You Lie!

He's saying the exact opposite of how this tax reform bill was passed.

I'm ready for the civil war. Bring it on commies. I won't let you keep stealing more and more from me.

Reconciliation

From Wikipedia: Clinton wanted to use reconciliation to pass his 1993 health care plan, but Senator Robert Byrd insisted that the health care plan was out of bounds for a process that is theoretically about budgets.

The day Obama loses Health Care...

... he overhauls the banking system and nationalizes the student loan program.

BANK BUSTER: President calls for biggest regulatory overhaul since 1930s...

Obama to Nationalize Student Lending with Pending Budget Bill

.... welcome to Bizzaro World.

Detroit in RUINS! (Crowder goes Ghetto)

Lieutenant Colonel Allen West for Congress!

BAYONETS!

More from Faux News affiliate Edmunds.com: Cash for Clunkers

Cash for Clunkers Results Finally In: Taxpayers Paid $24,000 per Vehicle Sold, Reports Edmunds.com

SANTA MONICA, Calif. — October 28, 2009 — Edmunds.com, the premier resource for online automotive information, has determined that Cash for Clunkers cost taxpayers $24,000 per vehicle sold.

Nearly 690,000 vehicles were sold during the Cash for Clunkers program, officially known as CARS, but Edmunds.com analysts calculated that only 125,000 of the sales were incremental. The rest of the sales would have happened anyway, regardless of the existence of the program.

Ironically, the average transaction price for a new vehicle in August 2009 was only $26,915 minus an average cash rebate of $1,667.

"This analysis is valuable for two reasons," explained Edmunds.com CEO Jeremy Anwyl. "First, it can form the basis for a complete assessment of the program's impact and costs. Second—and more important—it can help us to understand the true state of auto sales and the economy. For example, October sales are up, but without Cash for Clunkers, sales would have been even better. This suggests that the industry's recovery is gaining momentum."

The chart below sets forth actual SAAR (Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate) compared to Edmunds.com's forecasted rate if the program had never been implemented.



"Our research indicates that without the Cash for Clunkers program, many customers would not have traded in an old vehicle when making a new purchase," Edmunds.com Senior Analyst David Tompkins, PhD told AutoObserver.com. "That may give some credence to the environmental claims, but unfortunately the economic claims have been rendered quite weak."

To conduct the analysis, the Edmunds.com team of PhDs and statisticians examined the sales trend for luxury vehicles and others not included in Cash for Clunkers, and applied the historic relationship of those vehicles to total SAAR to make informed estimates. These estimates were independently verified through careful examination of sales patterns reflected by transaction data. Once the numbers were determined, Edmunds.com's analysts divided three billion dollars by 125,000 vehicles to arrive at the average $24,000 per vehicle.

Coincidentally, a parallel analysis of the first-time homebuyer credit was reported yesterday by MIT Sloan Professor Simon Johnson and Yale law student James Kwak, who both blog about economics at The BaseLine Scenario.

The White House responded quickly. Lumps Edmunds in with Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and the KKK: Busy Covering Car Sales on Mars, Edmunds.com Gets It Wrong (Again) on Cash for Clunkers

Edmunds fires back: Edmunds.com Responds to White House Comments on Cash for Clunkers Analysis

It's good to see that the White House has their priorities straight. We must fight the War on Dissent!

Maybe Obama should pose with some more coffins. Those photo ops are really good for his presidential campaign.

$24K per vehicle sold. We need to extent this program! Super efficient government economics! The GDP rose eleventy billion percent this quarter!

Obama is our problem, not Iraq, not Bush.

As of Oct 15th 2009 the US is running a -11.9% Budget Deficit as a percentage of GDP.

Countries in the world worse of than America:

Britain, Iceland, Ireland.

That's it.

As of Oct 15th 2009 the Total US account deficit as a percentage of GDP = 3%

Countries worse of than America:

Greece, Spain, Pakistan, South Africa, Iceland, Vietnam amd Solvakia.

That's it.

Raw Data from The Economist

A traditional defense of the national debt is that Americans "owe the debt to themselves", but that is becoming increasingly less accurate. The US debt in the hands of foreign governments was 25% of the total in 2007,^[19] virtually double the 1988 figure of 13%.^[20] Despite the declining willingness of foreign investors to continue investing in US dollar denominated instruments as the US dollar fell in 2007,^[21] the U.S. Treasury statistics indicate that, at the end of 2006, non-US citizens and institutions held 44% of federal debt held by the public.^[22]About 66% of that 44% was held by the central banks of other countries, in particular the central banks of Japan and China. In May 2009, the US owed China $772 billion.^[23] In total, lenders from Japan and China held 44% of the foreign-owned debt.^[18] This exposure to potential financial or political risk should foreign banks stop buying Treasury securities or start selling them heavily was addressed in a recent report issued by the Bank of International Settlements

Why our economy is focked

This is obviously an over-simplification because we are screwed for many more reasons, but this explains the easy ones:

• The auto and construction industries helped lead the nation out of past recessions. But the carnage among Detroit's automakers and the surplus of new and foreclosed homes and empty commercial properties make it unlikely these two industries will be engines of growth anytime soon.

• The job market is caught in a vicious circle: Without more jobs, U.S. consumers will have a hard time increasing their spending; but without that spending, businesses might see little reason to start hiring.

• Many small and midsize businesses are still struggling to obtainbank loans, impeding their expansion plans and constraining overall economic growth.

• Higher-income households are spending less because of big losses on their homes, retirement plans and other investments. Lower-income households are cutting back because they can't borrow like they once did.

That the recovery in jobs will be long and drawn out is something on which economists and policy makers can basically agree, even as their proposals for remedies vary widely.

Obama and congressional Democrats are having a hard time agreeing on how to keep the recovery going and help millions of unemployed workers — short of another round of stimulus spending amid rising voter alarm over soaring federal deficits.

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And there you have it. Focked.

There is no more credit to extend, no more taxes to take. Tax revenue is down and it will stay down as long as people are scared, broke and out of work. There is literally no incentive for business to grow and therefore hire. Similarly, there is literally no incentive for individuals to invest and profit.

The "stimulus" stimulated nothing that was sustainable. It was a lot of hand outs, waste and part time infrastructure projects. Every dollar the government hands out is just prolonging this false recovery. You can continue to prolong it by continuing programs like Stimulus, Cash for Clunkers, First Time Home Buyer credits, $250 to seniors, extending unemployment benefits etc etc but the only way to do that is to spend more money that we don't have.

The only reason inflation is not rampant right now is because China and Saudi Arabia continue to buy our debt (i.e. absorb our inflated money supply) They'll continue to do that as long as the have faith in the greeback. Once they lose faith (i.e. scared of Obamunism spending) they will start selling their dollars for euros or gold and those dollars will flood back into the US and that's when the currency becomes debased and inflation will sky rocket.

Ayn Rand Quote of the day

"Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men's protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it becomes, marked: 'Account overdrawn."

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Examine any power grab in history... it always starts with debasing the currency. We are in the midst of unprecedented levels of spending that makes Iraq look like a drop in the bucket. The dollar collapse will be the "remaking of America" that Obama has promised.

OBAMA SAYS: $250 BONUS FOR SENIORS

Mo Bailout, Mo Bailout:

$250 BONUS FOR SENIORS

President Barack Obama called on Congress Wednesday to approve $250 payments to more than 50 million seniors to make up for no increase in Social Security next year. The Social Security Administration is scheduled to announce Thursday that there will be no cost of living increase next year. By law, increases are pegged to inflation, which has been negative this year.

It would mark the first year without an increase in Social Security payments since automatic adjustments were adopted in 1975.

"Even as we seek to bring about recovery, we must act on behalf of those hardest hit by this recession," Obama said in a statement. "This additional assistance will be especially important in the coming months, as countless seniors and others have seen their retirement accounts and home values decline as a result of this economic crisis."

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Buyin up the votes, straight racial and elderly pimpin:

Thousands Line Up For Stimulus Money in Detroit...

Thousands Line Up For Stimulus Money in Detroit...

Thousands Line Up For Stimulus Money in Detroit...

Stimulus Money Available For Low-Income, Homeless Detroit Residents

DETROIT -- Detroit's homeless and low-income residents have another opportunity for a chance at millions of stimulus dollars.

What's up Doc?

White House assembles 150 doctors — all supporters of the so-called 'public option,' and costumed in white coats — as an audience for the president's latest sales pitch for health reform.

................

Hahaha really?

You can tell they are doctors... can't you see the white coats!?

Update: President passes out white coats for photo op...

WASHINGTON -- President Obama yesterday rolled out the red carpet -- and handed out doctors' white coats as well, just so nobody missed his hard-sell health-care message.

In a heavy-handed attempt at reviving support for health-care reform, the White Houseorchestrated a massive photo op to buttress its claim that front-line physicians support Obama.

A sea of 150 white-coated doctors, all enthusiastically supportive of the president and representing all 50 states, looked as if they were at a costume party as they posed in the Rose Garden before hearing Obama's pitch for the Democratic overhaul bills moving through Congress.

The physicians, all invited guests, were told to bring their white lab coats to make sure that TV cameras captured the image.

But some docs apparently forgot, failing to meet the White House dress code by showing up in business suits or dresses.

So the White House rustled up white coats for them and handed them to the suited physicians who had taken seats in the sun-splashed lawn area.

47% will pay no federal income tax

An increasing number of households end up owing nothing in major federal taxes, but the situation may not be sustainable over the long run.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Most people think they pay too much to Uncle Sam, but for some people it simply is not true.

In 2009, roughly 47% of households, or 71 million, will not owe any federal income tax, according to estimates by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.

Some in that group will even get additional money from the government because they qualify for refundable tax breaks.

The ranks of those whose major federal tax burdens net out at zero -- or less -- is on the rise. The center's original 2009 estimate was 38%. That was before enactment in February of the $787 billion economic recovery package, which included a host of new or expanded tax breaks.

The issue doesn't get a lot of attention even as lawmakers debate how to pay for policy initiatives like health reform, whether to extend the Bush tax cuts and how to reduce the deficit.

The vast majority of households making up to $30,000 fall into the category, as do nearly half of all households making between $30,000 and $40,000.

As you move up the income scale the percentages drop.

Looks like lord savior Obama actually is taking care of his voters, with our money.

50 Year Old Cartoon

"When anybody preaches disunity, tries to pit one of us against the other through class warfare, race hatred or religious intolerance, you know that person seeks to rob us of our freedom and destroy our very lives."

Camille Paglia nails it again.

Wow, the must read article of the week.

PAGLIA: Too late for Obama to turn it around?

Camille Paglia nails it again.

Some snippets:

As an Obama supporter and contributor, I am outraged at the slowness with which the standing army of Democratic consultants and commentators publicly expressed discontent with the administration's strategic missteps this year. I suspect there had been private grumbling all along, but the media warhorses failed to speak out when they should have -- from week one after the inauguration, when Obama went flat as a rug in letting Congress pass that obscenely bloated stimulus package. Had more Democrats protested, the administration would have felt less arrogantly emboldened to jam through a cap-and-trade bill whose costs have made it virtually impossible for an alarmed public to accept the gargantuan expenses of national healthcare reform. (Who is naive enough to believe that Obama's plan would be deficit-neutral? Or that major cuts could be achieved without drastic rationing?)

By foolishly trying to reduce all objections to healthcare reform to the malevolence of obstructionist Republicans, Democrats have managed to destroy the national coalition that elected Obama and that is unlikely to be repaired.

Why did it take so long for Democrats to realize that this year's tea party and town hall uprisings were a genuine barometer of widespread public discontent and not simply a staged scenario by kooks and conspirators? First of all, too many political analysts still think that network and cable TV chat shows are the central forums of national debate. But the truly transformative political energy is coming from talk radio and the Web -- both of which Democrat-sponsored proposals have threatened to stifle, in defiance of freedom of speech guarantees in the Bill of Rights

Why has the Democratic Party become so arrogantly detached from ordinary Americans? Though they claim to speak for the poor and dispossessed, Democrats have increasingly become the party of an upper-middle-class professional elite, top-heavy with journalists, academics and lawyers (one reason for the hypocritical absence of tort reform in the healthcare bills). Weirdly, given their worship of highly individualistic, secularized self-actualization, such professionals are as a whole amazingly credulous these days about big-government solutions to every social problem. They see no danger in expanding government authority and intrusive, wasteful bureaucracy. This is, I submit, a stunning turn away from the anti-authority and anti-establishment principles of authentic 1960s leftism.

How has "liberty" become the inspirational code word of conservatives rather than liberals?

But affluent middle-class Democrats now seem to be complacently servile toward authority and automatically believe everything party leaders tell them. Why?

Abuse of power?

WHO SET UP GOVERNMENT 'PROPAGANDA' CONFERENCE CALL? Newly Revealed White House, NEA Audio Contradict...

George Will: 'I don't know how many laws that breaks but I'm sure there are some'...

--------------------------------------------

And this is precisely why people were nervous about Obama's addressing school children. Using tax payer dollars to promote the President's agenda through art, yet another abuse of power and another reason people are fearful of this Administration.

Town Halls were not all about health care

WSJ: At August's town-hall meetings, voters often started with complaints about health care, only to shift to frustrations about all the other things President Barack Obama and the Democrats have done or tried to do since January.

A few points from the article:

• The $787 billion economic-stimulus package
• The government-led rescue of General Motors Corp.
• Climate-change legislation
• Snafus in the federal "cash for clunkers" program -- which gave people rebates to trade in gas-guzzling cars for more fuel-efficient new vehicles -- highlighted how disorganization can hamper government plans
• It was the bloodiest month for U.S. troops so far in the war in Afghanistan
• Attorney General Eric Holder poked a potential hornets' nest by appointing a prosecutor to investigate Central Intelligence Agency interrogators
• White House budget forecasters said they now project $9 trillion of additional federal debt over the next decade, adding $2 trillion to an earlier estimate
• The White House predicted an 8.5% unemployment max if we passed the stimulus, it will hit 10%+

How blinded is this Administration when they underestimate the deficit and unemployment by more than 25% and don't stop and revise their plans?? That;s sounds awfully Bushish.

"What we're seeing here is this larger debate about what the role of government is," said William McInturff, a Republican pollster who conducts The Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. "The health-care debate is at that fault line.

What else should we blame? The Hippocratic Oath!!!

Courtesy of Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, health adviser to President Barack Obama, brother of Cheif of Staff Rahm Emanuel:

Dr. Emanuel is part of a school of thought that redefines a physician’s duty, insisting that it includes working for the greater good of society instead of focusing only on a patient’s needs.

Whoa! Hello Obamunism! The greater good of society?! Doctors are supposed to heal the ills of society??

Dr. Emanuel blames the Hippocratic Oath for the "overuse" of medical care: "Medical school education and post graduate education emphasize thoroughness," he writes. "This culture is further reinforced by a unique understanding of professional obligations, specifically the Hippocratic Oath's

"Vague promises of savings from cutting waste, enhancing prevention and wellness, installing electronic medical records and improving quality of care are merely 'lipstick' cost control, more for show and public relations than for true change."

True reform, he argues, must include redefining doctors' ethical obligations

In numerous writings, Dr. Emanuel chastises physicians for thinking only about their own patient's needs.

Dr. Emanuel believes doctors should serve two masters, the patient and society, and that medical students should be trained "to provide socially sustainable, cost-effective care."

Dr. Emanuel argues that to make such decisions, the focus cannot be only on the worth of the individual.

Dr. Emanuel concedes that his plan appears to discriminate against older people

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What part about rationing, death panels, socialism and Obamunism are people not seeing here?

Also, let's not forget that The Health Commissioner is going to dole out health care based on your income and IRS filings.

Section 431(a) .. read the bill people!

From our friends at CBS

Section 431(a) of the bill says that the IRS must divulge taxpayer identity information, including the filing status, the modified adjusted gross income, the number of dependents, and "other information as is prescribed by" regulation. That information will be provided to the new Health Choices Commissioner and state health programs and used to determine who qualifies for "affordability credits."

Section 245(b)(2)(A) says the IRS must divulge tax return details -- there's no specified limit on what's available or unavailable -- to the Health Choices Commissioner. The purpose, again, is to verify "affordability credits."

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The Health Choices Commissioner is going to determine who gets care based on their income? Shouldn't we determine who gets care based on THEIR HEALTH! What else is the Commissioner going to decide? Can someone tell me how this isn't a tax? Can someone tell me how this isn't rationing? In fact, this is the dictionary definition of rationing. The Comish is going to ration "affordabioity credits" to the people the GOVERNMENT feels are most deserving. Someone please tell me how this wouldn't be ripe with political intervention? Politicians pander to the elderly primarily because the Goverment controls their social security. If you control social security you control the votes... if you control health care you control the people who get the most "affordability credits"

The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052970204251404574342170072865070.html

By JOHN MACKEY

“The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out
of other people’s money.”

—Margaret Thatcher

With a projected $1.8 trillion deficit for 2009, several trillions more in deficits projected over the next decade, and with both Medicare and Social Security entitlement spending about to ratchet up several notches over the next 15 years as Baby Boomers become eligible for both, we are rapidly running out of other people’s money. These deficits are simply not sustainable. They are either going to result in unprecedented new taxes and inflation, or they will bankrupt us.

While we clearly need health-care reform, the last thing our country needs is a massive new health-care entitlement that will create hundreds of billions of dollars of new unfunded deficits and move us much closer to a government takeover of our health-care system. Instead, we should be trying to achieve reforms by moving in the opposite direction—toward less government control and more individual empowerment. Here are eight reforms that would greatly lower the cost of health care for everyone:

• Remove the legal obstacles that slow the creation of high-deductible health insurance plans and health savings accounts (HSAs). The combination of high-deductible health insurance and HSAs is one solution that could solve many of our health-care problems. For example, Whole Foods Market pays 100% of the premiums for all our team members who work 30 hours or more per week (about 89% of all team members) for our high-deductible health-insurance plan. We also provide up to $1,800 per year in additional health-care dollars through deposits into employees’ Personal Wellness Accounts to spend as they choose on their own health and wellness.

Money not spent in one year rolls over to the next and grows over time. Our team members therefore spend their own health-care dollars until the annual deductible is covered (about $2,500) and the insurance plan kicks in. This creates incentives to spend the first $2,500 more carefully. Our plan’s costs are much lower than typical health insurance, while providing a very high degree of worker satisfaction.

• Equalize the tax laws so that that employer-provided health insurance and individually owned health insurance have the same tax benefits. Now employer health insurance benefits are fully tax deductible, but individual health insurance is not. This is unfair.

• Repeal all state laws which prevent insurance companies from competing across state lines.We should all have the legal right to purchase health insurance from any insurance company in any state and we should be able use that insurance wherever we live. Health insurance should be portable.

• Repeal government mandates regarding what insurance companies must cover. These mandates have increased the cost of health insurance by billions of dollars. What is insured and what is not insured should be determined by individual customer preferences and not through special-interest lobbying.

• Enact tort reform to end the ruinous lawsuits that force doctors to pay insurance costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. These costs are passed back to us through much higher prices for health care.

• Make costs transparent so that consumers understand what health-care treatments cost. How many people know the total cost of their last doctor’s visit and how that total breaks down? What other goods or services do we buy without knowing how much they will cost us?

• Enact Medicare reform. We need to face up to the actuarial fact that Medicare is heading towards bankruptcy and enact reforms that create greater patient empowerment, choice and responsibility.

• Finally, revise tax forms to make it easier for individuals to make a voluntary, tax-deductible donation to help the millions of people who have no insurance and aren’t covered by Medicare, Medicaid or the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.

Many promoters of health-care reform believe that people have an intrinsic ethical right to health care—to equal access to doctors, medicines and hospitals. While all of us empathize with those who are sick, how can we say that all people have more of an intrinsic right to health care than they have to food or shelter?

Health care is a service that we all need, but just like food and shelter it is best provided through voluntary and mutually beneficial market exchanges. A careful reading of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution will not reveal any intrinsic right to health care, food or shelter. That’s because there isn’t any. This “right” has never existed in America

Even in countries like Canada and the U.K., there is no intrinsic right to health care. Rather, citizens in these countries are told by government bureaucrats what health-care treatments they are eligible to receive and when they can receive them. All countries with socialized medicine ration health care by forcing their citizens to wait in lines to receive scarce treatments.

Although Canada has a population smaller than California, 830,000 Canadians are currently waiting to be admitted to a hospital or to get treatment, according to a report last month in Investor’s Business Daily. In England, the waiting list is 1.8 million.

At Whole Foods we allow our team members to vote on what benefits they most want the company to fund. Our Canadian and British employees express their benefit preferences very clearly—they want supplemental health-care dollars that they can control and spend themselves without permission from their governments. Why would they want such additional health-care benefit dollars if they already have an “intrinsic right to health care”? The answer is clear—no such right truly exists in either Canada or the U.K.—or in any other country.

Rather than increase government spending and control, we need to address the root causes of poor health. This begins with the realization that every American adult is responsible for his or her own health.

Unfortunately many of our health-care problems are self-inflicted: two-thirds of Americans are now overweight and one-third are obese. Most of the diseases that kill us and account for about 70% of all health-care spending—heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes and obesity—are mostly preventable through proper diet, exercise, not smoking, minimal alcohol consumption and other healthy lifestyle choices.

Recent scientific and medical evidence shows that a diet consisting of foods that are plant-based, nutrient dense and low-fat will help prevent and often reverse most degenerative diseases that kill us and are expensive to treat. We should be able to live largely disease-free lives until we are well into our 90s and even past 100 years of age.

Health-care reform is very important. Whatever reforms are enacted it is essential that they be financially responsible, and that we have the freedom to choose doctors and the health-care services that best suit our own unique set of lifestyle choices. We are all responsible for our own lives and our own health. We should take that responsibility very seriously and use our freedom to make wise lifestyle choices that will protect our health. Doing so will enrich our lives and will help create a vibrant and sustainable American society.

—Mr. Mackey is co-founder and CEO of Whole Foods Market Inc.