Charlie's Chatter

As you should know, the “health care bill” proposed by the Senate now has a very good chance of passing before Christmas. Intense “closed door” discussions with various Democratic Senators were necessary in order to get all Democrats on board. Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska was the critical final Democrat to endorse the bill, doing so mostly because his State was given more money in the bill in order for Nebraska to help pay for the expanded Medicaid benefits required by the bill. (Darn, does that mean that my state, Texas, will not get similar benefits?) Well, it turns out that many other details in this bill have been put there as “favors” to some Senators in an attempt to ensure their support, at least according to this New York Times article. Among other things, that article reported that some of these “favors” are identified in a cryptic, mysterious way. For example, “individuals exposed to environmental health hazards recognized as a public health emergency in a declaration issued by the federal government on June 17” are beneficiaries of a “favor” given to their Senator. And who might those individuals be? It turns out they are people exposed to asbestos from a vermiculite mine in Libby, Montana. Senator Max Baucus of Montana has been trying to get the government to help these people. He is in a position to deliver now because he is chairman of the Finance Committee and a principal author of the health care bill. And he has delivered, assuming that this remains in the final “health care” legislation which will be signed by our dear leader Obama.
      Despite polls that show declining public support for the “health care” bill, Mr. Axelrod, a senior advisor to Obama, said it would prove to be popular once people learned more about it. “People understand we’re on the doorstep of doing something really historic that will help the American people and strengthen our country for the long run,” he said. Yeh, right. What bullcrap. Historic ?   Prove to be popular ?   It will be historic all right because it will be perhaps the greatest boondoggle ever passed by our Congress and signed by our President.
      Because of the “favors” that have been granted to Democratic Senators, some Republicans are now calling this “corruption”. Not at all. As Mister Axelrod said, “The provisions benefiting specific states, like Nebraska and favored constituencies, were a natural part of the legislative process. Every senator uses whatever leverage they have to help their states. That’s the way it has been. That’s the way it will always be.”   Of course !   That is the way our corrupt normal legislative process has always worked !

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson, a Republican, is running for governor of Texas. She will not get my vote. For several reaons:
      I just read that she was one of only three Republicans who voted with Democrats for cloture on Harry Reid’s healh care bill, which cuts off further debate on this terrible bill. Two other Republican Senators also voted with the Democrats, and these were the two Senators from Maine. I expected that from the Maine Senators, but not from Kay Bailey Hutchinson. She is now definitely on my bad side.
      Several weeks ago I sent a letter to each of my Texas Senators, telling them that I did not want any health care legislation passed by Congress. Two days ago I got a reply from Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson, in a letter which was certainly a form letter sent to many of her constituents, and certainly not a “personal” reply. Well, that’s perfectly okay. Given all her consitituents, she can not be expected to personally reply to any more than a very tiny fraction of them. However, this form letter did contain many disturbing sentences. The second paragraph read as follows:

Texans are particularly aware of the need for health care reform, but it cannot come with a trillion dollar price tag and a government takeover of our health care system. Our state has 5.8 million uninsured residents, the highest percentage of uninsured in the nation. This number poses a huge challenge for our hospitals, taxpayers, and many working individuals and families who cannot afford the health care coverage they need. We need to improve access to affordable health insurance, but I strongly oppose the Democratic proposals.

Well now, that clearly tells me that Senator Hutchinson is playing partisan politics. She clearly wants some kind of “health care reform” legislation, just not that proposed by the Democrats. Why then did she vote with the Democrats for cloture ?   Astounding !
      Another sentence in her letter reads as follows: « The right approach to health care reform would be to fix what is broken with our system without destroying what works ».   Now that sentence is typical langue de bois. It is bullcrap. Furthermore, as I have written on my web pages which discuss this “health care” business, we do not have any kind of what could be called a health care “system“. Instead what we have in the United States is a very large, varied, complicated and evolving medical care sector, with new and improved medical tests, treatments, equipment and drugs constantly being developed. Yes, it is expensive, but it is also of high quality. To speak of it as being “broken” is an abominable misuse of the word “broken”. Just because something is expensive does not mean that this “something” is therefore “broken”. Just because many people can not afford to pay for much of this “something” does not then mean that this “something” is “broken”. What absolute nonsense.
      My analysis and comments on our medical care sector can be found starting with this web page. Yes, there is a lot to read there, but what do you expect when the medical care sector of our economy makes up almost one-sixth of our GDP? What do you expect when the “health care” bill passed by the House and that now proposed by the Senate each contain over 2000 pages, not counting all the pages in other existing legislation to which they refer?

As I have already mentioned on this web page of mine, all this “health care legislation” now being proposed has no chance at all of “improving” our “health care”. Any legislation which attempts to regulate a huge part of our economy can expect to be heavily influenced by all the parties involved. And in the case of so-called “health care”, there are many such parties. There are actual medical care providers such as doctors, nurses and hospitals; there are dozens and dozens of health insurance companies; there are citizens who already have health insurance and those who do not; there are unions; there are employers; and last but not least, there are thousands of politicians, all with varying needs for power and influence, not to mention the varying needs of their constituents. One result of all this is a lot of contention among all the parties involved and a lot of squabbling and infighting. And to date that is still happening.
      So what does the White House spokesman Robert Gibbs have to say about all this? Well, he just recently said, ” I don’t think any rational person would say killing a bill makes a whole lot of sense at this point “. Hey, you jerk! If a major bill is a piece of garbage, or even if it is not entirely “garbage” but has some major problems, then it is perfectly rational to “Kill” it! The one who is not being rational here is Mister Gibbs, the jerk. Oh yes, we must pass a bill for our dear leader Obama, even though it has “flaws”. Yes indeed, that would “make sense”. After all, we expect our Congressmen and Congresswomen to “pass laws”; I mean, that is their job, is it not? Well, to those who believe in that; to those who believe that almost “any” law should be passed, even if it has many flaws, I say “get out of my face”. Robert Gibbs, being Obama’s main mouthpiece, can be expected to speak irrationally from time to time given the leftist position of Obama and his desire to increase government control over our economy and over us citizens.

A demagogue is a person whose public speeches appeal to the emotions, passions and prejudices of the people. There is no longer any doubt in my mind that Obama is a demagogue. A recent example of this was provided in his weekly address on December 12th, some of which can found on this web page. If you want to listen to his entire speech, you can do so by going to www.whitehouse.gov and search for it. As for myself, I can no longer listen to this man talk. Among other things, after bringing up the the economic recession and financial crisis, Obama said:

It’s important that we address the irresponsibility and recklessness that got us into this mess in the first place. Some of it was the result of an era of easy credit, when millions of Americans borrowed beyond their means, bought homes they couldn’t afford, and assumed that housing prices would always rise and the day of reckoning would never come. But much of it was due to the irresponsibility of large financial institutions on Wall Street that gambled on risky loans and complex financial products, seeking short-term profits and big bonuses with little regard for long-term consequences. It was, as some have put it, risk management without the management. And their actions, in the absence of strong oversight, intensified the cycle of bubble-and-bust and led to a financial crisis that threatened to bring down the entire economy. It was a disaster that could have been avoided if we’d had clearer rules of the road for Wall Street and actually enforced them.

Oh, and on Sunday night’s “60 Minutes” TV show, Obama said, “I did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of, you know, fat-cat bankers on Wall Street.” (My emphasis.)
      That’s right Obama, blame most of this on Wall Street and the banks. What do you think was responsible for the “easy credit” which you said helped people borrow beyond their means? For the most part, very low interest rates, and these were put in place by the federal government working through the Federal Reserve. As for those “risky loans”, why do you think so many banks made those risky loans? Mostly because of pressure from the federal government. The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 had much to do with this. This law, and subsequent legislative changes and additional laws, was increasingly used by the federal government to reduce what it called “discrimination” in loans made to individuals and businesses from low and moderate-income neighborhoods. The pressure put on banks to grant home loans to low-income people increased during the Clinton and Bush years; this was done by refusing to allow banks to add branches or buy other banks if they were deemed to “discriminate” by not granting sufficient loans to low-income people in their communities. The Attorney General Janet Reno even brought suit against several banks because of this. Starting about a decade ago, the government sponsored enterprises Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae began to purchase mortgages that had been granted to low-income people, and some federal legislation pushed them to do just that. Banks were thus able to grant more “sub-prime” loans since the banks knew that they could then sell many of those mortgages to Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. When these latter were getting into financial difficulties because of this, attempts were made by some in the federal government to rectify this, even by using provisions of existing laws, but various politicians thwarted those attempts; Barney Frank and Senator Chris Dodd were the main culprits in this. To sum up, the federal government bears major responsibility for the financial crisis. And now Obama has the gall to blame all of this on banks and on Wall Street, while insisting that yet more laws be passed now to “regulate” the “financial markets”. What nerve!   What audacity!   What a demagogue!
      Details on much of this can be found in the book “The Housing Boom and Bust” by Thomas Sowell.