I guess it depends on how things are going in Texas, but so far today we’ve had two conflicting statements about whether or not Governor Perry will make it to the debate.
First, Perry himself says that he may not be able to make it:
Presidential candidate and Texas Gov. Rick Perry said he does not yet know whether he will attend Wednesday night’s Republican presidential debate.
Tennessee’s Governor has decided that he, too, wants to tax the internet.
Gov. Bill Haslam said Wednesday that untaxed Internet sales are eroding Tennessee’s tax base and said he’s willing to take a leadership role among governors in urging Congress to pass a national approach to collecting sales taxes on goods sold over the Internet.
In other words, Haslam wants to push internet retailers out of his state, as even CNN points out that states that adopt such measures tend to lose tax revenues instead of the opposite.
In other states, such taxes have backfired, according to John Henchman of the Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan group that opposes the such taxes. Henchman has noted that tax receipts have actually fallen in Rhode Island and North Carolina as a result of the imposition of “Amazon taxes.” A big affiliate, FatWallet.com, fled to Wisconsin from Illinois after the latter state imposed such a tax, he notes.
I can’t confidently predict what would happen if such tax rules went into effect nationwide, but given the long-established truism that what you tax you get less of (even Democrats tacitly agree with this, given their support of cigarette and other sin taxes), I’d bet the results wouldn’t be pretty.
While it was not acceptable to Obama during the G.W. Bush years, it is now just fine and dandy that statist Democrats use the reconciliation process to cram ObamaCare down our throats. He did not go out and say the word “reconciliation”, but he did utter the words “up-or-down vote”—code for reconciliation [Article - Healthcare reform: Obama nudges Congress toward reconciliation].
In the words of Senator Robert “Sheets” Byrd (D-WV):
I very rarely agree with Senator Byrd, but in this instance I have to say he is right.
When has reconciliation been used and under what circumstances? Please refer to the following: Continue reading
Ignoring both Democrats and fellow Republicans, Senator Jim Bunning (R-KY) is holding to his guns by preventing unemployment benefits extension from going through. The reason? Funding. All that Senator Bunning wants is for funds from unspent stimulus to be used for the benefits extensions.
Statist Senate Democrats, left-wing media, and leftist bloggers are criticising Bunning for the stalling tactic. Evil Republican Jim Bunning is denying the unemployed their benefits. Perhaps they will blame Bunning for killing unemployed Americans? Statists point to Bunning’s silence during the G.W. Bush years of defense spending and tax cuts, which supposedly added to the deficit [Article - 1. Top Democrats look to shame Bunning on unemployment benefits filibuster | 2. Unemployment benefits end today; extension not approved by Senate].
Here’s where the statists are wrong:
1. The Bush tax cuts increased government revenue. How? Employers could afford to hire more people to work. The fewer people unemployed, the more that entitlements are reduced. The more people who were working, the more tax base the government had. The more tax base the government had, the more tax revenue that was collected.
2. Defense spending is a necessary part of the federal budget. The only part of the budget that is larger than defense spending is entitlement spending [Article - Entitlements Crowd Out Defense Spending, and It’s Only Getting Worse]. The statists who hate the military will never understand, nor recognize that fact. This would also explain their ignorant comments on the defense budget. They tried again and again over the years to defund our military out of existence. Their disdain for the country’s servicemen and women is well-documented. None of them can say they are patriotic Americans and that they support the troops while taking their funding away at the same time. That is something two-faced liars do.
3. The issue at hand is not dealing with defense spending or tax cuts. The issue is how to pay for unemployment benefits. The money for stimulus has already been allocated. Why not use some of those funds for unemployment extensions? This garbage about being against the rules should not be a problem for the current Congress and presidential administration, since they have consistently broken the rules over the past year anyway.
4. Nobody would be talking about extending unemployment benefits if the Obama stimulus would have worked in the first place [Article - 1. Shrinking U.S. Labor Force Keeps Unemployment Rate From Rising | 2. Obama: Stimulus Has Saved 2 Million Jobs | 3. The 'Stimulus' Actually Raised Unemployment | 4. Fact Checking Team Obama's Stimulus Claims].
5. President Obama is a huge fan of a pay-as-you-go system. From his own mouth: Continue reading
Two days after the Blair House summit and still no official CBO cost estimate [Article - CBO: Obama's Health Care Plan Too Sketchy to Score; UPDATE: Obama Punts on Public Option: "That's Up To Leader Reid"].
To be sure, the estimate will reveal the bloated cost of the 2700-page ObamaCare bill [Article - Obama Admits CBO Cost Estimates of ObamaCare Are Incomplete].
We should reform our health care system, but at what cost? At the cost of another one trillion dollars added to the burgeoning national debt? If ObamaCare passes, Americans will be paying for something that will not officially start until 2014 and will do nothing to reduce our budget deficit.
With all of the spending that Obama and tax-and-spend politicians have already added to our debt, how can we sustain the cost of ObamaCare? How much money will honest, hard-working Americans have in their pockets after paying for all of the spending Obama has racked up? One way or another, we will be paying for it in the form of higher taxes.
After the GOP clearly built a stronger case against ObamaCare at the health care summit (when state-run media calls it a “draw”, you know the Republicans got the upper hand), they need to form their own health care summit and create another one of their own comprehensive health care bill (previous bills were thrown out by congressional Democrats) [Article - ObamaCare' alienates most Americans].
Big surprise here: Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) says that health care reform will pass with or without GOP support. These should be welcome words for anyone who is opposed to the brand of health care reform that President Obama and other leftists politicians are wanting to force upon an unwilling American public [Article: Harkin: Health reform will pass – with or without GOP support].
Obama was correct about something. After ObamaCare is rammed down our throats, even when a majority of the American people don’t want the Democrat version, he’s right—that’s what elections are for. After November of this year, it will be a lot more difficult for leftists in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate to fulfill their utopian socialist agenda [Article: Obama warns Republicans he will pass health care].
The health care summit sponsored by Barack Obama took place today and there are mixed reactions across the political divide [Article - Reality TV or Healthcare Summit?].
If you watched or listened to the summit in whole or in part, what are your thoughts? What were the strong points and what were the weak points made on both sides? Do you think the whole thing was a colossal waste of time or did it make for entertaining TV?
President Obama will be staging a televised production known as a “health care summit”. To be sure, the leftists in attendance will deliver their spoon-fed talking points and make sure to mention the GOP as being the party of “no” at least 100 times or more (exaggeration?) [Article - Let's scream at each other about health reform].
If leftists like Obama, Pelosi, Reid, et al want to use the summit as a platform to attack and smear the GOP and I think it would be a mistake on the Republicans’ part if they don’t think that is what will happen, I say we should let them spout talking points given to them by their left-wing base and rehash worn-out rhetoric from the past year for all the viewers to see and hear.
What the Republicans need to do is be concise, direct, and non-confrontational. They should state their case before the American people and offer up their ideas, which have been constantly turned down by Obama and congressional Democrats. The Obama administration has been so kind as to post them on the White House’s web site, so let’s see if Obama can put his money where his mouth is [A Bipartisan Meeting on Health Reform].
It shouldn’t take long for the Republicans to find out if the “summit” is just a forum to espouse leftist propaganda and Republican-bashing sputum. If that turns out to be the case, they need to stand up, turn toward the door, and walk right out.
Reference links:
Democrats stifle Republican health care plans
Senate Doctors Show And Submission Of A Conservative Health Care Plan
Ignored: H.R. 3218 – Improving Health Care For All Americans Act
Senator Mike Enzi Proposes A Health Care Reform Bill—Ignored By Democrat Majority
In a brazen act of defiance against over 50 percent of the American people, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and her fellow leftist statists in the U.S. House of Representatives passed the monstrosity known as H.R. 3962 – Affordable Health Care for America Act [Article - House passes health care reform bill; Vote garners only one Republican].
The snag in the works was getting so-called “moderate” “Blue Dog” Democrats to vote for the “deficit neutral” bill. How did Pelosi get so-called “Blue Dog” Democrats to vote for passage of the bill? There was certainly some arm-twisting that was done by leftist Democrats and President Obama himself; however, by simply inserting a stipulation known as the “Stupak Amendment“, which limits, but does not eliminate coverage and funding for abortions, that’s all it took for so-called “moderate” Democrats to submit an “up” vote.
Never mind the insertion of items that don’t have anything to do with health care reform and that raise taxes on people whom President Obama promised would not be taxed. Never mind that over 50 percent of Americans do not want a public “option” or in other words, government-run health care [Rasmussen Report - Health Care Reform].
Self-serving, hyper-ambitious politicians on all levels of government do not care about the will of the American people. They do not genuinely care about the health and well-being of the American people. They have proven time and again that they are nothing but a group of haughty, arrogant, elitist power and money grabbers with an aristocratic sense of predestinate entitlement.
The next election cycle is only a year away. A lot can happen in a year and those who want to retain their positions of power will do their best (or worst) to pull the wool over their constituents’ eyes in an effort to get re-elected. They know that the memories of the people they claim to represent are short. They are banking on that knowledge because it is a successful time-tested strategy.
So-called health care reform is only one link in a longer chain of enslavement that leftist bosses are forging for America. They are only a couple of links away from completing that chain. After the chain is complete, it will be almost impossible to break it.
What will you do? Will you vote for or against the chain? The 2010 elections should give us an indication.
Despite a GOP boycott, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), chairwoman of the U.S. Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee and other Democrats on the committee approved a climate change bill that would require cuts in greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent over the next decade from 2005 levels [Article - Senate Panel Approves Climate Change Bill Despite GOP Boycott].
In typical overreaching fashion, leftist politicians are attempting to force unpopular economy-killing legislation through. However, there is a silver lining: The bill has passed committee, but it now goes to the Senate floor, where it is expected to die an ignominious death.
This goes along with a previously submitted ACW post, touching on how leftist politicians tirelessly and tenaciously try to further their destructive interests [Reference - German Chancellor Merkel And The Climate Change “Wall”].
To be sure, the battle to force through legislation based on junk science will continue. Without unwavering, steadfast opposition to leftist environmental lunacy, it is a guarantee that climate change legislation will be passed and the suffering of the American people will last for decades.