Louisville Tea Party

LOW-TAX TEXAS BEATS BIG-GOVERNMENT CALIFORNIA

Despite similarities in their histories and demographic makeup, Texas and California differ greatly in terms of their respective approaches to public policy.  With its low taxes and “hands-off” economic policies, Texas’ economy is booming and the state is experiencing a population inflow.  Meanwhile, California’s recent experience has been quite the opposite, thanks to its expensive and increasingly incompetent government, says Michael Barone, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). 

California has gone in for big government in a big way, says Barone: 

• Democrats hold big margins in the legislature largely because affluent voters in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area favor their liberal positions on cultural issues.
• Those Democratic majorities have obediently done the bidding of public employee unions to the point that state government faces huge budget deficits.
• Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s attempt to reduce the power of the Democratic-union combine with referenda was defeated in 2005 when public employee unions poured $100 million — all originally extracted from taxpayers — into effective TV ads. 

Texas differs vividly from California, says Barone: 

• Texas has low taxes — and no state income taxes — and a much smaller government.
• Its legislature meets for only 90 days every two years, compared with California’s year-round legislature.
• Its fiscal condition is sound and public employee unions are weak or nonexistent. 

In the meantime, Texas’ economy has been booming.  Unemployment rates have been below the national average for more than a decade, as companies small and large generate new jobs, says Barone. 

And Americans have been voting for Texas with their feet, says Barone: 

• From 2000 to 2009, some 848,000 people moved from other parts of the United States to Texas, about the same number as moved in from abroad.
• That inflow continued in 2008-09, when 143,000 Americans moved into Texas, more than double the number in any other state; at the same time 98,000 were moving out of California.
• Texas is on the way to gain four additional House seats and electoral votes in the 2010 reapportionment. 

Source: Michael Barone, “Low-Tax Texas Beats Big-Government California,” Washington Examiner, March 7, 2010. 

ALICE IN HEALTHCARE LAND

What is most like Alice in Wonderland is discussing medical care reform in the abstract, as if there are not already government-run medical care systems in this country and elsewhere.

Yet there seems to be remarkably little interest in examining how government-run medical care actually turns out– medically and financially– whether in Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans Administration hospitals in this country, or in government-run medical systems in other countries.

By all means look at other countries, but not just to see what to imitate. See how it actually turns out. Yet there seems to be an amazing lack of interest in examining what government-controlled medical care produces.

While our so-called health care “summit” last week was going on, British newspapers were carrying exposes of terrible, and often deadly, conditions in British hospitals under that country’s National Health Service. But this has not become part of our debate on what to expect from government-controlled medical care.

Such scandals are an old story under the National Health Service in Britain, one repeatedly producing fresh scandals that their newspapers carry, but ours ignore.

In addition to a whole series of National Health Service scandals in Britain over the years, the government-run medical system in Britain has far less high-tech medical equipment than there is in the United States. Neither in Britain, Canada, nor in other countries with government-run medical care systems can people get to see doctors, especially surgeons, in as short a time as in the United States.

It is not uncommon for patients in those countries to have to wait for months before getting operations that Americans get within weeks, or even days, after being diagnosed with a condition that requires surgery. You can always “bring down the cost of medical care” by having a lower level of quality or availability.

Editor’s Note:  This is an excerpt of an essay by Thomas Sowell from Tuesday, March 3, 2010.

WHITE HOUSE LAND GRAB

An unofficial memo from the White House has revealed plans for the federal government to seize more than 10 million acres from Montana to New Mexico, halting job creating activities like ranching, forestry, mining and energy development.  This land grab would dry up tax revenue that is essential for funding schools, firehouses and community centers, says Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.). 

The 21-page document marked “Internal Draft-NOT FOR RELEASE,” names 14 different lands President Obama could completely close for development by unilaterally designating them as “monuments” under the 1906 Antiquities Act.  Rep. Robert Bishop (R-Utah) made the memo public because he did not want another unilateral land grab by the White House, like what happened under former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, says DeMint: 

• Using the Antiquities Act, President Carter locked up more land than any other president had before him, taking more than 50 million acres in Alaska despite strong opposition from the state.
• President Clinton used the authority 22 times to prohibit hunting, recreational vehicles, mining, forestry and even grazing in 5.9 million acres scattered around the country (the law allowed him to single-handedly create 19 new national monuments and expand three others without consulting anyone).
• In Nevada, the Obama Administration might make another monument in the Heart of the Great Basin because it supposedly is a “center of climate change scientific research.”
• In Colorado, the government is considering designating the Vermillion Basin as a monument because it is “currently under the threat of oil and gas development.”  

The government currently owns 650 million acres, or 29 percent of the nation’s total land.  Federal bureaucrats should not be wasting time thinking up ways to acquire more, especially in the middle of a recession, says DeMint. 

Taking the nation’s resources offline will stifle job creation and dry up tax revenues.  If anything, the government should be selling land off, not locking more up, says DeMint. 

Source: Jim DeMint, “White House Land Grab,” Washington Times, March 2, 2010. 

For text:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/02/white-house-land-grab/

Senator Jim Bunning (R), the 2nd term junior Senator from Kentucky, has been roundly criticized by the Democratic candidate for the Senate, Daniel Mongiardo, for blocking additional deficit spending.   What the main stream media does not point out is that Bunning has suggested the use of Stimulus Funds to cover the extension of benefits rather than reaching into tax-payers’ pockets for an additional $10 billion.  Other candidates have weighed in on this issue:

• “I support Senator Jim Bunning.  Frankly, unemployment benefits are currently 99 weeks or almost two years. While I support extending the benefits for a short period of time longer, we must find a way to pay for those benefits.  I do not support extending unemployment benefits beyond two years.  Even Germany limits unemployment benefits to one year.  Benefits here in America are exceeding those offered in the most liberal countries of Europe.  Two years of government support is not a safety net. It is an entitlement program. I am tired of paying for entitlement programs that continue well beyond a compassionate need.”  (Bill Johnson, Press Release, 3.2.10)
• “Jim Bunning is being unfairly attacked for saying we should spend money already set aside for benefits rather than borrowing more.   He deserves our support and he is going to get it.” (Rand Paul)
• “I would proudly stand up to ensure that programs are paid for and think that this is further evidence of mismanagement of the Senate by Harry Reid.  If we had not wasted time debating and passing a pet bill for Reid, we would not have been in the situation that led to the delay.  I agree with Senators Bunning and McConnell that the government has a responsibility to pay for its programs and a good place to start would be to cut funding from the stimulus in order to pay for the extension of unemployment benefits.  If the stimulus had created jobs as promised, then we would not need more unemployment insurance.” (Trey Grayson)

Editor’s note:  Thanks to these candidates for swiftly stepping out and supporting Senator Bunning in what has been a career-long quest to support fiscal responsibility.

(Editor’s Note:  As has been well-pointed out, so much of the healthcare reform debate has revolved around HOW government should accomplish it, very few people are asking IF it is the government’s role at all.   It is not.   This is yet another usurpation of state’s rights by the federal government to intrude and commandeer an industry it has no right to take over.)

“We think it’s critical that power shifts to the American consumer and away from government, employers and insurers, as evidence shows medical care prices come down when patients pay directly. Government should offer tax relief, such as refundable tax credits, to encourage private health insurance purchasing — especially for low-income families. Similar ideas, like those in the Patients’ Choice Act … are important for Americans to consider. We would do well also to consider creative ideas such as changing federal payments to state-based medicaid plans to individual vouchers or expanding health savings accounts, as has been done in South Carolina.”  (Dr. Scott W. Atlas, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a professor at Stanford University Medical Center, and South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford).

Among likely Republican primary voters, 67% have a favorable opinion of the Tea Party movement and 9% have an unfavorable opinion. When voters were asked if they agree with the movement’s core values of fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government and free markets, 73% agreed and only 7% disagreed. Support for the core values of the Tea Party movement is slightly stronger among men than women, 76% to 70%. Regionally, the Tea Party movement is especially strong in the 3rd and 6th Congressional districts with 87% and 85% of voters agreeing with the core values of the movement respectively. Among voters that have a favorable image of the Tea Party movement, Paul leads Grayson 53% to 20%.

THE MASSACHUSETTS “MODEL” MOVES TO PRICE CONTROLS

Natural experiments are rare in politics, but few are as instructive as the prototype for ObamaCare that Massachusetts set in motion in 2006.  The bills for “universal coverage” are now coming due, and it appears the state political class is prepared to do lasting damage to one of America’s top-flight health care systems, says the Wall Street Journal. 

Last month, Democratic Governor Deval Patrick proposed hard price controls across almost all Massachusetts health care: 

• State regulators already have the power to cap insurance premiums, which Patrick is activating.
• He also filed a bill that would give state regulators the power to review the rates of hospitals, physician groups and some specialty providers.
• Those that are deemed too high “shall be presumptively disapproved.” 

The administered prices of Medicare and Medicaid already shift costs to private patients while below-cost reimbursement creates balance-sheet havoc among providers.  Now the governor wants to import these distortions to save the state’s heavily subsidized insurance program as costs explode, says the Journal. 

Ironically, former Governor Mitt Romney (like President Obama) sold this plan as a way to control spending.  As with all new entitlements, the rolling cost crisis began almost immediately, says the Journal: 

• For fiscal 2010 taxpayer costs are $47 million over budget, in part due to the recession, and while the $913 million Patrick requested for 2011 is a 5 percent increase over 2010, spending has grown on average 6.7 percent per year.
• Meanwhile, average Massachusetts insurance premiums are now the highest in the nation; since 2006, they’ve climbed at an annual rate of 30 percent in the individual market.
• Small business costs have increased by 5.8 percent.
• Per capita health spending in Massachusetts is now 27 percent higher than the national average, and 15 percent higher even after adjusting for local wages and academic research grants.  

All of this is merely a preview of what the entire country will face if Democrats succeed with their plan to pound ObamaCare into law in anything like its current form.  Massachusetts is teaching the country a valuable lesson in how not to reform health care, if only anyone would pay attention, says the Journal. 

Source: Editorial, “Back to the ObamaCare Future: The Massachusetts ‘model’ moves to price controls,” Wall Street Journal, March 1, 2010. 

For text:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703444804575071294139286892.html

HEALTH CARE TAKEOVER STILL LOOMS

TIME TO TAKE ACTION

Note: It doesn’t matter that 60-70% (depending on the poll) of the American people do not want this bill, nor any contorted version of it.  They know it’s not about health care reform.  It’s about power and our government wielding it over us all in yet another critical area of our lives.   So, through a process called “reconciliation,” the left can force this bill upon us all with no participation in the process by conservatives or the American people.    The “Summit” is an illusion, a ruse, a thinly-veiled attempt to make it appear to be an honest effort towart bipartisanship.   But make no mistake about it: This is a power-play.  And once passed, we WILL all answer to some government official or panel to determine what any of us can or cannot do medically.

This week there is forward momentum again in the health care debate. President Obama rolled out his own version of a health care plan. It is reported that if the Republicans filibuster, the Democrats will push the bill via reconciliation through anyway. On Thursday, the President will meet with the leadership of both parties to “discuss” health care.  

So, that means, it is up to us, We the People, to make sure Congress knows we do not want the government to take over our health care. Call your Congressman and Senators and tell them to vote no on Health Care. Also tell Senator McConnell not to compromise in the meeting with the President on Thursday. The American people do not want any part of this Health Care bill, do not compromise.

McConnell – 502-582-6304

Bunning – 800-283-8983

Yarmuth – 502-582-5129

Chandler – 202-225-2122

Rogers- 202-225-4601

Davis – 202-225-3465

Whitfield – 202-225-3547

Guthrie -270-842-9896

Please join your Louisville TEA Party on Thursday,  March 4th from 6pm to 8pm.   Because February’s event was so well-attended that it became a tad unwieldy, we’re moving the venue to the Food Court at Oxmoor Mall.  It’s spacious.  Lots of tables and seating.  And a plethora of food and beverage choices.

So, if you love liberty, want the insane spending in Washington to stop, believe in smaller, less intrusive government and you want a forum to stand up, speak out and get involved, well…you’ve come the right place.  See you there.   Board member Rachel Ford will be there to sign you in and help you get acquainted and connected.

Come out.  Vent.  Brainstorm.  Be energized.  And enjoy.

    For more info, email us: louisvilleteaparty@gmail.com