The following remarks are from Rep. Paul Ryan:

Last week, on March 21st, Congress enacted a new Intolerable Act. Congress passed the Health Care bill – or I should say, one political party passed it – over a swelling revolt by the American people. The reform is an atrocity. It mandates that every American must buy health insurance, under IRS scrutiny. It sets up an army of federal bureaucrats who ultimately decide for you how you should receive Health Care, what kind, and how much…or whether you don’t qualify at all. Never has our government claimed the power to decide when each of us has lived well enough or long enough to be refused life-saving medical assistance.

This presumptuous reform has put this nation … once dedicated to the life and freedom of every person … on a long decline toward the same mediocrity that the social welfare states of Europe have become.
Americans are preparing to fight another American Revolution, this time, a peaceful one with election ballots…but the “causes” of both are the same:

Should unchecked centralized government be allowed to grow and grow in power … or should its powers be limited and returned to the people?

Should irresponsible leaders in a distant capital be encouraged to run up scandalous debts without limit that crush jobs and stall prosperity … or should the reckless be turned out of office and a new government elected to live within its means?

Should America bid farewell to exceptional freedom and follow the retreat to European social welfare paternalism … or should we make a new start, in the faith that boundless opportunities belong to the workers, the builders, the industrious, and the free?

We are at the beginning of an election campaign like you’ve never seen before!

We are challenged to answer again the momentous questions our Founders raised when they launched mankind’s noblest experiment in human freedom. They made a fundamental choice and changed history for the better. Now it’s our high calling to make that choice: between managed scarcity, or solid growth … between living in dependency on government handouts, or taking responsibility for our lives … between confiscating the earnings of some and spreading them around, or securing everyone’s right to the rewards of their work … between bureaucratic central government, or self-government … between the European social welfare state or the American idea of free market democracy.

What kind of nation do we wish to be? What kind of society will we hand down to our children and future generations? In the coming watershed election, the nature of this unique and exceptional land is at stake. We will choose one of two different paths. And once we make that choice, there’s no going back.

This is not the kind of election I would prefer. But it was forced on us by the leaders of our government.

These leaders are walking America down a new path … creating entitlements and promising benefits that model the United States after the European Union: a welfare state society where most people pay little or no taxes but become dependent on government benefits … where tax reduction is impossible because more people have a stake in the welfare state than in free enterprise … where high unemployment is accepted as a way of life, and the spirit of risk-taking is smothered by a tangle of red tape from an all-providing centralized government.

True, the United States has been moving slowly toward this path a long time. And Democrats and Republicans share the blame. Now we are approaching a “tipping point.” Once we pass it, we will become a different people. Before the “tipping point,” Americans remain independent and take responsibility for their own well-being. Once we have gone beyond the “tipping point,” that self-sufficient outlook will be gradually transformed into a soft despotism a lot like Europe’s social welfare states. Soft despotism isn’t cruel or mean, it’s kindly and sympathetic. It doesn’t help anyone take charge of life, but it does keep everyone in a happy state of childhood. A growing centralized bureaucracy will provide for everyone’s needs, care for everyone’s heath, direct everyone’s career, arrange everyone’s important private affairs, and work for everyone’s pleasure.

The only hitch is, government must be the sole supplier of everyone’s happiness … the shepherd over this flock of sheep.

Am I exaggerating? Are we really reaching this “tipping point”? Exact and precise measures cannot be made, but an eye-opening study by the Tax Foundation, a reliable and non-partisan research group, tells us that in 2004, 20 percent of US households were getting about 75 percent of their income from the federal government. In other words, one out of five families in America is already government dependent. Another 20 percent were receiving almost 40 percent of their income from federal programs, so another one in five has become government reliant for their livelihood.

All told, 60 percent – three out of five households in America – were receiving more government benefits and services (in dollar value) than they were paying back in taxes. The Tax Foundation estimates that President Obama’s budget last year will raise this “net government inflow” from 60 to 70 percent. Look at it this way: three out of ten American families are supporting themselves plus – through government – supplying or supplementing the incomes of seven other households. As a permanent arrangement, this is individually unfair, politically inequitable, and economically dangerous.

It raises a subtle but real threat to self-government when the few are paying more and more of the bill for government services and subsidies to the majority: “He who pays the piper calls the tune.” The next chapter is the rule of “crony capitalism,” where those who pay most taxes get the privileges, and government by and for the people is replaced by government by and for the few. The end of this story is soft despotism.

We already see enough of “crony capitalism.” When government sends bailout money to Wall Street firms they label “too big to fail,” that’s “crony capitalism.” When government buys shares in General Motors, names their management, and dictates their salaries, that’s “crony capitalism.” When big health insurance companies, instead of competing for market, team up with Congressional Health Care writers to order every individual to buy their products, that’s “crony capitalism.” When thousands of small businesses have to meet bottom lines with no government bailout, well, you’re too small to succeed…good luck!

The Democratic leaders of Congress and in the White House hold a view they call “Progressivism.” Progressivism began in Wisconsin, where I come from. It came into our schools from European universities under the spell of intellectuals such as Hegel and Weber, and the German leader Bismarck. The best known Wisconsin Progressive was actually a Republican, Robert LaFollette.

Progressivism was a powerful strain in both political parties for many years. Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican, and Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat, both brought the Progressive movement to Washington.

Early Progressives wanted to empower and engage the people. They fought for populist reforms like initiative and referendum, recalls, judicial elections, the breakup of monopoly corporations, and the elimination of vote buying and urban patronage. But Progressivism turned away from popular control toward central government planning. It lost most Americans and consumed itself in paternalism, arrogance, and snobbish condescension. “Fighting Bob” LaFollette, Teddy Roosevelt, and Woodrow Wilson would have scorned the self-proclaimed “Progressives” of our day for handing out bailout checks to giant corporations, corrupting the Congress to purchase votes for government controlled health care, and funneling billions in Jobs Stimulus money to local politicians to pay for make-work patronage. That’s not “Progressivism,” that’s what real Progressives fought against!

Since America began, the timid have feared the Founding Fathers’ ideas of individual freedom, so they yearn for Old World class models. Our Progressivists are the latest iteration of that same fear of the people. In unprecedented numbers, Americans are speaking out against the intolerable Health Care bill and irresponsible debt-ridden spending.

Does anyone recall Norman Rockwell’s famous “Freedom of Speech” painting of an average working Joe standing and speaking his mind at a town hall meeting? Today’s Progressivists ridicule average Americans speaking out at tea parties across the nation and denounce their criticisms as “un-American.” Millions of average Americans reject their big government solutions, and that scares them.

Last January President Obama said: “There are simply philosophical differences that will always cause us to part ways. These disagreements, about the role of government in our lives, about our national priorities and our national security, have been taking place for over two hundred years.”

He was right. So let’s examine these “philosophical differences” of government. Progressivists say there are no enduring ideas of right or wrong. Everything is “relative” to history, so our ideas need to change. Progressivists say the Founders’ Constitution including its amendments, with its principles of equal natural rights, limited government, and popular consent is outdated. We should have a “living constitution” that keeps up with the times. Progressivists invent new rights and enforce them with a more powerful central government and more federal agencies to direct society through the changes of history. And don’t worry, they say. Bureaucrats can be controlled by Congressional oversight.

Would you like an example of how successful Congressional oversight is? Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Government-Sponsored Enterprises (or GSEs), underwrote trillions of dollars in junk mortgages. Year after year their officials and others from HUD, Treasury, and other agencies who supervise them marched up to Congress for hearings. Red flags were raised. The oversight committees had other priorities and dismissed them out of hand. With the housing market already tanking, Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank said: “This ability to provide stability to the market is what, in my mind, makes the GSEs a congressional success story.” Less than 18 months later, the ‘market-stabilizing’ GSEs went belly-up due to their shoddy business practices, collapsing the mortgage credit industry and sparking the worldwide financial meltdown. No one knows the ultimate cost to the taxpayers but it will be gigantic.

If Congress can’t control what a few mortgage finance bureaucrats do with your dollars, why would anyone trust Congress to control what tens of thousands of bureaucrats will do with your health?

The Progressivist ideology embraced by today’s leaders is very different from everything rank-and-file Democrats, independents, and Republicans stand for. America stands for nothing if not for the fixed truth that unalienable rights were granted to every human being not by government but by “nature and nature’s God.” The truths of the American founding can’t become obsolete because they are not timebound. They are eternal. The practical consequence of these truths is free market democracy, the American idea of free labor and free enterprise under government by popular consent. The deepest case for free market democracy is moral, rooted in human equality and the natural right to be free.

A government that expands beyond its high but limited mission of securing our natural rights is not progressive, it’s regressive. It privileges the powerful at the expense of the people. It establishes the rule of class over class. The American Revolution and the Constitution replaced class rule with a better idea: equal opportunity for all. The promise of keeping the earnings of your work is central to justice, freedom, and the hope to improve your life.

In their hearts Americans know this, but people were alarmed in 2008 by rising unemployment, falling home values, a credit crunch, and a financial meltdown.

They voted for a change of parties in the White House, and elected the largest Democratic Congressional majority in more than three decades. So overwhelming was their majority that the opposition is unable to do anything to stop them from running roughshod over our foundations. Harry Reid had a supermajority in the Senate that could not be filibustered. Still, the people’s mandate for Congress and the new President was clear, simple, and unmistakable: get employment back on track … get our economy growing again.

Americans have lost jobs nearly every month since these leaders took over the federal government in January 2009, more than 4 million at last count. The official unemployment rate hovers near 10 percent, but if we add in folks who have stopped looking for work due to lack of job prospects, the rate is a lot higher.

They began by passing the first Stimulus, a taxpayer giveaway to their favorite special interests. The price tag was $862 billion. They pushed through a second stimulus bill that cost you another $18 billion. Let’s see: since 4 million Americans have been unemployed since they passed these “stimuli,” that averages $220,000 per job lost. Think about that. Democrats can’t even put people out of work without spending near a trillion dollars!

Just to return to where we were at the end of 2007, 8.4 million jobs have to be created. To reduce unemployment to its pre-crisis level of 5 per cent by the end of President Obama’s term, our economy needs to create 247,000 new jobs per month. But we are headed in the wrong direction … except in one field: the government is growing at breakneck pace in expanding federal payrolls.

Although millions of private sector jobs have been lost since the recession began, Washington is on track to add about 275,000 more people to the public payrolls – a whopping 15 percent increase. And we aren’t talking minimum wages here. More federal workers make over $100,000 than those earning $40,000 or less. The average government worker’s salary in 2009 was 21 percent higher than private sector salaries. The average federal worker’s compensation package, including benefits, was nearly $120,000 in 2008, twice the private sector at $60,000. One study shows the private sector benefit package averages $9,900 while the federal package averages almost $41,000. Now the Administration wants Congress to privilege federal workers by writing off their unpaid student loans after ten years. People in productive private sector jobs would keep paying for twenty years. Progressivists would really like everyone to work for the government.

Has any Congress in history enacted, or tried to enact, so many foolish, squalid, and counterproductive programs?

It isn’t good news when anyone losses his job. But I’ll make an exception when the Speaker of the House and the Senate Majority Leader lose theirs in November!

As their first major item of business last year, these leaders pushed through a budget so bloated that it will double the federal debt in five years, and triple it in ten.

Now the Administration has sent Congress a budget that’s far worse. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office [CBO] reports that 10 years from now, this budget will drive the federal debt burden up to 90 percent of the nation’s entire economic production. It propels spending to a new record of $3.8 trillion next year [FY 2011]. It widens the annual deficit to a new record of $1.5 trillion this year [FY 2010], and raises $1.8 trillion in new taxes through 2020.

Two and a half years after this recession started, and no new private jobs? Think what these mind-boggling tax increases and mountain of debt are signaling to people who want to open or expand job-creating businesses. Congress keeps raising the barriers against work and production – that’s your answer.

At a time when economic and job expansion should be Washington’s highest priority … and as if the multi-trillion dollar Health Care debacle were not enough, the Progressivist leadership in Congress are adding insult to injury by promoting their energy and climate agenda through their Cap and Trade plan. Put aside the fact that there is growing disagreement among scientists about climate change and its causes. This bill is a big mistake for other reasons.

CBO estimates that Cap and Trade’s total cost is another near-trillion dollars. By one CBO estimate, the tax and energy cost bills for the average American household may grow by $1,600 a year. Other studies put this cost a lot higher.

If you don’t believe me, let me quote a key Democratic Senator:

Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket. Coal-powered plants…natural gas…whatever the plants were, whatever the industry was…would have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money. They will pass that money on to consumers…So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it’s just that it will bankrupt them because they’re going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.

That was Senator Barack Obama in January 2008, talking about what he would do as President. Don’t say the man doesn’t work to keep his promises!

Economists across the spectrum tell us that Cap and Trade would make our long-term national economic production fall below potential, causing higher unemployment. Federal spending is on an unsustainable path that can only get worse if this happens. There is general agreement that the environmental improvements from Cap and Trade are either nonexistent or too small to measure.

Congressional leaders are also pushing an unprecedented expansion of the Federal Reserve Board’s regulatory powers over financial institutions under the belief that government must protect the people from themselves. This measure will direct federal agents to inspect, and at their pleasure object to, the wages and compensation which businesses on Main Street as well as Wall Street wish to pay employees. It puts bureaucracies in charge of deciding the type and line of credit which consumers and businesses will have access to when they shop for cars, homes, education, and expansion of facilities. The Fed has already failed the twofold assignment it has – keeping the economy and jobs growing, and keeping prices stable. It should return to its original mission of guaranteeing the long-term value of our dollar. Instead the same leaders who never knew the government mortgage giants were supplying credit for worthless mortgages now want Fed bureaucrats to regulate the businesses that supply personal and commercial credit? If that happens, economic recovery will be a longer time coming.

And now I want to return to the Health Care Frankenstein. Most Americans understand that government-run Health Care is not free, not cheap, and not compassionate. I think most Americans believe Congress has no idea of what the public demand will be for subsidized Health Care. They are correct. When Medicare was enacted, Congress guessed it would cost about 10 percent of what it turned out to be after 25 years. Heck, Congress couldn’t even figure the cost of the 3-month long Cash for Clunkers subsidy last year, underestimating it on the order of 1 to 9. Most Americans know the Congressional majority are clueless about what their government-run Health Care system is going to cost.

The drama that brought this creature to life was unedifying … part tragedy and part farce. Ethical categories went out the window. Never in history have the deliberations of Congress been subverted on this scale. The secrecy, the lack of transparency, the half-truths were stunning. The votes called at midnight … the 2 and 3 thousand page bills members of Congress had no time to read before the votes … the sordid backroom deals, the Cornhusker Kickback that shamed Nebraska, the Louisiana Purchase, the “Gator Aid” Medicare privilege for Florida, the additional Medicare dollars for states whose wavering representatives only yesterday were ferociously denouncing earmarks … the federal judgeship dangled for one lawmaker’s brother … the raid on the Medicare piggy bank … the lie that $250 billion for “doc fix” shouldn’t count as a Health Care cost … the double-counted deficit estimate scam that would land any accountant in jail … the proposed Slaughter rule that Congressmen not record a vote on a bill their constituents hate, just “deem” it passed and vote on the amendments…and to complete the farce, the phony Executive Order pretending not to fund abortions when the Health Care bill, as “the supreme law of the land,” does fund abortions. The level of political corruption to buy the votes for this debacle makes all past examples look penny ante by comparison.

Self-government stands or falls on integrity, not only in those who represent you but in the enactment of law. This indecency soiled our freedom and embarrassed the democracy we promote in other nations. And this may not be the last of it. To enact its transformative agenda, this leadership employs the Machiavellian saying that the end justifies the means. America was born in a revolution against that whole idea. Soon it will be the norm.

The Constitution and the consent of the people are all that stand between limited and unlimited government power. Zealous ideologues with the best of intentions brush aside the limits on power in order to get whatever they believe is good for the people … no matter what the people believe. Our system of freedom can survive an assault, but it won’t survive if the people are frightened, or angry, or asleep at the switch. A great Democrat, President Andrew Jackson, once said: “eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty.” We can thank our current leaders at least for this: they have awakened the nation to the danger of taking self-government for granted.

Congress is not only enacting a social welfare state agenda over the objections of the people. It is failing to address the problems that threaten to engulf our country, principally economic decline and entitlement-driven debt crisis. The coming election will be a referendum on the agenda of our current leadership. Either it will give them a mandate that says “more of the same,” or it will end the abuse of power and put America back on the path of growth and freedom.

Supposing the American people use their referendum in November to elect a new majority, what would the next Congress do?

The first order of business will be “repeal and replace.” We will work to repeal federalized Health Care and replace it with a robust, competitive open market in health care that puts patients and their doctors at the center – not employers, not insurers, and not government agents. This takes at least two elections, and we must show our perseverance.

A new Congress will then turn to the great problem of our stagnant economy and the debt tsunami bearing down on us. The days of pretending not to notice are over. The next Congress will understand this threat and act after transparent deliberation and real debate.

I have put forward my specific solution, called “A Roadmap for America’s Future,” to meet this challenge. The CBO confirms that this plan achieves the goal of paying off government debt in the long run – while securing the social safety net and starting up future economic growth.

The problem in a nutshell is this: Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, three giant entitlements, are out of control. Exploding costs will drive our federal government and national economy to collapse. And the recession plus this Congress’ spending spree have accelerated the day of reckoning.

Today, Medicare is $38 trillion short of its promised benefits. In five years, the hole will grow to $52 trillion. Your family’s share of this gap is $458,000. Medicaid will add trillions more in state and federal debt.

Social Security’s surplus is already gone, and its debt is mounting. Unless its finances are strengthened, the government will be forced to cut benefits nearly 25 percent or raise payroll taxes more than 30 percent.

Both Republicans and Democrats have failed to be candid about this. And we have only postponed the crisis by shaking a tin cup at China and Japan.

A new Congress could start by making you the owner of your health plan. Under my Roadmap reform, a tax break that now benefits only those with job-based health insurance will be replaced by tax credits that benefit every American. And it secures universal access to quality, affordable health coverage with incentives that hold down health-care cost increases.

Everyone 55 and over will remain in the current Medicare program. For those now under 55, Medicare will be like the health-care program we in Congress enjoy.

Future seniors will receive a payment and pick an insurance plan from a diverse list of Medicare-certified plans – with more support for those with low incomes and higher health costs. To reform Medicaid, low income people will receive the means to buy private health insurance like everyone else.

Under the Roadmap’s Social Security proposal, everyone 55 and older will remain in the existing program with no change. Those under 55 will choose either to stay with traditional Social Security, or to join a retirement system like Congress’s own plan. They will be able to invest more than a third of their payroll taxes in their own savings account, guaranteed and managed by the federal government. For both Social Security and Medicare, eligibility ages will gradually increase, and the wealthy will receive smaller benefit increases.

And we need to get this economy moving again, so the Roadmap offers taxpayers an option: either use the tax code we have today, or use a simple, low-rate, two-tier personal income tax that gets rid of loopholes and the double taxation of savings and investment. And let’s replace corporate income taxes with a simple, competitive 8.5 percent business consumption tax. These low-rate and simple tax reforms would provide the certainty and the incentives for investors to open new enterprises and for workers to find a marketplace expanding in new jobs.

The Roadmap plan shifts power to individuals at the expense of government control. It rejects cradle-to-grave welfare state ideas because they drain individuals of their self-reliance. And it still honors our historic commitment to strengthening the social safety net for those who need it most.

I would welcome honest debate in the next Congress on how to tackle our fiscal crisis – and the larger debate on the proper role of government. It’s time politicians in Washington stopped patronizing the American people as if they were children – deferring tough decisions and promising fiscal fantasies. Tell Americans the truth, offer them a choice, and count on them to do what’s right.

A political realignment is on the way. Democratic leaders are staking their party’s future on their ideological agenda. Financial Services Committee Chairman Frank candidly admits that his party “are trying on every front to increase the role of government.” Former President Clinton told a Netroots convention last year that “We have entered a new era of progressive politics, which if we do it right could last 30 or 40 years.”

The question is, do we realign with the vision of a European-style social welfare state, or do we realign with the American idea?

My party challenges the whole basis of the Progressivist vision of this country’s future. We challenge their attack on American exceptionalism. We challenge their claim that bureaucratic centralization is the only way the US can meet the economic and social challenges of our time.

Those leaders have underestimated the good sense of the American people. They broke faith with independents, Republicans, and their own rank-and-file. They walked away from the foundational truths that made America the wonder and the envy of the world. The price of their infidelity will be high.

I hope you won’t mind an aside. I absolutely love Oklahoma! As you may know, I married Janna Little, daughter of Dan and Prudence Little, from Madill. Well, Janna and I are planning on spending half of our year here in retirement. And I can tell you it won’t be Summer…it’s just gets too hot here for a Wisconsinite. We will be spending the Fall and Winter here. You see, I love to hunt and fish. Each year we come for deer, duck, and turkey season. Janna refers to these times as Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter. There’s something about Oklahoma that is truly captivating. It’s a beautiful, big, unconstrained country with great-hearted people who know what it is to live like free men and women.

Some of my friends in Marshall County have on occasion called me “yankee,” which I find particularly disturbing. I have always thought a yankee is someone from the Northeast, not the upper Midwest. Needless to say, I am told this can be fixed if I include among my life’s achievements the high and noble accomplishment of noodling a giant catfish from the banks of Lake Texoma. And so, I will be returning in early June, otherwise known as noodling season, to gain this right of passage so that I may never be called yankee again, and also hoping I keep my ten fingers intact.

Knowing America, and Oklahoma as I have come to know it, I am confident that the American character is up to every challenge. America is not over. This exceptional nation will not go down the way of mediocrity. Ronald Reagan used to say: “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction … It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for [our children] to do the same.” We are that generation. The fight is our fight, and it begins now! The time is at hand to reclaim America for freedom.

Thank you very much.

Note: Congressman Paul Ryan delivered this speech to the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs in Oklahoma City on March 31, 2010.

Take a look at Obama’s remarks from yesterday in Strongsville, Ohio. The lies that he gets away with are amazing!

Obama says: “My proposal would bring down the cost of health care for families, businesses, and for the federal government. So, Americans buying comparable coverage to what they have today, I already said this, would see premiums fall by 14 to 20 percent. That’s aren’t my numbers, that’s what the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office says. For Americans who get their insurance through the workplace, how many people get insurance through your jobs right now, raise your hands. Well a lot of those folks, its your employer, it estimated, would see costs could fall by as much as 3,000 percent. That means they could give you a raise.”(President Barack Obama, Remarks of President Barack Obama, Strongesville, OH, 3/15/10)

Here’s the thing though, Dick Durbin doesn’t believe it. And guess what, there is video proving so:

According to Durbin: “Anyone Who Would Stand Before You And Say Well, If You Pass Health Care Reform, Next Year’s Health Care Premiums Are Going Down, I Don’t Think Is Telling The Truth. I Think It Is Likely They Would Go Up, But What We’re Trying To Do Is Slow The Rate Of Increase.” (Sen. Durbin, Floor Remarks, 3/10/10)

Oh, and Obama endorsed a bill that would raise premiums… That’s right, Obama Endorsed Senate Dems’ Bill That Would Raise Premiums For Americans Purchasing Insurance Individually. “CBO and JCT estimate that the average premium per person covered (including dependents) for new nongroup policies would be about 10 percent to 13 percent higher in 2016 than the average premium for nongroup coverage in that same year under current law.” (Douglas W. Elmendorf, Letter To Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN), 11/30/09

Is anyone going to call him out on this?

Chicago Tribune: Beyond politics – Why Republicans should support health care reform

I’ve been a Republican all my life, when I served in the Illinois legislature, when I worked for members of Congress and when I served in Congress… For those reasons and others, most people wouldn’t expect me to be an advocate for comprehensive health care reform. But the truth is, I believe there is no bigger issue to solve and no better chance to solve it than now.

If I were still a member of Congress, I would proudly vote for the bill that President Barack Obama is championing and I would urge my colleagues to do the same, not because I don’t believe in fiscal discipline, but because I do…

There isn’t one member of Congress who represents a district that is without a health care crisis. There are good, hardworking men and women in every part of this country who work for a living, but not at a business that offers the opportunity to purchase health insurance. On their own, the cost of insurance is just plain out of reach.

Now, my former colleagues have the opportunity to change the lives of their friends and neighbors for the better by voting for health care reform. [3/14/10]

Cheryl Phillips, MD
President of American Geriatrics Society

…the legislation under consideration in the Capitol will bring about much needed policy changes that, we are convinced, will result in better coordinated, higher quality and more affordable care for older adults. This legislation will also enhance geriatrics education and training and expand the capacity of the nation’s healthcare workforce so it can provide high quality, efficient and affordable care that meets the unique needs of seniors nationwide…

Provisions included in both the House-approved Affordable Health Care for America Act and the Senate-passed Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will help current and future Medicare beneficiaries by improving benefits, expanding access to primary and preventive care, addressing out-of-control premium increases, and extending the solvency of the Medicare Trust Fund by five or more years.

We recognize that we are at an historic crossroad, and that we must not let this opportunity to reform and strengthen our nation’s healthcare system slip through our fingers. We applaud the efforts of Congress and the President to improve, expand, and ensure healthcare for older Americans now and in the future. [3/15/10]

Aurora Sentinel Editorial (Colorado): Dems’ health plan has best chance of success

Americans need frequent reality checks as the end of the political war on health care reform draws to a close.

U.S. House Majority Leader John Boehner promised to do all he could to derail the Democratic-led push to comprehensively reform health care. He said his biggest complaint is that Democrats never made a serious attempt to incorporate GOP ideas into legislation.

That’s not true. It’s not that Democrats haven’t been accommodating to Republicans during the process. The partisan sniping started early on in the process and grew to historic proportions as bills made it to the floor a few months ago.

The truth is, most of what the Republicans are touting as good ideas have been in Democratic bills from the beginning…

Despite the GOP’s politically motivated charges, doing nothing is not an option. Congress needs to pass a comprehensive package now and move on with other urgent business. [3/14/10]

Daily Times Editorial (Pennsylvania): Rising premiums fuel need for health reform

…Indeed, people who believe they can’t be casualties of this country’s current health care delivery system have been sold a politically motivated bill of goods. The next outlandish premium increase, could force them to join the ranks of the uninsured. [3/15/10]

AMERICANS WANT ACTION ON HEALTH REFORM

• More than three-quarters of Americans (76 percent) believe it is extremely or very important to reform the way health insurance works. [85 percent of Democrats, 79 percent of Independents, 64 percent of Republicans] [KFF, 2/23/10]

• · 63 percent of Americans want lawmakers in Washington to keep trying to pass a comprehensive health care reform plan, rather than giving up on it. [ABC News/Washington Post, 2/10/10]

• · 61 percent of Americans either support the current reform proposals or want Congress to keep working toward a solution to achieve reform. [Democracy Corps, 3/9/10; Pew Research, 2/12/10]

• 58 percent of Americans say they would be disappointed or angry if Congress stopped working on health reform now. [KFF, 2/23/10]

• A recent Ipsos/McClatchy poll found that of the 47 percent who say they oppose reform, 37 percent do so because they think reform does not go far enough.  [Ipsos/McClatchy, 3/2/10]

SUPPORT FOR KEY ELEMENTS IN LEGISLATION

TAX CREDITS FOR SMALL BUSINESSES

• 72 percent say it is extremely or very important to provide tax credits to small businesses. [77 percent of Democrats, 70 percent of Independents, 67 percent of Republicans] [KFF, 2/23/10]

• 75 percent support requiring most businesses to offer health insurance to their employees, with tax incentives for small business owners to do so. [Newsweek, 2/19/10]

HEALTH EXCHANGES

• More than seven in 10 (71 percent) say it is extremely or very important to create a health insurance exchange. [78 percent of Democrats, 71 percent of Independents, 67 percent of Republicans] [KFF, 2/23/10]

• 81 percent support creating a new insurance marketplace – the Exchange – that allows people without health insurance to compare plans and buy insurance at competitive rates. [Newsweek, 2/19/10]

CLOSING THE MEDICARE DRUG DONUT HOLE

• 71 percent believe it is extremely or very important to help close the Medicare prescription drug ‘doughnut hole’. [78 percent of Democrats, 70 percent of Independents, 66 percent of Republicans] [KFF, 2/23/10]

HIGH RISK POOLS

• 70 percent believe it is extremely or very important to expand high risk insurance pools. [79 percent of Democrats, 67 percent of Independents, 61 percent of Republicans] [KFF, 2/23/10]

SUBSIDIES FOR LOWER INCOME AMERICANS

• Nearly seven in 10 (68 percent) say it is extremely or very important to provide financial help for low/middle income Americans. [88 percent of Democrats, 64 percent of Independents, 48 percent of Republicans] [KFF, 2/23/10]

• 73 percent of those surveyed support insurance subsidies for lower income families. [Ipsos/McClatchy, 3/2/10]

• 56 percent favor requiring all Americans to have health insurance, either from their employer or from another source, with tax credits or other aid to help low-income people pay for it. [ABC News/Washington Post, 2/10/10]

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“Again the President and Vice President have come to the Buckeye State to try and sell their massive job-killing government takeover of health care, but Ohioans aren’t buying it.  Instead, as we approach nearly a year of double-digit unemployment in Ohio, hard-working families are wondering why Washington Democrats refuse to abandon their government takeover of health care, their ‘cap and trade’ national energy tax, and all their government spending that will only make matters worse.

“This week members of Congress will be asked to pass the Senate health care bill with its job-killing tax hikes, its ‘Corn Husker Kickback,’ its ‘Louisiana Purchase,’ and its taxpayer funding for abortions.  Ohioans don’t want it.  The American people oppose it.  Ohio’s undecided Democrats have a decision to make.  Are they going to stand with President Obama and his fellow Washington Democrats, or are they going to stand with their constituents?’

“It is not too late to scrap this job-killing monstrosity and start over with a step-by-step approach focused on lowering costs for families and small businesses. Republicans have offered a plan to lower premiums by up to 10 percent, which is exactly what the American people want.”

NOTE: According to a recent Quinnipiac poll, 56 percent of Ohioans oppose Washington Democrats’ government takeover of health care.

Boehner represents Ohio’s 8th Congressional District, which includes all of Darke, Miami, and Preble counties, most of Butler and Mercer counties, and the northeastern corner of Montgomery County.  He was first elected to Congress in 1990.

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Democratic congressional leaders have floated a plan to enact health-care reform by a procedure dubbed “the Slaughter solution.” It is named not for the political carnage that it might inflict on their members, but for Rep. Louise Slaughter (D., N.Y.), chair of the powerful House Rules Committee, who proposed it. Under her proposal, Democrats would pass a rule that deems the Senate’s health-care bill to have passed the House, without the House actually voting on the bill. This would enable Congress to vote on legislation that fixes flaws in the Senate health-care bill without facing a Senate filibuster, and without requiring House members to vote in favor of a Senate bill that is now politically toxic.

The Slaughter solution cannot be squared with Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution.

Senate rules protect against majoritarian overreach by allowing a determined minority to filibuster most types of legislation. The majority needs 60 votes to override a filibuster. One exception, adopted in 1974, is legislation that makes adjustments to spending or revenues to reconcile current law to a budget resolution that has passed Congress. These are called reconciliation bills, and they require only a majority vote.

Get full story here.

In the Senate, parliamentarian Alan Frumin is getting a great deal of attention of late, with literally the fate of the country at stake on how he rules on provisions within the Democrats healthcare reconciliation package.  Republicans are expected to show a united front of opposition to ObamaCare and will vote as a block to support every possible point-of-order against the bill.

Banking Committee chairman Dodd is expected to unveil his financial reform bill this afternoon, a package some expect to create concerns on both sides of the aisle. One provision rumored to be included that’s certain to anger conservatives is the creation of the much maligned consumer financial protection agency within the Federal Reserve.

Bottom Line: While there will undoubtedly be a great struggle against the reconciliation bill in the Senate, if it gets to that point, the reality will be that the bulk of ObamaCare will have already passed the House and on its way to Obama’s desk. Defeating reconciliation in the Senate will only alter ObamaCare, not defeat it. Thus, House Dems must be made to realize any deals they make trading their vote for reconciliation provisions may not come to fruition.

In the House, the Budget Committee released a 2,309 page healthcare “fix” package last night intended to serve as the base bill for reconciliation in the Senate. The bill will reportedly be modified substantially during markup in the Budget Committee (today at 3pm) and the Rules Committee (later this week) before coming to a vote on the House floor.

The real battle of ObamaCare rests in the House, where a furious fight is raging in districts across the country.  Millions of advertising dollars will be spent in the coming days, particularly within those Democrat member districts who voted against the healthcare bill in the House last year, and in districts where pro-life Dems voted yes last time but are now leaning No.

The “Slaughter Solution” – where the House would “deem” the Senate healthcare bill passed within the rule bill for reconciliation (thus avoiding a direct vote) – is still being discussed by Pelosi as a viable option.  Republicans are outraged and view this is just another gross perversion of the democratic process by Pelosi and Hoyer in order to force their will on the American people.

Bottom Line: Pelosi, Hoyer, and literally hundreds of Democrat lawmakers on both sides of the Capitol are woefully underestimating the level of anger and disgust among Americans over their attempts to pass a government-takeover of our healthcare system.  With a final vote imminent, now is the time for any American who feels strongly on the subject to let their voice be heard with their member of Congress… and not to forget the actions of their elected representative come November.

At the other end of the Avenue, less than a week after Obama called on Congress to strip out the sweet-heart deals from the healthcare package, the AP is reporting that he’s backed down. Obama’s senior advisor David Alexrod has suggested that only state-specific deals be eliminated now. This would effectively leave intact dozens of deals cut by members, such as Dodd’s $100 million hospital, though the location would now be “determined” by the health secretary.

WH spokesman David Gibbs hit the Sunday talk show circuit and claimed ObamaCare will be signed into law in the next couple weeks. On Fox News Sunday, Gibbs claimed, “We’ll have the votes when the House votes, I think, within the next week.  And I think whoever sits here this time next week, you all will be talking about health-care reform not as a presidential proposal, but as something that will soon be the law of the land.”

Bottom Line:  The current tactics being employed by Obama to pass ObamaCare – utilizing reconciliation, the “Slaughter Solution”, buying vote with taxpayer funds, and other sordid schemes – can be accurately described as arrogant, brazen, and unabashed. Perhaps the most amazing aspect of all of this is that Obama and the Democrats believe the American people are stupid, and will not realize the perversion of democracy that is taking place.  A reckoning is sure to come, and November may just be the beginning.

Members of the U.S. House of Representatives have never before been asked to pass legislation by “deeming” it approved under a House rule instead of following the process required by the U.S. Constitution in which they actually vote on the proposal itself, according to a senior aide to House Republicans.

The procedure – dubbed by critics as the “Slaughter Solution – is the brain-child of House Rules Committee Chairman Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-NY, who, at the request of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, is trying to fashion a rule that would allow the House to move toward passage of a health care reform bill without a recorded vote on the Senate version.

Like the Senate, which adopted its health care reform measure on Christmas Eve, the House passed its version last year. But there are major differences between the two measures, especially concerning federal funding of abortions. The Senate version includes billions of dollars to fund new health care clinics that would offer abortion services. The House bill was passed only after Rep. Bart Stupak’s amendment barring federal funding for the procedure was included.

Slaughter’s approach would bring to the House floor a reconcilliation bill to resolve differences between the House and Senate versions of health care reform with the rule deeming the House to have approved the Senate version. The GOP aide, who requested anonymity, said a search of the House archives failed to reveal any previous use of the Slaughter Solution.

Earlier today, Slaughter told The Examiner’s Susan Ferrichio that a ruling from the Senate Parlimentarian would have no bearing on what the House does. The Parliamentarian said the Senate could not consider the reconcilliation bill until the Senate health care reform bill was signed into law by President Obama.

“We knew that. That’s not news to me. We always believed we had to have a signed bill before we reconcile.” Slaughter told Ferrichio. Slaughter wouldn’t say definitively if House leaders would employ her rule, and she said the Senate Parliamentarian  “cannot rule on what we have to do over here.”

Late this afternoon, the GOP aide said “you can report it as fact, they are moving down that road.”

In “The March of Folly,” Barbara Tuchman asked, “Why do holders of high office so often act contrary to the way reason points and enlightened self-interest suggests?” Her assessment of self-deception — “acting according to wish while not allowing oneself to be deflected by the facts” — captures the conditions that are gripping President Obama and the Democratic Party leadership as they renew their efforts to enact health-care reform.

Their blind persistence in the face of reality threatens to turn this political march of folly into an electoral rout in November. In the wake of the stinging loss in Massachusetts, there was a moment when the president and the Democratic leadership seemed to realize the reality of the health-care situation. Yet like some seductive siren of Greek mythology, the lure of health-care reform has arisen again.

As pollsters to the past two Democratic presidents, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, respectively, we feel compelled to challenge the myths that seem to be prevailing in the political discourse and to once again urge a change in course before it is too late. At stake is the kind of mainstream, common-sense Democratic Party that we believe is crucial to the success of the American enterprise.

Bluntly put, this is the political reality:

First, the battle for public opinion has been lost. Comprehensive health care has been lost. If it fails, as appears possible, Democrats will face the brunt of the electorate’s reaction. If it passes, however, Democrats will face a far greater calamitous reaction at the polls. Wishing, praying or pretending will not change these outcomes.

Nothing has been more disconcerting than to watch Democratic politicians and their media supporters deceive themselves into believing that the public favors the Democrats’ current health-care plan. Yes, most Americans believe, as we do, that real health-care reform is needed. And yes, certain proposals in the plan are supported by the public.

However, a solid majority of Americans opposes the massive health-reform plan. Four-fifths of those who oppose the plan strongly oppose it, according to Rasmussen polling this week, while only half of those who support the plan do so strongly. Many more Americans believe the legislation will worsen their health care, cost them more personally and add significantly to the national deficit. Never in our experience as pollsters can we recall such self-deluding misconstruction of survey data.

The White House document released Thursday arguing that reform is becoming more popular is in large part fighting the last war. This isn’t 1994; it’s 2010. And the bottom line is that the American public is overwhelmingly against this bill in its totality even if they like some of its parts.

The notion that once enactment is forced, the public will suddenly embrace health-care reform could not be further from the truth — and is likely to become a rallying cry for disaffected Republicans, independents and, yes, Democrats.

Second, the country is moving away from big government, with distrust growing more generally toward the role of government in our lives. Scott Rasmussen asked last month whose decisions people feared more in health care: that of the federal government or of insurance companies. By 51 percent to 39 percent, respondents feared the decisions of federal government more. This is astounding given the generally negative perception of insurance companies.

CNN found last month that 56 percent of Americans believe that the government has become so powerful it constitutes an immediate threat to the freedom and rights of citizens. When only 21 percent of Americans say that Washington operates with the consent of the governed, as was also reported last month, we face an alarming crisis.

Health care is no longer a debate about the merits of specific initiatives. Since the spectacle of Christmas dealmaking to ensure passage of the Senate bill, the issue, in voters’ minds, has become less about health care than about the government and a political majority that will neither hear nor heed the will of the people.

Voters are hardly enthralled with the GOP, but the Democrats are pursuing policies that are out of step with the way ordinary Americans think and feel about politics and government. Barring some change of approach, they will be punished severely at the polls.

Now, we vigorously opposed Republican efforts in the Bush administration to employ the “nuclear option” in judicial confirmations. We are similarly concerned by Democrats’ efforts to manipulate passage of a health-care bill. Doing so in the face of constant majority opposition invites a backlash against the party at every level — and at a time when it already faces the prospect of losing 30 or more House seats and eight or more Senate seats.

For Democrats to begin turning around their political fortunes there has to be a frank acknowledgement that the comprehensive health-care initiative is a failure, regardless of whether it passes. There are enough Republican and Democratic proposals — such as purchasing insurance across state lines, malpractice reform, incrementally increasing coverage, initiatives to hold down costs, covering preexisting conditions and ensuring portability — that can win bipartisan support. It is not a question of starting over but of taking the best of both parties and presenting that as representative of what we need to do to achieve meaningful reform. Such a proposal could even become a template for the central agenda items for the American people: jobs and economic development.

Unless the Democrats fundamentally change their approach, they will produce not just a march of folly but also run the risk of unmitigated disaster in November.

Patrick H. Caddell is a political commentator and former pollster. Douglas E. Schoen, a pollster, is the author of “The Political Fix.”