Tag Archives: political parties

Mr Panetta Misunderstands

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Ex-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta had an opinion in a recent Washington Post.  As he went on about how disastrous the sequester is (while ignoring the salutary effect it’s having in reducing government spending even trivially while the apocalypse of spending cuts is not destroying our economy), he also made this remark:

…US citizens will lose trust in our system of governing….

Thus, his misunderstanding: Americans haven’t, at all, lost trust in our system of governing.  We’ve lost trust in the present government, given its blatant, years-long, and cynical deviation from our system of governing.

Oddly separately, Panetta had these remarks, too, but I’m not sure he fully understands what it is he said:

If leaders are willing to take the risks associated with leadership, it’s at least possible to avoid crisis. But if leadership is not there, then we will inevitably govern by crisis. Today, unfortunately, we are governing by crisis after crisis after crisis.

…

the world will view the United States as less able to back its word with power.

Indeed.  Yet President Barack Obama insists on leading from behind.  Or not at all.

An Argument for Reducing Federal Spending

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Treasury Secretary Jack Lew wrote a letter to House Speaker John Boehner (R, OH).  The gist of it:

[T]he Obama administration warned House Republicans that a deal on increasing the federal debt limit may have to come sooner than expected.

Anyone but a Progressive would see this as confirmation of the need to reduce spending, so as to reduce the debt and, consequently, the need to raise the debt ceiling.  The Progressives in our government, though, see this as a need to raise the debt ceiling: we have a credit card; of course there’s still money in the bank.

Or, it’s Mardi Gras all year ’round for Progressives.

Laissez le bon temps rouler.

As Sander Levin (D, MI), Ranking Member of the House Ways and Means Committee confirms:

It is time for Republicans to do the right thing

and spend and borrow more.

Of Gas and Men

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From historian Andrew Roberts, in The Wall Street Journal, comes this:

There is a long and honorable history of the civilized world treating those dictators who use poison gas as qualitatively different from the normal ruck of tyrants whose careers have so stained the 20th and 21st centuries.

President Obama, who talks endlessly of the importance of civilized values, must now uphold this one.

What he said.  RTWT.

Republican Non-Ideas for Health Insurance

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Here are some of those ideas put forward by Evil Republicans that President Barack Obama insists don’t exist.

  • Senators Tom Coburn (R, OK) and Mike Enzi (R, WY) have long advocated making health insurance completely portable so workers can take their plans with them from job to job.  Enzi first introduced a comprehensive bill including GOP reform proposals in 2007 and has updated it regularly.
  • Congressmen Sam Johnson (R, TX) and Charles Boustany (R, LA, and a cardiovascular surgeon) want to allow smaller companies to pool their risk to get the same discounts from insurance carriers that bigger companies do.
  • Congressmen Marsha Blackburn (R, TN) and Paul Ryan (R, WI) want to spark increased competition by allowing health-insurance policies to be sold across state lines, as are auto insurance policies.
  • Congressman Lamar Smith (R, TX) has championed medical liability reform at the federal level to rein in junk lawsuits, despite qualms that the issue should be left to the states.
  • Congressmen Mike Burgess (who practiced obstetrics and gynecology) and Joe Barton (both R, TX) have introduced bills to establish transparency in pricing and medical outcomes so patients can compare the costs for procedures at area hospitals and their relative success in performing them.
  • Congressman Bill Cassidy (R, LA), also a physician, has introduced a bill that would allow Medicaid patients to convert the value of their government benefit to pay for private coverage.
  • Congressman Tom Price (R, GA), an orthopedic surgeon, has introduced a comprehensive alternative to ObamaCare that includes many of the GOP’s reforms.
  • Congressman Phil Roe, (R, TN), a retired OB/GYN, will introduce a new ObamaCare replacement package next month when Congress returns.
  • The House Republican Study Committee wants to restore (even increase) amount families can save tax free for medical expenses; ObamaCare reduces that amount. Paired with health-savings accounts, such a move can put quality health care within the reach of many more families.  At competitive (read: lower) rates.

Notice all the actual doctors in that mix.  Possibly, they’re more worth listening to than a bunch of politicians whose only imperative is their personal political gain.

What are Republicans doing about these ideas?  Introducing, as noted above—and when they’ve controlled the House, passing—legislation.  But the obstructionist, Democrat “Just say no” Senate won’t even allow debate, much less voting on the bills.

Instead, these worthies, and President Barack Obama, oppose any reform that’s patient/doctor-centric, that omits government involvement, and that has actual competitive market forces—competition that strengthens the markets for health insurance and for health services—in play.  Indeed,

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, NV) recently called ObamaCare “a step in the right direction,” but noted that his goal is “absolutely” a single-payer system in which government delivers all health care.  When he was running for president in 2008, Mr. Obama admitted he “would probably go ahead with a single-payer system” if he was “designing a system from scratch.”

Truly, a paucity of ideas.  However, it’s the Democrats who are lacking.  All they’ve got is the crashing train of Obamacare—as Obama himself has admitted with his extra-constitutional decision not to enforce critical components of that law, and thereby cutting those cars loose, only to crash into the wreckage after a short delay.

A White Line

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…with just a tinge of pink.

Since Obama declared last August that chemical weapons would constitute a “red line,” the administration this past June did conclude that the government used chemical weapons.

Now, a year later, and after additional CW attacks (which our allies have tended to confirm, even though our government will not admit of this), comes this:

…Syrian activists are accusing Bashar Assad’s forces of killing hundreds in a gas attack—in what would be the worst and deadliest chemical attack to date.

The attack raises new concerns that the so-called “red line” in Syria has been crossed, violated and effectively ignored.

That a major gas attack, with hundreds of casualties, occurred has been confirmed by video, symptom suites, and eye witness accounts.  Intelligence sources confirm that the Syrian rebels are very unlikely to be capable of mounting a chemical attack of this magnitude.  Beyond that, the political consequences, even in Syria, of being found out render a rebel CW attack of this size even more unlikely.

President Barack Obama, though, had this to say, through his secondary spokesman, Josh Earnest:

The United States strongly condemns any and all use of chemical weapons.  Those responsible for the use of chemical weapons must be held accountable.  Today, we are formally requesting that the United Nations urgently investigate this new allegation.  The UN investigative team, which is currently in Syria, is prepared to do so, and that is consistent with its purpose and mandate.

Yeah, that’ll show ’em.  Assad is shaking in his loafers.

What do “held accountable” or “unacceptable” (another favorite Obamatalk word) mean when there are no consequences?