ConservativeChristianRepublican-Report - 20100212

Motivational-Inspirational-Historical-Educational-Political-Enjoyable

Promoting "God's Holy Values and American Freedoms"!



"Daily Motivations"

"You always pass failure on the way to success." -- Mickey Rooney

"There are two primary choices in life: to accept conditions as they exist, or accept the responsibility for changing them." -- Denis Waitley

"How long should you try? Until." -- Jim Rohn



"Daily Devotions" (KJV and/or NLT)

He loves us with unfailing love. (Psalm 117:2)

Recently in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a homeowner was approached by a man who wanted to borrow his barbecue grill. Being goodhearted, he let the man take it.

When the borrower returned it several days later, he offered the grill owner four tickets to a Milwaukee Brewers baseball game. The owner was delighted, and even though the Brewers lost the game that day, he and his family had a good time.

When they returned home, they discovered that thieves had cleaned out their house of all furniture and appliances while they were gone. What had appeared like a magnanimous gift of tickets turned out to be a trick to get the family to leave so their house could be burglarized.

Sometimes, we find ourselves wondering when God's goodness to us will end and we will find the "bottom line." But we do not need to be suspicious about the good things God offers us. He will never misuse our love for Him.

Nothing we do will take away His love for us. We need never fear that His blessings are a disguise for other intentions. All God's actions toward us flow out of His pure love for us.

Your View of God Really Matters …

Read Romans 8:38-39. According to this passage what can separate you from God's love? (Remember, when this passage was written, God already knew every sin you would ever commit, and Jesus had already died a horrible death in order to satisfy God's perfect justice.)



"The Patriot Post"

"Were we directed from Washington when to sow, and when to reap, we should soon want bread." -- Thomas Jefferson



Liberty

"On December 16, 1773, several dozen colonists in Boston, angered by King George's financially ruinous tea tax, took action into their own hands. Dressed as Mohawk Indians, they snuck onto 3 British tea ships and dumped over 300 chests of tea into Boston Harbor. That revolt was said to have sparked the American Revolution. Last [Tuesday] night, the state of Massachusetts was the site of yet another revolt, only this time it was Attorney General Martha Coakley, the Democratic Party, and President Obama, health care and health care reform that were thrown into the drink, following the stunning election of Republican Scott Brown to the U.S. Senate. Yet on the eve of the election, the White House suggested ... that they would not moderate the president's policies, but in a fit of madness akin to King George's, would double down and strike a more combative tone. I have a feeling that over the next few days, the White House will want to ... amend their remarks. ... In response to the tea party protest, King George passed the 'Coercive Acts,' which was every bit as punishing as it sounds. Will King Barack respond to the election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts with moderation and scrap health care or with madness and shove a coercive bill down America's collective throats?" --columnist Brian Doherty



Re: The Left

"Americans have been sick and tired of dishonest and destructive policies emanating from the Feds of both R and D varieties for longer than [Barack Obama's] single year of fiddling, and, in fact, longer than George W. Bush's eight years. For several decades, at least, Americans have been spitting mad about the state of their federal government. So, what is our current Politician-in-Chief going to do about it? ... What the president will do, in the age-old tradition of Washington, is to change the subject. He's already found new areas of the economy to attack and demonize. First up are the banks. ... Further, bad-mouthing Wall Street and slapping banks with a new fee, after handing them sacks of taxpayer cash, seems a weak alternative to not handing them sacks of taxpayer cash in the first place.. Consider the failed $787 billion stimulus spending bill. Obama acknowledges it hasn't much helped Main Street. So, in his State of the Union address this Wednesday, the president will take the bold step of calling for another 'economic recovery package,' i.e. doing the same thing again. If borrowing hundreds of billions to spend stimulating an economy crippled by too much borrowing doesn't work, thank goodness there is always the option of borrowing hundreds of billions (if not trillions) more. Feeling better yet?" --columnist Paul Jacob



Insight

"The [U.S.] Constitution is a limitation on the government, not on private individuals... It does not prescribe the conduct of private individuals, only the conduct of the government... It is not a charter for government power, but a charter of the citizen's protection against the government." --philosopher and novelist Ayn Rand (1905-1982)



The Gipper

"Public servants say, always with the best of intentions, 'What greater service we could render if only we had a little more money and a little more power.' But the truth is that outside of its legitimate function, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector." --Ronald Reagan



Culture

"A company well-named Neocutis now offers a skin cream made from human fetal tissue. To quote the company's Web site: 'Inspired by fetal skin's unique properties, Neocutis's proprietary technology uses cultured fetal skin cells to obtain an optimal, naturally balanced mixture of skin nutrients.' This outfit, it may not surprise Gentle Reader to learn, is based in San Francisco, and says its product can 'turn back time to create flawless baby-skin again.' What good news for those suffering from dry skin -- and who doesn't this time of year? ... But there's sure to be some reactionary who objects to progress, and a niggling objection did indeed surface here and there to this latest advance in the commodification of the unborn. In its defense, Neocutis issued a statement to all concerned: 'Our view -- which is shared by most medical professionals and patients -- is that the limited, prudent and responsible use of donated fetal skin tissue can continue to ease suffering, speed healing, save lives and improve the well-being of many patients around the globe.' And improve the company's balance sheet, too. Call it another benefit from the ever-growing abortion industry.. And another triumph of supply-side economics! Create the supply and demand will follow. It does make one wonder why, if the use of human fetuses for such purposes is so unalloyed a good, the company feels the need to assure us that the practice is 'limited, prudent and responsible.' Is that a faint echo of some vestigial conscience?" --Arkansas Democrat-Gazette editor Paul Greenberg



For the Record

"Some expect Haiti's 7.0 earthquake death toll to reach over 200,000 lives. Why the high death toll? Northern California's 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake was more violent, measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale, resulting in 63 deaths and 3,757 injuries. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake measured 7.8 on the Richter scale, about eight times more violent than Haiti's, and cost 3,000 lives. As tragic as the Haitian calamity is, it is merely symptomatic of a far deeper tragedy that's completely ignored, namely self-inflicted poverty. The reason why natural disasters take fewer lives in our country is because we have greater wealth. It's our wealth that permits us to build stronger homes and office buildings. When a natural disaster hits us, our wealth provides the emergency personnel, heavy machinery and medical services to reduce the death toll and suffering. Haitians cannot afford the life-saving tools that we Americans take for granted. President Barack Obama called the quake 'especially cruel and incomprehensible.' He would be closer to the truth if he had said that the Haitian political and economic climate that make Haitians helpless in the face of natural disasters are 'especially cruel and incomprehensible.' The biggest reason for Haiti being one of the world's poorest countries is its restrictions on economic liberty. ... Private property rights are vital to economic growth. ... Haiti's disaster demands immediate Western assistance, but it's only the Haitian people who can relieve themselves of the deeper tragedy of self-inflicted poverty." --economist Walter E. Williams



The Last Word

"Democratic cocooners will tell themselves that [Martha] Coakley was a terrible candidate who even managed to diss Curt Schilling. True, Brown had Schilling. But Coakley had Obama. When the bloody sock beats the presidential seal -- of a man who had them swooning only a year ago -- something is going on beyond personality. That something is substance -- political ideas and legislative agendas. Democrats, if they wish, can write off their Massachusetts humiliation to high unemployment, to Coakley or, the current favorite among sophisticates, to generalized anger. That implies an inchoate, unthinking lashing-out at whoever happens to be in power -- even at your liberal betters who are forcing on you an agenda that you can't even see is in your own interest. Democrats must so rationalize, otherwise they must take democracy seriously, and ask themselves: If the people really don't want it, could they possibly have a point? 'If you lose Massachusetts and that's not a wake-up call,' said moderate -- and sentient -- Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana, 'there's no hope of waking up.' I say: Let them sleep." --columnist Charles Krauthammer



"ADF"

NEWS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Blind justice: Free speech prohibited on public sidewalk outside Calif. courthouse
ADF attorneys file suit against L.A. County officials after police, judge order man to stop free speech activities outside San Fernando Courthouse

http://www.adfmedia.org/News/PRDetail/3731

LOS ANGELES — Alliance Defense Fund attorneys filed a lawsuit Monday against Los Angeles County officials on behalf of a Christian man who was prohibited from sharing his faith on a public sidewalk outside the San Fernando Courthouse. County officials told Anthony Miano that he could only conduct his free speech activities across the street on a sparsely used sidewalk.

“Christians shouldn’t be prohibited from expressing their beliefs in a clearly public area. Our courts should understand this more than anyone else,” said ADF Senior Counsel Nate Kellum. “This man was doing nothing other than exercising his First Amendment right to peacefully share his faith with people willing to interact with him or accept his religious literature. That is a protected free speech activity that cannot be outlawed on a public sidewalk, whether it is near a courthouse or anywhere else.”

Beginning in July 2008, Miano routinely stood on a public sidewalk outside the San Fernando Courthouse from 7:30 a.m. to 9 a.m. to share his faith and distribute religious literature. But on Aug. 26, 2008, a Los Angeles County sergeant and a deputy sheriff stopped Miano and told him that he was not permitted to speak or hand out literature at that location. They provided him with a copy of a general order from the L.A. County Superior Courts detailing its regulation of speech activities outside county courthouses.

In December 2008, ADF attorneys sent the San Fernando Courthouse Presiding Judge Robert J. Shuit a letter explaining that the general order he directed the officers to issue to Miano did not prohibit Miano from exercising his constitutional rights.

ADF attorneys contend that Miano was well outside the 100-foot zone from the courthouse’s operational doors. The only doors within the 100-foot range from Miano’s free speech activities are largely unused emergency exits.

ADF-allied attorney John Stewart, of Orange, is serving as local counsel in the lawsuit, Miano v. McCoy, whichwas filed with the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

ADF is a legal alliance of Christian attorneys and like-minded organizations defending the right of people to freely live out their faith. Launched in 1994, ADF employs a unique combination of strategy, training, funding, and litigation to protect and preserve religious liberty, the sanctity of life, marriage, and the family.

www.adfmedia.org twitter.com/adfmedia



"AFA"

High schoolers in N.C. may get abbreviated version of U.S. history

Contact the North Carolina Department of Instruction and tell them to not shortchange our students by trying to short-cut history.
Our friends at Christian Action League have warned us of a proposal by the Carolina Department of Public Instruction to teach high schoolers only an abbreviated version of U.S. history — one that starts in 1877.

The proposed "essential standards" for history would have sixth-graders focusing on World Civilizations (Beginning of Human Society to the mid 1700s); seventh-graders studying State, Nation and World (1600s to early 1970s) and eighth-graders concentrating on The Global Community (1950s to present).

High school courses would include Civics and Economics, Global Studies and the controversial U.S. History course that would begin just after Reconstruction and go to present day events to provide students "a framework for studying political, social, economic and cultural issues, and for analyzing the impact that these issues have had on American society."

It's impossible for students to have a proper framework without understanding the nation's founding and all that transpired between pre-colonial times and 1877.

Linda Fuller, a DPI public information officer described the plan as a "repackaging of U.S. history."

But Dr. Holly Brewer, who teaches Early American History at N.C. State University, said claims that students will "get the basics" in middle school or fifth grade are simply not true.

"I thought someone would see the light," she told members of the John Locke Foundation during a 2008 speech on "Erasing Colonial and Revolutionary History from North Carolina High Schools." Even then, she said DPI was already giving short shrift to the Constitution and not covering our nation's history prior to George Washington's presidency.

Take Action

Contact the North Carolina Department of Instruction and tell them to not shortchange our students by trying to short-cut history.

Additional Resources:
View the proposed "essential standards" for public schools.

Read the extended version of this email, courtesy of our friends at Christian Action League.



"The Web"

http://www.drtobler.com/Sizzling/Divorce-Decree-From-Liberals.html

Many of you have asked for the "Liberal Divorce Decree" we read on the air a few weeks ago.....well here it is. Not sure if John Wall exists or is a pen name, but who cares....it's great stuff. Enjoy!
Political Left/ Right Divorce Decree Sheds a different light! A MUST read for Liberals!?
Dear American liberals, leftists, social progressives, socialists, Marxists and Obama supporters, et al:
We have stuck together since the late 1950's, but the whole of this latest election process has made me realize that I want a divorce. I know we tolerated each other for many years for the sake of future generations, but sadly, this relationship has run its course. Our two ideological sides of America cannot and will not ever agree on what is right so let's just end it on friendly terms. We can smile and chalk it up to irreconcilable differences and go our own way. Here is a model separation agreement:

Our two groups can equitably divide up the country by landmass each taking a portion. That will be the difficult part, but I am sure our two sides can come to a friendly agreement. After that, it should be relatively easy! Our respective representatives can effortlessly divide other assets since both sides have such distinct and disparate tastes. We don't like redistributive taxes so you can keep them. You are welcome to the liberal judges and the ACLU. Since you hate guns and war, we'll take our firearms, the cops, the NRA and the military. You can keep Oprah, Michael Moore and Rosie O'Donnell (You are, however, responsible for finding a bio-diesel vehicle big enough to move all three of them).

We'll keep the capitalism, greedy corporations, pharmaceutical companies, Wal-Mart and Wall Street. You can have your beloved homeless, homeboys, hippies and illegal aliens. We'll keep the hot Alaskan hockey moms, greedy CEO's and rednecks. We'll keep the Bibles and give you NBC andHollywood .

You can make nice with Iran and Palestine and we'll retain the right to invade and hammer places that threaten us. You can have the peaceniks and war protesters. When our allies or our way of life are under assault, we'll help provide them security.

We'll keep our Judeo-Christian values.. You are welcome to Islam, Scientology, Humanism and Shirley McClain. You can also have the U. N., but we will no longer be paying the bill.

We'll keep the SUVs, pickup trucks and oversized luxury cars. You can take every Subaru station wagon you can find.

You can give everyone healthcare if you can find any practicing doctors. We'll continue to believe healthcare is a luxury and not a right. We'll keep The Battle Hymn of the Republic and the National Anthem. I'm sure you'll be happy to substitute Imagine, I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing, Kum Ba Ya or We Are the World.

We'll practice trickle down economics and you can give trickle up poverty your best shot. Since it often so offends you, we'll keep our history, our name and our flag.

Would you agree to this? If so, please pass it along to other like minded liberal and conservative patriots and if you do not agree, just hit delete. In the spirit of friendly parting, I'll bet you ANWAR which one of us will need whose help in 15 years.

Sincerely,

John J. Wall Law Student and an American

P. S. Also, please take Barbara Streisand & Jane Fonda with you.



Obama Espoused Radical Views in College

By: Ronald Kessler

http://newsmax.com/RonaldKessler/obama-college-marxism-occidental/2010/02/08/id/349329

As a college student, Barack Obama expressed Marxist views, including the need for a new socialist U.S. government, according to a student who says he shared the future president’s opinion at the time.

Such views by a college student may not be surprising. And like most students who hold radical views, Obama’s positions, at least publicly, have evolved substantially.

However, this new window on Obama’s youth and early political thinking demonstrates how little is known about the background of America’s 44th president.

Dr. John C. Drew, a grant writing consultant in Laguna Niguel, Calif., tells Newsmax he met Obama in 1980 when Obama was a sophomore at Occidental College in Los Angeles. Drew had just graduated from Occidental and was attending graduate school at Cornell University.

Drew’s then girlfriend, Caroline Boss—now Grauman-Boss—knew Obama because she shared classes with him at Occidental.

During Christmas break, Drew says he was at Grauman-Boss’ home in Palo Alto when Obama came over with Mohammed Hasan Chandoo, his roommate from Pakistan.

“Barack and Hasan showed up at the house in a BMW, and then we went to a restaurant together,” Drew says. “We had a nice meal, and then we came back to the house and smoked cigarettes and drank and argued politics.”
For the next several hours, they discussed Marxism.

“He was arguing a straightforward Marxist-Leninist class-struggle point of view, which anticipated that there would be a revolution of the working class, led by revolutionaries, who would overthrow the capitalist system and institute a new socialist government that would redistribute the wealth,” says Drew, who says he himself was then a Marxist.

“The idea was basically that wealthy people were exploiting others,” Drew says. “That this was the secret of their wealth, that they weren’t paying others enough for their work, and they were using and taking advantage of other people. He was convinced that a revolution would take place, and it would be a good thing.”

Drew concluded that Obama thought of himself as “part of an intelligent, radical vanguard that was leading the way towards this revolution and towards this new society.”

In contrast, “My more pessimistic Marxist perspective indicated this was not a realistic possibility, that we really hadn’t seen a sort of complete revolution take place anywhere in Western Europe, and that this isn’t what had happened in more socialistic Germany or in France,” Drew says. “He was pretty persistent, that I didn’t know what I was talking about.”

Drew’s viewpoint that a revolution was unrealistic “made me very unpopular that evening. It was considered a reactionary and insensitive thing to argue,” says Drew.

Drew saw Obama again at a party Obama and Chandoo gave in June 1981 at the house they shared. Drew went on to become an assistant professor of political science at Williams College.

In 1981, Obama left Occidental to attend Columbia University. During that year, Obama spent “about three weeks” visiting Chandoo and his family in Karachi, Pakistan, according to the account of Obama spokesman Bill Burton during the campaign.

Chandoo is now a financial consultant who was formerly a broker at Oppenheimer & Co. He has contributed to Obama’s campaign and helped raise more than $100,000 for him as a bundler.

“If that’s what John Drew said, that’s what he said,” Chandoo commented. “I can’t remember Obama ever talking like that. It sounds a bit absurd to me, but that’s my opinion. I can’t remember him ever expressing an interest in being a Marxist.”

Much of what is known about Obama’s past has been revealed and defined by Obama himself, largely through his two bestselling books “Dreams of My Father” and “The Audacity of Hope.”

In these works and throughout his career, Obama has clearly identified with the oppressed. In “Dreams of My Father” Obama details how white settlers and sugar companies came to dominate and exploit his native Hawaii.

In that memoir, Obama said that at Occidental, “To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets.”

As president, Obama has espoused the view that the rich are not sharing their wealth with the less fortunate. In a Sept. 6, 2001, radio interview, Obama expressed regret that the Supreme Court hadn’t engaged in wealth redistribution.

In some ways, Obama’s opinions about American-style capitalism seem to mirror the views of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., Obama’s minister who was his self-described mentor and “sounding board” for 20 years. Wright’s “Black Value System” denounced “our racist competitive society” and included the disavowal of the pursuit of “middle-classness.”

The Black Value System defined “middle-classness” as a way American society seduced blacks into achieving economic success, thus snaring them rather than “killing them off directly.”

In a similar vein, when he discussed politics with him in 1980, Drew says that in Obama’s view, “America was definitely the enemy, and American elites were the enemy, and whatever America was doing was definitely wrong and bad. He thought that perhaps the Soviet Union was misunderstood, and it was doing a better job for its people than most people realized.”

Chandoo said he doesn’t know which professors Obama was referring to in his book. Asked when he last saw Obama, Chandoo said he has not seen nor talked with him since before Obama became a U.S. senator. However, under “community member,” the White House listed Chandoo as a guest at Obama’s Ramadan dinner last fall.

When asked about that, Chandoo acknowledged from his home in Armonk, N.Y., that he attended the dinner. Despite the fact that fewer than 70 people were in attendance, Chandoo added, “I did not get a chance to see the boss.” He then said he shook hands with Obama in a receiving line.

Chandoo said he has been in touch with Caroline Grauman-Boss over the years. She did not respond to a request for comment.

Burton, now deputy White House press secretary, also did not respond to a request for comment.

Drew’s encounter with Obama’s early political thinking adds to the mystery that has shrouded his past.

For more than a year during the campaign, the media were aware of Obama’s ties with the Rev. Wright, for example, but the press did not reveal them until Obama was far ahead in the primaries.

Obama has contributed to the lack of knowledge about his past by refusing to release early documentation about his life, including his college and Harvard Law School transcripts and his senior thesis at Columbia.

Referring to Obama’s quote from “Dreams of My Father” that he associated with Marxist professors, Drew says, “What he’s not saying is that he was in 100 percent total agreement with those Marxist professors. When you understand that, Obama’s later associations and policies make more sense, including why he was taken in by Rev. Wright’s ideology.”

In 1983 and 1984, Drew says he came to realize that his own Marxist views were rubbish. He now considers himself a conservative.

In contrast, Drew says, Obama has never revealed how his political thinking evolved and “what were the logical steps he took to get out of his Marxist world view.”



Faber: Debt Interest Will Lead to Default, Then War

By: Julie Crawshaw

http://moneynews.com/StreetTalk/marc-faber-debt-war/2010/02/09/id/349439?s=al&promo_code=9706-1

At a conference in Moscow, Marc Faber laid out the crisis that he sees coming in the next 10 years: Interest on U.S. debt will crush other spending, then inflation and depression will take hold and eventually lead to war.

“Maximum, within 10 years time more than 35 percent of tax revenues will have to be used to pay the interest on the government’s debt, and then you’re in trouble, because then there is not enough money out of the budget to pay for other stuff,” Faber said.

“I am convinced that the U.S. government will go bankrupt, but not tomorrow, and before they go bankrupt they’ll print money, and then you get very high inflation rate, then you get depression with high inflation and eventually they’ll go to war.”

Social obligations will cause Western countries to default, in Faber’s view. “Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Spain — I think eventually they’ll all default,” he says.

“The obligations of Western governments are far too high. They won’t be able to pay.”

Faber suggests that governments raise the retirement age to 70 and cut back on social spending, but says that even that won’t be enough to solve the problem.

The perceived credit risk of Western European nations overtook that of high-grade U.S. companies for the first time yesterday, Reuters reports, reflecting rising concerns over high debt loads taken on by governments attempting to spend their way out of the financial crisis.

The SovX credit default swap index, a measure of the credit risk of 15 Western European countries, rose to 94 basis points, compared with 92 basis points for the benchmark U.S. index of investment grade companies.



Bend It Like Obama

Can the government control health care inflation through subsidies?

Jacob Sullum

http://www.outloudopinion.com/2010/02/11/bend-it-like-obama-can-the-government-control-health-care-inflation-through-subsidies-2-10-10/

First President Obama said critics of his health care plan had no ideas worth considering. Then he said he never said that. Now he says he is eager to hear those previously unacknowledged ideas.
Taking Obama at his word (always a risky thing to do), is there any realistic prospect that the meeting he plans with legislators from both parties later this month will, as he suggests, produce “some agreements” on how to proceed with health care reform? Not if he continues to ignore the conflict between his approach to expanding medical coverage and the other major goal he says must be addressed by any serious reform proposal: bringing health care spending under control.

Obama wants to cover the uninsured by expanding Medicaid and providing various other subsidies: to small businesses that buy insurance for their employees, to individuals who buy policies from a government-created “insurance exchange,” and to high-risk patients with pre-existing conditions. That last group would be subsidized not only by taxpayers but by younger, healthier policyholders who would be forced to pay higher premiums or to buy insurance they otherwise would have gone without.

The Senate health care bill would spend $1.8 trillion during the first decade after it fully takes effect in 2014 to cover some 30 million people (out of an estimated 46 million without insurance), and that’s leaving aside the unfunded mandates imposed on states, employers, and individuals. Yet in his interview with CBS News anchor Katie Couric on Sunday, Obama said “the package that we've put together” will “start bending the cost curve on health care” and “cut the deficit by a trillion dollars.” How is that possible?

The $1 trillion figure, which Obama misleadingly attributed to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), is highly speculative. The CBO estimated that the Senate bill would reduce the deficit by $130 billion in the first decade after it was enacted through a combination of higher taxes and Medicare cuts. The CBO also more tentatively projected that if Congress retains its planned reductions in the growth of Medicare payments to providers (instead of rescinding them, as it always has in the past), the savings could amount to between 0.25 and 0.5 percent of gross domestic product in the second decade. Using generous assumptions, the Obama administration converted that highly uncertain estimate into a nice round figure of $1 trillion.

Still, restraining the growth of Medicare, which will swallow a bigger and bigger share of the federal budget as baby boomers retire, will be necessary to avoid crushing payroll taxes and/or sudden, drastic benefit cuts. That’s one possible area of bipartisan agreement, although Republicans have dimmed the prospects by demagogically accusing the Democrats of trying to take away Grandma’s health care.

But note that Obama’s plan to restrain spending has nothing to do with his proposals to expand coverage, which would have the opposite effect, contributing to health care inflation by increasing subsidies. By contrast, market-based reforms that seek to expand coverage by making it more affordable also help to “bend the cost curve.”

Obama has made gestures of support for a couple of these ideas. His proposed excise tax on especially expensive medical benefits is a roundabout, half-hearted attempt to address the tax incentive that encourages employers to offer health coverage in lieu of higher pay, which insulates consumers from prices and retards competition. At the same time, however, Obama would contribute to the problem by requiring employers to provide insurance.

Similarly, Obama says he is open to the idea of fostering interstate competition in the health insurance market. Yet he insists it cannot be allowed to happen without federal coverage mandates that would boost premiums and undermine the benefits of such competition.

Pressing Obama to confront the contradictions in his own proposals—between spending restraint and huge new subsidies, between amplifying and blocking price signals, between promoting choice and impairing competition—might not yield agreement. But it could produce a little clarity.

Jacob Sullum is a senior editor at Reason and a nationally syndicated columnist.



Your House As Seen By:

http://www.therealestatebloggers.com/2008/12/05/your-house-as-seen-by/

Yourself…

Your Buyer…

Your Lender…

Your Appraiser…

Your County Tax

Assessor…



"The e-mail Bag"

The congregation was listening attentively to the Homily when suddenly...

...the Church was filled with smoke. When the smoke cleared, the astonished congregation saw a red figure complete with horns, pitchfork and tail. Immediately, panic set in. People crowded through the doors, trampling each other in their rush to get away. Satan watched the retreat with great glee, but his mood was disturbed by the sight of one man still lounging comfortably in his pew.

"Do you not know who I am?", Satan thundered.

The man's reply was nonchalant, "Sure I do."

Satan was puzzled. "Do you not fear me?"

"Nope."

"Why not?"

The man snorted, "What for? I've been married to your sister for 35 years!"