In his second Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln reached the pinnacle of American oratory. A backwoods lawyer without the polish and training of his privileged Eastern counterparts, he nonetheless saw straight to the heart of the war then raging across the country and put it more brilliantly than anyone ever had: “It may seem strange that any men would dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not that we be not judged.” Here was the core of the argument that had divided the country philosophically and then violently, the idea that the South could base its economy, society and culture on the enslavement of other human beings and insist that such enslavement was justified. Mr. Lincoln, in a moment of perfect clarity, refuted that idea. No-one has that right, he said; no-one has the right to force others to work for them and live off the gains of that labor, and that principle was vindicated on the field of battle and by the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution.
One hundred forty-four years later, things have changed. We’re not facing a shooting war as Mr. Lincoln did but rather a political war that could be even more destructive in its own way, a war over the way we live our lives in this country. On the one side are the forces led by Mr. Obama, forces that claim the right that Mr. Lincoln so eloquently denied, that they are entitled to the profits earned by others and which they indignantly demand: Home mortgages subsidized by others, automobiles subsidized by others, jobs subsidized by others and now health insurance subsidized by others. The system is unfair, they cry; it’s time to restructure the United States to favor the poor and damn the costs, hence this quote from Nancy Pelosi at a news conference last June:
“First of all, the health care bill will be paid for. Second of all, we have to reduce cost. Cost must be reduced as we go forward. We know there are many initiatives of prevention and wellness and the rest that may not score down. But, nonetheless, we have to try to keep the number a containable one, an affordable one, one where waste, fraud, abuse, other aspects of -- well, as the President has already indicated, there's money to be found in Medicare and Medicaid, not that that's waste, fraud, and abuse, but just in how it is managed and -- administratively it's okay, but how the money is spent.
One hundred forty-four years later, things have changed. We’re not facing a shooting war as Mr. Lincoln did but rather a political war that could be even more destructive in its own way, a war over the way we live our lives in this country. On the one side are the forces led by Mr. Obama, forces that claim the right that Mr. Lincoln so eloquently denied, that they are entitled to the profits earned by others and which they indignantly demand: Home mortgages subsidized by others, automobiles subsidized by others, jobs subsidized by others and now health insurance subsidized by others. The system is unfair, they cry; it’s time to restructure the United States to favor the poor and damn the costs, hence this quote from Nancy Pelosi at a news conference last June:
“First of all, the health care bill will be paid for. Second of all, we have to reduce cost. Cost must be reduced as we go forward. We know there are many initiatives of prevention and wellness and the rest that may not score down. But, nonetheless, we have to try to keep the number a containable one, an affordable one, one where waste, fraud, abuse, other aspects of -- well, as the President has already indicated, there's money to be found in Medicare and Medicaid, not that that's waste, fraud, and abuse, but just in how it is managed and -- administratively it's okay, but how the money is spent.
"And we can wring out money, and we must. We can't just say, "Well, we want the health care bill we want and we'll pay for it and how are we going to do that?" No. We have to reduce cost, establish priorities, and then go forward with how we pay for it."
“Wring out money.” For anyone not familiar with liberal jargon, that means higher taxes. Not for everyone, mind you, but only for the top ten percent of Americans who already pay 65% of all Federal income taxes. Speaker Pelosi wants to knock them down and steal their lunch money and then give it to the people she represents – the bottom fifty percent of wage earners who pay only 4% of Federal income taxes, those who want to “wring their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces.”
On the other side are conservatives who resist the notion of a national health care system like they would resist the plague, who resist the higher costs, higher taxes, invasive regulation, fraud, waste and corruption such a system would bring. A recent Congressional Budget Office study indicates that Mr. Obama’s plan, though costing an additional $1.6 trillion over ten years, would only cover ten million of the estimated 47 million Americans lacking health insurance, meaning that if he truly wants universal health care in the United States, Mr. Obama will have to find $7 trillion that he hasn’t already spent. Second, his claim that the creation of a new Federal health care plan would lower costs because of competition with private health companies is a blind alley. Private health insurers would quickly realize that they lacked the resources to compete with the Federal government and would collapse, especially as businesses realized they could unload the cost of insuring their employees to the Feds: Thus the competition Mr. Obama envisions would result in a single, gigantic national plan and stratospheric expenses, which might suit his socialist philosophy but not the long-term interests of the country.
Third, as I’ve mentioned in this space before, even if Mr. Obama establishes a national health care plan and finds the money to pay for it, he will simply be adding another 47 million patients to the existing infrastructure. As far as I know, he doesn’t plan on buying one more bed, building one more hospital or hiring one more doctor, meaning that America will have rationed health care if his plan is adopted.
Fourth, the government never runs anything efficiently, thus it is amazing that the same people who complain bitterly about the DMV or the Post Office or the IRS ardently support Mr. Obama’s plan to establish a national health care program costing trillions of dollars. The current high costs of health care result in large part from Americans’ desire to get something for nothing, so if national health care is established and private insurers are driven out of business, there will truly be no incentive to save money anywhere and the country will be bankrupted.
Fifth, Senator Kent Conrad is urging the taxation of employee health insurance benefits as a method of raising money for the Democrats’ health reform plan. Since World War II, offering employee health benefits has been a way for businesses to attract and keep the best workers without increasing basic salaries. Taxing these benefits would push people into higher tax brackets and punish them for their success, but beyond raising money for universal coverage though, such taxation would discourage enrollment in private health care plans and drive people toward the single national program Mr. Obama is advocating. Once again, the liberals are obsessed with forcing everyone in America into one monolithic system and are willing to sacrifice our freedoms to do it.
Sixth, tied to the point I make above, is that after having unloaded their employee health coverage to the Federal government, businesses will want to do the same with their employee retirement plans. Health insurance and retirement are hugely expensive and the opportunity for a business to dump these costs on the Federal taxpayers will be too enticing to resist, so the American people will be funding the total cost of medical care and pensions for every worker in America and their families.
Seventh, the health care benefits paid to union workers would be exempt from the taxes imposed on non-union workers. This would encourage higher union enrollment and, together with the check-card voting system proposed by the Democrats, might reverse the 30-year decline in union membership which is essential to the establishment of a true socialist state. However, I doubt that any of Mr. Obama’s devotees have thought this approach through to its logical conclusion: As more workers join the union ranks, tax receipts from private health benefits would plummet while health care costs would climb. Since the money for the new Federal health program would have to come from somewhere, these new union members (as well as their veteran colleagues) would find their benefits eminently taxable by the same government they trusted.
Eighth, and this is quite taboo among the legacy media and the liberal intelligentsia, prosperity is the product of risk. A doctor with ten years’ training took greater risks and thus is entitled to a higher salary than the drive-thru guy at McDonald’s. Someone who starts a billion-dollar software company took greater risks and is entitled to a higher salary than an associate at Best Buy. And by and large, the top ten percent of wage earners in America have taken greater risks and thus earn higher incomes than the bottom fifty percent. They didn’t cheat the bottom fifty percent of their just due, they didn’t defraud anyone, they just worked harder and made better decisions and that enfuriates His Serene Loftiness. Some people have the unmitigated gall to succeed on their own in a difficult career while others take fewer risks, earn lower incomes and bitch about being cheated. These latter are Nancy Pelosi’s constituents and Mr. Obama’s, the millions who want to make very safe choices or none at all, who aver higher education or tough technical training, who never move or want to change jobs or invent something useful or start a business but yet want the rewards of such risk-taking: A guaranteed income, a guaranteed home, guaranteed pensions and now, health care for life guaranteed by the American taxpayer. They want to enslave America to their dream of a safe, worry-free life, yoking everyone else to their burden and draining the coffers dry, forcing everyone to the same level of mediocrity for as long as life endures. They don’t object to slavery as long as someone else is the slave, and the first African-American President of the United States is whipping us onward to that particular cliff. “Ironic” doesn’t quite characterize that scenario and neither will “catastrophic” if this nightmarish plan isn’t soundly and permanently defeated.
Source: http://news.prnewswire.com/DisplayReleaseContent.aspx?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/06-18-2009/0005046655&EDATE=
