OBAMA(S)CARE

The 112th Congress, at least the House of Representatives, has promised the American people that they will vote to repeal Obamacare. It is officially called the “Affordable Care Act.” Politicians name bills like this for political reasons. They are just as likely to come out with the “We Love Puppies Act” then fill it with billions in pork so they can claim opponents hate puppies, so Obamacare it remains. This 2200 page monstrosity was passed last year largely unread by our intrepid representatives and pushed through even as strong opposition came to light across the country. It wasn’t easy. The Democrats in Congress even had to bribe their own members with sweetheart deals to get them to vote for it. The ex-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (and well known intellectual lightweight) claimed that they would have to pass the bill to know what was in the law. This is what passes for leadership on the political left. The press took a powder. Once considered the watchdog of the people they remain today the lapdog of the Democrats.

The law was constructed in such a way that the government could start collecting the revenue 4 years ahead of the expenditures. This was done so they could claim that the first 10 years would cost less than $1 Trillion. In the feeble minds of Democrats, today’s definition of real costs doesn’t start until you get to 12 zeros. So they managed to convince enough of their party to accept what amounted to a scam, claiming that collecting for 10 years and spending for 6 was a valid way to hold down projected costs. The Democrat rank and file and the press bought it hook line and sinker.

The Federal Government has never been particularly good at predicting costs. What they generally do is lie to get a bill passed and then deal with the aftermath of cost inflation after the fact. Medicare is a prime example. When it was signed into law by Lyndon Johnson in July of 1965, its supporters predicted that by 1990 the annual cost would grow to $12 Billion. At the time even that was an outrageous sum of money. But the Democrats controlled both houses of congress and the White House. Moreover, they felt that this would affectively purchase the undying loyalty of old people for the party in future elections. Medicare passed into the language along with the notion of “entitlement.” In 1990 Medicare actually cost $107 Billion. In 2009, $490 Billion. Medicare actually has an unfunded mandate of $23 Trillion based on the people alive today and that alone could double the National Debt if left as is. But hey? Who’s counting? We are entitled.

So here we are in 2011 and Obamacare is the law of the land with a projection of less than $1 Trillion in costs for the 1st 10 years. Let’s say that Medicare was a fluke. Let’s really go out on a limb and say that the accounting in 1965 was way off base and that today’s accountants are much more accurate. Let’s say they are 75% better at these kinds of predictions now rather than then. Let’s also pretend that Congress didn’t pass the $250 Billion supplemental spending bill to pay doctors so they could leave that money out of the totals on the final health care bill. That would mean that instead going up 800% in 25 years it will only go up 200%. So if it is projected at $100 Billion a year average and let’s keep inflation at 4%...because I too am a dreamer, by 2035 this monstrosity could be costing us, $5.7 Trillion a year.

Just as an aside, the healthcare law creates 159 new federal bureaus and agencies some of which have to do with healthcare and some that don’t. This cost all gets rolled into the projected budget of the Department of Health and Human Services one of the more bloated bureaucracies in history.

Now none of this is really going to happen because before we ever reach the final cost in any of these entitlement programs this country will have collapsed and we the people will be lucky if we can find something to eat by then. Once there are zero entitlements I am not sure what the Democrats will promise in exchange for power. One has to ask what they are counting on. We have a large and growing segment of the population that hates the private sector that the bureaucracy relies on for its continued existence. So they work diligently to hamstring the marketplace while demanding more of its output for government growth. They aren’t insane, they are suicidal.

So here’s the really funny part. The Democrats, our nation’s accounting gurus, now claim that Obamacare is going to save money and that repealing it will cost money. Okay stop laughing…I know, I know…but you have to understand something. They have managed to convince a lot of people that unbridled government growth, unemployment payments and taking money away from the person who signs our paychecks creates prosperity. They were able to convince a plurality of the American voter in 2008 that a fellow who had never held a real job, who believes in wealth redistribution, who went to college under an alias, and who had served only 140 days in the Senate before starting his Presidential run was capable of leading the free world. We aren’t the smartest people. We have allowed this to happen. There was a time when if someone wanted to run for President we would at least have an interest in their background and character. Times have indeed changed. The last election was indeed historic.

The new Congress elected in November ran under the guise of fixing the things that are wrong with America. They have promised a vote to repeal Obamacare. They will have a vote and it will pass the House, the Senate won’t pass it and that is where it will stop. I believe that we have reached a plateau in this country where, as former Texas Senator Phil Gramm used to say, the people riding in the wagon exceed the number of people pulling it. This isn’t accidental. The first order of business in destroying a Constitutional Republic is dumbing down the people to the point where they don’t understand the mechanics of liberty or the effects of neglecting free markets. We now have 2 or 3 generations who feel (as opposed to think) that it is the duty of government to make life’s outcomes equal. Who believe that those that have wealth only have it at the expense of those who don’t and those who don’t have wealth shouldn’t have to work hard, or at all to get it.

This is what creates the kind of entitlement mentality we are seeing in Europe right now. People who wouldn’t lift a finger to help themselves will riot in the street to demand that others provide what the politicians promise. I no longer believe that short of collapse or revolution that we have snowball’s chance in hell of turning things around. So buy guns and ammo while you can; food while it lasts and teach your kids a manual trade or perhaps send one of them to medical school just in case.

IT’S THE DEBT STUPID

The country is embroiled in constant debate about different topics like healthcare, education, the wars, jobs, the effectiveness of the stimulus, and the growth of government. When I close my eyes I can envision us all sitting around on couches in this vast living room shouting across the open spaces and shaking our fists at the idiots who can’t see the reason and logic of our arguments. That is because people are stupid and no matter how well one constructs one’s point of view those other people just don’t grasp it.

Something I noticed in this living room is this huge mound of “stuff” sitting right in the middle of the floor. No one is really talking about it, except for a few people out on the fringes we can’t really hear. I do see them though…jumping up and down pointing and shouting something. So every once in a while we all get up off our couches and go down to the polling places and cast our votes for the people who represent us. We all know them, they have all been in Washington or Austin or Lincoln or Sacramento for years. We go into the little booth and pull the lever, and then we go back to the living room and resume our heated conversation with the other side.

That mound in the middle keeps getting bigger and the people out there on the fringes get more animated. I wish I could make out what they are shouting about. So I get up off the couch and walk over to that growing mound and notice that the whole thing is made up of little scraps of paper with the letters IOU written on them. How strange is that? It finally dawns on me what those people back there are shouting…”You are arguing about the wrong stuff,” they are screaming.

Right then I had an epiphany. We are missing the point. We are in serious trouble as a nation and we are distracted by the politics of the moment. What is worse is that those people we just pulled the lever for to send back to the centers of power, they aren’t in the room and I don’t think they are paying any attention to the mound of IOUs. They have a singular goal in mind and that is to get re-elected and produce laws and services. We are drowning in laws and services but we don’t send anyone to public office who knows what the solution is.

What is left unsaid is that the unfunded liabilities of just two programs, Medicare and Social Security are 8 times greater than the gross domestic product of the United States. Let that soak in for a moment. The current debt is 80% of the GDP and the debt is projected to rise from 14 to 23 trillion dollars in the next ten years and the current government is funding our country by borrowing money against assets we don’t have and printing money that has no backing in the economy. Now pause and think about what could happen when interest rates rise on the borrowed money.

The solution is outside of the thinking of the government. People who go to the power centers to represent constituents do not think in terms of fewer laws and less services. Neither party has the political will to send people to power under the banner of fixing any of this. The solution is to drastically reduce the role of government in our lives. That means getting rid of entire cabinet position departments and turning out the lights. It means changing the definition of the word “entitlement.” It means turning off the spigot of money to anything that doesn’t directly protect the country as an entity. It means getting the government out of the way of the economy so that capitalism can flourish unimpeded by crushing regulation. It means that the people who are about to be the old people are going to have to do with less so that our children and grandchildren don’t witness the collapse of our way of life.

I can guarantee you that there is nobody on any ballot who is prepared to do what has to be done to save the republic. The time has come where everyone needs to decide whether to ride the country down to the inevitable crash if we continue down this path or to step up and do what is necessary to salvage the United States. If you are voting in the primaries to return your leaders to office you are part of the problem. If you intend to go to the polls in November and vote for the status quo you are who I am talking about when I talk about those who haven’t the courage to fix this nation. If you think we can spend and borrow and print our way out of this then you are as deluded as that fellow in the White House.