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Tuesday, December 24, 2013
American Freedom Defense Inititive
As the clouds continue to gather on the international scene, 2013 has been another year of groundbreaking work with unparalleled results for our American Freedom Defense Initiative.
The Obamacare Deception
PHOTOS.COM
The apparently flawed law is doing what its designers intended. It’s blowing up the private health insurance market — which was already a morass of bureaucratic and regulatory argle-bargle and inefficiency — and driving the country, inexorably, toward a single-payer socialist/fascist healthcare system one unConstitutional “regulatory” change at a time (at least 14 of them so far).
Central planning progressives, by word and deed, have long expressed their desire for a single-payer redistributive healthcare system. Obamacare has essentially accomplished that, while preserving the insurance companies as “middle men.” Insurance companies bought into the scheme because, rather than having to battle over customers and depend upon individuals to pay their premiums, they preferred the idea of a captive consumer pool and premium payments guaranteed by the Federal Treasury.
One by one, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’ regulatory tweaks and President Barack Obama’s exemptions are removing payers from the system. They’ve created a regulatory jumble that has forced insurers to drop millions of policies that people were happy with in order to lump them into a one-size-fits-all box.
Premiums are high, deductibles are higher and the failure of Healthcare.gov and State exchange websites has rendered the redistributive “healthcare subsidies” incomprehensible. The few people who want to sign up can’t. The so-called millennials, upon whom the system depended as a foundation, are rejecting the scheme entirely, choosing instead to pay the penalty and sign up only if they get sick rather than subject themselves to the theft.
With no one left to pay into the system via premiums, insurance companies will howl for a bailout.
They’ll be considered too big to fail. Then government will do what governments always do: print more money, raise taxes on the middle class and take over the whole the system that it purposely crashed. It’ll ration care, stifle innovation, remove healthy choices and lock people into Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel’s dream world, where people aren’t people at all unless they’re functioning contributors to society.
This will put people’s health in the hands of mind-numbed bureaucrats and automaton state doctors who march in lockstep to the collectivist system upon which their livelihood depends.
It’s not easy being a libertarian, particularly if you follow public policy.
Thomas Jefferson almost certainly was right when he wrote that “The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield,
and government to gain ground.”
Heck, just look at how small government used to be in the developed world compared to where it is now.
Public sectors used to consume only about 10 percent of economic output during the 1800s when nations became rich, but now the burden of government spending averages more than 40 percent of GDP.
And if you really want to get depressed, then look at the long-run fiscal forecasts for the United States and other industrialized countries. Things are going to get worse.
Much worse.
Most nations are heading toward a Greek-style fiscal crisis. And while the United States is in better shape than many European welfare states today,
our long-run outlook is actually worse according to the International Monetary Fund.
Even the Bank for International Settlements and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development agree with the IMF’s grim prognosis.
Speaking of the IMF, let’s discuss some very bad news.
It’s about Albania, so it may not seem very important, but it’s quite symbolic of the destructive impact of international bureaucracies.
As you can see from this Reuters report, the IMF basically bribed Albania to get rid of its flat tax.
And then the IMF bureaucrat in charge, Mr. Ilahi, actually has the nerve to assert that all this bad policy will make Albania “open to foreign investors.” Yeah, sure. Investors are always flocking to nations that are actively increasing the burden of government. I guess that’s why France is such an economic dynamo and Hong Kong is suffering from stagnation…at least according to the IMF model anyway.
Keep in mind, by the way, that Mr. Ilahi (like all international bureaucrats) gets a tax-free salary! So I guess we shouldn’t be too surprised that he is completely clueless about the real-world impact on the destructive policies he has foisted upon Albania.
By the way, Albanian politicians are not exactly blameless. They doubled government spending over the past 10 years, with outlays climbing from less than 200 million leks in 2003 to more than 400 million leks this year.
And then these profligate politicians decided to throw their taxpayers under the bus in exchange for a pile of additional loot from the IMF.
The real victims are the people of Albania. They suffered decades of communist enslavement. But even after the collapse of the Soviet Empire, they’ve never enjoyed a free-market, small-government economy. But with the flat tax, they had at least one pro-growth policy.
Now they don’t even have that.
P.S. The IMF is an equal-opportunity proponent of bad policy. The tax-free bureaucrats have advocated lots of tax hikes on Americans, including a value-added tax, a financial transactions tax, and class-warfare tax rate increases. Oh, and let’s not forget they urged a giant energy tax on American consumers.
It’s
nice to know that the bureaucrats are so industrious at developing
policies to hurt the United States when American taxpayers underwrite
the biggest share of the IMF budget.
P.P.S. But I don’t want to be unfair. The IMF did provide – albeit by accident – very powerful evidence showing why the United States should not have a value-added tax. So I guess that was one useful thing the bureaucrats did, even if it wasn’t their intention. And the bureaucracy has published some good studies about the economic benefits of reducing government spending and others warning that tax increases can be self defeating.
P.P.P.S. Since this has been a depressing post, let’s close by noting that the IMF doesn’t always succeed. The bureaucrats unsuccessfully tried to pressure Latvia into abandoning the flat tax.
Thomas Jefferson almost certainly was right when he wrote that “The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield,
and government to gain ground.”Heck, just look at how small government used to be in the developed world compared to where it is now.
Public sectors used to consume only about 10 percent of economic output during the 1800s when nations became rich, but now the burden of government spending averages more than 40 percent of GDP.
And if you really want to get depressed, then look at the long-run fiscal forecasts for the United States and other industrialized countries. Things are going to get worse.
Much worse.
Most nations are heading toward a Greek-style fiscal crisis. And while the United States is in better shape than many European welfare states today,
our long-run outlook is actually worse according to the International Monetary Fund.Even the Bank for International Settlements and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development agree with the IMF’s grim prognosis.
Speaking of the IMF, let’s discuss some very bad news.
It’s about Albania, so it may not seem very important, but it’s quite symbolic of the destructive impact of international bureaucracies.
As you can see from this Reuters report, the IMF basically bribed Albania to get rid of its flat tax.
“The IMF staff and the authorities reached an agreement on the IMF supporting their economic programme with financial assistance which could be delivered over a period of three years under an extended fund facility with access of about 300 million euros,” the IMF’s mission chief, Nadeem Ilahi, told reporters. …The three-month-old Socialist government will scrap a flat tax of 10 percent in the next fiscal year in January and raise the corporate tax to 15 percent from 10 percent. Also, the income tax for high-earners will rise to rates of 13 percent and 23 percent from 10 percent currently. …”The package of economic policies … supported by the IMF programme should make Albania an economy that is reforming, is open to foreign investors. … A lot of the reforms the authorities are planning are consistent with what the European Union has been asking for,” Ilahi said.So think about what this means. The IMF is hurting global growth by distorting the allocation of capital. It’s hurting Albanian growth by enabling more government spending. And it’s hurting Albanian growth by forcing higher tax rates.
And then the IMF bureaucrat in charge, Mr. Ilahi, actually has the nerve to assert that all this bad policy will make Albania “open to foreign investors.” Yeah, sure. Investors are always flocking to nations that are actively increasing the burden of government. I guess that’s why France is such an economic dynamo and Hong Kong is suffering from stagnation…at least according to the IMF model anyway.
Keep in mind, by the way, that Mr. Ilahi (like all international bureaucrats) gets a tax-free salary! So I guess we shouldn’t be too surprised that he is completely clueless about the real-world impact on the destructive policies he has foisted upon Albania.
By the way, Albanian politicians are not exactly blameless. They doubled government spending over the past 10 years, with outlays climbing from less than 200 million leks in 2003 to more than 400 million leks this year.
And then these profligate politicians decided to throw their taxpayers under the bus in exchange for a pile of additional loot from the IMF.
The real victims are the people of Albania. They suffered decades of communist enslavement. But even after the collapse of the Soviet Empire, they’ve never enjoyed a free-market, small-government economy. But with the flat tax, they had at least one pro-growth policy.
Now they don’t even have that.
P.S. The IMF is an equal-opportunity proponent of bad policy. The tax-free bureaucrats have advocated lots of tax hikes on Americans, including a value-added tax, a financial transactions tax, and class-warfare tax rate increases. Oh, and let’s not forget they urged a giant energy tax on American consumers.
It’s
nice to know that the bureaucrats are so industrious at developing
policies to hurt the United States when American taxpayers underwrite
the biggest share of the IMF budget.P.P.S. But I don’t want to be unfair. The IMF did provide – albeit by accident – very powerful evidence showing why the United States should not have a value-added tax. So I guess that was one useful thing the bureaucrats did, even if it wasn’t their intention. And the bureaucracy has published some good studies about the economic benefits of reducing government spending and others warning that tax increases can be self defeating.
P.P.P.S. Since this has been a depressing post, let’s close by noting that the IMF doesn’t always succeed. The bureaucrats unsuccessfully tried to pressure Latvia into abandoning the flat tax.
Sometimes it seems like things are upside down.Barack Obama and his Obamacare administrators are continually making laws, through blogpost (suspending the employer mandate) and bulletin (suspending the individual mandate).
This, even though the Framers of the Constitution said that it was Congress that would make the laws; the president is just supposed to faithfully execute them.
Meanwhile, members of Congress are, on one issue, moving to make foreign policy -- something that for more than a century has been largely left to presidents.
This became apparent last week when 26 senators, 13 Democrats and 13 Republicans, co-sponsored a bill to increase sanctions on Iran.
This is not a new idea. The House voted to increase sanctions last July. And it was sanctions, and the threat of increased sanctions, that surely drove Iran's leaders to the negotiating table where they hammered out an interim agreement with Secretary of State John Kerry in Geneva in November.
That agreement, however, left members of Congress of both parties -- and the public -- dissatisfied.
For the first time the U.S. recognized, tacitly, Iran's right to continue possessing the centrifuges used to enrich uranium up to the levels needed to produce a nuclear bomb.
It does not take much time or effort to increase the level of enrichment from current to bomb-ready levels.
The agreement leaves a final agreement to be negotiated in six months. But that six-month period only begins when some still unsettled issues are agreed on.
So Iran has more than six months, as things currently stand, to advance its nuclear program -- during which time sanctions will be softened and economic pressure on the mullah regime will be reduced.
The public, which tended to give Barack Obama and his foreign policy positive marks during his first term, has tended to oppose Kerry's Iran agreement, polls show. Evidently many ordinary citizens who don't follow issues closely share the fear of many well-informed members of Congress that the United States is giving up too much and gaining too little.
The sponsors of the Senate sanctions legislation include leading Democrats, like Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Menendez and New York's Charles Schumer, who has been something of a consigliere for Majority Leader Harry Reid.
Six of the 13 Democratic co-sponsors are up for reelection in 2014, as are four of the 13 Republicans (another Republican is retiring).
The top Republican is Illinois's Mark Kirk, a consistent leader on the issue. He is joined with John McCain, Lindsay Graham and Kelly Ayotte, who work together on many foreign policy issues, and prominent freshmen Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz.
The Senate bill would impose increased sanctions six months after the Geneva agreement goes into effect unless Iran agreed to certain specified conditions. Top House leaders, including Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce and ranking Democrat Elliot Engel, seem ready to pass similar or identical legislation.
Backers argue that it would give administration negotiators leverage on Iran to gain agreement on objectives the president has often said he seeks.
The administration doesn't agree. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said flatly last week that the president would veto the bill. Administration lobbyists have been beseeching Democrats not to back it.
Their arguments don't track with their stated objectives. They say they fear that Iran will walk out of negotiations if more sanctions are threatened. But tough sanctions are what brought them to the table.
They say new sanctions could be passed later. But the Senate bill doesn't put them into effect until later.
They argue that Iran won't ever agree to end uranium enrichment. But the whole point of sanctions is to get the mullah regime to do something it doesn't want to do. If getting to yes were the only objective, we might as well just accept a nuclear-armed Iran.
It's not clear that the sanctions bill will ever get to the floor of the Senate. Even high-caliber sponsors such as Menendez and Schumer may be less persuasive with Harry Reid than calls from the White House.
But it is clear that there are majorities -- solid bipartisan majorities -- in both houses for additional pressure on Iran and for insistence on a final agreement that ends the threat of Iranian nukes rather than one that puts it off for another day.
In this regard Congress seems to be reflecting the will of the American people. Will the administration listen?
Op-ed:
Tomorrow is Christmas...the day when believers worldwide
celebrate the birth of one small child who changed the course of
humanity.
Usually on this day we hope for at least a few hours of peace in the world...a laying down of arms if you will...but in today's volatile world so changed by those out to kill us all, peace might allude us even for a precious few hours.
Peace might allude us as those even in our own country who don't honor the one true living God do everything they can to take Christmas away from believers. But try as they might the Christmas spirit remains in the hearts and minds of most Americans for 'We the People' know that America was, is, and will always remain a Judeo-Christian nation founded upon a belief in God the Father, His Son, and on the Jewish patriarchs who came before.
Christmas did not become a nationally recognized American holiday until
1870. Before then Christmas celebrations were frowned upon in certain northern regions of
America, because people associated the grandeur of Christmas pageantry with the
European monarchs they so opposed. But by the 1880s, Christmas more as we
know and celebrate it began to appear when President Benjamin Harrison
decorated the first indoor White House tree with candles and toys. In
1894, President Grover Cleveland added electric lights and off and
running a White House Christmas went.
And from the very moment that the first electric Christmas lights were turned on, Christmas as a national celebration took off all across our land with all the trappings of lights, trees, carolers, gift exchanges, and with a hope that the coming New Year would always be better than the year before.
And most of our presidents loved Christmas...they reveled in Christmas traditions, family, and friends, and the true meaning of Christmas was NOT lost on them...like it is on the current occupants of the White House. And for many of our presidents and their families choosing the right Christmas Card was very important for their wishes set the tone for the holiday. For example, in 2001 First Lady Laura Bush...back when our First Lady was indeed a Lady...sent out official White House Christmas cards with a verse of Scripture (Psalm 27) printed upon them...a Scripture verse she chose mere days after 9/11. The card simply said, “Thy face, Lord, do I seek. I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the Land of the Living” Powerful words in the aftermath of tragedy...powerful words to help console and comfort a grieving nation...powerful words so appropriate on Christmas Day.
And so many of the Christmas cards sent showed the true inner
character of the president who sent them. Abraham Lincoln requested that
cartoonist Thomas Nast create a special Civil War themed Christmas card
to honor those fighting and those now gone. Dwight D. Eisenhower
created personalized cards when he himself painted six of the eight
Christmas gift prints that he gave to his White House staff each holiday
season.
And our beloved Ronald Reagan put a line from one of his speeches onto his first Christmas card as president that sums up the true meaning of Christmas, “The greatest gift we can give each other is the gift of ourselves.” In other words, Reagan spoke of helping his fellow man...NO fancy gifts needed.
But sadly, John F. Kennedy ushered in the ongoing era of political correctness when in 1961, his official Christmas card said “Season’s Greetings 1961” on the cover and only on the inside did it say Merry Christmas. And the Christmas cards he sent to world leaders had a generalized New Year’s greeting that did NOT mention the word Christmas at all...sad indeed.
However, that same year, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy began the tradition of selecting a theme for the official White House Christmas tree, and each year since then the themes have varied with the First Ladies wishes. But Laura Bush's 2008 'A Red, White and Blue Christmas' was especially touching as it was inspired by letters from everyday Americans that began arriving at the White House soon after September 11th. Many suggested that the White House have a red, white and blue Christmas theme...and they did...honorable folks the Bush's were and still are.
But obviously some Christmas' were rightfully bleak, for in times of
war revelry was toned down. And this was the case during the FDR years.
During the Depression and into World War II, Roosevelt would gather his
family and friends to come sit before the White House tree as he read
Dickens 'A Christmas Carol' to them. And while FDR kept the glitzy
celebration aspect to a minimum, his simple action of reading a story
spoken from the heart was in keeping with the true meaning of the
season.
And these but brief glimpses of past presidential Christmas traditions and cards all lead up to this current president, whose official 2013 White House Christmas card with its stark white pop-up picture of the White House totally undecorated in Christmas splendor said, "It's a message both timeless and universal-no matter what God you pray to, or if you pray to none at all...as we gather around this season, may the warmth and joy of the holidays fill your home." NOT a word said of Christmas...NOT a word said of God...NOT a tree or a Christmas decoration in sight...from the man who professes to be a Christian whose very words say he's anything but.
So as this man who is the epitome of all the vileness that is the hallmark of political correctness...as this man who is NOT a man of God...and as this man willfully chooses his words so as NOT to honor the true meaning of Christmas jets off to Hawaii with his family...on our taxpayer dime...to once again spend Christmas on the golf course slipping pina-coladas NO doubt...it's obvious he's running far away from both the religious aspects of Christmas and from all the problems he built, owns, and dumped on 'We the People' this Christmas season.
And so I would like to wish all who celebrate the birth of the Savior
a very un-politically correct 'Merry Christmas' filled with peace,
love, and joy. And may the New Year bring us back to God and Country for
our America will survive because our America must survive...it is that simple.
A politically correct Christmas is NOT Christmas
By: Diane Sori
Usually on this day we hope for at least a few hours of peace in the world...a laying down of arms if you will...but in today's volatile world so changed by those out to kill us all, peace might allude us even for a precious few hours.
Peace might allude us as those even in our own country who don't honor the one true living God do everything they can to take Christmas away from believers. But try as they might the Christmas spirit remains in the hearts and minds of most Americans for 'We the People' know that America was, is, and will always remain a Judeo-Christian nation founded upon a belief in God the Father, His Son, and on the Jewish patriarchs who came before.
Christmas did not become a nationally recognized American holiday until
1870. Before then Christmas celebrations were frowned upon in certain northern regions of
America, because people associated the grandeur of Christmas pageantry with the
European monarchs they so opposed. But by the 1880s, Christmas more as we
know and celebrate it began to appear when President Benjamin Harrison
decorated the first indoor White House tree with candles and toys. In
1894, President Grover Cleveland added electric lights and off and
running a White House Christmas went.And from the very moment that the first electric Christmas lights were turned on, Christmas as a national celebration took off all across our land with all the trappings of lights, trees, carolers, gift exchanges, and with a hope that the coming New Year would always be better than the year before.
And most of our presidents loved Christmas...they reveled in Christmas traditions, family, and friends, and the true meaning of Christmas was NOT lost on them...like it is on the current occupants of the White House. And for many of our presidents and their families choosing the right Christmas Card was very important for their wishes set the tone for the holiday. For example, in 2001 First Lady Laura Bush...back when our First Lady was indeed a Lady...sent out official White House Christmas cards with a verse of Scripture (Psalm 27) printed upon them...a Scripture verse she chose mere days after 9/11. The card simply said, “Thy face, Lord, do I seek. I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the Land of the Living” Powerful words in the aftermath of tragedy...powerful words to help console and comfort a grieving nation...powerful words so appropriate on Christmas Day.
And our beloved Ronald Reagan put a line from one of his speeches onto his first Christmas card as president that sums up the true meaning of Christmas, “The greatest gift we can give each other is the gift of ourselves.” In other words, Reagan spoke of helping his fellow man...NO fancy gifts needed.
But sadly, John F. Kennedy ushered in the ongoing era of political correctness when in 1961, his official Christmas card said “Season’s Greetings 1961” on the cover and only on the inside did it say Merry Christmas. And the Christmas cards he sent to world leaders had a generalized New Year’s greeting that did NOT mention the word Christmas at all...sad indeed.
However, that same year, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy began the tradition of selecting a theme for the official White House Christmas tree, and each year since then the themes have varied with the First Ladies wishes. But Laura Bush's 2008 'A Red, White and Blue Christmas' was especially touching as it was inspired by letters from everyday Americans that began arriving at the White House soon after September 11th. Many suggested that the White House have a red, white and blue Christmas theme...and they did...honorable folks the Bush's were and still are.
And these but brief glimpses of past presidential Christmas traditions and cards all lead up to this current president, whose official 2013 White House Christmas card with its stark white pop-up picture of the White House totally undecorated in Christmas splendor said, "It's a message both timeless and universal-no matter what God you pray to, or if you pray to none at all...as we gather around this season, may the warmth and joy of the holidays fill your home." NOT a word said of Christmas...NOT a word said of God...NOT a tree or a Christmas decoration in sight...from the man who professes to be a Christian whose very words say he's anything but.
So as this man who is the epitome of all the vileness that is the hallmark of political correctness...as this man who is NOT a man of God...and as this man willfully chooses his words so as NOT to honor the true meaning of Christmas jets off to Hawaii with his family...on our taxpayer dime...to once again spend Christmas on the golf course slipping pina-coladas NO doubt...it's obvious he's running far away from both the religious aspects of Christmas and from all the problems he built, owns, and dumped on 'We the People' this Christmas season.
