TEN NEW REASONS WHY OBAMACARE CAN STILL BE KILLED

Next week it all gears up again, and Americans opposed to government takeover of our health care system hit the bricks. We just had an excellent example of our superior health care system with the alarming news of Rush Limbaugh's near death experience. It is horrifying to think what would have happened if the government was in charge.

There have been uncovered many reasons why Obamacare is unconstitutional and violates the Bill of Rights, as well as racial and other forms of discrimination. The CBO has also uncovered a double counting of funds, and refutes Reid and Obama's claim that Obamacare will cut the national deficit. This piece backs up these findings with useful documentation to fight these crooks. Check out the all important links, like Reid's Sweetheart Deals in "bribes".

Phyllis Schlafly of Eagle Forum lists 10 new encouraging reasons why this takeover can be stopped:


Ten New Reasons Why Obamacare Can Still Be Killed
by Phyllis Schlafly, January 1, 2010

New reasons emerge almost daily as to why Obamacare can and must be defeated.

1. The American people oppose Obamacare by almost 2 to 1 in the latest CNN poll. Other polls show lopsided opposition to passing either the Senate or House health-care bill.

Public opinion is against the bill because of its obscene costs in higher taxes, burdensome debt, anti-freedom mandates, rationing, and reduced care for seniors. The American people have awakened to the fact that Obamacare is transformational legislation that will drag us against popular will into European-style Socialism.

2. The Democrats' double-counting of Obamacare's financial benefits has been exposed as a colossal lie. Harry Reid told the Senate that his bill strengthens our future by both "cutting our towering national deficit by as much as $1.3 trillion over the next 20 years" AND "strengthening Medicare and extending its life by nearly a decade."

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) refuted that assertion. CBO said the claim that Obamacare would provide these benefits simultaneously "would essentially double-count a large share of those savings and thus overstate the improvement in the government's fiscal position."

3. Obamacare is unconstitutional because of its mandate that all individuals must carry "approved" health insurance, and all businesses must give health insurance to their employees whether or not the company can afford it. "Universal" coverage will be enforced by the Internal Revenue Service with power to punish those who don't have such a plan.

Constitutional lawyers point out that the Commerce Clause does not give Congress the authority to force Americans to buy health insurance as a condition of living in our country because personal health insurance is not "commerce." The CBO wrote that "a mandate requiring all individuals to purchase health insurance would be an unprecedented form of federal action"; the Supreme Court has never upheld any requirement that an individual must participate in economic activity.

4. Since the Senate bill imposes sharp limits on health-insurance companies' ability to raise fees or exclude coverage, it likely will force many of them out of business. Obamacare is unconstitutional because it violates the Bill of Rights protections against takings without just compensation and deprivation of property without due process of law.

5. Other Obamacare provisions blatantly legislate racial and other forms of discrimination. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights sent two letters to the President and congressional leaders warning about the obnoxious requirements for racist and sexist quotas.

The Senate bill requires that "priority" for federal grants be given to institutions offering "preferential" admissions to minorities (race, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, and religion). Institutions training social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, behavioral pediatricians, psychiatric nurses, and counselors will be ineligible for federal grants unless they enroll "individuals and groups from different racial, ethnic, cultural, geographic, religious, linguistic, and class backgrounds, and different genders and sexual orientations."

6. Obama's claim that "everybody" will now be covered creates few winners but lots of losers. Universal health insurance will be achieved by forcing young people to pay the additional costs (insurance for the youngest third of the population would rise by 35 percent), and by restricting and rationing care for the elderly.

7. According to Robert Samuelson in the Washington Post, the "wild card is immigration." From 1999 to 2008, 60 percent of the increase in the uninsured occurred among Hispanics, and Obama's refusal to close our borders will make this problem more costly every year.

8. Obamacare gives Medicare bureaucrats the power to ration health care by forcing doctors to prescribe cheaper medical devices and drugs. In the recent case of Hays v. Sebelius, the court ruled that Medicare doesn't have the right to make this rule, but Obamacare takes jurisdiction away from the courts to hear any appeal from decisions of the new Medicare Commission.

The "stick" applied to primary-care doctors is imposing financial penalties if they refer too many patients to specialists. The "carrot" is financial rewards to doctors who give up small practices and consolidate into larger medical groups or become salaried employees of hospitals or other large institutions.

9. The Senate bill contains at least a dozen of what can be described as bribes. Senator Mary Landrieu received a $300 million increase in Medicaid funding for her state (known as the Second Louisiana Purchase), and Senator Ben Nelson received $100 million permanent exemption for Nebraska from the costs of Medicaid expansion.

10. The Senate bill even has a four-page section artfully written to enable ACORN to get federal health-care grants. This section describes grant recipients as "community and consumer-focused nonprofit groups" having "existing relationships ... with uninsured and underinsured consumers."

Further reading:

• Health Care Reform

THE 'TAX & SPEND' LEFT ARE BACK WITH A VENGENCE

With 43% of the nation declaring to be independent, and 2/3 of them voting for hope & change, there has to be some re-evaluating going on. A big part of Obama's hope and change was less tax and spend. Any independents scratching their heads today?

If you are not familiar with VAT (Value Added Tax), it's not just on goods, it's on services -- that means labor, professional services, or services of any kind. And that's on top of all the other taxes we pay for the entitled. America is one of the few nations without a VAT, which is another reason why America is the greatest nation in the world.

The Heritage Foundation writes:


The ‘Tax and Spend’ Left are Back with a Vengeance
October 7, 2009

According to exit polls, Americans who voted last November 4th described themselves as 34% conservative, 44% moderate and only 22% liberal. One third of new voters were independents — and about two-thirds of them voted for President Barack Obama. How did President Obama win over so many moderates and independents? By explicitly renouncing his party’s tax and spend past. Specifically, Obama promised to “cut taxes for 95% of workers and their families” and enact “a net spending cut” for the federal government. Not only has President Obama failed to keep these promises, but his leftist base is stepping up their campaign for massive new tax hikes and spending increases.

Obama’s ‘no tax increases on families making $250,000 a year or less‘ lasted exactly 15 days. On February 4th, the President signed into law a bill expanding the children’s health insurance program that was paid for with a 156% tax hike on tobacco. Since slightly more than half of today’s smokers (53%) earn less than $36,000 per year, there is no way this bill can not be considered a tax hike on the poor. Democrats in the House have also passed a trillion dollar energy tax hike, and the Senate is about to approve new taxes on individuals who don’t have health insurance, businesses that want to create jobs, and on families with high cost health insurance plans. But even all those new taxes are just the beginning. This past Monday on Charlie Rose, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said a new value-added tax (VAT) is “on the table” as well.

A VAT is a type of national sales tax. However, instead of being collected at the cash register, it is imposed on manufacturers at each “value added” stage of the production process. Since everybody buys stuff, including families making less than $250,000 a year, any VAT would necessarily break Obama’s no tax hike promise. Worse, a VAT would expand the size of government, inadvertently increase income tax rates, and destroy jobs.

And it is that last part, the destroying jobs part, that should most worry Americans today. The latest Bureau of Labor and Statistics report released last Friday contained some truly sobering employment numbers that completely undercut any claims that the President’s $787 billion stimulus plan is working. Every aspect of the labor market in September was negative. The labor force participation rate fell to 65.2 percent, the lowest point of this recession and the lowest rate in 25 years. The unemployment rate increased by only 0.1 to 9.8 percent, but the unemployment rate would have been higher had 571,000 not left the labor force. The male unemployment rate reached 10.3 percent, the highest level since the Great Depression.

So what is the left’s answer to the President’s failed spending? More spending. The New York Times editorial board recommends “more stimulus to spur job creation” or “a large federal jobs program” or, we love this one: “surprise us.” Not to be outdone, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman is suggesting the federal government should raise its deficit stimulus spending to at least $1.2 trillion. And none of this even includes the trillion dollar price tag for Obamacare or President Obama’s long-term budget which would permanently keep annual spending between $5,000 and $8,000 per household higher than it had been under President George W. Bush.

THE REPUBLICAN REVIVAL

This should be an inspiration to every red blooded conservative. Especially an inspiration to those who have had it with this tragically inept administration.

As Fred Barnes describes, predicting the outcome of the 2010 elections is partly guesswork, but the current trend towards Republicans is a good indicator. The more this president continues to fail, and the more his polls decline, the better the outlook for 2010.

The Weekly Standard writes:


The Republican Revival
The leading indicators all point to major gains in the 2010 midterm elections.
by Fred Barnes, October 12, 2009 issue

Ignore anyone who says Republicans have no chance of winning 40 seats in next year's midterm elections and grabbing control of the House of Representatives. A landslide of that dimension is quite possible. All it would take is for current political trends to continue. If that happens, Republicans will win the House in a landslide. The Senate is another story.

The deep trouble that's beginning to engulf Democrats is now an inescapable fact of political life. With the congressional election 13 months away, Democrats have time to halt their decline and prevent a Republican surge. But they've shown no signs of reversing their slide. In 2006 and 2008, they were on offense. Today they're stuck on defense.

Predicting the outcome in 2010 is partly guesswork. The political climate, the number of open seats, and the quality of candidates a year from now--those are unknowns. Nonetheless, a strong drift toward Republicans is clear. If the election were held today, the best guess is Republicans would win 15 to 25 House seats.

Democrats can point to successes. Their fundraising matches or exceeds that of Republicans. Voter registration has tilted in their favor. And they've won impressive majorities among young voters, Hispanics, and the highly educated in the past two elections.

But those are lagging indicators. In looking to 2010, it's the leading indicators that matter, and Republicans are doing extraordinarily well in all of them. Let's take a look at five of these indicators.

Two are especially significant: the so-called generic ballot and presidential approval. Political scientist Alan Abramowitz of Emory University explains their relevance: "The more popular the president and the better the president's party performs on the generic ballot question, the fewer seats the president's party can expect to lose in both the House and the Senate."

In polling, the generic question asks which party respondents intend to vote for in the next election. Republicans trailed Democrats for most of 1994. "When we took the lead, we took the majority in the House," says California Republican representative Kevin McCarthy, the chief recruiter of candidates for House seats.

For the 2010 cycle, Republicans are already in the lead. In the Rasmussen poll, Republicans jumped narrowly ahead of Democrats last spring for the first time since 2004. And they've held their lead. Last week, they topped Democrats by 42 percent to 40 percent.

Meanwhile, President Obama's approval ratings have fallen precipitously. In the Gallup poll, he began his presidency with 68 percent approval. Now his rating hovers in the low 50s. In last week's Fox News poll, Obama's approval was 50 percent. Several polls have put it briefly in the high 40s.

The 50 percent level is important. The history of midterm elections suggests that Republican gains will be held to the post-World War II average of 26 seats or fewer if Obama can keep his approval in the 50s. If it dips to the low 40s, that correlates with a pickup of roughly 40 seats by Republicans, giving them a majority in the House.

Based on his forecasting model (and using current political trends), Abramowitz says Democrats are likely to lose at least 15 House seats in 2010 "and their losses could go as high as 30-40 seats." A loss of 3 to 4 Senate seats--which would mean a Republican gain of 3 to 4 seats--is "entirely possible," he says. Should Obama's approval recover and reach the 60s and Democrats go ahead on the generic ballot, Republicans would win 15 seats in the House while losing a Senate seat, according to Abramowitz.

The other leading indicators are less predictive but still compelling. On party identification, Republicans trail Democrats by the smallest margin since 2005. In Gallup recently, 48 percent identified with Democrats, 42 percent with Republicans. In 2008, Democrats led 53 percent to 39 percent. Last week, the Fox News poll found Democratic identification at 41 percent, Republican at 37 percent.

Republicans appear to be more intense than Democrats in their political involvement now, and this factor is measurable by how closely one is paying attention to national political news. In 2005, 26 percent of Republicans were following news "very closely." Now 41 percent are, but only 30 percent of Democrats. The greater the intensity, the more likely one is to vote.

Similarly, the better a party does in attracting independents, the better its chances of winning elections. In 2008, Obama won independents by 8 points. Now they've turned against him, disapproving of his performance as president by 46 percent to 41 percent in the Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. Gallup found that more independents are currently "Republican-leaning" (15 percent of the electorate) than "Democratic-leaning" (13 percent). Two years ago, Democratic leaners led among independents, 20 percent to 12 percent.

Pollster Neil Newhouse says many of the independents moving away from Obama and Democrats are former (soft) Republicans returning home. "You'd expect to see independents going first." If they were balking, Republican prospects would be dimmer.

Independents will play a pivotal role next year because they're clustered disproportionately in swing districts, precisely where Democrats captured dozens of House seats in 2006 and 2008. Democrats hold 84 seats in districts won by President Bush in 2004 or John McCain in 2008, and 48 in districts won by both.

With these seats in mind, Republicans have become ambitious in candidate recruitment. They tried to get ex-football coach and TV analyst Lou Holtz to seek a House seat in Florida. He declined. They're eager for Capt. Chesley (Sully) Sullenberger, who piloted his airliner to a safe landing in the Hudson River last January, to run in California. He's undecided.

McCarthy says attractive candidates have begun to sign on as Republican chances of success in 2010 have improved. If Republicans win the governor's races in Virginia and New Jersey next month--they lead in both states--many more will choose to run, he says. In the 1994 Republican landslide, 51 of the 74 freshman Republicans who were elected had waited until after Republicans won in Virginia and New Jersey to announce their candidacies.

The political circumstances in 2010 may not be as promising for Republicans as they were in 1994. Fewer Democrats are retiring, thus fewer seats are open. And Democrats have enlarged their base.

But Republicans are sure to benefit from a windfall: the explosion of populist opposition to Obama, congressional Democrats, and their liberal agenda. Some of these opponents are Republicans, but many of them aren't. They're ex-Perot backers or unaffiliated conservatives.

Put the populists together with Republicans and independents now leaning Republican and you have a majority coalition. It hasn't fully coalesced yet. But there's a possibility, even a good possibility, it will. In that case, the prospect of Republicans' winning 40 seats becomes quite credible.

Fred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD

KILL OBAMACARE THROUGH A BACKDOOR

This is something to keep in mind in each and every state, county and district. It's done in little, but very crucial steps, and campaigning for conservative principles and against big government, deficit spending and open borders.

From the ever diligent Erick Erickson of RedState:


Kill Obamacare Through a Backdoor
by Erick Erickson, September 24, 2009

I went to a Virginia Conservative Campaign Fund party last night for Ken Cuccinelli, Bob McDonnell, and Bill Bolling.

If you will recall, in 1993 the Republicans took over Virginia. It was a clear signal to the nation that a backlash was coming against the Democrats. Consequently, the Democrats ran for cover and Bill Clinton’s liberal agenda was largely shut down.

If McDonnell, Bolling, and Cuccinelli sweep Virginia this year as Governor, Lt. Governor, and Attorney General respectively, the same thing will happen. Democrats will run scared. Couple that with New Jersey and the willingness of Democrats to carry Barry O’s and Nancy’s water will greatly diminish.

Consider donating to the Virginia Conservative Campaign Fund by going here. They’ll target the money and help the candidates whose victories will mean the destruction of Obamacare.

It’s a backdoor defeat, but it is still a defeat.

OBAMA'S HEADWIND ON HEALTH CARE

Public opinion is strongly against government run health care, and the opposition grows daily. Even in the light of the powerful voice of Obama, and the media madness supporting his every move, the American people are speaking up louder than those two very prominent mediums.

The ever brilliant Dick Morris explains:

OBAMA'S HEADWIND ON HEALTH CARE
by Dick Morris & Eileen McGann, September 17, 2009

The ups and downs of the published polls about Obama's health care proposals dramatically illustrate the ferocity of the headwinds he faces as he desperately tries to sell his program to a suspicious and wary public.

Before Obama addressed the nation and a joint session of Congress, his proposals drew only 45% approval (Rasmussen). But after he spoke, support for his health care proposals rose until it peaked at 52%. Then, a scant week after his speech ended, public support had quietly but quickly eroded back down to 42%.

It is no surprise that a nationally televised presidential speech can move support for the chief executive's program by 7 points. But it is shocking that - in the absence of any other major independent negative event - these new supporters would flee in the space of one week and that three percent more would move against him.

That spells big trouble for Obama. It means that the wind is blowing in his face as he tries to make headway for his health care program. This seven point post-speech slippage in seven days indicates that all the breakfast tables and lunch counters, and medical examining rooms are abuzz with conversation about health care changes, most of it negative to the president's wishes.

There comes a time in the most heated of political debates when the small media drowns out the big media and the grass roots outgrow the giant trees. Nobody has the president's huge microphone. But we all have voices and, when they swell to a chorus, they dominate the national dialogue.

Bush encountered such sales resistance over Iraq as Johnson did on Vietnam and Nixon over Watergate. No presidential speech or Congressional phalanx can out shout an aroused American public. All the tools of spin doctors and media mavens are useless in the face of a growing public, national consensus is this idea and this plan are fundamentally flawed.

It is, essentially, a program to force people who don't need it to buy health insurance so as to lower costs for those who do and to subsidize part of the price tag by cutting medical care to the elderly.

Will the sixty Democratic Senators and the 76 vote House majority pass it anyway? It is hard to estimate a politician's capacity for suicide or how easy it is to lead a political party into oblivion. But, certainly, when opposition to the president's program grows from the current 42-55 disapproval into the 35-65 range, Congress must balk rather than march over the cliff.

ObamaCare and Red State Democrats

As Obama saturates the Sunday news programs this weekend on FIVE stations, cunningly avoiding Fox News Sunday and their direct questions, makes another appearance on Letterman, while touring the countryside again, one has to ask -- is this Presidential?

It's no wonder his numbers keep failing, like everything else he touches.  Karl Rove recently had a debate with former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean and wrote this op-ed:


ObamaCare and Red State Democrats
The president is changing the political landscape, but not in the way he intends.
by Karl Rove, September 17, 2009

On Friday, I was at DePauw University in Indiana debating former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean. It was two days after Barack Obama's big speech before a joint session of Congress and Mr. Dean is a strong advocate for his party's agenda and a medical doctor, so I expected him to defend the president's idea of adding a "trigger" to health-care reform to ease its passage and thereby guarantee a government takeover of our health-care system.

But Mr. Dean turned out to be tougher on triggers than I was. He called them a "terrible" idea.

It's now becoming clear that Mr. Obama's speech failed to rally voters and failed to inspire Democrats to follow their president's lead. And while the fissures are small now (Mr. Dean's worry seems to be that triggers would give too much away to Republicans), they will likely widen unless the president shows that his policies will do what his campaign did--expand the pool of voters in favor of Democrats.

That's not happening now. A Gallup poll this week found that 38% of Americans say their representative should vote for ObamaCare--40% want their member to vote against it. It was 37%-39% on the same question the day before Mr. Obama spoke.

Part of Mr. Obama's problem is his language. His speech contained little new information and his tone was unpresidential. Instead of binding Americans to his cause, he called legitimate concerns "misinformation," "false," "demagoguery," "distortion" or "tall tales." Earlier in the week he declared them "lies." This was like calling people with concerns stupid, and it's not the way to win them over.

Take the issue of illegal aliens. The president's assertion that his reform "would not apply to those who are here illegally" drew an angry eruption from a GOP House backbencher. Then late Friday night, the White House quietly announced that proof of citizenship would be required to enroll in the president's health plan. This closed the loophole that provoked Rep. Joe Wilson. Had Mr. Obama acknowledged the concern and offered a solution in his speech, he would have come across as reasonable.

Mr. Obama is forgetting that the political landscape can change when the pool of people who vote changes. In 2008, five million more people voted than in 2004. Mr. Obama drew two million more African-Americans to the polls. He also shifted support among younger voters (ages 18-24) from 54% Democratic, 45% Republican in 2004 to 66% Democratic, 32% Republican.

Today, Mr. Obama's approval among young voters is down 10 points since July, according to Gallup polls. It may drop more when those voters discover that the plan put out by Sen. Max Baucus (D., Mont.) this week would fine them up to $950 a year for not being insured. Young people are 9.9% of the population. Fining them only antagonizes them.

Fiscally conservative independents who were already upset with Mr. Obama's stimulus spending will only be more upset with his health-care plan. It starts running annual deficits in its third year, piles up $219 billion in deficits in its first decade, and could add $1 trillion to the debt in its second.

Last weekend's grassroots rally against ObamaCare in Washington was a sign that voters are getting active to oppose the president's agenda. If it keeps up, middle-class anxiety about the national debt could make 2010 a tough year for any Democrat up for re-election.

Those Democrats will soon notice that seniors are worried about Mr. Obama's proposed Medicare cuts and that Hispanics--the fastest growing part of the electorate--are slipping away from the president. Gallup polls reveal his support among Hispanics fell 14 points to 67% over the summer. Mr. Obama may be changing the electorate for 2010, but in the wrong direction for his party. This has worried many of the 70 Democrats in congressional districts carried by George W. Bush or John McCain.

Pennsylvania Rep. Jason Altmire's district went 55% for Mr. McCain last year. After Mr. Obama's speech, he called the House bill "flawed" and said, "We can do better." Ohio Rep. John Boccieri, whose district favored Mr. McCain 50%-48%, told reporters, "I don't believe the president has shifted any of my opinions." Alabama Rep. Parker Griffith, whose district gave Mr. McCain 61% of its vote, called for health-care reform "without expanding government or adding more debt to an already overburdened treasury."

And it's not only Democrats in red districts who are questioning the president. California Reps. Dennis Cardoza and Jim Costa followed the speech by saying it hadn't swayed them. Mr. Obama carried their districts with 60% of the vote. Reps. Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri and Artur Davis of Alabama, both African-Americans, voiced similar sentiments.

Mr. Obama will appear on five news shows on Sunday. His time might be better spent praying for more public support.


Mr. Rove is the former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush. Read more of his articles at http://www.rove.com/