FJM Blog

By Bishop Council Nedd II

Just before last year’s elections, I was dismayed to hear police speaking openly at a local restaurant about potential violence no matter who won the White House.

Where I live in Central Pennsylvania, racial tension exists beneath everyday civility. Thankfully, there and across America, the concerns of my local police never materialized.  America elected a black liberal to the presidency without feared “white rage” in “red states.”

While Obama handily and peacefully won in California, civil unrest occurred due to something else on the ballot - Proposition 8, which upheld traditional marriage.

Californians can legislate by voting on referendums.  Last November, many of those who voted for Obama also voted for Proposition 8 to amend the state’s constitution to reserve marriage for heterosexual couples.  It won with over 52 percent of the vote.

According the polling cited by the Washington Post, seven in 10 blacks voted for Proposition 8. Among Hispanics, 53 percent supported it.

Opponents of Proposition 8 were furious.  Unlike 2000, however, there were no complaints of voter suppression, people turned away at the polls or faulty voting machines casting doubt on the results.  The fact it passed was the sole reason for the outrage.

In a state where residents pride themselves on inclusiveness, tolerance and enlightenment, proponents of gay marriage decided the will of the people must be overruled.

Angry crowds marched.  Threats were made against supporters.  Efforts were made to find and punish those who funded the pro-Proposition 8 campaign.

The Mormon Church was particularly demonized, with Hollywood superstar Tom Hanks calling Mormons “un-American” for their support of Proposition 8.  Mormon churches and Mormon-owned businesses were targeted for vandalism and boycotts.

A legal appeal to overturn the results was promptly filed.  The California Supreme Court overwhelmingly backed Proposition 8, but let existing gay marriages remain legal.  A few days after that ruling, a federal lawsuit was filed.

All this because people voted for what they thought was in their own best interest.

My father, born in a very segregated South Carolina in 1925, was fond of saying, “meet the new boss, the same as the old boss.”  The behavior of these cultural terrorists in California, I am saddened to say, illustrates his point.

One needs only to Google a few words to reveal the venom of Proposition 8’s supposedly enlightened and tolerant opponents.  Searching terms such as “Proposition 8,” “terrorists” and the n-word shortly after Election Day, I read disturbing first-hand accounts of racial slurs.  I also read diatribes I might assume came from white supremacists rather than those claiming to be from a persecuted class.

While these people were likely delighted with overwhelming black support for Obama, their true feelings apparently slipped out when people they always took for granted voted their conscience.

Six states currently allow same-sex marriage.  But, in 30 states where it has been brought up for a public vote, traditional marriage prevails.  Most recently, the government of the predominantly black District of Columbia rejected a marriage referendum because it would allegedly violate anti-discrimination laws.

When the people can’t be trusted, take away their vote?

This minority-liberal schism, and the nasty liberal response, shows what happens when blacks leave the liberal plantation.  Contempt is not reserved just for Michael Steele and Clarence Thomas anymore.

While I’m no fan of excessive government intervention, authorities have investigated infractions not as egregious as this in the past.

A Justice Department investigation is unlikely, but it could fall under the purview of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.  The Commission investigated the 2000 election, and this seems to have more merit.

Imagine the surprise when those claiming to be the most tolerant are found to be the least willing to deal with change.  It would prove that what my father said in the past remains true today.

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Project 21 member Council Nedd II, the bishop of the Chesapeake and the Northeast for the Episcopal Missionary Church, is the honorary chairman of In God We Trust (http://www.ingodwetrustusa .org) - a group formed to oppose anti-religious bigotry.  Comments may be sent to Project21@nationalcenter.org.

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Justices’ Ruling Throws Sotomayor Nomination into Serious Question

For Release: June 29, 2009
Contact: David Almasi at 202/543-4110 x11 or Project21@nationalcenter.org

With the U.S. Supreme Court dealing a stinging blow to race-based employment practices, members of the Project 21 black leadership network are praising the Ricci v. DeStefano decision as a step toward removing the racial trappings of a by-gone era and putting all Americans on equal footing.

“It was clear to this Court that barring people from promotion because of the color of their skin is wrong.  The only downside is that four justices still cling to an outmoded and discriminatory line of thought,” said Project 21 chairman Mychal Massie. “True equality allows people to rise and fall on their merits.  That’s what this decision protects.  How can one oppose such fairness?”

In a 5-4 decision, the Court reversed the lower court ruling, barring the use of race as the sole factor in promotions.  In his majority opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote, “Fear of litigation alone cannot justify the City’s reliance on race to the detriment of individuals who passed the examinations and qualified for promotions.”

The decision also casts serious doubt on the Supreme Court nomination of Sonia Sotomayor. She was a member of the appeals court panel that issued the one-paragraph opinion overturned today. Now, she must explain to senators how she could be so much at odds with her potential future colleagues.

“Justice is supposed to be blind, but the opinion she joined in the Ricci case - now overturned by the Supreme Court - shows Sonia Sotomayor believes justice should be based on ethnicity,” added Project 21’s Massie.  ”Her ruling in Ricci is an unambiguous example of her placing her feelings and personal prejudices above what the law dictates or allows.”

The Ricci case revolves around a 2003 promotions exam given to firefighters in New Haven, Connecticut.  After the tests were scored, only two Hispanics and no blacks scored high enough to qualify for promotion.  After black and Hispanic activists pushed to have the test results thrown out, the city’s Civil Service Commission effectively did so by deadlocking 2-2 on the decision to certify the exam.

After the results of the exam were set aside by the city, 20 New Haven firefighters - one Hispanic and 19 white - sued based on the claim of reverse discrimination.  The city was granted summary judgment at the district court level, and a panel of judges that included current U.S. Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor sided with the lower court in a eight-sentence opinion that called the previous opinion allowing the city to throw out the test scores based on race “thorough, thoughtful and well-reasoned.”

In a concurring opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote of the question of empathy for those passed over: “But ’sympathy’ is not what petitioners have a right to demand.  What they have a right to demand is evenhanded enforcement of the law…  And that is what, until today’s decision, has been denied them.”

Project 21, a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization sponsored by the National Center for Public Policy Research, has been a leading voice of the African-American community since 1992.  For more information, contact David Almasi at (202) 543-4110 x11 or Project21@nationalcenter.org, or visit Project 21’s website at http://www.project21.org/P21Index.html.

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By Herman Cain

Even though the congressional switchboard was shut down for a while last week due to calls from voters asking their representatives to vote no on the “American Clean Energy and Security Act (HR 2454)”, the House of Representatives narrowly passed it anyway.

When former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee was asked last Saturday on Fox News why Congress ignored public feedback on this legislation, he said that they know they can get away with it and they don’t care.

Congress continues to insult the people of this country because members know that a majority of voters are clueless, another large group have very short memories on Election Day and those voters that are involved with trying to bring about real change in Washington, D.C. through their respective political parties are victims of poor party leadership.

As a result, members of Congress can get away with ignoring public feedback and broken political promises because the clueless and the forgetful keep sending most of the same members back to Congress over and over again.

Once again, no member of Congress read the 1,000-plus page “climate bill”, just as not one member of Congress read the $787 billion, 1,000-plus page “stimulus bill” that passed recently. Members of Congress received both bills less than 24 hours before Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats called for a vote on these massive expansions of the federal government.

They don’t care that they are spending, taxing and regulating this country into socialism and financial oblivion while continuing to claim the opposite. The president is asking for these fast-track expansions of government after promising “transparency” in government when he was running for president.

This is not transparency. This is irresponsible and insulting.

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-California), chairman of the committee that wrote the “climate bill”, had a speed reader read the “climate bill” to the members of his committee. This was in response to the criticism of not giving members of Congress time to read the “stimulus bill” before sending it to the floor of the House for a vote.

The Democrats don’t care that they are misleading the public with bogus claims of how this legislation is going to create jobs and help spur the economy, because they can’t credibly substantiate or explain their claims.

The president simply says “trust me”, the people who dispute his claims are wrong, but the administration cannot tells us how they got their numbers. The president also said the unemployment rate would not exceed 8 percent if the “stimulus bill” were to pass. It did. The current unemployment rate is 9.4 percent and climbing.

Health care reform is the next mega-expansion of government on the Democrats’ fast track agenda. While addressing the American Medical Association recently concerning a proposed government health insurance option, the president said “If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. If you like your health care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what.”

White House officials later responded that the president’s rhetoric should not be taken literally. I suppose we should not take his promise of “transparency” literally, nor his promise of a five-day waiting period before he signs legislation into law. He signed the “stimulus bill” in three days.

Broken political promises and ignoring public feedback is doubly insulting, but some of us will remember on Election Day. Trust us.

© 2009 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission

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By Eric M. Wallace, PhD

On Wednesday June 24th the administration began its full court press to push its government run healthcare plan down our throats.  If they don’t sway enough support they will use what I call the ‘Chicago way’ to get what they want. The Chicago way is either bullying their opponents or going around them. Just take a look at the way Rod Blagojevich ran the state and the way Richard Daley runs Chicago. The current administration is full of individuals who have been indoctrinated into the Chicago way of advancing their agenda. But I suggest before we accept their legislation we exam the product they are trying to sell to the public.

Let me begin by asking if the government take over of the healthcare system measures up to the LIFT principles. The LIFT principles are the standard by which we should judge all policy that comes out of Washington to see if it passes constitutional muster. LIFT stands for Limited Government, Individual Freedom and Responsibility, Free Enterprise and Traditional Family values.

Limited Government.

Right of the bat this principle is challenged because the administration has suggested that the government get involved in the healthcare business. Even though its running of Medicaid and Medicare are going bankrupt, not to mention social security we want to add 47 million more people to the government run and controlled healthcare system? The same government that also runs the post office, the DMV and the IRS is telling us that it can run a cost efficient healthcare system where millions of lives hang in the balance while some government bureaucrat decides who should get what procedure?

This is not only ludicrous but also unconstitutional. There is nothing in our constitution that allows or encourages the government to manage people’s healthcare. Thomas Jefferson warned when he said, “I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.” He also said, “[m]y reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government. The administrations takeover of the healthcare system, along with AIG and the auto industry will grow the Federal Government by leaps and bounds beyond its constitutional limits and plummet our society into an abyss of debt from which we may never recover.

Individual Responsibility

This element of the LIFT principles is challenged by the fact that the government program begins to decide for us whether we even want healthcare. Can the government make me purchase a health insurance program? A large segment of the 47 million figure includes people who can afford healthcare insurance but choose not too. Therefore whose responsibility is it to make sure everyone has health insurance? Should it be the government or the individual? Who will decide what kind of healthcare insurance plan and whether it is comprehensive enough?

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For Release: June 29, 2009
Contact: David Almasi at 202/543-4110 x11 or Project21@nationalcenter.org

An apparent effort by the Congressional Black Caucus to deter ethics investigations of its membership is drawing sharp criticism from members of the black leadership group Project 21.

CBC members reportedly are considering changes to the law authorizing the House Office of Congressional Ethics, or OCE, in retaliation for the OCE referring allegations against several CBC members to the House Ethics Committee.

CBC members reportedly also have complained that the OCE does not have enough minority staffers, adding a racial element to the apparent retaliation.

“What does the racial or ethnic makeup of the Office of Congressional Ethics have to do with the fact that these members of the Congressional Black Caucus may have violated ethics laws?  It has absolutely no bearing on the charge, and to claim that is a lack of diversity at the OCE is playing the race card plain and simple,” said Project 21 member Joe Hicks, also a commentator for Pajamas Television. “It is laughable that CBC members are charging the OCE with some sort of racial targeting.  The OCE was created by Speaker Pelosi, someone who shamelessly bends over backwards to be politically correct.”

Of the three investigative counsels hired by the OCE, one is black.  The chairman of the formal Ethics Committee investigation sparked by the OCE referral is a black Member of Congress, Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-NC), a CBC member.

“A legitimate complaint has been filed and an investigation has begun, but political pressure is now being applied to cover up the allegations and brush everything under the rug,” said Project 21 member Bishop Council Nedd II. “So much for those promises to ‘drain the swamp’ and root out the ‘culture of corruption.’  It seems that swamp has turned into a hot tub for them rather quickly.”

“President Obama has long proclaimed that it is special interest lobbyists who are the root of what is wrong with our federal government.  This latest lapse in congressional sensibilities exposes the fact that it is wayward members of Congress themselves, whether Republican or Democrat, who pose the greatest threat to good government for the citizens of this country,” said Project 21 member John Meredith.  ”The idea of disbanding the one avenue the citizens of this great nation have to track congressional malfeasance is an affront to the pledge of transparency in government and the use of the race card to facilitate the closing of the Office of Congressional Ethics is insulting not only to black people but to people of every color.”

The controversy was sparked by an ethics complaint filed with the OCE by National Legal and Policy Center President Peter Flaherty.

In November 2008, Flaherty attended the “Caribbean Multi-Cultural Business Conference” on the Caribbean island of St. Maarten.  Although the conference officially was sponsored by the Carib News Foundation, according to Flaherty, signs and materials present indicate the event was funded by Citigroup, Pfizer, American Airlines, Verizon, IBM and other large corporations with business before Congress.  CBC members Charles Rangel (D-NY), Carolyn Kilpatrick (D-MI), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), Donald Payne (D-NJ), Bennie Thompson (D-MS) and Delegate Donna Christensen (D-Virgin Islands) attended the event.

Members of Congress have been prohibited since 2007 from taking funded trips of over two days if those trips are paid for or coordinated by companies that “employ or retain a registered lobbyist.”

Flaherty alerted the OCE.  In his letter to the OCE, Flaherty noted: “My characterization of the trip as a ‘junket’ is based on my observation that the sessions were lightly attended. Most attendees spend significant time at the beach or the pool.  Members of Congress attended the sessions when they had a speaking role.”  Flaherty also said any suggestion that attendees could not see evidence of corporate involvement was “implausible.”

Project 21, a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization sponsored by the National Center for Public Policy Research, has been a leading voice of the African-American community since 1992.  For more information, contact David Almasi at (202) 543-4110 x11 or Project21@nationalcenter.org, or visit Project 21’s website at http://www.project21.org/P21Index.html.

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By Star Parker

When I’ve been asked whom I thought could be the individual to lead the Republican Party out of the wilderness, my answer has always been Mark Sanford. His vision for his party and his country — traditional values and limited government — has always been clear, consistent, and, in my view, correct. And he has always pursued that vision, as a congressman and as a governor, with a boldness and courage rare among politicians.

The Cato Institute publishes a bi-annual report card of the nation’s governors, ranking them according to fiscal responsibility. In the most recent report, three governors out of fifty received an “A.” Sanford was one of the three.

So, like many others, I watched with disappointment his confession about his clandestine adulterous affair.

Now what?

No surprises that most predict the end of Sanford’s political career. And, of course, we’ve got the usual, and gleeful, accusations of hypocrisy that another conservative Republican has been caught with his pants down.

But if there is a crisis in America today — and I think there is — is it that leaders fall short of standards, or is it that our answers to human frailty increasingly tend to deny that any standards exist?

The most strident accusations of hypocrisy come not from those saddened that Sanford fell short of the traditional values to which he subscribes. They’re from those who want to de-legitimize and marginalize those traditional values. John F. Kennedy gave a famous speech during his 1960 presidential campaign to address the question of his Catholicism. Rather than argue that Catholic values are consistent with American values, he argued that religion and public policy have nothing to do with each other.

Kennedy turned out to be one of the great sleazes to occupy the White House (not unlike his brother Senator Ted who, in his last hurrah, is now trying to socialize American health care).

During the almost half century since Kennedy gave that speech, the moral, social, and legal fabric of our country has steadily unraveled.

In 1960, around 5 percent of our babies were born to unwed mothers. Today it is 40 percent.

The pillars upon which our free country stands — sanctity of life, liberty, and property — have been eroded to the point where they are barely recognizable.

Since the Roe v Wade decision in 1973, 50 million unborn children have been destroyed. The United States now has among the most liberal abortion regimes in the world. In some of our states, a 12-year-old girl can get an abortion without informing her parents, be assisted by her school administrators, and have it paid for with taxpayer funds.

We move step by definitive step to legalizing same sex marriage. By so doing, we will render our most sacred social institution, marriage, meaningless in the official eyes of government and as a nation will formalize the acceptability of behavior our Bible clearly calls sinful and abominable.

We will soon have a generation of Americans the majority of whom will not have grown up in a traditional family.

Government now claims over 40 percent of our national output, leaving Americans with personal control over barely half the product of their own labor.

And politicians, as we have seen over the last year, can at will take over our privately owned companies, dictate how they’re run and what executives earn, and commit private taxpayers to trillions in spending and debt.

In a world in which there is sin, in which there is right and wrong, there is also repentance and redemption.

Mark Sanford’s world is that world. Let’s pray that he can fix what is wrong inside of himself and that maybe we can still have a leader with the courage and vision that America needs.

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By Ken Blackwell

“So I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed.” - President Barack Obama, Cairo University, 4 June 2009

President Barack Obama is a man who chooses his words carefully. When Hillary and Bill Clinton attacked him during the 2008 Democratic primaries, claiming his whole career had been built only on words, he fired back. He quoted the Declaration of Independence, Lincoln at Gettysburg, and Dr. King at the Lincoln Memorial. Are these just words, he asked rhetorically. And what stirring rhetoric it was.

That’s why the media is doing us a disservice by not carefully analyzing the words that made up Obama’s speech at Cairo University. In reaching out to what he termed “the Muslim world,” and seeking a new beginning in U.S. relations with Islamic societies, Obama was at pains to tell his Muslim listeners of his own rich experience, how he had experienced Islam on three continents as a child.

The liberal press may have been too deep in its collective salaam before Obama, their Expected One, to notice the critically important turn of phrase Obama employed in Cairo. He did not say the Middle East was the region where Islam began. No, he would say nothing so pedestrian as that. Nor did he say that it was there, in the shadow of the pyramids where millions first received their inspiration from the man they revere as the prophet of God. Nothing so poetic.

No, what he said was he was now visiting the region “where Islam was first revealed.” Could an informed Christian say that? Christians believe that Jesus Christ is “the alpa and the omega,” that Jesus is Lord. If you say that Islam was revealed, you are saying that Jesus is not Lord, that there was someone or something necessary to complete what Jesus failed to complete. And that something is Islam.

That word revealed is packed with centuries of theological significance. Our dictionary defines it simply: “1 : to make known through divine inspiration.” It can also mean uncovered or made visible. But when you are speaking at a site you have chosen because of its centuries as a center of Islamic learning, you can hardly intend your words—especially words offered to a vast viewing audience for whom English is not their primary language—shall be understood in their secondary or even lesser meaning.

In the heart of those nations where Islam predominates, Obama pronounced himself “a Christian, but…” And then acknowledges that Islam was revealed. The one statement seems not only weak and defensive, but reveals his own hesitant, conditional or limited Christianity.

I understand that Barack Obama wants desperately to demonstrate his stark differences with everything Bush. He views his own elevation as a repudiation of George W. Bush and all his works.

What he did on his trip to the Middle East was also a repudiation of American policy going back to liberalism’s great model, Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Roosevelt arrived in February 1945 for his only summit with the leader of Saudi Arabia, King Abdul Aziz. Roosevelt was conveyed on the U.S.S. Quincy, a warship of his beloved Navy. FDR can be seen in photographs of that solitary meeting. Wearing his dashing Navy cape, the President sits across from the king in his flowing robes. The President looks straight into the news cameras, calm and confident. Just months from death, Roosevelt gave the last ounces of his strength to advance his agenda for peace in the region.

Roosevelt was not willing, however, to crush the hopes of the Jewish people for a land to call their own. He had sent a letter the previous fall to New York Sen. Robert F. Wagner: “I know how long and ardently the Jewish people have worked and prayed for a free and independent Jewish commonwealth. I am convinced that the American give their support to this aim and if re-elected I shall help bring about its realization.”

FDR, too, knew the power of words. “I shall help to bring about its realization”–the realization of a Jewish state. Nothing like those words were uttered by Barack Obama in his Middle Eastern trip.

Roosevelt had to know his task would not be an easy one. The Saudi king had suggested that instead of letting the Jews settle in Palestine, they should be given a homeland in defeated Germany. Let the Germans pay for what they had done, or had allowed to be done to the Jews.

Roosevelt, citing his own rural upbringing as a farmer, offered the king help with reclaiming water for his parched desert kingdom. The king waved off such help—if it meant that the deserts might bloom for the Jews, too.

What has changed? Sixty-four years later, aren’t the Arab rulers still willing to see their own people impoverished and oppressed rather than let them advance with their Jewish neighbors? Aren’t they still unwilling to recognize Israel as a Jewish commonwealth? Nothing the Expected One achieved as he abased himself and the U.S. before the Arab world can give us hope for positive change.

Let us not think that he has brought balance. Only six percent of Israelis think Obama is pro-Israel. What can the rest of Israel’s friends be thinking?

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By Armstrong Williams

In recent months, Democrats too often refer to the Republican Party as the party of “No”; especially no ideas.    This sobriquet became the mantra of Democrats after the Republican members of Congress said “no” to the $750 Billion unfunded stimulus package. Democrats claimed that Republicans presented no alternative ideas to alleviate the current economic crisis.  This is incorrect.  The Republicans presented a number of fiscally prudent ideas, but they were rejected by Congressional Democrats who continue to propose and pass fiscally improvident legislation. Given the fiscal irresponsibility of this legislation which adds to a record peace time deficit, Republicans in Congress have a duty to say “no” to these bad ideas.  However, if Democrats care to jettison partisanship, there are a number of good Republican ideas to help the economy.

First, a tax decrease or a direct distribution of federal money to taxpayers is a more efficient way to stimulate the economy than a hastily compiled $750 billion stimulus spending package.  Less than 20% of the present stimulus package will be spent in 2009 when the stimulus is most needed.  On the other hand, $750 billion distributed directly to 300 million Americans as $2,500 cash would result in a much greater percentage of the money being spent in 2009.   Republicans proposed tax cuts and direct payments but the Democrats said no.  Republican should be proud to have been the party of “No” to the Democrat’s anemic stimulus spending idea.

Second, according to a recent Rasmussen poll, 76% Americans opposed and 21% favored the US government bailout General Motors and Chrysler.  The cost of the Federal bailout of GM and Chrysler is in excess of $50 Billion. If the Federal bailout of Amtrak 30 years ago is any guide, there will be inevitable future subsidies in store for the auto industry.  Politicians cannot help themselves when it comes to justifying bad decisions.  They are not punished by the market, and they are not spending their own money.  They will inevitably throw good taxpayer money after bad to justify their improvident decisions.

If the principal purpose of the automobile bailout was to save jobs, it was an expensive way to achieve that objective.  It cost approximately $300,000 to save each job paying $50,000.  That is a lot of money to save a $50,000 job!  The government could have paid unemployed automobile workers full salary for 3 years and saved $25 billion!  Even better, it could pay them a year’s salary and train them for productive jobs in companies with a future.  Now the Federal government owns a majority of GM and a substantial minority of Chrysler in partnership with the United Auto Workers, the promoter of excessive compensation that drove these companies into bankruptcy. Republicans, like the majority of Americans, favored sending GM and Chrysler to the bankruptcy courts for restructuring with no taxpayer subsidies.  The Democrats did not like this idea so the Obama Administration pushed through an unpopular, expensive and improvident bailout.  Like most Americans, Republicans were the party of “No” to this terrible idea.

Third, medical malpractice laws exploited by ambulance chasing tort lawyers directly and indirectly increase the cost of medical care in the US by as much as 18%.  The cost is not just medical malpractice insurance but also the cost of practicing defensive medicine. According to a recent Rasmussen poll, 75% of Americans say that medical malpractice lawsuits are an important factor in the increasing cost of medical care. To alleviate this medical cost driver, the medical profession and 44% of Americans want to cap medical malpractice awards.   The Republican Party favors limiting medical malpractice awards.  President Obama was booed at the recent AMA conference in Chicago when he told doctors that he would not help them pursue limits on pecuniary damages in medical malpractice cases.  Who is the party of “no” to this well documented and popular idea to save medical costs by limiting medical malpractice awards?

Instead, the President and the Democrats are pushing a national health care plan financed by non specified and speculative savings that will be less costly than the present system.  The plan includes a government health insurance plan that will compete with private insurance companies.  When does the government provide a service cheaper than the private sector?  Only when the taxpayer provides subsides.  With taxpayer subsidies inevitably going to the government insurance provider, it will certainly provide cheaper medical coverage than unsubsidized and regulated private companies; but ultimately at a higher overall cost if you include taxpayer subsidies.  A fundamental principal of economics states that when the cost of a service is reduced, people demand more of it.  It logically follows that Americans will demand more medical services at the lower subsidized cost. In order to keep medical costs in line when people demand more, the government must ration health care. Furthermore, with subsidized low cost insurance premiums, the government provider will eventually drive private insurance companies out of the health insurance business. Ultimately, the government run health care monopoly will be the only game in town.  At that point Americans’ choice on medical care will be decided by the bureaucrats and politicians in Washington, and monopolies are never low cost providers.

Republicans are properly saying “no” to this proposed unfunded health plan with speculative costs savings because it will ultimately lead to higher overall medical costs or medical rationing. Yet the Democrats do not like the Republican’s idea of limiting medical malpractice awards which provide immediate reductions in overall medical costs at no cost to the taxpayer!

Republicans are regaining their fiscally conservative bearings by saying “no” to increased spending that increases the Federal deficit.  The media have uncritically let the Democrats take the mantle of fiscal responsibility away from the Republican Party because the last balanced Federal budget was in the Clinton Administration.  The undisclosed secret that is rarely disclosed by mainstream media is that the budget was not balanced in the Clinton Administration until the Republicans took control of Congress in the middle of Clinton’s first term.  The Republicans came to power in Congress because Americans rallied around the Republican’s “Contract with American” which included fiscally conservative promises to lower taxes and balance the budget.  The Republicans must stay the course and continue saying “no” to ersatz fiscally responsible Democrats who want to increase government spending by adding to the deficit with unfunded spending programs and increased taxes.

www.armstrongwilliams.com

“The Armstrong Williams Show” is broadcast daily on XM Satellite Power 169 from 9:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.

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