, August 16, 2009 --- Click Here

The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) is profoundly disappointed with President Obama's recent comments regarding the value of surgery and blurring the realities of physician reimbursements. The AAOS represents over 17,000 US board-certified orthopaedic surgeons who provide essential services to patients every day. As President Obama has said, "Where we do disagree, let's disagree over things that are real, not these wild misrepresentations that bear no resemblance to anything that's actually been proposed." In that spirit, we would like to bring some clarity to his comments and underscore the value that orthopaedic surgeons bring to Americans every day of every year.

First, surgeons are neither reimbursed by Medicare, nor any provider for that matter, for foot amputations at rates anywhere close to $50,000, $40,000 or even $30,000. Medicare reimbursements to physicians for foot amputations range from approximately $700 to $1200 which includes the follow up care the surgeon provides to the patient up to 90 days after the operation. Moreover, orthopaedic surgeons are actively involved in the preventive care he mentions. We are a specialty that focuses on limb preservation whenever possible and when it is in the best interests of the patient. Our approach to amputation follows the same careful, thoughtful approach, always with the patients best interest as the primary focus.

Continued in article

The Lie: H.R. 3200 proposed "Death Panels" to decide when decide when to refuse health treatments..
False charges about Obamacare don't help. Like the end-of-life tempest. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin popularized the term "death panels." She said: "The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care". . . . The House bill does deal with the issue. (The Senate Finance Committee bill did until the provision was removed the other day.) Section 1233 amends the Medicare law to add "advance care planning consultation" (counseling about living wills and the like) to the list of reimbursable services. The provision defines "consultation," but nowhere does it require Medicare beneficiaries to participate or authorize death panels. (Grassley voted for a similar provision in 2003 when his Republican-controlled Congress added drug coverage to Medicare.)
John Stossel, Townhall, August 19, 2009 --- http://townhall.com/columnists/JohnStossel/2009/08/19/obamacares_inevitable_logic
Jensen Comment
I agree that the "death panels" arguments were straw men. But then I do see where the Obama was relying heavily on the cost savings attributable to five-year health consultation plans with the aged. One has to wonder what savings were lost with the Senate decided to drop the five-year consultations? This seems prima facia to imply that quality of care was intended to be reduced for the aged, including such things as hip replacements and dialysis.

CBS News has learned that up to 60,000 people have cancelled their AARP memberships since July 1, angered over the group's position on health care. Elaine Guardiani has been with AARP for 14 years, and said, "I'm extremely disappointed in AARP." Retired nurse Dale Anderson has 12 years with AARP and said, "I don't wanna be connected with AARP." Many are switching to the American Seniors Association, a group that calls itself the conservative alternative as CBS News Investigative Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reports. Last week alone, they added more than 5,000 new members.
"Thousands Quit AARP Over Health Reform Tens of Thousands Don't Like the Health Care Overhaul," CBS News, August 17, 2009 --- http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/08/17/eveningnews/main5247916.shtml?tag=stack
Other lies in H.R. 3200 are listed at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Health.htm

[Waste is about] half of the $2.2 trillion the United States spends on health care each year, according to the most recent data from accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers' Health Research Institute. What counts as waste? The report identified 16 different areas in which health care dollars are squandered. But in talking to doctors, nurses, hospital groups and patient advocacy groups, six areas totaling nearly $500 billion stood out as issues to be dealt with in the health care reform debate . . . "Sometimes the motivation is to avoid malpractice suits, or to make more money because they are compensated more for doing more," said Dr. Arthur Garson, provost of the University of Virginia and former dean of its medical school. "Many are also convinced that doing more tests is the right thing to do." "But any money that is spent on a patient that doesn't improve the outcome is a waste," said Garson. Some conservatives have suggested that capping malpractice awards would help solve the problem. President Obama doesn't agree; instead, his reform proposal encourages doctors to practice "evidence-based" guidelines as a way to scale back on unnecessary tests.
Parija B. Kavilanz, CNN Money, August 10, 2009 --- Click Here http://money.cnn.com/2009/08/10/news/economy/healthcare_money_wasters/index.htm?section=money_news_economy
Jensen Comment
Another excess cost is the number of support staff needed to process claims forms. Erika and I have doctor in a clinic that has four doctors (the only source of revenue) and 24 staff (a major source of expense), many of whom are just there to process reimbursement forms sent to private insurance companies, Medicare, and Medicaid.

Since much of the added paperwork is for fraud prevention and detection, this is a classic problem of calculating the cost of fraud plus fraud prevention plus billing errors juxtaposed against losses expected to be incurred with less costly prevention and alternate delivery systems. Our doctor is contemplating opening a new practice, but front end costs of setting up a small practice makes this virtually impossible. For example, just setting up an Medicare billing system and Medicare Supplemental Claims authorization takes thousands of pages and tens of thousands of dollars. Then there’s the nearly impossible cost of malpractice insurance for a solo doctor practice.

Since all proposed health care reform legislation calls for continued private health insurance coverage and continued high cost of malpractice insurance, it’s doubtful that anything on the table comes anywhere close to the savings obtained from national health care plans (such as in Canada) for bureaucratic efficiency and caps and other restraints on malpractice awards.

Add all this to the fact that the GAO refuses to sign off on audits of the Pentagon on the grounds that defense spending cannot be audited with any degree of confidence. This is not accountancy’s finest era.

"Study Calculates Economic Cost of Higher Tax Rates, Health Care Surtax," Tax Foundation, August 14, 2009 ---
http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/25008.html

The actual economic costs of the proposed health care surtax and the expiration of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts will be twice the amount of revenue the government intends to collect. According to a new analysis from the Tax Foundation, the higher tax rates are estimated to raise $88 billion in 2011, but the economy will incur an additional burden of $76 billion—or "deadweight loss"—as a result, which raises the total cost of the tax increases to $164 billion, roughly double what lawmakers intend to raise.

Tax Foundation Special Report No. 170, "The Excess Burden of Taxes and the Economic Cost of High Tax Rates," attempts to put a price tag on the cost of pending rollbacks of the Bush tax cuts (which would raise the top tax rate to 39.6%) as well as the proposed health care surtax (ranging from 1% to 5.4%). This loss in economic efficiency is also known as the "excess burden" or "deadweight loss" of taxes—the income that would need to be given to people to compensate them for the resources that are lost due to the distorting effect of taxes. The Special Report is available online at http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/25003.html.

"The notion that the total burden is nearly twice the revenue collected should give lawmakers some pause when considering these higher tax rates," said Tax Foundation Senior Fellow Robert Carroll, Ph.D., who authored the paper.

"Lawmakers need to understand that the current income tax system already costs the economy between $110 billion and $150 billion above and beyond the $1 trillion the government actually collects in taxes," Carroll said. "This means the actual economic cost of our income tax system is at least $1.10 for every dollar the government collects. The proposed higher tax rates could boost those deadweight costs to more than $1.20 for every dollar of tax revenues collects."

"The burden is particularly high for the higher income tax rates being considered by the Congress," says Carroll. "With every dollar in additional revenue, these tax increases impose an extra burden of 86 cents." For example, in 2011 a couple earning $500,000 will pay $112,437 in income taxes. But the excess burden to them of that tax payment is $16,664, about 15% of their tax burden. The increase in the top two tax rates plus the health care surtax would boost their income tax payment an additional $7,719 to $120,156. However, that tax hike would also increase their excess burden by $8,748, larger than the tax increase itself.

"When totaled over all taxpayers, this means," says Carroll, "that the total economic cost of the higher tax rates will be close to twice the amount lawmakers hope to collect."

"Lawmakers should be wary of policies that are purported to make higher-income taxpayers 'pay their fair share' but that impose very substantial burdens on all taxpayers—nearly twice the revenue that is raised—and waste substantial economic resources," Carroll concluded.

The Tax Foundation is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that has monitored fiscal policy at the federal, state and local levels since 1937.

"Ingrates! The Angry Left turns its wrath on President Obama," by James Taranto, The Wall Street Journal Newsletter, August . 24, 2009

The Angry Left is angry at the president of the United States. That makes it official. Nothing changed when Barack Obama became president.

"A backlash in the progressive base--which pushed President Obama over the top in the Democratic primary and played a major role in his general election victory--has been building for months," writes former Enron adviser Paul Krugman, the Angry Left's tribune, in the New York Times. Krugman faults the Obama administration for being insufficiently tender to terrorists and not harsh enough with bankers--but it's clear that what's brought the anger to the surface is the political failure of ObamaCare:

On the issue of health care itself, the inspiring figure progressives thought they had elected comes across, far too often, as a dry technocrat who talks of "bending the curve" but has only recently begun to make the moral case for reform. Mr. Obama's explanations of his plan have gotten clearer, but he still seems unable to settle on a simple, pithy formula; his speeches and op-eds still read as if they were written by a committee. . . .

There's a point at which realism shades over into weakness, and progressives increasingly feel that the administration is on the wrong side of that line. It seems as if there is nothing Republicans can do that will draw an administration rebuke: Senator Charles E. Grassley feeds the death panel smear, warning that reform will "pull the plug on grandma," and two days later the White House declares that it's still committed to working with him.

It's hard to avoid the sense that Mr. Obama has wasted months trying to appease people who can't be appeased, and who take every concession as a sign that he can be rolled.

As we all know, you can't appease terrorists. Oh wait, sorry--appeasing terrorists is worth a try. It's Republicans you can't appease.

Krugman's colleague Bob Herbert echoes the complaint:

Mr. Obama, who has a command of the English language like few others, has been remarkably opaque about his intentions regarding health care. He left it up to Congress to draft a plan and he has not gotten behind any specific legislation. He has seemed to waffle on the public option and has not been at all clear about how the reform that is coming will rein in runaway costs. At times it has seemed as though any old "reform" would be all right with him.

It's still early, but people are starting to lose faith in the president.

What ingrates! Obama has been courting political ruin by pushing for the policies these guys want, but do they give him any credit? Far from it. Instead they damn him for not being clear or forceful enough in his advocacy.

What would a clear and forceful case for ObamaCare look like? We don't have to look very far. Here's former Enron adviser Paul Krugman in a YouTube medley we've cited before:

Politically, it's hard to do in one step. You have to convince people to give up the insurance--forget about mollifying the insurance companies; that's not going to happen. But you're going to have to convince people to completely give up the insurance they have, whereas something that lets people keep the insurance they have but then offers the option of a public plan may evolve into single-payer, but you can do it politically.

Under the "public option," the central provision of ObamaCare, the government would become a health-insurance company. Under "single payer," Krugman's ideal, the government would have a monopoly on health insurance. As the YouTube video demonstrates, Krugman is far from alone in hoping that the "public option" would "evolve" into the only "option."

"You can do it politically," Krugman opines, but it's clear that you can do it only if you are able to conceal your true aims--hence the opacity that frustrates Herbert. If Obama is failing, it is not because he has been too accommodating but because people have managed to figure out that he has been pushing for a bad and unpopular policy--Krugman's policy--despite his best efforts to make it sound palatable.

Instead of denouncing the president, Krugman ought to be honoring him for the political sacrifice he has made in what appears likely to be a losing effort. But then some people just can't be appeased.

Would ObamaCare Lead to an Obamonopoly?
President Obama has been insisting of late that he does not support a government health-insurance monopoly ("single payer"). Here he is two weeks ago in Portsmouth, N.H.:

I have not said that I was a single-payer supporter because, frankly, we historically have had a employer-based system in this country with private insurers, and for us to transition to a system like that I believe would be too disruptive. So what would end up happening would be, a lot of people who currently have employer-based health care would suddenly find themselves dropped, and they would have to go into an entirely new system that had not been fully set up yet. And I would be concerned about the potential destructiveness of that kind of transition.

All right? So I'm not promoting a single-payer plan.

As we n oted last week, this contradicts what Obama said in 2003:

I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal health care program. I see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, spending 14% of its gross national product on health care, cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody. And that's what Jim is talking about when he says everybody in, nobody out. A single payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. And that's what I'd like to see. But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately. Because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate, and we have to take back the House.

Now he says he does see a reason, namely the "destructiveness of that kind of transition." This is his rebuttal to people who say he supports a government insurance monopoly. Tellingly, though, on Jan. 21, 2008, when he was running against Hillarly Clinton, the Web site of his "grass-roots" outfit, Organizing for America, featured an item titled "Fact Check: Obama Consistent in His Position on Single Payer Health Care":

Rhetoric: "Today, he opposes single payer health care, and attacks Sen. Clinton for proposing a plan that covers everyone"

Reality: Obama Has Consistently Said That If We Were Starting From Scratch, He Would Support A Single Payer System, But Now We Need To Build On The System We Have

If Obama Were Starting From Scratch, He Would Support A Single Payer System. The New Yorker wrote, " 'If you're starting from scratch,' he [Obama] says, 'then a single-payer system'-a government-managed system like Canada's, which disconnects health insurance from employment-'would probably make sense. But we've got all these legacy systems in place, and managing the transition, as well as adjusting the culture to a different system, would be difficult to pull off. So we may need a system that's not so disruptive that people feel like suddenly what they've known for most of their lives is thrown by the wayside.' " [New Yorker, 5/7/07]

If Obama Were Starting From Scratch, He Would Support A Single Payer System. "At a roundtable with a handful of invited guests at Lindy's Diner in Keene, Obama said if he were starting from scratch, he would probably propose a single payer health care system, but because of existing infrastructure, he created a proposal to improve the current system." [Concord Monitor, 8/14/07]

If Obama Were Starting From Scratch, He Would Support A Single Payer System. Obama said, "Here's the bottom line. If I were designing a system from scratch I would probably set up a single-payer system...But we're not designing a system from scratch...And when we had a healthcare forum before I set up my healthcare plan here in Iowa there was a lot of resistance to a single-payer system. So what I believe is we should set up a series of choices. . . . Over time it may be that we end up transitioning to such a system. For now, I just want to make sure every American is covered . . . I don't want to wait for that perfect system . . . The one thing you should ask about the candidates though is who's gonna have the capacity to actually deliver on the change? . . . I believe I've got a better capacity to break the gridlock and attract both Independents and Republicans to work together."

And indeed Obama's position in 2008 is consistent with his position in 2009--but back then, it was a rebuttal to those who said he opposed a government insurance monopoly. Given that so many pro-monopoly politicians and commentators have enthusiastically endorsed the so-called public option, it seems to us there is ample reason to believe that Obama was more honest about his intentions in 2008 and 2003 than he is in 2009.

"5 Liberal Lies About Obamacare," by John Hawkins, Townhall, August 25, 2009 ---
http://townhall.com/columnists/JohnHawkins/2009/08/25/5_liberal_lies_about_obamacare

Barrack Obama and his pals in the mainstream media are doing everything in their power to keep people from finding out the truth about the health care bills that are winding their way through Congress.

Rather than engaging in an honest debate about the pluses and minuses of socialized medicine, they've abandoned all significant attempts to work with the GOP, they've demonized American citizens who've dared to voice their concern at townhalls, and they have lied more than Bill Clinton probably did the first time Hillary mentioned the name "Gennifer Flowers" to him.

Liberal claim:
The public option won't kill private health insurance. When that sleazy old terrorist Yasser Arafat was alive, he was famous for telling Westerners he wanted peace in English, while telling his own people in Arabic to kill the Jews. Liberals are using the same tactic with the public option.

When they're talking to the general public, they assure them that the public option won't kill private insurance and if people like the plans they have, they'll be able to keep them.

But when liberals talk to each other, they explicitly admit that the public option is designed to kill private insurance so the government can take complete control.

There are many examples of this, but this quote from Barney Frank is so crystal clear about what they're doing that no more examples are really needed,

I think if we get a good public option, it could lead to single payer and that's the best way to reach single payer. Saying you'll do nothing until you reach single payer is a sure way never to get it.

Liberal Claim:
Illegal aliens won't be covered If you want to know why Americans don't believe Congress or the mainstream media, the sort of slick deception that's being practiced here is typical of what's driving the distrust.

There is indeed a clause in the House bill that says illegal aliens aren't covered. The mainstream media looks at that clause and then dutifully reports, as if it were a fact, that illegal aliens won't be getting taxpayer funded health care.

However, here's the catch: there's no enforcement provision. Texas Congressman Lamar Smith explains how the scam will work:

The Democrats’ bill in the House, H.R. 3200, contains gaping loopholes that will allow illegal immigrants to receive taxpayer-funded benefits. And these loopholes are no accident.

The legislation contains no verification mechanism to ensure that illegal immigrants do not apply for benefits. Republicans offered an amendment to close this loophole — it would have required verification using the existing methods that are already in place to verify eligibility for other federal benefits programs. But when they were asked to put the language of the bill where their words were, in a party-line vote, House Democrats rejected the amendment to require verification and close this loophole.

In other words, the Democrats can claim that illegal aliens won't be covered by the bill and even point to a provision in it that says it won't happen. Meanwhile, if the health care bill passes, millions of illegals aliens will have their health care picked up on the taxpayer's dime -- just as the Democrats planned all along.

Continued in article

"No Maine Miracle Cure: Another state 'public option' that failed," The Wall Street Journal, August 21, 2009 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204619004574322401816501182.html#mod=djemEditorialPage

Want a preview of ObamaCare in action? Sneak a look at what has happened in Maine. In 2003, the state to great fanfare enacted its own version of universal health care. Democratic Governor John Baldacci signed the plan into law with a bevy of familiar promises. By 2009, it would cover all of Maine's approximately 128,000 uninsured citizens. System-wide controls on hospital and physician costs would hold down insurance premiums. There would be no tax increases. The program was going to provide insurance for everyone and save businesses and patients money at the same time.

After five years, fiscal realities as brutal as the waves that crash along Maine's famous coastline have hit the insurance plan. The system that was supposed to save money has cost taxpayers $155 million and is still rising.

Here's how the program was supposed to work. Two government programs would cover the uninsured. First the legislature greatly expanded MaineCare, the state's Medicaid program. Today Maine families with incomes of up to $44,000 a year are eligible; 22% of the population is now in Medicaid, roughly twice the national average.

Then the state created a "public option" known as DirigoChoice. (Dirigo is the state motto, meaning "I Lead.") This plan would compete with private plans such as Blue Cross. To entice lower income Mainers to enroll, it offered taxpayer-subsidized premiums. The plan's original funding source was $50 million of federal stimulus money the state got in 2003. Over time, the plan was to be "paid for by savings in the health-care system." This is precisely the promise of ObamaCare. Maine saved by squeezing payments to hospitals and physicians.

The program flew off track fast. At its peak in 2006, only about 15,000 people had enrolled in the DirigoChoice program. That number has dropped to below 10,000, according to the state's own reporting. About two-thirds of those who enrolled already had insurance, which they dropped in favor of the public option and its subsidies. Instead of 128,000 uninsured in the program today, the actual number is just 3,400. Despite the giant expansions in Maine's Medicaid program and the new, subsidized public choice option, the number of uninsured in the state today is only slightly lower that in 2004 when the program began.

Why did this happen? Among the biggest reasons is a severe adverse selection problem: The sickest, most expensive patients crowded into DirigoChoice, unbalancing its insurance pool and raising costs. That made it unattractive for healthier and lower-risk enrollees. And as a result, few low-income Mainers have been able to afford the premiums, even at subsidized rates.

This problem was exacerbated because since the early 1990s Maine has required insurers to adhere to community rating and guaranteed issue, which requires that insurers cover anyone who applies, regardless of their health condition and at a uniform premium. These rules—which are in the Obama plan—have relentlessly driven up insurance costs in Maine, especially for healthy people.

The Maine Heritage Policy Center, which has tracked the plan closely, points out that largely because of these insurance rules, a healthy male in Maine who is 30 and single pays a monthly premium of $762 in the individual market; next door in New Hampshire he pays $222 a month. The Granite State doesn't have community rating and guaranteed issue.

One proposal to get people into the DirigoChoice system is to reduce the premiums, presumably to give the uninsured a larger incentive to join. But that would explode the program's costs when it already can't pay its bills. A program that was supposed to save money by reducing health-care waste and inefficiencies has seen a 74% increase in premiums. But even those inflated payments can't keep the program out of the red.

Last year, DirigoCare was so desperate for cash that the legislature broke its original promise of no tax hikes and proposed an infusion of funds through a beer, wine and soda tax, similar to what has been floated to pay for the Obama plan. Maine voters rejected these taxes by two to one. Then this year the legislature passed a 2% tax on paid health insurance claims. Taxing paid insurance claims sounds a tad churlish, but the previous funding formula was so complicated that it was costing the state $1 million a year in lawsuits.

Unlike the federal government, Maine has a balanced budget requirement. So out of fiscal necessity, the state has now capped the enrollment in the program and allowed no new entrants. Now there is a waiting list. DirigoChoice has become yet another expensive, failed experiment in government-run health care, alongside similar fiascoes in Massachusetts and Tennessee.

Not everyone sees it this way. Noting the similarities between the Maine program and the Congressional initiative, Karynlee Harrington, the executive director of the Dirigo Health Agency, boasted recently: "DirigoChoice is consistent with what we think the definition of a public health option is." It certainly is.

David Albrecht raised some questions about government “printing of money” in lieu of raising revenues from taxation and borrowing (e.g., selling treasury bonds).

Jensen Comment
The term “printing money” is really an expression since the printing of money has nothing to do with the money supply. Banks add to the money supply by making loans out of thin air (backed only by relatively miniscule of capital reserve levels dictated by the Fed). Government can also add to the money supply by monetizing the debt ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monetization

Although I get very scared every time Bernanke monetizes the debt in 2009, in fairness this has only been on occasion and in relatively small amounts that have not yet been inflationary. But it is a dangerous precedent when it becomes common practice like in Zimbabwe.

Since China invested trillions in our National Debt, China becomes very nervous that we will monetize our debt to the point where their investments in our National Debt decline significantly in value. Hillary Clinton, as Secretary of State and Tim Giethner as Treasury Secretary have made trips to China recently to assure China that the Fed will not make a bad habit of monetizing the debt (read that printing money). But it becomes increasingly necessary if our credit turns sour in world markets. This of course is an addictive economic disease that would eventually kill the U.S. economy.

Congress now has many wonderful egalitarian social programs on the table for helping poor people, sick people, and saving the environment. The problem is that with a projected $2 trillion spending deficit this year, how much more we can keep adding to over $12 trillion in National Debt and $100 trillion in existing unfunded retirements (military retirements, military medical care, Social Security retirement obligations, Medicare obligations, lifetime support for disabled citizens, etc.) --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/entitlements.htm

The main problem with our National Debt is that it’s demanding ever increasing cash flows to cover interest payments to investors in that debt. The problem with unfunded entitlements is that our economic survival depends upon significant growth in inflation-adjusted GDP. At the moment prospects for such growth are increasingly bleak.

It hurts our GDP growth when companies like Chrysler decide to build new Fiat manufacturing plants in Mexico rather than Michigan.

America, what is happening to you?
“One thing seems probable to me,” said Peer Steinbrück, the German finance minister, in September 2008....“the United States will lose its status as the superpower of the global financial system.” You don’t have to strain too hard to see the financial crisis as the death knell for a debt-ridden, overconsuming, and underproducing American empire.
Richard Florida, "How the Crash Will Reshape America," The Atlantic, March 2009 ---
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200903/meltdown-geography

Bob Jensen's threads on the bailout mess are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/2008Bailout.htm

IT’S A sad testimony to the political state of affairs when elected leaders shrug their shoulders and advance a remarkable “no can do’’ attitude toward the reality of population loss in Massachusetts. When Representative Michael Capuano states he doesn’t “think there’s anyone around who has figured out how to stop the population flow to the Southwest (read that Texas) ,’’ one has to wonder what is the value of these long-term incumbents.
Phil Redo, Boston Globe, August 18, 2009 --- Click Here
Jensen Comment
The exodus from Taxachusetts is much more than the cold weather issue. People are leaving sunny California in even larger numbers.

"Another Promise Broken -- in Record Time," by Paul Greenberg, Townhall, August 21, 2009 ---
http://townhall.com/columnists/PaulGreenberg/2009/08/21/another_promise_broken_--_in_record_time

Remember those days of yore, namely the presidential campaign of 2008, when Democrats regularly accused the Bush administration of politicizing the Justice Department?

You could scarcely make your way down the aisle of the U.S. Senate without encountering a Democrat who was outraged, indignant and generally all het up over how the administration of justice had been corrupted. The righteous cries of Chuck Schumer, Joe Biden, Russ Feingold, Patrick Leahy and all the other usual suspects rent the air. All demanded that the attorney general -- it was the hapless Alberto Gonzales at the time -- adhere to the "rule of law and the Constitution," to quote Senator Schumer.

The new attorney general, Eric Holder, repeated the theme: "The attempts to politicize the (Justice) Department will not be tolerated should I become attorney general of the United States. It will be my intention to return (the Civil Rights0 division and the Department of Justice as a whole to its great traditions and the great traditions that it had under Democratic and Republican attorneys general and presidents. ... I will work to restore the credibility of a department badly shaken by allegations of improper political interference...."

But somehow you knew the way this would turn out, didn't you, Gentle and Savvy Reader? For promises, especially those made on the campaign trail or during confirmation hearings, tend to be like piecrusts: made to be broken. What's remarkable about this one is the speed with Obama and Holder, P.A., have broken it. Indeed, shredded it.

The outstanding example of this cynical manipulation of justice is how a case against the New Black Panthers, which the Department of Justice described as a "black super-racist organization," has been quickly and quietly shelved with minimal attention to the law and the Constitution.

The evidence is right there on the videos recorded Election Day, 2008, when uniformed members of the Black Panthers showed up at a Philadelphia polling station, one of them wielding a billy club. They shouted insults and made threats: "Cracker, you about to be ruled by a black man," one of the Panthers informed a voter. Two Republican poll watchers, a black couple, were called traitors to their race -- an accusation that will be familiar to any white Southerner who stood up for simple decency back in the bad old days.

Thank goodness for modern technology, which can make any citizen with an iPhone and its camera a crusading reporter. When all this made the Internet, not even the Obama administration's Justice Department could ignore what had happened on Philadelphia's streets. Particularly after the department's own investigation revealed that the New Black Panthers had called for "300 members to be deployed" at various polling places across the country.

So early this year, the Department of Justice proceeded to file a complaint against the Black Panthers, and specifically against the stormtroopers who were captured on video. So far, so fair.

A lawyer and survivor of many a legal battle for civil rights, Bartle Bull, filed an affidavit in support of the Justice Department's complaint. He characterized the incident in Philadelphia as "the most blatant form of intimidation I have encountered in my life in political campaigns in many states, even going back to the work I did in Mississippi in the 1960s."

But the Black Panthers didn't even bother to respond to the charges -- as if they were above the law. And maybe they are. Because after a court had ordered a default judgment against them, including one of their national leaders, the Justice Department caved. It dropped all charges against the Panthers except one, and that one was settled with a light tap on the wrist. The department got an injunction forbidding a member of the Panthers, identified as one Samir Shabazz, from brandishing a weapon at a polling place through November 15, 2012. How's that for a tough defense of Americans' right to vote without risking intimidation?

There doesn't seem to be any explanation for this perversion of justice except the Panthers' political pull with this new administration. This case is no longer about the Black Panthers so much as it is about a newly politicized Justice Department. At some point the career lawyers in the Justice Department's civil rights division changed their minds about pressing charges -- or had their minds changed for them. By whom? Why? Those questions need answering. Under oath.

August 26, 2009 edition of Tidbits --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2009/tidbits090826.htm

Bob Jensen's universal health care messaging --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Health.htm

Bob Jensen's economic crisis messaging http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/2008Bailout.htm

Bob Jensen's threads --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm

Bob Jensen's Home Page --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/