How the Stimulus Bill Could Kill You

By Douglas O'Brien, a public affairs consultant who served in the Department of Health and Human Services in the Bush Administration

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/02/how_the_stimulus_bill_could_ki.html

When you read through the nearly seven hundred pages of the House stimulus bill it is easy to begin dozing off after a few hundred billion dollars worth of run-of-the-mill wasteful government spending.  One has to keep a keen eye out for the components of the bill that don't just steal your money, but that may actually do you great physical harm, if not kill you outright.

On page 151 of this legislative pork-fest is one of the clandestine nuggets of social policy manipulation that are peppered throughout the bill.  Section 9201 of the stimulus package establishes the "Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research."  This body, which would be made up of federal bureaucrats will "coordinate the conduct or support of comparative effectiveness and related health services research."

Sounds benign enough, but the man behind the Coordinating Council, Health and Human Services Secretary-designate (and tax cheat) Tom Daschle, was kind enough to explain the goal of this organization.  It is to cut health care costs by preventing Americans from getting treatments that the government decides don't meet their standards for cost effectiveness.  In his 2008 book on health care, he explained that such a council would, "lower overall spending by determining which medicines, treatments and procedures are most effective-and identifying those that do not justify their high price tags." 

Once a panel of government experts decides what is and what is not cost-effective by their definition, the government will stop paying for treatments, medicines, therapies or devices that fall into the latter category.  Initially, this will limit access to very expensive treatments for federal employees, veterans, the elderly, members of the military and their dependents and others who rely on the feds to pay for their health care.  But since this would place nearly half of health care dollars off limits for such treatments, the demand for and further development of such treatments would likely dry up.  And Daschle wants to expand the Coordinating Council's power even further, allowing the government to deny tax benefits for private insurance that covers treatments deemed too expensive by the Council.  Thus, if a handful of government employees deem a therapy not cost effective, no health insurance will cover it and it will become virtually unobtainable to patients at any cost.

Mind you, they are not simply looking to exclude treatments that don't work, but to exclude treatments that are effective, but whose cost, in their opinion, does not justify their use.  You, the patient, and your physician don't get a vote. This would make the federal government the single most important decision-maker regarding health care for every patient in America. 

This is also another wonderful example within the stimulus bill of infantile economics.  When something is new it is usually expensive, (think $3,000 VCR's back in the ‘70s).  As supply increases, two important things happen.  First, innovations take place that improve the product.  Second, the cost comes down.  If the feds step in and say, no, that new treatment is too expensive, it will never have the chance to become better, the supply will not increase and it won't become more cost-effective.  It will just die on the shelf, and so will the patients who potentially could have benefited. 

For example, scientists have found that proton beams can be used to destroy cancerous tumors by pinpointing the beam on a tumor diminishing the collateral damage to surrounding tissue that often accompanies conventional photon radiation treatment.  Five facilities in the United States offer proton therapy at places like Massachusetts General Hospital and the University of Texas.  The five can treat a total of about 8,000 patients a year.  Protons are most beneficial for children who can suffer severe developmental side-effects from radiation treatment.  But the therapy is expensive, often running over $100,000 for a six-week course of treatment.  But as new proton treatment facilities are built, improving the delivery of the therapy and increasing its supply, prices will decrease and quality will improve.  But how will a panel of bureaucrats react to this situation?  Will they allow insurance to cover a treatment that can be many times more expensive than conventional care and let it reach its full potential?  Or will it be blackballed for future patients in the name of cost-containment? 

Imagine the conversation:  Parents are told that their daughter has a brain tumor.  Doctors will immediately begin radiation treatment to destroy the tumor.  But they also tell the parents that bombarding the child's brain with radiation will likely have developmental impacts.  The doctors lament that there once was a better way to deal with this situation with a higher success rate and virtually no side effects, but some people in Washington decided it was too expensive and the centers that offered it closed and no one persisted in further developing the therapy. 

Repeat this scenario time and time again and you will glimpse health care in the Age of Hope and Change.  Emphasis will be shifted to prevention and management of chronic illness-an excellent idea and potentially very economically beneficial.  But health care will be frozen in time.  New treatments come on the market at very high costs and most often represent incremental improvements over existing care.  That is how progress works and that is why we live longer lives than our great-grandparents.  But that is exactly the kind of progress that Daschle and his Coordinating Council will be targeting in order to limit health care spending.  It is a perfect example of the way socialized medicine rations care in the name of equality of access and proves the old Canadian axiom that, "national health care is wonderful, unless you get really sick."

Now, all this time, we have been told that Republicans were the ones who only saw health care in terms of dollars and sense and that the Democrats were champions of the needs of the ordinary people.  The reality is the exact opposite.  A market-based system promoted by many Republicans allows patients to control their care rather than bureaucrats and encourages innovations that save and prolong lives.  Under this new health care order, it will be the express task of government employees to stand between you and your family and potentially life-saving care, all in the name of dollars and cents. 

Daily Insight

"Do you realize that your life at this very moment is the result of everything that you have ever thought, done, believed or felt up until now? You can start right now to consciously and deliberately attract whatever you desire in this lifetime."  ...Jack Canfield

'Buy American' -- or Bye-Bye America

by  Patrick J. Buchanan

"British jobs for British workers!" thundered Gordon Brown, as he emerged from the shadow of Tony Blair to become prime minister.

His populist sloganeering has now come back to bite him.

Across Britain, thousands laid down tools in wildcat strikes in solidarity with a walkout from a French-owned oil refinery in North Killinghome -- to protest a $300 million contract to an Italian company that plans to bring in 400 Italian and Portuguese workers to fulfill it.

As Brown pleaded from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that Britain must not retreat into "protectionism," strikes spread to Scotland, Wales and Ulster.

Britain's commitment to let foreigners buy up its utilities and industries and bring in foreign workers to run them has backfired. Brown's own Labor Party is now angrily demanding that he live up to his pledge: British jobs for British workers.

"The Return of Economic Nationalism," wails the alarmed cover of The Economist. And understandably so.

For the stimulus bills of both Houses have a "Buy American" provision mandating that in "public works" only U.S. iron, steel and manufactures be used. The provision came out of the appropriations committee of the House on a 55-to-0 vote.

The Senate watered it down by declaring the Buy American provision must be consistent with all U.S. trade commitments. But Congress is sending a message: The rebuilding of America is to be a project of, by and for Americans, not outsourced. Sen. McCain's free-trade amendment, to strip all Buy American provisions from the bill, was routed 65 to 31

The reaction of Barack Obama, a NAFTA skeptic in 2008 with bumper stickers that read, "Buy American, Vote Obama," was to genuflect to the gods of globalism and recant his economic patriotism.

"I think it would be a mistake ... at a time when worldwide trade is declining, for the United States to start sending a message that somehow we're just looking out after ourselves," he told Fox News. We don't want to "trigger a trade war," he told ABC.

Apparently, Obama was unnerved by rumbles from Europe, which is threatening to drag us before a World Trade Organization tribunal and have "Buy American" banished forever.

But there is no easy way out now for a Democratic Party where economic nationalism is rampant. If Congress drops or Obama refuses to enforce the Buy American provision, and billions of stimulus dollars are spent on foreign iron, steel and cement, Middle America will know whom to blame. But if Americans get the contracts, and Europeans get nothing, Europe will have to decide whether to retaliate and start a trade war with a populist and nationalist America.

We may be at a turning point in history. For we are about to choose whether to fully and finally cast our lot with globalism, or to become again a nation and people who put Americans first.

We are about to decide, perhaps for all time, whether we believe in a deepening interdependence leading to one world government, or we restore the independence won for us by the men on Mount Rushmore: Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt.

All four were economic nationalists. All would today be decried as protectionists. For all believed that the nation's independence and prosperity hung upon its ability to stand alone in the world, and that foreign goods should never enjoy as privileged access to America's markets as American goods made in the U.S.A.

All four put America first. And it was they who created out of 13 rural colonies the greatest manufacturing power in history. Is not their record superior to what Bush-Clinton-Bush left us: a hollowed-out industrial nation dependent on foreigners for the needs of our national life and for the loans to pay for them?

Even John Maynard Keynes came around in 1933 to believe in "national self-sufficiency."

Those who prattle about the perils of protectionism need to be asked: What has free trade produced, but a bankrupt America that must go hat-in-hand to Beijing to borrow the money to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure? Are we also to use Chinese iron, steel and cement because they, with their Third World wages, will work for less than our fellow Americans?

As for Europe's threat of a trade war, bring it on!

We would eat their lunch. As analyst Charles McMillion writes, in eight years of Bush, Canada ran up $500 billion in trade surpluses at our expense, Japan ran up $600 billion, the European Union $800 billion.

These three trading partners, often by imposing value-added taxes on U.S. imports, and rebating those taxes on goods sold here, racked up $1.9 trillion in trade surpluses, sucking jobs, factories and technology out of the United States. These trade deficits, and the even larger ones with China, says Paul Volcker, are behind our present crisis.

America is bust. It is shameful to have to go to China and Japan to borrow the money to rebuild America. But to go to China and Japan and borrow billions, and not spend the money here, makes zero sense.

We have indulged in free trade for a quarter century. And look where it has gotten us.    

Source:  The Daily Thought Pad/Human Events

No Stimulus - Sign This Petition

Dear Taxpayer,

Will you join me in taking a stand in the first major policy battle of President Obama's Administration?

Stop the Pelosi-Reid-Obama Trillion Dollar Spending Bill, Sign Our Online NO Stimulus Petition TODAY- Click Here

Earlier today in the U.S. Senate we suffered a difficult defeat as the $838 billion senate version of the Pelosi-Reid-Obama spending bill passed the senate with 61 votes.  While today's vote is a disappointing setback we cannot be discouraged.  Much of this fight still lies ahead in the next few days.

Despite today’s passage in the Senate, this fight is far from over!

The bill will still have to go to conference to work out differences between the House and Senate versions, before coming back to both chambers for another vote.  They will fight to add back as much pork as possible, including brand new pork not in either the House or Senate version.

You can fight back today by clicking here and joining the growing army of taxpayers saying NO by signing Americans for Prosperity's petition to stop this disastrous trillion-dollar debt scheme.

We've got to keep raising awareness and increase the pressure against this spending and debt outrage. Thanks to the help of our signers forwarding this to their friends and family, calling talk radio, and promoting it on the Internet, we've blown past 200,000 signed petitions! 

Just what is wrong with this bill?

• Under the auspices of a “Comparative Effectiveness Review” the package heavily funds the first steps towards the government-mandated rationing of health care and tramples your right to medical privacy.

• The so-called “Stimulus Package” is being sold to taxpayers as an investment in useful infrastructure like roads and bridges. But the facts prove otherwise. Only 3.6% of the scheme’s $838 billion price tag would actually go to real, practical infrastructure projects--roads and bridges.

• This trillion-dollar debt and spending scheme will provide little or no stimulus, but will put each and every American household in at least $6,700 of new debt, to be paid by our children and grandchildren.

It is critical that we send a loud and clear message to DC politicians that ordinary citizens simply cannot afford the crushing burden and devastating consequences of this initiative.

Please act today to make your voice heard -- and encourage your friends and family to do the same -- by signing AFP's petition here.

Sincerely,
Tim Phillips

President, Americans for Prosperity

Source:  Human Events/No Stimulus - Sign This Petition

Your 2nd Amendment Rights Are In Danger... Followed by All Your Other Rights

Join the NRA and SAVE $10 on a 1 Year Membership!

Australian Gun Law Update

From:   Ed Chenel, A police officer in Australia

I thought you all would like to see the now available data from Down Under...

It has now been one year (12 months) since gun owners in Australia were forced by a new law to surrender 640,381 personal firearms to be destroyed by our own government, a program costing Australia  taxpayers more than $500 million dollars.

The first year results are now available:

Australia-wide, homicides are up 6.2 percent;
Australia-wide, assaults are up 9.6 percent;
Australia-wide, armed robberies are up 44 percent (yes, 44 percent);
In the state of Victoria alone, homicides with firearms are now up 300 percent as compared with the last one year period when private ownership of a firearm was legal.
(NB: the law-abiding citizens did turn in their personal firearms, the criminal element did not and thus criminals in Australia still possess their guns.)

While data for the 25 years preceding the confiscation of privately owned guns showed a steady decrease in armed robbery with firearms, this has changed drastically upward in the past 12 months as criminals now are assured their victims will be unarmed.

There has also been a dramatic increase in break-ins and assaults of the elderly, while the resident is at home.
Australian politicians are at a loss to explain how public safety has decreased, after such monumental effort and expense was expended in 'successfully ridding Australian society of guns.'

This story of well intentioned government intervention in the rights of lawful individuals to own and possess firearms won't be seen in the mainstream U.S. media or on the American evening news.  Senator Obama who advocates a similar confiscation in the U.S. will not be reporting any of this to you.
But, the Australian experience speaks for itself.  Guns in the hands of honest citizens save lives and property and, yes, gun-control laws affect only the law-abiding citizens.

The right to bear arms is part of (our) the Constitution of the United States of America… part of the Bill of Rights… and it has been proven to us over and over that our Founding Fathers knew what they were doing!! They knew and experienced firsthand what happens when the laws, government and climate changes…

 

Americans may want to take note before it's too late!

FORWARD THIS INFORMATION TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW. 
DON'T BE A MEMBER OF THE SILENT MAJORITY.
BE A PARTICIPANT IN THE VOCAL MINORITY WHO DOESN'T WANT TO SEE WHAT HAPPENED IN AUSTRALIA HAPPEN IN THE US!

(Also remember… Neutral Switzerland, probably most peaceful nation in the world, arms and trains all its citizens as a militia and everyone has guns and ammo at home in case they are called.)

The Distemper of the Times

With reports circulating of its imminent demise, The New York Times announced in January that it had found a white knight.

Sort of. For the knight in question, who already owns 6 percent of the sinking Times and was investing $250 million in notes carrying 14 percent interest, was Carlos Slim. Reputedly the richest man in the world, taking the title from Bill Gates in 2007, Carlos is not so highly regarded in his own country.

In Mexico, according to Forbes, "the media and the masses long have held a sneaking suspicion that there is something shady about Slim. He is described as a rapacious monopolist who built his empire on cozy ties to Mexican presidents ... ."

For this column, however, the issue is not how Carlos bought up the Mexican telephone monopoly, but whether this Big Enchilada has bought up Andrew Rosenthal's editorial page.

For, two weeks after Carlos' bailout cash arrived, Rosenthal's page launched a hysterical attack on the patriots' movement that seeks to halt the invasion of the United States from Mexico.

Targets: my sister Bay; our American Cause foundation and its executive director, Marcus Epstein; Peter Brimelow, the author of a seminal work on U.S. immigration, "Alien Nation"; Jim Pinkerton of Fox News, a White House aide to Bush I; Fox's Bill O'Reilly; and this writer.

In the Times' editorial, "Return of the Nativists," Brimelow is said to run an "extremist Website" (VDARE.com) where he and I post "musings about racial dilution and the perils facing white people." Pinkerton was behind the "racist Willie Horton ads." Epstein holds "white-supremacist" views. And we all are into "racialist extremism" and "Latino-bashing," which 
calls to mind "the days of the Know-Nothings and the Klan."

Racism "is all around us," wails the Times. And the nation has a "perpetual need for vigilance," even in this new "age of Obama."

What occasioned this wilding attack? A news conference at the National Press Club, where the Times reporter failed to show, and release of a dry report by Epstein that contends that GOP defeats in 2008 had nothing to do with the strong stand most Republicans took for border security.

The Times calls the report "nonsense." But the case is open and shut. Of 26 House Republicans who lost, Epstein found only one who was a strong border-control candidate defeated by a pro-amnesty Democrat. In every other GOP defeat, either the Democrat was tough on amnesty and border security or the Republican was wimpish.

That John McCain, who led the effort to put illegal aliens on a path to citizenship, got less than a third of the Hispanic vote shows that being pro-amnesty does not necessarily win the Hispanic vote. And the 70 percent of New Yorkers who rejected Eliot Spitzer's proposal to give driver's licenses to illegals, forcing Hillary Clinton to abandon her own governor, should tell even the obtuse Times which way the wind is blowing.

But rather than argue with us, the Times chose to slime us as racists and white supremacists. This is of a piece with the Times' sliming of the Californian electorate that voted against state recognition of homosexual marriage. To the Times, that 52-48 vote meant "right-wing forces, led by the Mormon Church," had "enshrined bigotry in the state's Constitution."

Both diatribes reveal much about the fall of a great newspaper 

and the degeneration of a political philosophy that was once hegemonic in America. Liberalism has hardened into an ideology, a rabid religion that anathematizes any and all heretics.

To the Times' editorial writers, dissent from orthodoxy on illegal aliens or gay rights can only be explained by bigotry, hatred, racism or xenophobia in the hearts of the dissidents. To oppose the Times' agenda on social or moral issues is ascribed to mental illness or moral sickness.

Yet, as these negative views on homosexual marriage and illegal immigration remain mainstream views, the Times comes off, as it did in Sunday's sophomoric editorial, as loathing Middle America.

In its own mind, the Times is battling heroically the forces of hatred. Can it not, by rereading its own words, see the hatred in its own heart?

As Christ Himself said, Andrew, "Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye."

Let it be said. There is nothing wrong about Americans fighting to preserve the culture and country they grew up in. That is what patriotic conservatism is all about. And if the Times can understand and support the right of native tribes like the Navajo and Apache to preserve their unique character and culture, why this viral hatred of those of us who wish to preserve the Western and Christian character of America?

Why does the Times want to see our America destroyed? From what poisoned well comes this hatred of the America we love?

---

Mr. Buchanan is a nationally syndicated columnist and author. 

Romney - Stimulate the Economy Not the Governmnet

A few months have passed since the election, and that's enough time to consider the outcome and take stock of our party's future. I want to make clear that I'm optimistic: our ideas are good, and our agenda will make America freer and stronger.

And our voice needs to be heard, now more than ever.

This is a time of hardship and uncertainty for millions of Americans. Unfortunately, the new President and the Democratic Congressional majority seem more concerned with stimulating the government than stimulating the economy. They have a lot of campaign rhetoric to make good on and plenty of special interests to pay back. 

As the opposition party, we are entirely free to do what is right for the country. There are certain advantages to that kind of freedom, and I suggest we make the most of them.

I know I have been.

Recently, I addressed the House Republican Conference Retreat with my thoughts on how to turn around the economy and get America back on the right track. I also testified before Congress about the importance of making tax cuts the centerpiece of the 2009 economic stimulus package. And with your support, I will continue to fight for the principles in which we both believe.

Marion, will you join me in making the most of this opportunity and making your voice heard? One way to do so is by contributing $10, $25, $50, $100, $250, $500 - or even the maximum $5,000 - to my Free and Strong America PAC. And if you contribute at least $30, we will send you a signed, limited edition "Stimulate the economy, not the government" button. This is the perfect way to show your friends and neighbors where you stand at this critical time for our party and our nation. 

This great party of ours has seen setbacks before. They have never defined us. For our party, I believe this will be remembered as the time when we demonstrated the strength of our convictions, when we defended the foundations of America's prosperity, security and liberty. The comeback for our nation and for our party starts with you. I hope I can count on you as an ally in the work ahead.

Best,

Mitt Romney
Honorary Chairman

 Buttons are available for a limited time. Please allow 4-6 weeks for delivery. For questions about your order, please email Donate@FreeStrongAmerica.com.

Governor Romney's Remarks to the House Republican Conference Retreat

GOVERNOR ROMNEY TODAY DELIVERED THE FOLLOWING REMARKS TO THE HOUSE REPUBLICAN CONFERENCE RETREAT HOSTED BY THE CONGRESSIONAL INSTITUTE AT THE HOMESTEAD IN HOT SPRINGS, VIRGINIA.

 As prepared for delivery

January 30, 2009

 

Thank you for the warm welcome. And thank you for the vote you took this week. You stood strong. You stood for principle. You put the best interests of the American people ahead of politics. I got some calls yesterday, after the news. They said what I feel. We want you to know that we’re proud of you.

 

It sure feels good to be in a room full of Republicans who came out ahead on Election Day. You can be proud of your success. And don’t be afraid to remind the President of this: you, too, won your election.

 

After my own campaign was over, Ann and I just wanted to get away from it all. We ended up in Beijing, about as far away as you can get. We went to the Olympic Games, and one of the events we attended was women’s beach volleyball. I noticed a lot of people looking in our direction, pointing toward us and taking pictures. It’s always nice to be recognized, and I told Ann, let’s be sure to smile and look our best. Ann said, they might like us even more if we got out of the way—Kobe Bryant is standing right behind you.

 

A few months have passed since the election. It’s enough time to consider the outcome and take stock of our party’s future. I want to make clear that I’m optimistic: our ideas are good, our agenda will make America stronger, and your action this week showed that we have the kind of leaders who will stand up for what they believe in. 

 

I have often been asked what I think the Republican Party must do to recover. What I’ve said is this: My first concern isn’t about our party—it’s about our country. 

 

In fact, the two are closely related. The best way for us to advance the prospects of our party is to do what we know is right for the country. This is what the American people expect of us. And that’s what we should expect of ourselves. 

 

This is a time of hardship and uncertainty for millions of Americans. The question is: whose leadership and ideas will turn things around.  And in such a moment, it’s our job to offer the clear answers, the proven solutions, and resolute leadership that will make this country strong again. 

 

The new President and the Congressional majority are having a difficult time doing that. After all, they have a lot of campaign rhetoric to make good on. And they’ve got plenty of special interests to pay back. As the opposition party, we’re entirely free to do what is right for the country. There are certain advantages to that kind of freedom, and I suggest we make the most of them.  

 

That begins with a clear analysis of what’s needed to get the economy moving again. Predictions that we are almost out of the woods, based on the length of prior recessions, are wishful thinking. Americans have lost some 11 trillion dollars in net worth. That translates into about 400 billion dollars less annual consumer spending in the economy. 

 

There’s something else people don’t talk much about: The pool of investment capital—all the money available for new investments, business start-ups, business expansions, capital expenditures, and new hiring. The size of that pool has shrunk by trillions of dollars. This was a huge loss in value, and the effect could be felt for years—in businesses that don’t start up or grow, in jobs that don’t get created. 

 

Given these extraordinary conditions, I am convinced that a stimulus is needed. 

 

So why not just spend and borrow with reckless abandon? Because we’re in a very delicate situation that could easily get worse if Washington does the wrong thing. The package which passed the House is a huge increase in the amount of government borrowing. And we’ve borrowed so much already, that if we add too much more debt, or spend foolishly, we could invite an even bigger crisis. We could precipitate a worldwide crisis of confidence inAmerica, leading to a run on the dollar … or hyper-inflation that wipes out family savings and devastates the middle class.

 

We’re on an economic tightrope. That’s why it is so important to exercise extreme care and good judgment.

 

So far, the Democratic leadership hasn’t shown a great deal of that. They’ve passed 355 billion in infrastructure spending, 60% of which won’t be spent by the end of 2010. Billions for electronic medical health records—it’s a fine idea, but it won’t produce jobs for years and years.

 

Even worse are the liberal payoffs—50 million dollars for the National Endowment for the Arts, hundreds of millions of dollars to the states for STD prevention and education. Until your loud protests got it dropped from the bill, there even was 200 million dollars for the DC Mall. That might have grown some grass, but it wouldn’t have grown the economy. And they’re doing this when the economy is on a tightrope.

 

It’s still early in the administration of President Obama. Like everyone who loves this country, I want him to adopt correct principles and then to succeed. He still has a chance to step in and insist on spending discipline among the members of his own party. It’s his job to set priorities. I hope for America’s sake that he knows that a Chief Executive can’t vote “present.” He can’t let others run the show. He has to say yes to some things and no to a lot of others.

 

We need to stimulate the economy, not the government. A true stimulus package, one that respects the productivity and genius of the American people, could lift this country out of recession. And experience shows us what it should look like. 

 

First, there are two ways you can put money into the economy, by spending more or by taxing less. But if it’s stimulus you want, taxing less works best. That’s why permanent tax cuts should be the centerpiece of the economic stimulus. Even Christine Romer, the President’s own choice to lead the Council of Economic Advisors, found in her research that tax cuts are twice as effective as new spending.

 

Second, any new spending must be strictly limited to projects that are essential. How do we define essential? Well, a good rule is that the projects we fund in a stimulus should be legitimate government priorities that would have been carried out in the future anyway, and are simply being moved up to create those jobs now.   

 

As we take out non-essential projects, we should focus on funding the real needs of government that will have immediate impact. And what better place to begin than repairing and replacing military equipment that was damaged or destroyed in Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan? 

 

Third, sending out rebate checks to citizens and businesses is not a tax cut. The media bought this line so far, but they’ve got it wrong. Checks in the mail are refunds, not tax cuts. We tried rebate checks last year and they did virtually nothing to jump-start the economy. Disposable income went up, but consumption hardly moved. Businesses aren’t stupid. They’re not going to invest in equipment and new hires for a one time, short term blip.

 

You know, by proposing tax rebates, the Democrats are admitting that relief to families and employers works. Why can’t they shed their ideological bias and give the American people the kind of permanent, broad based tax relief that even they must know will relieve the suffering our country is going through?  

 

Fourth, if we’re going to tax less and spend more to get the economy moving, then we have to make another commitment as well. As soon as this economy recovers, we have to regain control over the federal budget, and above all, over entitlement spending. This is more important than most people are willing to admit. I mentioned the economic tightrope before. There is a real danger that with trillions of additional borrowing—from the budget deficit and from the stimulus—that world investors will begin to fear that the dollars won’t be worth much in the future. They may fear hyper-inflation. It is essential that we demonstrate our commitment to maintaining the value of the dollar. That means showing the world that we will put a stop to runaway spending and borrowing. Senator Judd Gregg is rightly proposing a new bipartisan approach. It should be part of this bill. 

 

Fifth, we must begin to recover from the enormous losses in the capital investment pool.  And the surest, most obvious way to get that done is to send a clear signal that there will be no tax increases on investment and capital gains.  The 2001 and 2003 tax cuts should be extended permanently, or at least temporarily. 

 

And finally, let’s exercise restraint in the size of the stimulus package.  Without restraint, it may grow as the days go by. Last year, with the economy already faltering, I proposed a stimulus of 233 billion dollars. The Washington Post said, and I quote: “Romney’s plan is way too big.” So what critique do they have for the size of the Democrat’s package? I’m afraid they’ve caught a bad case of liberal laryngitis. It’s everywhere these days. 

 

In the final analysis, we know that only the private sector—entrepreneurs and businesses large and small—can create the millions of jobs our country needs.  The invisible hand of the market always moves faster and better than the heavy hand of government.

 

The difference between us and the Democrats is this: they want to stimulate the government, and we want to stimulate the economy.  

 

Government does have an obligation to address some of the abuses we’ve seen in the markets, particularly in the mortgage finance market and the mortgage guarantee sector. But when markets work as they should, when they are effectively and efficiently regulated, free markets create jobs and boost incomes.  

 

As Republicans, we remain the confident voice of limited government and free enterprise. These principles are going to face another test when it comes to healthcare. 

 

We should be first to propose a Republican plan to bring health insurance to all Americans, one based on market dynamics, free choice, and personal responsibility. I think what we did in Massachusetts is a good model to start from, but whatever direction we take, let’s not simply react to what the Democrats do. Their own plan would undoubtedly create a vast new system of costly entitlements and bureaucratic dictates, burdening the people and threatening the economy. Americans will be looking for a better alternative. Let’s give it to them.

 

Let’s also defend the rights of workers—against coercion and intimidation. The working people of this country should be able to unionize the way their fathers and mothers did – by free choice and secret ballot. The Democrats’ plan to take away those rights would result in economic calamity. More than that, it’s an insult to the dignity and common sense of working people. We’re going to defend the freedom of workers and the rights of labor. Interesting, isn’t it, which party stands up for workers and which one jumps for union bosses.

 

Ours is the party of freedom and enterprise, and we are the party of life. I know that I’m not alone in wondering why our new president, in the earliest hours of his administration, directed that international groups that promote and provide abortions be funded with American taxpayer dollars.  Is that really what the world needs, more abortions?

 

In our party, we don’t have perfect agreement on the life issue. But with an administration that is firmly on the side of abortion, that answers to the most extreme wing of the abortion lobby, our duty is clear. We should be a voice for moderation and compassion. And even if the administration will say nothing on behalf of the child waiting to be born, we must take the side of life.

 

The new administration has also gained the favor of liberal commentators by pledging what it calls reform in the treatment of detainees who have taken up arms against America. And of course, President Obama says he will closeGuantanamo. 

 

But I wonder if he noticed that some of the men already released from Guantanamo have turned up in new al Qaeda tapes? I also wonder where the President now intends to send the terrorists we capture. Will he send them to nations that will release them to kill Americans? Or will he send them to US prisons, to infect our own criminal population? 

 

There may be more steps like closing Guantanamo—and they will receive the predictable applause from law professors, editorial boards, and others who have no responsibility for protecting American lives. The Washington Post last week announced President Obama’s actions with this headline: “Bush’s War on Terror Comes to a Sudden End.” I hope this President knows that the terrorists are still fighting and killing Americans, and that they plan to keep killing Americans.

 

Here, too, our party will speak confidently. We have no greater duty than a vigilant defense. 

 

This great party of ours has seen setbacks before. They have never defined us. For our party, I believe this will be remembered as the time when we demonstrated the strength of our convictions, when we defended the foundations of America’s prosperity, security and liberty.

 

America will be tested. It’s not for us to choose every new test that may arise.  But we’re entirely free to choose how we will face those tests. We’ll face them as you did this week. And we’ll face them as Republicans have done before in our finest moments—with the clarity and the confidence of those who put their country first. 

 

That is the work you have undertaken as Republican members of the 111th Congress. You gather in smaller numbers than last year, but you have ideas, energy, and convictions—and the resolve to lead America to a better future. The comeback for our nation and for our party starts with you. You can count me as an ally in the work ahead. Thank you.

Source:  Daily Thought Pad