Tag: Politics

This pesky problem: babies under bus or not?

You can hear a king somewhere complaining to his courtiers, “Who will rid me of this [troublesome] issue?”  (See “Becket”)

In a letter to senators Wednesday, leaders of the influential U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops reiterated their opposition [to Sen. Reid’s bill], contending the Senate language “violates the long-standing federal policy against the use of federal funds for elective abortions.”

Go bishops?  Not so fast:

A lot is being said and written about why national health care legislation is becoming a reality. The simple fact, available for all to see, is that the U.S. Catholic Bishops ensured passage of the bill in the House, enabling the Senate to move forward with its version.

Huh?

Like “progressive” strategist Robert B. Creamer, the Bishops believe that health care is a right to be guaranteed by government. This position has driven the debate and has rarely been challenged by Republicans. The debate over abortion has been mostly a diversion. Perhaps it has been planned that way

Thus spake Cliff Kincaid, persuasively, I am sorry to say.

As we were the first to disclose, Creamer, an ex-con and husband of Rep. Jan Schakowsky, emphasized using “the faith community” to mobilize support for universal health care by highlighting the morality of providing medical care to people in need. His book, Stand Up Straight! How Progressives Can Win, emphasized that “We must create a national consensus that health care is a right, not a commodity; and that government must guarantee that right.”

Bishops are on same page:

“Our approach to health care is shaped by a simple but fundamental principle: ‘Every person has a right to adequate health care,'” they say. They go on, “For three quarters of a century, the Catholic bishops of the United States have called for national action to assure decent health care for all Americans. We seek to bring a moral perspective in an intensely political debate; we offer an ethical framework in an arena dominated by powerful economic interests.”

So:

At least five lobbyists for the Bishops worked with Pelosi and Stupak on the deal that is now also predictably falling apart. Clearly, the pro-life deal was a ploy designed to keep the legislation alive.

Etc.

Read it and weep, all ye Catholics and others who with Dorothy Day are not ready to look lovingly or even resignedly to Holy Mother the State for health, welfare, and who knows what else.

See also Tom Roeser’s informed and pungent report cum commentary on “tricky Reid language” in his bill and the role of a “so-called pro-lifer” in that sorry development, including Tom’s closer in context of payoffs to compliant senators by White House paymaster Rahm Emanuel:

The Nebraska-Nelson windfall

spurred lawmakers from other states to complain “hey. Why should my state have to take the mandate and Nebraska gets away with it?” One hope is that this would lead to a flurry of lawmakers trying to get their states exempted which means that in the White House, the wily old paymaster, Emanuel, may have to throw up his hands and turn them down…either that or run the cash register repeatedly to buy everybody off…spurring the old hymn to take on a new meaning:

“Come, O Come, Emanuel!”

Which reminds me, it’s Christmas Eve.  Merry Christmas, everyone!

Doom for Dems?

For all you Repubs and other objectors to the Harry-and-Barack legislation and feeling low about it, this fellow at Commentary depicts Obamacare as Obamascare:

The collateral damage to Obama from this bill is enormous. More than any candidate in our lifetime, Obama won based on the aesthetics of politics. It wasn’t because of his record; he barely had one. And it wasn’t because of his command of policy; few people knew what his top three policy priorities were. It was based instead on the sense that he was something novel, the embodiment of a “new politics” – mature, high-minded and gracious, intellectually serious. That was the core of his speeches and his candidacy.

He was supposed to be something different, fresh and appealing.

In less than a year, that core has been devoured, most of all by this health-care process. Mr. Obama has shown himself to be a deeply partisan and polarizing figure. (“I have never been asked to engage in a single serious negotiation on any issue, nor has any other Republican,” Senator McCain reported over the weekend.) The lack of transparency in this process has been unprecedented and bordering on criminal. The president has been deeply misleading in selling this plan. Lobbyists, a bane of Obama during the campaign, are having a field day.

Comes the revolution, but not the one Obama has in mind, says this fellow, Peter Wehner, who

served in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush Administrations prior to becoming deputy director of speechwriting for President George W. Bush in 2001. In 2002, he was asked to head the Office of Strategic Initiatives, where he generated policy ideas . . .

He argues well, I hope he’s right.

As is often the case, Instapundit sent me there.

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Harry, we think we know you by now

He out-Herods Herod?

It’s more than a bit ironic that Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is threatening to work right up until Christmas to pass legislation that could allow federal dollars to pay for the deaths of untold numbers of unborn children.

In the days before Jesus Christ was born in a manger in Bethlehem, another bureaucrat, King Herod, was responsible for what would be called the Massacre of the Innocents, after he ordered all male infants to be killed to prevent the prophesied King of the Jews from replacing him on the throne.

From Penny Starr, at CNS News-dot-com.

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We’re keeping score, you know

What do you know?  We’re supposed to talk nice to people and not throw our weight around, and see how Obama-diplomacy worked in Cope-‘n-hang-in-there:

UK diplomatic sources . . . confirmed that China had taken huge offence at remarks by President Obama over the need to independently monitor every country[’s] carbon emissions.

In his speech President Obama said: “Without any accountability, any agreement would be empty words on a page”.

The Chinese delegation interpreted these comments as an attempt to humiliate them. It prompted Prime Minister Wen Jiabao to return to his hotel and send low level delegates to take his place in the talks. [Italics added]

But what’s a kid from the South Side supposed to do when faced with inscrutable people?

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Out of the mouth of the beast

Embedded in a NY Times story about buying TV sets this season is this capsule statement of why the market, not the Fed, not the Congress, not a federal czardom, knows best:

“There was the assumption that fewer 32-inch LCD TVs would be sold,” said Bob Perry, Panasonic’s senior vice president for marketing, “but more were sold and that drove down prices.”

Econ 101, folks.  It’s why the best motto for a president facing economic decline (apart from “cut the taxes”) is “Don’t just do something, stand there.”

(Hat-tip News Alert.)

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Climate is too important to be left to certain people

Well, you see, some countries are rich and smart, others are poor and . . .

The UN Copenhagen climate talks are in disarray today after developing countries reacted furiously to leaked documents that show world leaders will next week be asked to sign an agreement that hands more power to rich countries and sidelines the UN’s role in all future climate change negotiations.

Not that the UN is smart.  Not saying that.  Never did say that.

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Dem candidates at OP library: Stroger plus three

I’m a little late with this, but Nov. 14 is not that long ago, is it? That’s when Democrat candidates for county board president showed up at the Oak Park library, brought together by Dem Party of OP (DPOP). The Veterans Room on the second floor was filthy with Democrats, including assorted other candidates, with potential judges predominating.

But the stars were the incumbent, Todd (John-son) Stroger, who came late, and three challengers: Terry O’Brien, president of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District (former Sanitary District, does sewage treatment for the Chicago area); 4th Ward (Hyde Park) Ald. Toni Preckwinkle; and Clerk of (county) Courts Dorothy Brown.

O’Brien made most sense. He would repeal the one-cent Stroger sales tax increase right away, all at once. It’s a tax-base destroyer in his book. Sales proceeds are down 14% in the year ending June 30, admittedly a bad year for sales. But businesses are decamping for neighboring counties. Reduce the tax rate, he argued implicitly, and you will increase tax revenue. Even in Cook County, liberal doctrine can be mugged by reality.

The other two challengers were not so sure. Preckwinkle would make “incremental cuts” while encouraging “economic development,” talking with “regional planning councils,” and starting “a jobs program.” Oh my, as if the market were waiting to be goosed by planners and programs.

Brown came out for “new ideas, not new taxes,” leaving cuts unmentioned — but not before winning the Oak Park Library declamation prize hands down. Rather, hands up, one holding the mike, the other moving continuously — circling, jabbing, flip-flopping, as if directing an invisible orchestra, eyes darting to and fro, face wrinkling, decibels multiplying.

She ended one segment, to scattered applause, with something about “the American dream.” Ending another, when the moderator called time, she hugged him. Later, when she announced her no-new-taxes (!) policy, she perorated, reaching crescendo with a memorable “If Barack Obama can be president, Dorothy Brown can be president of the county board!”

Preckwinkle was bland in comparison, businesslike, and direct enough. County hires, she said, come from “a few ward organizations, one of them the president’s [Stroger’s].” Jobs should be open to “the skilled” and spread around, especially to “Hispanics, [who] are underrepresented.”

Discussing the Forest Preserve district, O’Brien said he would consolidate it with the county. Brown would use “biometric technology” to monitor workers and would sell space for advertising on district property. Preckwinkle would rely on “professionalism,” keeping in mind that forest preserves are not just for recreation but are also “an ecological preserve.”

Forty-five minutes or so into the forum, Stroger arrived. “Had to stop at a funeral,” he explained. He said the board had “had a good three years” during his presidency, which would come as a surprise to many newspaper-readers. But it was “newspapers and television” that had decided he’s “a public enemy.” He had “found” a half-billion dollar deficit on entering office (slated to replace his stricken father on the ballot) and had worked it down to $238 billion, he said. To make up the shortfall, he had raised the sales tax.

He was glad he had done so. “You don’t hear complaints about services. We operate efficiently.” As for cutting taxes, “you have to be responsible,” he said. “You need money to do things.”

To a question about how the board might operate more effectively, Preckwinkle said she would bring “a new tone,” persuading commissioners to be “respectful of each other” and not engage in “hurtful personal interaction.”

“You lead by talking to people,” said O’Brien. “You must reach out to other elected officials.” Brown echoed that, saying they should pay more attention to “Springfield.”

Stroger portrayed opponents as “playing to the camera,” which he said “has become a way of life” for them. He said he had asked intended tax-cutters to show how they would avoid cutting services, but they had no answer. “We can take no money away” from services, he said, especially health system services.

Opposition to his leadership was “all posturing,” he said, but added, “We get along very well.” Again, the problems were caused by “the press.”

In the matter of spending and bidding on contracts, O’Brien said he was “shocked” to learn that expenditures of “up to $100,000” did not require board approval. But Stroger denied it. The limit was $25,000, he said. “All is done through requests for proposal,” he said. “We run things in a very professional way.”

O’Brien said there should be one procurement department for all of county government. He would do audits of every department, streamlining and consolidating as was done at the triple-A bond-rated Water Reclamation District, which last year returned $56 million to taxpayers. The district had 3,000 employees in 1988, when O’Brien became a commissioner; now it has 2,000, the reduction gained entirely by attrition, he said.

Preckwinkle blamed the patronage problem on the absence of public financing of elections. [No: see comment from her campaign below] She would take no money from county employees, she said: It “smacks of coercion.”

Stroger repeated his emphasis on non-interruption of services: “You’re going to hear a lot of things,” he said. “But nobody is saying they are not getting what they need.”

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First, burn it, then, stupid, keep it simple

The House and Senate health care bills give us

an overregulated, overbureaucratized system of surpassing arbitrariness and inefficiency. Throw a dart at the Senate tome:

–You’ll find mandates with financial penalties — the amounts picked out of a hat.

–You’ll find insurance companies (who live and die by their actuarial skills) told exactly what weight to give risk factors, such as age.

Currently insurance premiums for 20-somethings are about one-sixth the premiums for 60-somethings. The House bill dictates the young shall now pay at minimum one-half; the Senate bill, one-third — numbers picked out of a hat.

–You’ll find sliding scales for health-insurance subsidies — percentages picked out of a hat — that will radically raise marginal income tax rates for middle-class recipients, among other crazy unintended consequences.

Charles Krauthammer has a solution:

The bill . . . should not only be defeated. It should be immolated, its ashes scattered over the Senate swimming pool.

Then do health care the right way — one reform at a time, each simple and simplifying, aimed at reducing complexity, arbitrariness and inefficiency.

Which means zero in on tort reform, interstate buying and selling of health insurance, and taxation of employer-provided health insurance.

Trial lawyers don’t like the one, the left doesn’t like the other, which obviates need for public option, and unions don’t like the last

The lawyers are big-bucks people who give heavily to Dems, the left we have always with us, unions love big government, by whom most of their members are employed.

“Insuring the uninsured is a moral imperative,” says K. in today’s Chi Trib.

The problem is that the Democrats have chosen the worst possible method — a $1 trillion new entitlement of stupefying arbitrariness and inefficiency.

Better to “attack . . . inefficiencies . . . one by one — tort reform, interstate purchasing and taxing employee benefits.”

A bill that did that would be shorter — 20 not 2,000 pages — and pay for insurance for the uninsured “without wrecking both U.S. health care and the U.S. Treasury.”

And don’t get him started on the economic recklessness part.

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Post-racial Cook County

I am shocked, shocked! to hear these ministers talking this way about the Cook County board president race.

A group of African-American ministers encouraged [Dorothy] Brown and [Toni] Preckwinkle to get out of the race because they say African-American votes will split up, allowing a white candidate to win.

They are the Concerned Clergy for a Blacker, I mean Better, Chicagoland.  Also Friends of Todd, which won’t sit well with Friends of Dorothy and Friends of Toni.

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