Our politicians can't say they weren't warned that simply cutting future borrowing to $7 trillion from $10 trillion over ten years would result in a downgrade to our credit rating. Now that the US has been downgraded for the first time in our history the rush will be on to assign blame and avoid responsibility. Messrs. Garvey and Moskowitz will inevitably try to scapegoat those "hostage-taking, terrorist tea-baggers" while ignoring the true culprit, deficit spending. Washington spends $300 billion a month of which $120 billion is borrowed. The S&P looked at those numbers and the lack of a plan from the White House or the Senate(the House passed a budget) to address this imbalance and took the appropriate action. A note to Obama's press flak, unless you're Stacy Keibler "showing a lot of leg" isn't a plan.
Now, to be fair, Pres. Obama pushed heroically albeit futilely to end tax breaks for the corporate jet-set which would've brought $3 billion in revenue over ten years to the federal treasury. This amount would almost cover one day's worth of deficit spending($4 billion). Our largest foreign creditor China, agrees with S&P, it's the spending stupid. For those who believe that tax increases on the wealthy will solve all our problems, the Tax Foundation provides a needed dose of reality. They found that Washington could declare a maximum wage of $100,000, confiscating every penny that American's earn over that amount and it still wouldn't cover current spending. It's time for our representatives to face fiscal reality and drastically cut the size of government. Harry Reid's beloved cowboy poets will need to pay for their own festivals from now on. The next time someone wants to measure the size of gay men's johnsons they'll need to find private financing, not taxpayer funds for the project. Start with cutting discretionary spending which has ballooned by 24% under President Obama and move on to the universe of indefensible subsidies that Washington bestows on special interests. After passing this leadership challenge and proving themselves adults our representatives will need to reform entitlements that currently have trillions in unfunded liabilities to ensure that they continue to provide the safety net for Americans that are depending on them.
Because Congress has been negligent in passing the appropriations bills to keep our government running, they have ample opportunity to show S&P that they are serious about getting our nation's fiscal house in order. They need look no further than the pounding the stock market took when the latest of the PIIGS, Italy and Spain became the latest dominoes to fall due to excessive spending. Europe is screaming that the social democrat, big government model of government has failed and we must change course before it's too late. S&P's downgrade is a wake-up call for Congress, President Obama and the American electorate that the days of reckless spending can't go on any longer and that America isn't too big to fail.
Showing posts with label Congress. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Congress. Show all posts
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Monday, July 26, 2010
From "Hope" to "It Could Be Worse", Yes He Did
Congressional Democrats are undoubtedly walking around with a newfound swagger today. The political strategists in the White House have finally settled on the message to save their House and Senate majorities: "It could be worse". First they invented the nigh impossible to verify or refute metric of jobs "created or saved" and now this. They deserve every taxpayer penny they get paid. Republicans simply can't match the Wile E Coyote caliber intellects of Axelrod, Gibbs and the rest of the White House message machine. Just look at how easily any Republican argument can be dismissed:
1)Unemployment is 9.5%, under-employment tops 20%- "It could be worse"
2)The budget deficit is $1.47 trillion- "It could be worse"
3)4 out of 5 jobs "created or saved" by the $862 billion stimulus were government jobs, leaving a private sector jobs deficit of 7 million- "It could be worse"
4)The $862 billion borrowed to pay for the stimulus that didn't stimulate won't be paid back until the year 2130- "It could be worse"
5)Our national debt will top $18.5 trillion by 2020- "It could be worse"
6)Taxpayer funded bailouts reach $3.7 trillion- "It could be worse"
7)Small businesses are about to get hammered by massive tax increases- "It could be worse"
8)Over half of Americans will lose their current health insurance due to "health care reform"- "It could be worse"
Etc.etc..
Forget the concept of the "teflon presidency", we are witnessing the dawn of the "I'm rubber and you're glue presidency". Republicans need to run focus groups of pre-K tots immediately to find a way to counter this brilliance, or risk seeing their dreams of electoral success turn into the nightmare of epic defeat this November.
1)Unemployment is 9.5%, under-employment tops 20%- "It could be worse"
2)The budget deficit is $1.47 trillion- "It could be worse"
3)4 out of 5 jobs "created or saved" by the $862 billion stimulus were government jobs, leaving a private sector jobs deficit of 7 million- "It could be worse"
4)The $862 billion borrowed to pay for the stimulus that didn't stimulate won't be paid back until the year 2130- "It could be worse"
5)Our national debt will top $18.5 trillion by 2020- "It could be worse"
6)Taxpayer funded bailouts reach $3.7 trillion- "It could be worse"
7)Small businesses are about to get hammered by massive tax increases- "It could be worse"
8)Over half of Americans will lose their current health insurance due to "health care reform"- "It could be worse"
Etc.etc..
Forget the concept of the "teflon presidency", we are witnessing the dawn of the "I'm rubber and you're glue presidency". Republicans need to run focus groups of pre-K tots immediately to find a way to counter this brilliance, or risk seeing their dreams of electoral success turn into the nightmare of epic defeat this November.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Ten reasons to stop socialized medicine from the Hoover Institution
Forget Letterman's top ten. Everyone should read these, if nothing else so you know what to look forward to.
Ten reasons why America’s health care system is in better condition than you might suppose. By Scott W. Atlas.
Medical care in the United States is derided as miserable compared to health care systems in the rest of the developed world. Economists, government officials, insurers, and academics beat the drum for a far larger government role in health care. Much of the public assumes that their arguments are sound because the calls for change are so ubiquitous and the topic so complex. Before we turn to government as the solution, however, we should consider some unheralded facts about America’s health care system.
1. Americans have better survival rates than Europeans for common cancers. Breast cancer mortality is 52 percent higher in Germany than in the United States and 88 percent higher in the United Kingdom. Prostate cancer mortality is 604 percent higher in the United Kingdom and 457 percent higher in Norway. The mortality rate for colorectal cancer among British men and women is about 40 percent higher.
2. Americans have lower cancer mortality rates than Canadians. Breast cancer mortality in Canada is 9 percent higher than in the United States, prostate cancer is 184 percent higher, and colon cancer among men is about 10 percent higher.
3. Americans have better access to treatment for chronic diseases than patients in other developed countries. Some 56 percent of Americans who could benefit from statin drugs, which reduce cholesterol and protect against heart disease, are taking them. By comparison, of those patients who could benefit from these drugs, only 36 percent of the Dutch, 29 percent of the Swiss, 26 percent of Germans, 23 percent of Britons, and 17 percent of Italians receive them.
4. Americans have better access to preventive cancer screening than Canadians. Take the proportion of the appropriate-age population groups who have received recommended tests for breast, cervical, prostate, and colon cancer:
•Nine out of ten middle-aged American women (89 percent) have had a mammogram, compared to fewer than three-fourths of Canadians (72 percent).
•Nearly all American women (96 percent) have had a Pap smear, compared to fewer than 90 percent of Canadians.
•More than half of American men (54 percent) have had a prostatespecific antigen (PSA) test, compared to fewer than one in six Canadians (16 percent).
•Nearly one-third of Americans (30 percent) have had a colonoscopy, compared with fewer than one in twenty Canadians (5 percent).
5. Lower-income Americans are in better health than comparable Canadians. Twice as many American seniors with below-median incomes self-report “excellent” health (11.7 percent) compared to Canadian seniors (5.8 percent). Conversely, white, young Canadian adults with below-median incomes are 20 percent more likely than lower-income Americans to describe their health as “fair or poor.”
6. Americans spend less time waiting for care than patients in Canada and the United Kingdom. Canadian and British patients wait about twice as long—sometimes more than a year—to see a specialist, have elective surgery such as hip replacements, or get radiation treatment for cancer. All told, 827,429 people are waiting for some type of procedure in Canada. In Britain, nearly 1.8 million people are waiting for a hospital admission or outpatient treatment.
7. People in countries with more government control of health care are highly dissatisfied and believe reform is needed. More than 70 percent of German, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, and British adults say their health system needs either “fundamental change” or “complete rebuilding.”
8. Americans are more satisfied with the care they receive than Canadians. When asked about their own health care instead of the “health care system,” more than half of Americans (51.3 percent) are very satisfied with their health care services, compared with only 41.5 percent of Canadians; a lower proportion of Americans are dissatisfied (6.8 percent) than Canadians (8.5 percent).
9. Americans have better access to important new technologies such as medical imaging than do patients in Canada or Britain. An overwhelming majority of leading American physicians identify computerized tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as the most important medical innovations for improving patient care during the previous decade—even as economists and policy makers unfamiliar with actual medical practice decry these techniques as wasteful. The United States has thirty-four CT scanners per million Americans, compared to twelve in Canada and eight in Britain. The United States has almost twenty-seven MRI machines per million people compared to about six per million in Canada and Britain.
10. Americans are responsible for the vast majority of all health care innovations. The top five U.S. hospitals conduct more clinical trials than all the hospitals in any other developed country. Since the mid- 1970s, the Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology has gone to U.S. residents more often than recipients from all other countries combined. In only five of the past thirty-four years did a scientist living in the United States not win or share in the prize. Most important recent medical innovations were developed in the United States.
Despite serious challenges, such as escalating costs and care for the uninsured, the U.S. health care system compares favorably to those in other developed countries.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This essay appeared on the website of the National Center for Policy Analysis on March 24, 2009. An earlier version was published in the Washington Times.
Available from the Hoover Press is Power to the Patient: Selected Health Care Issues and Policy Solutions, edited by Scott W. Atlas. To order, call 800.935.2882 or visit www.hooverpress.org.
Scott W. Atlas is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a professor of radiology and chief of neuroradiology at Stanford University Medical School.
Ten reasons why America’s health care system is in better condition than you might suppose. By Scott W. Atlas.
Medical care in the United States is derided as miserable compared to health care systems in the rest of the developed world. Economists, government officials, insurers, and academics beat the drum for a far larger government role in health care. Much of the public assumes that their arguments are sound because the calls for change are so ubiquitous and the topic so complex. Before we turn to government as the solution, however, we should consider some unheralded facts about America’s health care system.
1. Americans have better survival rates than Europeans for common cancers. Breast cancer mortality is 52 percent higher in Germany than in the United States and 88 percent higher in the United Kingdom. Prostate cancer mortality is 604 percent higher in the United Kingdom and 457 percent higher in Norway. The mortality rate for colorectal cancer among British men and women is about 40 percent higher.
2. Americans have lower cancer mortality rates than Canadians. Breast cancer mortality in Canada is 9 percent higher than in the United States, prostate cancer is 184 percent higher, and colon cancer among men is about 10 percent higher.
3. Americans have better access to treatment for chronic diseases than patients in other developed countries. Some 56 percent of Americans who could benefit from statin drugs, which reduce cholesterol and protect against heart disease, are taking them. By comparison, of those patients who could benefit from these drugs, only 36 percent of the Dutch, 29 percent of the Swiss, 26 percent of Germans, 23 percent of Britons, and 17 percent of Italians receive them.
4. Americans have better access to preventive cancer screening than Canadians. Take the proportion of the appropriate-age population groups who have received recommended tests for breast, cervical, prostate, and colon cancer:
•Nine out of ten middle-aged American women (89 percent) have had a mammogram, compared to fewer than three-fourths of Canadians (72 percent).
•Nearly all American women (96 percent) have had a Pap smear, compared to fewer than 90 percent of Canadians.
•More than half of American men (54 percent) have had a prostatespecific antigen (PSA) test, compared to fewer than one in six Canadians (16 percent).
•Nearly one-third of Americans (30 percent) have had a colonoscopy, compared with fewer than one in twenty Canadians (5 percent).
5. Lower-income Americans are in better health than comparable Canadians. Twice as many American seniors with below-median incomes self-report “excellent” health (11.7 percent) compared to Canadian seniors (5.8 percent). Conversely, white, young Canadian adults with below-median incomes are 20 percent more likely than lower-income Americans to describe their health as “fair or poor.”
6. Americans spend less time waiting for care than patients in Canada and the United Kingdom. Canadian and British patients wait about twice as long—sometimes more than a year—to see a specialist, have elective surgery such as hip replacements, or get radiation treatment for cancer. All told, 827,429 people are waiting for some type of procedure in Canada. In Britain, nearly 1.8 million people are waiting for a hospital admission or outpatient treatment.
7. People in countries with more government control of health care are highly dissatisfied and believe reform is needed. More than 70 percent of German, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, and British adults say their health system needs either “fundamental change” or “complete rebuilding.”
8. Americans are more satisfied with the care they receive than Canadians. When asked about their own health care instead of the “health care system,” more than half of Americans (51.3 percent) are very satisfied with their health care services, compared with only 41.5 percent of Canadians; a lower proportion of Americans are dissatisfied (6.8 percent) than Canadians (8.5 percent).
9. Americans have better access to important new technologies such as medical imaging than do patients in Canada or Britain. An overwhelming majority of leading American physicians identify computerized tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as the most important medical innovations for improving patient care during the previous decade—even as economists and policy makers unfamiliar with actual medical practice decry these techniques as wasteful. The United States has thirty-four CT scanners per million Americans, compared to twelve in Canada and eight in Britain. The United States has almost twenty-seven MRI machines per million people compared to about six per million in Canada and Britain.
10. Americans are responsible for the vast majority of all health care innovations. The top five U.S. hospitals conduct more clinical trials than all the hospitals in any other developed country. Since the mid- 1970s, the Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology has gone to U.S. residents more often than recipients from all other countries combined. In only five of the past thirty-four years did a scientist living in the United States not win or share in the prize. Most important recent medical innovations were developed in the United States.
Despite serious challenges, such as escalating costs and care for the uninsured, the U.S. health care system compares favorably to those in other developed countries.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This essay appeared on the website of the National Center for Policy Analysis on March 24, 2009. An earlier version was published in the Washington Times.
Available from the Hoover Press is Power to the Patient: Selected Health Care Issues and Policy Solutions, edited by Scott W. Atlas. To order, call 800.935.2882 or visit www.hooverpress.org.
Scott W. Atlas is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a professor of radiology and chief of neuroradiology at Stanford University Medical School.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Something to think about
After watching that video can anyone believe the President and Congress are playing it straight with the American people when it comes to healthcare? Both the Senate and House have an individual mandate in their plans. This is an idea we in MA are very familiar with. The premise is that many of the young and theoretically healthy don't buy health insurance even though they can afford to do so. So ,the grand idea behind the mandate is simple, force the young and healthy into the insurance pool and costs go down. The results in MA have not borne this out. When passed the MA plan was projected to cost 125 million a year. The actual cost: 133 million in 2007, 647 million in 2008, 869 million in 2009 and an estimated 1.1 billion next year. The U.S. simply can't afford to follow in our footsteps.
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