The Obama administration is feeling a lot of heat regarding their reaction to the continued oil leak in the Gulf. Rather than be the executives who, you know, execute action to solve a problem (hence, The Executive Branch) the Obama administration is instead focusing on “whose ass to kick” (i.e., lawsuits — and what else would one expect from lawyers) and shifting blame. This week the blame goes to the Tea Parties and fiscally responsible conservatives. Watch how deftly Obama misrepresents the arguments of those who advocate limited government (including thus by definition James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, et. al.).

Here’s Obama to The Politico’s Roger Simon:

In an interview with POLITICO, the president said: “I think it’s fair to say, if six months ago, before this spill had happened, I had gone up to Congress and I had said we need to crack down a lot harder on oil companies and we need to spend more money on technology to respond in case of a catastrophic spill, there are folks up there, who will not be named, who would have said this is classic, big-government overregulation and wasteful spending.”

The president also implied that anti-big government types such as tea party activists were being hypocritical on the issue.

“Some of the same folks who have been hollering and saying ‘do something’ are the same folks who, just two or three months ago, were suggesting that government needs to stop doing so much,” Obama said. “Some of the same people who are saying the president needs to show leadership and solve this problem are some of the same folks who, just a few months ago, were saying this guy is trying to engineer a takeover of our society through the federal government that is going to restrict our freedoms.”

The president makes two fundamental errors in his argument, and we’ll look at them in reverse order to which he made them.

First, it’s ridiculous to compare a Federal response to the worst petroleum accident in the history of the country to daily Federal intrusions into our lives. Indeed, the very argument of those who advocate limited government is that national disasters are precisely when one should expect an overwhelming Federal response. No fiscal conservative or tea party I know is saying that government has no role (that would be the anarchists, the people who riot at world trade meetings, and hardly conservatives).

Conversely, the tea parties legitimately question, for example, daily government intrusions on your wallet and liberty vis-a-vis the type of light bulb you may place in your home, or how many gallons per flush your toilet may use, or how much money you must pay your after-school high-school employee to check out your customers at a register, not to mention Michelle Obama’s toe-dipping into the pool of the government determining what foods are or are not good for your family.

This is why Thomas Paine (of Common Sense) wrote that government “in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one”; and why Thomas Jefferson similarly argued never to misread the “General Welfare” clause: “They are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare…. [G]iving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please which may be good for the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless. It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and as they sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please.”

The second fundamental error President Obama makes is his implied assumption that a lack of regulation enabled the BP oil leak. I have a hard time believing that when we’ve got a Federal agency called the Minerals Management Service (MMS) — an agency that the vast majority of Americans had probably never heard of six months ago — we really don’t have a plethora of federal, state and local regulations guiding the energy company. On top of that we’ve got the Department of Energy, the Department of the Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency, and slew of other bureaucracies — again, federal, state, local — that must on a daily basis wade through no doubt pages of regulations that when stacked are higher than an oil rig. And that’s just the complexity that our government must interpret — imagine how much it costs BP, Chevron-Texaco, Exxon-Shell, etc., and thus how much that costs you and me at the pump. Remember, it was this same MMS that gave the Deepwater Horizon oil rig a safety award last year. So how would have giving the MMS, or another agency, more power prevented this accident? There’s not one shred of proof it would have.

Now, this isn’t an argument against regulation carte blanche. Rather, it’s an argument that the facts show that that oil leak was not a systemic problem — such as Obama argues — or caused from a lack of regulation, but rather caused by a series of human errors — the humans at BP and in the government did not follow the regulations, and indeed not even follow BP’s internal regulations or oil and gas industry common practices!

This understanding — that the problem was human, not systemic — is best explained, by the way, by a small Colorado oil and gas company president this weekend in the WSJ. In short, summarizes Terry Barr, the employees at BP and at the Deepwater Horizon oil rig chose to press forward despite a minimum of three “red flags” which any other company in the energy industry, argues Barr, would have halted operations.

You may have heard about the head of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), John Morton, basically state that his taxpayer-funded  department, which is sworn to uphold and protect the Constitution of the United States, will not actually uphold and protect the Constitution of the United States, in this case by refusing to detain or deport illegal immigrants brought to it by Arizona authorities based on the intellectually- and morally-bankrupt argument said law is controversial.

Amazing. With that logic authorities all over the country could transform criminal negligence into government policy by refusing to enforce laws that are deemed “controversial.”

Tell that to the people of Phoenix, AZ, whose city is now ranked second in the world in kidnappings for ransom (behind, naturally, Mexico City). All the while Mexican-American protesters, such as this California educator and member of La Raza (the Race, and talk about a racist name for an organization) are taking a page out of the Palestinian playbook and announcing Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and California as “occupied territory.”

Mr. Morton apparently confuses his unelected appointment with that of free Arizonians freely electing their representatives who freely passed this state law!

Charles Krauthammer elaborated on this pathetic Obama stance over the weekend:

On Immigration and Customs Enforcement head John Morton telling the Chicago Tribune that his agency will not necessarily process illegal immigrants picked up under the new Arizona law:

I think it’s a perfect example of the arrogance and the near lawlessness of this administration. Look: The Constitution requires the federal government ensure that every state have a republican form of government. Last time I checked, Arizona does.

There is no allegation that the immigration law in Arizona was passed in any way other than legally. There were no procedural problems with it.

If the president doesn’t like it, well, he’s got an option. He can instruct the Department of Justice to go and have a judge strike it down. And if he likes, he can get an injunction in the meantime that will suspend it until the constitutionality is ruled upon.

In the meantime, it’s as legal a law as any other law in the land. And for the executive but to say we’re going to ignore it, or we’re going to un-enforce immigration essentially in this state on account of this, is – it’s lawless. We had a Civil War and a civil- rights movement over the claim of Southern states that they could ignore the federal laws on slavery and on civil rights, and that was struck down. Everybody from Abraham Lincoln on opposes that.

And now what we have is the reverse. The federal government, this guy [ICE director John Morton] says, well, you know, he doesn’t think the Arizona law is a good way to go about it. That’s not his business, it’s not his jurisdiction. Arizona decides on what it’s to do [about illegal immigration]. And his job is to enforce the federal law, which he is openly saying he wouldn’t do, simply because a referral comes out of the state whose laws he doesn’t like.

On the argument that ICE wants to focus on criminal elements among illegal immigrants:

Look, if immigration [service] has a set of priorities, as it should, looking into criminality, dangerousness, compassion, humanitarian concerns — all of those are relevant. But whether a person comes out of a state [i.e., Arizona] who’s got a law you don’t like — [that] is an irrelevant criterion, a high-handed one, an arrogant one, and I think probably an illegal one.

Here’s William Bennett in a must-read commentary regarding the Arizona anti-illegal immigration law:

[Mexican President] Felipe Calderón has simply no business lecturing us, lecturing America, about our immigration policies. How does Mexico treat illegal immigrants? See Article 67 of Mexico’s General Population Law: “Authorities, whether federal, state or municipal . . . are required to demand that foreigners prove their legal presence in the country, before attending to any issues.” Now, the Arizona law, which we’ll get to in a moment, doesn’t even say this; there is no such language as “demand,” in Arizona.

But, first, here’s an Amnesty International press release from last month: “The Mexican authorities must act to halt the continuing abuse of migrants who are preyed on by criminal gangs while public officials turn a blind eye or even play an active part in kidnappings, rapes and murders.” Public officials — the government of Mexico — turns a blind eye. The AI report continues: “Migrants in Mexico are facing a major human rights crisis leaving them with virtually no access to justice, fearing reprisals and deportation if they complain of abuses. . . . Persistent failure by the authorities to tackle abuses carried out against irregular migrants has made their journey through Mexico one of the most dangerous in the world.”

So, illegal immigrants in Mexico face some of the most dangerous abuses in the world and they face reprisal and deportation if they complain. Further, there is “persistent failure” by the government of Mexico in stopping this. Felipe Calderón should be schooled on this, and until he is schooled on this, he should simply shut up about Arizona, about the United States — one of the safest places in the world for illegal immigrants and one of the most welcoming places in the world for legal immigrants.

Now, on to Arizona’s law. It cannot and will not operate the way President Obama has said; one will not be stopped because he may be calmly eating ice cream while looking different than the rest of America. Here’s what the law says:

FOR ANY LAWFUL STOP, DETENTION OR ARREST MADE BY A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIAL OR A LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCY OF THIS STATE OR A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIAL OR A LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCY OF A COUNTY, CITY, TOWN OR OTHER POLITICAL SUBDIVISION OF THIS STATE WHERE REASONABLE SUSPICION EXISTS THAT THE PERSON IS AN ALIEN WHO IS UNLAWFULLY PRESENT IN THE UNITED STATES, A REASONABLE ATTEMPT SHALL BE MADE, WHEN PRACTICABLE, TO DETERMINE THE IMMIGRATION STATUS OF THE PERSON.

What this means is that one simply cannot be stopped or inquired of, regarding their immigration status, based on any kind of suspicion whatsoever, not without a condition precedent, not without being stopped for an illegal act antecedent. For example, one will not be inquired of unless first stopped for violating some other law, like speeding or running a red light. Status and looks are not in play. And then, if inquired about, all inquiry stops if proof such as a driver’s license or green card is shown.

Second, the law continues:

A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIAL OR AGENCY OF THIS STATE OR A COUNTY, CITY, TOWN OR OTHER POLITICAL SUBDIVISION OF THIS STATE MAY NOT CONSIDER RACE, COLOR OR NATIONAL ORIGIN IN IMPLEMENTING THE REQUIREMENTS OF THIS SUBSECTION.

It is written into the law: race, color, and national origin cannot be the basis for reasonable suspicion to inquire of someone’s status. It is against the law.

Now, let’s look at the federal law that has been on the books for over 50 years: Not only is it a federal offense to be in this country illegally, but the federal law states, “Every alien, eighteen years of age and over, shall at all times carry with him and have in his personal possession any certificate of alien registration or alien registration receipt card issued to him.”

And the federal law adopts no standard for such enforcement, not even the standard of reasonable suspicion. And it requires no lawful stop precedent to such inquiry. Furthermore, Department of Justice guidelines state: “State police officers have ‘inherent power’ to arrest undocumented immigrants for violating federal law.”

So just what exactly has Arizona done to bring down the wrath of city councils, the president, the attorney general, the secretary of Homeland Security, and the president of Mexico? What exactly has Arizona done that could serve as the basis for an assistant secretary of state to tell the Chinese that we, too, have our human-rights problems, citing Arizona’s new law? The answer is nothing.

Now, a new argument came up yesterday from the president. He said: “I think a fair reading of the language of the statute indicates that it gives the possibility of individuals who are deemed suspicious of being illegal immigrants from being harassed or arrested.”

We first ask if he’s read the law, because the AG and the Secretary of HLS have said they have not read it. But what of the “possibility of being harassed or arrested” unfairly? Sure, it’s there, but the state law is more protective on this score than the federal law. And, moreover: All laws are potentially discriminatory or have the potential to be abused. As Andy McCarthy put it, not just laws, but policing:

All policing is potentially discriminatory. Police make arrests without judicial arrest-warrants all the time if they believe they have witnessed a violation of law. They conduct searches all the time without judicial search-warrants if, in their judgment, the facts they observe amount to one of the recognized exceptions to the warrant requirement. And, as we’ve pointed out repeated, they do not have to have any reason at all to ask questions — including to ask a person for identification or immigration status.

It makes no sense, except as an exercise in pandering, to criticize a law because it can potentially be abused. Should we, for example, shut down the legislative process because Congress could potentially abuse its power by, say, hiding the occasional hundred billion or two in spending?

Final point, why did Arizona pass this law? Last year, as Abby Wisse Schachter put it, “the Border Patrol apprehended 241,453 people and confiscated a record 1.3 million pounds of marijuana — in the Tucson, Ariz., sector alone. Nearly a fifth of all those apprehended already had a U.S. criminal record.”

There are nearly half a million illegal immigrants in Arizona. According to the Center for Immigration Studies, while illegal immigrants make up 9 percent of the Arizona population, they are responsible for 22 percent of the felonies in Arizona and they constitute 11 percent of the state prison population. Arizona is now the kidnapping capital of the United States, and Phoenix has the second-largest kidnapping problem in the world (second to Mexico City).

According to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, kidnapping in Arizona increased 402 percent between 2004 and 2008, with almost 70 percent of the kidnapping cases submitted for prosecution involving illegal immigrants. Illegal immigrants account for 16.5 percent of those sentenced for violent crimes; 18.5 percent of those sentenced for property crimes; 33.5 percent of those sentenced for the manufacture, sale, or transport of drugs; and 44.4 percent of those sentenced or forgery and fraud in the Phoenix area. And, according to DOJ statistics, three Border Patrol agents are assaulted on the average day at or near the U.S. border. Someone is kidnapped every 35 hours in Phoenix, Ariz. — mostly by agents of alien-smuggling organizations. And one in five American teenagers last year used some type of illegal drug, many of which were imported across the unsecured U.S.-Mexico border. For example, most of the cocaine and meth consumed in America comes in from Mexico, and in some states, over 90 percent of the marijuana consumed is from Mexico.

Was there a compelling interest for this law? Yes. Was there a rational basis for this law? Yes. Is there any rationality in beating up on Arizona, or in the president’s allowing — even welcoming — leaders of foreign countries to do so? None, and it is a moral shame that he persists in this ugly business.

President Barack Obama is quickly approaching the half-way point of his first term and he’s already breaking a number of records. Unfortunately for him, they’re almost all bad records — and almost all tied to the poor economic situation of the country.

His job approval rating is already the worst in 50 years that’s been seen by any president at this point in their presidency. Approval ratings are usually – but not always – tied to economics.

While there’s still time for his administration to correct the demise, one gets the feeling that the almost unprecedented hostility his administration has towards business, which appears to be mired deep in leftist economic ideology, proves that such a correction (as Clinton made in his term) will not occur, and Obama risks becoming the most disliked one-term president since Jimmy Carter.

What are some of the other historic but poor key performance indicators for Obama?

See Gross Domestic Product and the Unemployment Rate – probably the single two most important economic figures for any president.

I crunched some numbers, courtesy of the Federal government’s own data, namely the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) for GDP, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) for unemployment data.

Obama’s GDP numbers, scored quarterly as opposed to monthly unemployment data, are not horrible, but nowhere near strong enough to save him alone.

Adjusted for inflation (using the BEA’s 2005 dollars scoring) Obama has had a lackluster .18% (that’s point-1-8) economic growth. By contrast, President George W. Bush (scored the same) had a 2.0% quarterly average. Put differently, the Bush GDP was 11 times more successful than Obama. But again, lots of presidents have lackluster GDP years.

But the most dire picture for Obama regards the unemployment data, and underemployment data — the latter being persons who purposely take a job at part-time or less equitable than their previous one in order to avoid complete unemployment. 20.3% of the U.S. workforce was underemployed in March.

The U.S. government has kept standardized unemployment data since 1953 (data previous to that was less standardized).  That’s 63 years. During those 63 years the historical annual average is 5.72 percent. The historical annual median is 5.59 percent.

The Obama presidency is a whopping 9.49 percent. This means that Obama has the dishonor of being ranked as having the next-to-last (#62) and fourth-from-last (#60) rank of annual unemployment rates in 63 years.

Ironically, the worst year was 1982, under Reagan, but prior to his economic tax cuts and incentives. So, short of Obama pulling a Reagan and encouraging business growth and private-sector spending through tax cuts in order to expand the size of the economy and employment numbers, one doesn’t see much light at the end of the tunnel.

This is highly significant considering that many economic conservatives felt luke-warm about the Bush economy, even though Bush’s unemployment average was 5.14, well below the historic annual mean and median — six of eight Bush years were in the top 50% of the unemployment rates, and most of those during the period in which his tax cuts had peaked and most encouraged business hiring and investment. Unfortunately for Bush, he had some bookend poor years, from the 9-11 aftermath on one side, and the tax cuts sunsetting (thus discouraging further business spending and investment) on the other side.

(By the way, the Truman and Eisenhower administrations monopolize the best employment data, proving that the late 40s and 50s were truly unprecidented growth periods in our nation’s history.)

So, what does this mean?

Well, put simply, the first thing it means is in the words of the late Patrick Moynihan, you are entitled to your own opinions but not your own facts. The economic data does not lie and bodes poorly for both the president and our country.

It also means that the private sector is hedging their bets (and their employment and investment) and do not buy the Obama sales pitch that the trillion-dollar stimuluses worked, or that his ObamaCare health plan is not a tax or will magically save them money.

The latter notion was so ridiculous that even ABC News and former Clinton staffer George Stephanopoulos — hardly your right-wing tea party attender — called out Obama in an interview accusing him of raising taxes during a poor economy — something that only the most Marxist of economists would do.

Companies including AT&T, Deere & Co., AK Steel, Prudential and Caterpillar have all publicly announced in the past few weeks that the ObamaCare plan will force them to lay even more people off to save costs. Verizon alone found that the plan will cost them $970 million. You can hire a lot of people with $970 million.

Some news reports announced that companies “unexpectedly” cut payrolls in March — many tying that decision to the health care law. But there should be nothing “unexpected” about companies laying personnel off when the health care law is 2,000 pages of disincentives for business. Comedian Dennis Miller put it best, noting, “Only Democrats would consider losing doctors but adding 14,000 IRS agents a successful health care plan.”

Bloomberg reported, “The costs may reduce corporate profits by as much as $14 billion as companies account for the impact of the health-care reforms, according to benefits consulting firm Towers Watson.”

This news should strike fear into the heart of any Democrat running for re-election, and cause them to offset — and I thought Democrats loved “offsets” — the cost of ObamaCare with some other kind of business incentives. Instead of such common-sense campaigning, Democrats plan another show trial where business leaders are forced before Congress to explain their anti-Obama conspiracy.

The Wall Street Journal mocked the idea that these companies had a hidden agenda, noting that they’re simply following “the Financial Standard Accounting Board’s 1990 statement No. 106, which requires businesses to immediately restate their earnings in light of their expected future retiree health liabilities.” So the government regulates that companies must come clean on their perceived losses, and when they do so, then pulls them before a Congressional panel to attack them for following these Congressional regulations!

House Energy and Commerce Committee Rep. Henry Waxman (D, Idiocracy) explained that these companies’ analysis is in “conflict with independent analyses.” By “independent analysis,” Rep. Waxman means the Congressional Budget Office, which is controlled… by Congress. Worse, the CBO only judges the estimates given to them (by Democrats on Congress, that is), all other research is considered out of scope, and the CBO scores statically, not dynamically, meaning they don’t take into account how investment and hiring behavior is affected by surpluses or deficits.

Finally, 18 states of the Union have now filed lawsuits against the federal government for violating the Tenth Amendment, which gives states and the people in those states the sole power over anything not specified as a federal power in Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. No matter what the Supreme Court says on this matter, combining this federal power grab with a poor economy, GDP, unemployment and Waxman War on Business, the Obama Administration will have a very deep hole to get out of by Novembers of 2010 and 2012.

Rule number one of standing in a hole and digging it too deep is: stop digging. But thus far Obama is “shovel ready” and heaving away.

Let’s play “Compare & Contrast.”

[Washington Times] Iran is poised to begin producing nuclear weapons after its uranium program expansion in 2009, even though it has had problems with thousands of its centrifuges, according to a newly released CIA report.

“Iran continues to develop a range of capabilities that could be applied to producing nuclear weapons, if a decision is made to do so,” the annual report to Congress states. … The CIA report is the latest official study expressing concern over Iran’s continuing nuclear activities. The International Atomic Energy Agency on March 3 issued a report warning that continuing nuclear activities in violation of U.N. resolutions raise “concerns about the possible existence in Iran of past or current undisclosed activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile.”

Remember just a few years ago, right before the election cycle of 2008 had begun, right when the world was oh so concerned that the wicked Neocons and their ‘Israeli puppeteers’ were promoting a policy of aggression against poor misunderstood Iran?

Remember the Bush-era CIA? Remember their 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran? Danger? What danger? Nukes? Ah, Iran stopped trying to go nuclear yeaaars ago! Remember that? Google does:

NIE Report: Iran Halted Nuclear Weapons Program Years Ago
December 03, 2007 11:51 AM

ABC News’ Martha Raddatz, Jonathan Karl, Luis Martinez, Kirit Radia and Jennifer Duck Report: In a stunning reversal of Bush administration conventional wisdom, a new assessment by U.S. intelligence agencies concludes Iran shelved its nuclear weapons program over four years ago.

“We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program,” reads a declassified version of the National Intelligence Estimate key findings.

Yes, nothing to see here. Move along, move along. It’s just Dick Cheney and the Neocons lying again. We’re not naive. Iran is responding to international pressure. Senate Maj. Leader Harry Reid said so, so it MUST be true, right? What say you now, Harry Reid? This new report seems to “directly challenge some of your administration’s naive rhetoric about the threat posed by Iran.”

New York Times
U.S. Says Iran Ended Atomic Arms Work
By MARK MAZZETTI
Published: December 3, 2007

WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 — A new assessment by American intelligence agencies concludes that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and that the program remains frozen, contradicting judgment two years ago that Tehran was working relentlessly toward building a nuclear bomb.

The conclusions of the new assessment are likely to reshape the final year of the Bush administration, which has made halting Iran’s nuclear program a cornerstone of its foreign policy. … The estimate does not say when American intelligence agencies learned that the weapons program had been halted, but a statement issued by Donald Kerr, the principal director of national intelligence, said the document was being made public “since our understanding of Iran’s capabilities has changed.”

Rather than painting Iran as a rogue, irrational nation determined to join the club of nations with the bomb, the estimate states Iran’s “decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic and military costs.” The administration called new attention to the threat posed by Iran earlier this year when President Bush had suggested in October that a nuclear-armed Iran could lead to “World War III” and Vice President Dick Cheney promised “serious consequences” if the government in Tehran did not abandon its nuclear program.

Yet at the same time officials were airing these dire warnings about the Iranian threat, analysts at the Central Intelligence Agency were secretly concluding that Iran’s nuclear weapons work halted years ago and that international pressure on the Islamic regime in Tehran was working.

Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, portrayed the assessment as “directly challenging some of this administration’s alarming rhetoric about the threat posed by Iran.” He said he hoped the administration “appropriately adjusts its rhetoric and policy,” and called for a “a diplomatic surge necessary to effectively address the challenges posed by Iran.”

What’s changed? Nothing, except a blatantly politically-motivated intelligence agency wished to discredit the GOP prior to the 2008 election cycle. And how’d that work out for them? Well, ask the Democrats.

However, the times are a changing, because it would seem that those Democrats have also done some things to tick off the CIA, for now we have this new “No, no, Iran is dangerous after all!” report just days after the Obama Administration came down hard on Israel for their settlements and stance toward Iran.

Please pass President Obama a handkerchief so he may wipe all that egg off his face.

But which CIA do we believe? The one that says Iran is dangerous now? The one that said Iran wasn’t dangerous in 2007? Or the one that said Iran was dangerous in 2003?

And what’s the point of the NIE if they perpetually revise their assessments in 180-degree hard turns every few years? And what’s the point of an intelligence agency that’s so politically motivated?

For that matter, what’s the point of a free press that habitually takes sides? Please pass them a handkerchief as well. Or a chisel. That egg has hardened.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and as people start to realize how many anti-business provisions are in this 1,900-page monstrosity they’re going to find that this is really, really awful tasting pudding.

Just 24 hours into this mess, Investor Business Daily’s Dave Hogberg finds a quick 20 ways ObamaCare erodes your liberty and hurts business opportunity:

The sections described below are taken from HR 3590 as agreed to by the Senate and from the reconciliation bill as displayed by the Rules Committee.

1. You are young and don’t want health insurance? You are starting up a small business and need to minimize expenses, and one way to do that is to forego health insurance? Tough. You have to pay $750 annually for the “privilege.” (Section 1501)

2. You are young and healthy and want to pay for insurance that reflects that status? Tough. You’ll have to pay for premiums that cover not only you, but also the guy who smokes three packs a day, drink a gallon of whiskey and eats chicken fat off the floor. That’s because insurance companies will no longer be able to underwrite on the basis of a person’s health status. (Section 2701).

3. You would like to pay less in premiums by buying insurance with lifetime or annual limits on coverage? Tough. Health insurers will no longer be able to offer such policies, even if that is what customers prefer. (Section 2711).

4. Think you’d like a policy that is cheaper because it doesn’t cover preventive care or requires cost-sharing for such care? Tough. Health insurers will no longer be able to offer policies that do not cover preventive services or offer them with cost-sharing, even if that’s what the customer wants. (Section 2712).

5. You are an employer and you would like to offer coverage that doesn’t allow your employees’ slacker children to stay on the policy until age 26? Tough. (Section 2714).

6. You must buy a policy that covers ambulatory patient services, emergency services, hospitalization, maternity and newborn care, mental health and substance use disorder services, including behavioral health treatment; prescription drugs; rehabilitative and habilitative services and devices; laboratory services; preventive and wellness services; chronic disease management; and pediatric services, including oral and vision care.

You’re a single guy without children? Tough, your policy must cover pediatric services. You’re a woman who can’t have children? Tough, your policy must cover maternity services. You’re a teetotaler? Tough, your policy must cover substance abuse treatment. (Add your own violation of personal freedom here.) (Section 1302).

7. Do you want a plan with lots of cost-sharing and low premiums? Well, the best you can do is a “Bronze plan,” which has benefits that provide benefits that are actuarially equivalent to 60% of the full actuarial value of the benefits provided under the plan. Anything lower than that, tough. (Section 1302 (d) (1) (A))

8. You are an employer in the small-group insurance market and you’d like to offer policies with deductibles higher than $2,000 for individuals and $4,000 for families? Tough. (Section 1302 (c) (2) (A).

9. If you are a large employer (defined as at least 50 employees) and you do not want to provide health insurance to your employee, then you will pay a $750 fine per employee (It could be $2,000 to $3,000 under the reconciliation changes). Think you know how to better spend that money? Tough. (Section 1513).

10. You are an employer who offers health flexible spending arrangements and your employees want to deduct more than $2,500 from their salaries for it? Sorry, can’t do that. (Section 9005 (i)).

11. If you are a physician and you don’t want the government looking over your shoulder? Tough. The Secretary of Health and Human Services is authorized to use your claims data to issue you reports that measure the resources you use, provide information on the quality of care you provide, and compare the resources you use to those used by other physicians. Of course, this will all be just for informational purposes. It’s not like the government will ever use it to intervene in your practice and patients’ care. Of course not. (Section 3003 (i))

12. If you are a physician and you want to own your own hospital, you must be an owner and have a “Medicare provider agreement” by Feb. 1, 2010. (Dec. 31, 2010 in the reconciliation changes.) If you didn’t have those by then, you are out of luck. (Section 6001 (i) (1) (A))

13. If you are a physician owner and you want to expand your hospital? Well, you can’t (Section 6001 (i) (1) (B). Unless, it is located in a county where, over the last five years, population growth has been 150% of what it has been in the state (Section 6601 (i) (3) ( E)). And then you cannot increase your capacity by more than 200% (Section 6001 (i) (3) (C)).

14. You are a health insurer and you want to raise premiums to meet costs? Well, if that increase is deemed “unreasonable” by the Secretary of Health and Human Services it will be subject to review and can be denied. (Section 1003)

15. The government will extract a fee of $2.3 billion annually from the pharmaceutical industry. If you are a pharmaceutical company what you will pay depends on the ratio of the number of brand-name drugs you sell to the total number of brand-name drugs sold in the U.S. So, if you sell 10% of the brand-name drugs in the U.S., what you pay will be 10% multiplied by $2.3 billion, or $230,000,000. (Under reconciliation, it starts at $2.55 billion, jumps to $3 billion in 2012, then to $3.5 billion in 2017 and $4.2 billion in 2018, before settling at $2.8 billion in 2019 (Section 1404)). Think you, as a pharmaceutical executive, know how to better use that money, say for research and development? Tough. (Section 9008 (b)).

16. The government will extract a fee of $2 billion annually from medical device makers. If you are a medical device maker what you will pay depends on your share of medical device sales in the U.S. So, if you sell 10% of the medical devices in the U.S., what you pay will be 10% multiplied by $2 billion, or $200,000,000. Think you, as a medical device maker, know how to better use that money, say for R&D? Tough. (Section 9009 (b)).

The reconciliation package turns that into a 2.9% excise tax for medical device makers. Think you, as a medical device maker, know how to better use that money, say for research and development? Tough. (Section 1405).

17. The government will extract a fee of $6.7 billion annually from insurance companies. If you are an insurer, what you will pay depends on your share of net premiums plus 200% of your administrative costs. So, if your net premiums and administrative costs are equal to 10% of the total, you will pay 10% of $6.7 billion, or $670,000,000. In the reconciliation bill, the fee will start at $8 billion in 2014, $11.3 billion in 2015, $1.9 billion in 2017, and $14.3 billion in 2018 (Section 1406).Think you, as an insurance executive, know how to better spend that money? Tough.(Section 9010 (b) (1) (A and B).)

18. If an insurance company board or its stockholders think the CEO is worth more than $500,000 in deferred compensation? Tough.(Section 9014).

19. You will have to pay an additional 0.5% payroll tax on any dollar you make over $250,000 if you file a joint return and $200,000 if you file an individual return. What? You think you know how to spend the money you earned better than the government? Tough. (Section 9015).

That amount will rise to a 3.8% tax if reconciliation passes. It will also apply to investment income, estates, and trusts. You think you know how to spend the money you earned better than the government? Like you need to ask. (Section 1402).

20. If you go for cosmetic surgery, you will pay an additional 5% tax on the cost of the procedure. Think you know how to spend that money you earned better than the government? Tough. (Section 9017).

Before I begin, reflect on the the Tenth Amendment, and Article 1, Section 8 (which :

Amendment X: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

A1, S8, Clause 3: Congress shall be empowered “To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes”.

Meaning, if it wasn’t listed explicitly in Article I, Section 8, of the U.S. Constitution, it wasn’t of federal authority, but rather that of the States and the people, corresponding with the logic that the masses had far greater access to their local politicians than to a bunch of douche-bags in Washington D.C.

This argument, of course, has been debated back to the days of Thomas Jefferson versus Alexander Hamilton. In this case of ObamaCare, as in that of Hamilton’s call for a national bank, our politicians in Washington are once again usurping the catch-all “Commerce Clause” of Article I, Section 8. At least back then — as George Washington sided with Hamilton over Jefferson — one could reasonably and rationally debate that a federal bank was an implied Congressional power.

So, with that, here are some thoughts:

1. How does the “Commerce Clause” of the Constitution empower Congress to legislate the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to fine any person who does not purchase a health care plan deeded “acceptable” to the federal government (i.e., unelected federal bureaucrats determine what is an acceptable plan, not the consumer)! According to a Congressional Ways & Means report “Individuals could be fined $2,250 or 2 percent of income, whichever is greater, if you are unable to prove you have ‘minimum essential coverage.’” A note for privacy aficionados: in order to do this the IRS will have unprecedented access to your medical history. And liberals said they were worried about John Ashcroft..?

Indeed, this is warping the Constitution to a whole new level — saying the “Commerce Clause” somehow regulates the act of NOT purchasing something — and literally raping the intent of the Tenth Amendment — to limit the powers of the federal government, at least in lieu of the states.

Just 24 hours after the House’s passage of ObamaCare a dozen different states are preparing lawsuits on this basis alone.

2. Elections Matter! ObamaCare passed by just seven votes.

Woe to any Republican who thought the egregious spending from 2004 to 2008 would not have negative consequences. The public revolted. This includes conservatives, who disengaged from disappointment — don’t let any liberal imply that conservatives were silent or accepting of the George W. Bush spending. A president doesn’t drop to a 20% approval rating without losing at least half of their base (being that we are in essence a polarized 50/50, 49/51, 51/49 electorate for several national elections in a row). This was followed by the electoral death blow — not just losing the presidency, but nominating a fiscal moderate in John McCain, rather than a fiscal conservative who might have rallied some Republican victories in the House — perhaps just seven of them…

Chew on that bitter crow a while.

3. This isn’t a health care bill. It’s a dependency bill. And it’s a jobs bill — federal jobs, that is.

The jobs bill comes by nationalizing one-sixth or one-seventh (depending how you tally it) of the national econ0my. It started with the announcement of hiring an additional 16,500 IRS employees. That’s the tip of the iceberg.

The power grab is in attempting to make every citizen dependent upon the federal government for their health care. Get the middle class on the dole. Even FDR couldn’t do that.

4. Next thought. I’ll let John Stossel explain the law of unintended consequences:

The ban on “discriminating” against anyone with a pre-existing condition. This is popular, and yet one of the most damaging part of the bill. It forbids insurance companies to charge sick people more for insurance. The result: I will wait until I get sick to get insurance. The bill supposedly has a $750 fine for not buying insurance [Page 323.] But that won’t even be enforced [page 336]. Even if I did have to pay a $750 fine, so what? That’s much less than the $20,000 plus that it would cost me to buy insurance for my family. I’d be a fool to buy insurance now.

Soon only sick people will buy insurance, so premiums will skyrocket. Will our politicians see their mistake and fix it? No, they’ll bash “evil” insurance companies. The insurance market is competitive today. Obamacare will reduce competition.

5.  Twenty years from now Canadians will no longer need to cross the northern border to America in order to see specialists and get treatment they can’t get without being stuck in an 18-month waiting list back home. Americans might find the Canadian waiting list shorter than their own. (By the way, when I needed a CT, I got one the next day. Our friend’s father in the U.K. is on a months-long waiting list).

As David Gratzer explained in his recent book:

“In Alberta, Canada’s wealthiest province, 50 percent of outpatients waited more than 41 days for an MRI scan in 2008. In Saskatchewan, 10 percent of patients awaiting knee-replacement surgery waited 616 days or longer for care. In Nova Scotia, 50 percent of hip-replacement patients waited 201 days or longer for surgery. Wait times for these and other procedures don’t factor in any wait to get a referral from a family doctor – and more than 4 million Canadians can’t find a family doctor because of a national doctor shortage created by government cutbacks to medical schools in the 1990s. The situation is so dire that some townships hold lotteries, with winners gaining access to a family doc.”

And just so you know it’s not just about waits, quality, or lack thereof, becomes a factor:

“The screening gap: They [Canadians] are more than 15 percent less likely to have ever had a mammogram; 10 percent less likely to have had a Pap smear; 30 percent less likely to have had a PSA test; and more than 20 percent less likely to have ever had a colonoscopy… A broad cancer review of Europe and the United States, published in September 2007 in The Lancet Oncology, considers five-year outcomes. For the 16 types of cancer examined in that paper, American men have a five-year survival rate of 66 percent, compared with only 47 percent for European men. In Europe, only Sweden has an overall survival rate of more than 6o percent. American women have a 63 percent chance of living at least five years after a cancer diagnosis, compared with 56 percent for European women; only five European countries have an overall survival rate of more than 6o percent.”

Coming soon to a health care plan near you — lower cancer survival rates!

6. But at least the Canadian and U.K. health care costs aren’t rising like in the U.S., right? Um… no.

Also from Gratzer:

“The cost of health care in socialized-care countries like France, Canada and Ireland is growing at roughly the same rate as in the United  States. Between 2000 and 2006 [the latest data], the OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] average real annual growth rate for health spending was 4.9 percent; the U.S. rate was  4.95 percent. Despite the rationing and central government control, these countries  haven’t stopped the trend of rising costs.”

7. So what’s the good news? Any?

Randy Barnett:

“This is big. With the passage of the health care bill – especially the way it was passed – the political landscape of the United States has changed, perhaps forever. And I am not referring to the inevitable growth of statism that has resulted from nationalized health care in Europe. I am referring to a clear demarcation between the parties that was not evident in the last election. If John McCain had been elected, we would have had something like this bill enacted last year in a bipartisan fashion – as was Social Security and Medicare. Such a bill would have been irreversible.

Now the political consciousness of an enormous number Americans is entirely focused on government and the political class. There is a genuinely grassroots “liberty movement” in this country that has not existed in my lifetime – perhaps not in a century or more.”

Even the New York Times concedes:

“Never in modern memory has a major piece of legislation passed without a single Republican vote. Even President Lyndon B. Johnson got just shy of half of Republicans in the House to vote for Medicare in 1965, a piece of legislation that was denounced with many of the same words used to oppose this one.”

This is on Obama and Democrats. Period.

8. Lastly (before dinner), a note on Republican stra-tegery.

I’m all for the “repeal” push, not that it will work, but to keep up awareness and anger, but along with that Republicans better offer some alternatives — from interstate insurance company competition, to tort reform, to individual deductions for health care expenses as businesses do, for starters — and more importantly communicate those ideas.

The only way to counter the inevitable “Party of No” label the mainstream media is sure to offer is to prove that this wasn’t an either-or dilemma — either you keep your existing problematic system, OR, we can nationalize one-seventh of the economy (Um, I’ll pick door #3). Republican latency, unimaginative leaders, and spending enabled the Obama Democrats to their victory yesterday. Never forget that.

The following excerpts are taken from Marc Thiessen’s book Courting Disaster — and relevant to the discussion post below regarding Obama Justice Department officials who worked previously defending terrorists (point #3 is huge):

Others say that the lawyers at these firms are in fact following a  great American tradition, in which everyone gets a lawyer and their  day in court. Not so, says Andy McCarthy, the former Assistant  U.S. Attorney who put Omar Abdel-Rahman (the blind sheik)  behind bars for the first bombing of the World Trade Center in  1993.

“We need to be clear about what the American tradition is,”  McCarthy says. “The American tradition is that the 6th Amendment  guarantees the accused-that means somebody who has been  indicted or otherwise charged with a crime-a right to counsel. But  that right only exists if you are accused, which means you are someone   who the government has brought into the civilian criminal justice   system and lodged charges against. ”

The terrorists at Guantanamo, McCarthy says, do not qualify  because they have not been brought into the civilian justice system  for criminal trial. “They are being held as enemy combatants in a  war which has been authorized by Congress.”

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Indeed, when the lawyers began litigating these cases, there was no precedent for a right to representation for enemy combatants. McCarthy says, “We’ve had around 5 million prisoners of war in the history of the United States-that’s probably a conservative estimate. Before 2004, it would have been absurd to suggest that enemy combatants in a war had a systematic right of access to U.S. courts.”

**********

More than that, these lawyers, no doubt intentionally, are  encouraging enemy combatants to violate the laws of war. As former   Defense Department General Counsel Jim Haynes explained in a 2008 speech, “During World War II, the United States detained  more than 400,000 German and Italian prisoners of war in camps  sprinkled around the United States, and had zero successful habeas  petitions. Today, we have less than 300 unlawful combatants  detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and 246 ongoing habeas cases  to go with them…. The legal process afforded these detainees far  exceeds anything that German or Italian soldiers enjoyed at any  time during their captivity within our borders.”

The danger, according to Haynes, is that, “If you give more protections   and privileges to Al Qaeda fighters than to lawful combatants, then you will strip away any legal incentives for people to fight  according to the rules…. You encourage countries and groups to  develop corps of unlawful fighters. Ultimately, you increase the savagery of future conflicts.”

Haynes asks: Why stop at Guantanamo? “Coalition forces hold  tens of thousands of detainees in Iraq and over a thousand in Afghanistan. If the detainees in Cuba receive habeas, should those  detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan receive it as well? Instead of hundreds,   why not tens of thousands of military detainee habeas cases  in federal courts?”" These habeas corpus cases, Haynes says, are  creating “an incentive to violate the laws of war…. What’s in it for  any foe of the United States to abide by those rules if one gets better treatment upon capture by violating them?”

**********

In fact, Guantanamo detainees now enjoy rights far beyond those  afforded to prisoners of war with full Geneva protections. Nothing  in the Geneva Conventions provides POWs with the right to counsel, access to the courts to challenge their detention, or the opportunity to be released prior to the end of hostilities. Yet thanks to the habeas corpus campaign, al Qaeda terrorists who violate the laws  of war enjoy all these privileges.

There’s an interesting debate between two former Bush Administration officials regarding the Obama’s  attempt to hide the fact that many of the policy-makers in the Justice Department previously defended al-Qaeda and Taliban detainees in private practice. Both Michael Mukasey, former U.S. attorney general, and Marc Thiessen, former Bush adviser, make comparisons to the Democrats smearing of and even attempting to disbar Bush lawyers (such as John Yoo and Jay Bybee) who simply did their job and provided legal advice regarding topics like enhanced interrogation techniques (EIT) and legal versus illegal combatant status.

Mukasey, writing in the WSJ, opines that just because Democrats ruined the careers of Bush lawyers Republicans should not react in kind towards Obama Justice department lawyers who previously defended terrorists (and now write policy on detainees, Guantanamo, etc.). Conversely, Thiessen, in the Washington Post, argues that Republicans are asking legitimate questions about Eric Holder’s Justice lawyers.

Thiessen writes, “The standard today seems to be that you can say or do anything when it comes to the Bush lawyers who defended America against the terrorists. But if you publish an Internet ad or ask legitimate questions about Obama administration lawyers who defended America’s terrorist enemies, you are engaged in a McCarthyite witch hunt.” That’s absoluely accurate, and just the latest example in a never-ending cycle of Liberal selective outrage and media slant.

More to the point, however, having read both arguments, it appears that Mukasey is defending a point that many Republicans (Thiessen, but not all mind you) are not denying: the right of legal council for the accused, even dirtbags.

[Mukasey] A lawyer who represents a party in a contested matter has an ethical obligation to make any and all tenable legal arguments that will help that party. A lawyer in public service, particularly one dealing with sensitive matters of national security, has the obligation to authorize any step or practice the law permits in order to keep the nation and its citizens safe. And a lawyer who undertakes to represent someone whom his neighbors—perhaps rightly—revile as a threat to the public welfare is obligated to bring his talents to bear just as forcefully in favor of that client as he would if he were representing Capt. Alfred Dreyfus, the French artillery officer who in 1895 was found guilty of treason and sent to Devil’s Island for little more than being Jewish.

Nice not-so-subtle use of the race card there, eh? However, what conservatives like Thiessen or Michelle Malkin are arguing is a point of TRANSPARENCY. No doubt Thiessen and Malkin are otherwise outraged, but their first argument is that if Liberals are so very proud of the fact that lawyers who defended terrorists are now serving in very the Justice Department commanded to try these terrorist then why is Eric Holder and the Obama Administration desperately trying to gloss it over or actively obfuscate the truth?

The next argument is one of conflict of interest. Conservatives aren’t necessarily saying no representation for terrorists (a huge myth, by the way, as all Guantanamo detainees have for years both had lawyers and had judicial reviews, basically trials), but saying first that domestic criminal trials are entirely inappropriate for a variety of reasons including the loss of intelligence needed to destroy terror networks and win wars, and second, that lawyers previously charged with protecting al-Qaeda terrorists shouldn’t have the job of trying them now.

[Thiessen] Would most Americans want to know if the Justice Department had hired a bunch of mob lawyers and put them in charge of mob cases? Or a group of drug cartel lawyers and put them in charge of drug cases? Would they want their elected representatives to find out who these lawyers were, which mob bosses and drug lords they had worked for, and what roles they were now playing at the Justice Department? Of course they would — and rightly so. … Should a lawyer who advocates setting terrorists free, knowing they may go on to kill Americans, have any role in setting U.S. detention policy? My hunch is that most Americans would say no.

This is accurate, and the fact that Obama and Holder are looking to move past the criticism instead of defending the practice tells one that they believe it is accurate as well.

“We are held hostage at any given moment by health insurance companies that deny coverage or drop coverage or charge fees that people can’t afford.” — Barack Obama, Aug. 14, 2009.

“We’re seeing this at the same time where not only is there an economic downturn around the country, but we know that insurance companies are not suffering that same kind of downturn. The five largest insurers in America have declared more than $12 billion worth of profits in 2009.” — Health & Human Services Sec. Kathleen Sebelius.

“At a time when everybody’s getting hammered, they’re making record profits, and premiums are going up. What’s the constraint on that? … Well, part of the way is to make sure that there’s some competition out there.” — Barack Obama, July 2009.

The Saint Petersburg Times’ Fact Check already debunked the last of the three hate-inciting whoppers by the Obama administration, and many others have as well, but that hasn’t changed much. It’s great to read that Mr. Obama is all for “some competition” but it comes off as an empty statement considering that Democrats have gone out of their way to exclude any Republican idea to increase the same, such as insurance pools for individuals, or allowing insurance companies to cross state lines. Democrats are only for “competition” when it means the government getting into the act — but it’s hard to compete with an entity that may borrow perpetually, has no budget, need not answer to its stockholders (i.e., the taxpayers), can print money, and spend any amount it desires. This is competition? If that’s so then the U.S.S.R. was the epitome of free enterprise!

But more to the point of this post: The Obama camp lies. Or at very least exaggerates for anger’s sake. It’s hard to believe they don’t have the data.

Insurance companies don’t make record profits. Indeed they make far less than most industries.

Jeff Anderson explains:

According to the most recent Fortune 500 rankings, health insurers are not even among the top-30 United States industries in profit-margin. Health insurers rank 35th, with a profit-margin of just 2.2 percent — less than one-fifth the profit-margin of railroads. None of the ten largest American health insurers made profits of more than 4.5 percent, and two of them lost money. Health insurers’ collective profit-margin is less than one-eighth that of drug companies and less than one-seventh that of companies that sell medical products or equipment. It’s also less than that of medical facilities. Yet when was the last time you heard President Obama rail against greedy hospitals?

The combined profits of America’s ten largest health insurers are $8.3 billion. That’s less than two-thirds of the profits of Wal-Mart alone, less than half of the profits of General Electric alone, and less than one-seventh of what Medicare loses each year to fraud. Health insurers collectively have one-eighth the profit-margin of McDonald’s or Coke, one-ninth that of eBay, and one-fifteenth that of Merck.

Why don’t these much more profitable companies or industries need to be taken over by the federal government? Why don’t they need to be subjected to something like President Obama’s proposed Health Insurance Rate Authority, which would be run by the same U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that already loses $60 billion of taxpayer money to Medicare fraud each year? (Not that I want to give the Obama administration any ideas.)

In all, the combined profits of the 14 largest American health insurers (the ones who crack the Fortune 1000) are $8.7 billion. That’s less than 0.4 percent, or 1/250th, of overall U.S. health-care costs, which are $2.5 trillion.

Anyone but an ideologue could plainly see that insurance profits aren’t the problem. The problem is having a health-care system with too many middlemen (government or otherwise); too little competition and choice; and too little opportunity for Americans to control their own health-care dollars, shop for value, or even see prices.

If you can’t identify the problem, you aren’t likely to stumble upon the solution. Maybe that’s why the Congressional Budget Office says that, under Obamacare, which would cost $2.5 trillion in its real first decade (2014 to 2023), the average family’s insurance premiums in the individual market would increase by $2,100 in relation to current law — while under the House Republican health bill, which would cost $61 billion (just 2 percent as much as Obamacare), the average premiums would be reduced by 5 to 8 percent.

President Obama likes to say that the Republicans don’t have any ideas, but the House GOP bill would clearly make the American health-care system better. The small bill would make it better still. Obamacare would raise nationwide health costs, siphon billions out of barely solvent Medicare and spend them elsewhere, cut Medicare Advantage benefits by an average of $21,000 per beneficiary in its real first decade, politicize medicine, reduce liberty, raise taxes, cost jobs, and inevitably lead to rationed care.