Great Ideas Mr. President!

So President Obama, in his infinite wisdom, has released his version of a healthcare bill. For all but the three blind mice, this bill looks suspiciously like the Senate bill… oh wait… it pretty much is. Except it is more costly, will increase medicare taxes and ultimately put us further into debt. Wow, I’m glad after a year this is what our savior came up with.



So what happened to bipartisanship? Isn’t this Thursday about bipartisanship and the Democrats and Republicans coming together? The Republicans have been calling for a reset on healthcare, but instead the President has just rewrote the Senate bill, with few changes, and more spending. None of the important solutions the Republicans have been vying for are included in this bill, namely limiting ridiculous healthcare lawsuits and opening up healthcare to be sold across state lines (which would create more competition, and as an effect of that lower costs).

The Democrats insist they are trying to make sure that health care costs cannot drastically increase, by regulating and trying to control the health insurance companies. This is an absurd idea. The government cannot keep Social Security, Medicare or the Transit Authority in the black, but they will do a better job at healthcare? Open up cross-state healthcare and limit insane lawsuits, and we will see healthcare costs reduce naturally through competition and the free market.



As House Minority Leader John Boehner said “the president has crippled the credibility of this week's summit by proposing the same massive government takeover of health care based on a partisan bill the American people have already rejected." It will be very hard for the Republicans to go into this Thursday summit with open minds, because they know that already the administration has written off their ideas, and this entire summit is a publicity and media stunt.

It is likely that Liberals will try to pass this abomination of a healthcare bill through reconciliation (which is a simple majority in the Senate, 51, as opposed to the 60 that it would normally take). Something as monumental as this healthcare bill should really be an amendment to the Constitution (requiring three quarters approval in the House and Senate, and it must be ratified by every state). If however the Liberal Democrats decide to push this through with reconciliation, they will surely be punished at the polls in November. Cue my slogan, “I can’t wait for November.”

Anyone and everyone opposed to this bill should make an effort to contact their Congressman and Senator and let them know their position on this. Let them know that voting for this vastly unpopular abomination will be a huge mistake, mainly for the American people, but also for their political careers.

Here are some helpful links to get in contact with your Congressman and Senator:

https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml

http://www.senate.gov/reference/common/faq/How_to_contact_senators.htm

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Let’s all do our part to make sure that what we, the people want is what is being done. We the people know what problems our nation faces, and we the people know what must be done to solve these problems. And so I will end with a favorite quote of mine:

"Government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem."
-President Ronald Reagan


God Bless
-Nick

A Stimulus Success Story (Note: Happy Ending not guaranteed)

So the Stimulus has been an “undeniable” success apparently. When I heard that claim I immediately laughed, it was a joke right? I checked the date, way too early for April 1st, but you never know right? But apparently it’s not a joke, and that realization made me laugh even harder then when I thought it was. I then recited my new slogan, “I can’t wait for November,” to myself. And while my birthday is in November, and one of my favorite holidays, election day is what I’m truly looking forward to this year.

As we all know, without this $787 billion stimulus (which in actuality has topped $800 billion in costs) we will see 8% unemployment. Oh wait, we’ve peaked 10, and are currently at 9.7%. So how has this helped? Oh yeah, but it has saved 2 million jobs. Saved of course being the key word and very hard to disprove, since it is hard to gauge what our nation’s economic situation would be like without the stimulus. And that 2 million mark is definitely debatable, but for the purposes of giving the Obama administration the benefit of the doubt I will accept and use the figure for my own calculations.

Ok, let’s do some math now:

($787 billion / 2 million (jobs)) = $393,500 per job.

Most of these jobs are salaries between $40,000 and $60,000 a year. So, we are spending 8x (on average) of what these jobs are worth to “save” them. All of these “saved” jobs are government jobs, and massive government spending programs are the only thing keeping them going. Evan Bayh (D-Indiana) himself said “[I]f I could create one job in the private sector by helping to grow a business, that would be one more than Congress has created in the last six months.” I agree whole-heartedly with Senator Bayh. Congress has not created jobs, they have only “saved” public sector positions, many of them wasteful and useless.



This money could have been better spent in a million other ways, I will highlight upon a few ways which would certainly create more economic and job growth. We could pay 3.28 million unemployed people $50,000/year (for 4 years) and send them to college during this time for an undergraduate. In addition to promoting long term growth, this would sponsor short term job growth at colleges. Additional staff would be needed for a large new influx of students.

Or…

There are around 8-10 million people who have lost their jobs between 2007 and now. This stimulus could have sent each of those people a check for $78,700 which could be used to send them back to school, or to pay bills, or whatever. This is not something I would actually support, but this just shows that the idea of spending $787 billion to save 2 million jobs is absurd. The stimulus is clearly a failure, and all remaining unspent money should be used to pay off our nation’s debt, or returned to small businesses and taxpayers in the form of tax credits.
Cutting $787 billion in taxes on small businesses nationwide would have a tremendously positive effect on job growth. I would bet that at least 5-6 million jobs would be created within the first 2 years. But instead we have pissed away this borrowed and printed money, and mortgaged the future of America for a “stimulus” plan that has failed in its promise and failed in every sense of the word.

But hey, if we hadn’t passed this, we would have hit 8% unemployment. Imagine that.

-Nick