By Murdock “Doc” Gibbs
The following is my reply to an unsolicited e-mail I received from David Alexrod, President Obama’s senior advisor. Axelrod’s letter, which was recently received - unsolicited - by many Americans, asked me to help promote the President’s health care agenda:
Dear Mr. Axelrod,
Thank you for your letter encouraging me to support President Obama’s plan to fundamentally restructure the way Americans obtain their health care.
Because you and President Obama seem to have no qualms whatsoever about building yet another big government bureaucracy and increasing our taxes, I’m afraid I cannot support it or your efforts to get it passed into law.
From news reports, and from actually reading portions of the House version of the proposal myself, it is untenable for me to even trust the Obama Administration on the issue of health care.
Why? Please let me cite a few examples.
The President says he is not pushing for a single-payer plan. Yet, in a 2003 video of him addressing the AFL-CIO, he clearly says his intent is to create a singe-payer, universal, government-controlled health care plan: “I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer, universal health care plan.”
And this is not the only video you can find online that indicates opinions contrary to what he has said since his polls began to fall. These videos are not cut and paste jobs. You know what he said.
It seems the President is now simply telling people what he thinks they want to hear. It seems terribly disingenuous.
Additionally, one of the architects of the universal health care plan, Representative John Dingell (D-MI), says that taxpayer-funded abortion is not a part of the bill. Yet, according to Associated Press, taxpayer-funded abortion is part of the bill.
AP reports: “Health care legislation before Congress would allow a new government-sponsored insurance plan to cover abortions, a decision that would affect millions of women and recast federal policy on the divisive issue.”
Which is it?
President Obama also pledged several times during the campaign and after his election that there would be no middle-class tax increases, yet your spokespeople say it is a very real possibility that taxes will increase on the middle class to help pay for this gargantuan proposal. In fact, he effectively already broke his promise when he signed into law a tobacco tax increase earlier this year.
Liberals now call opponents of Obama’s health care proposal who show up at town hall meetings with their congressional representatives as “mobs,” “brown shirts” and “astroturf” hired by insurance companies and partisan operatives. It seems that there is not even one iota of consideration that these people could be regular American citizens - constituents of these very same lawmakers - who have real concerns about this proposal and the speed at which you want to push it through.
Mr. Axelrod, when I attend a local town hall meeting to voice my concerns and ask questions, it is offensive that I do so already being branded as some kind of kook or hired mouthpiece.
Lastly, while there might be some misinformation out there, and if I had the opportunity to actually report something “fishy” - as, at one point, the Obama Administration called on Americans to do - I would report the conduct and contradictions of the Obama Administration while trying to pass this monstrous government intrusion into health care as supremely “fishy.”
Quite frankly, it stinks.
Mr. Axelrod, count me out of supporting yet another trillion-dollar proposal from the Obama Administration.
I don’t trust you.
Murdock “Doc” Gibbs
Coppell, Texas
# # #
Murdock “Doc” Gibbs, a member of the national advisory council of the Project 21 black leadership network is an entertainer and public speaker from Coppell, Texas. Comments may be sent to DBorelli@nationalcenter.org.
By Kevin Martin
It’s not surprising that the Obama political machine began playing the race card once the President’s policies began to lose popularity.
What’s surprising is how quickly it happened!
Consider Obama’s post-racial America as just another broken promise. Add it to the pile including transparency in government and no new taxes for households earning less than $250,000 a year.
People are upset. The stimulus bill was rammed through Congress without much reading or debate of the bill. Cap-and-trade legislation punishing people for using gas and coal instead of windmills and solar panels was similarly pushed through the House, where congressional leaders bought votes with earmarks. Now the White House wants to nationalize health care the same way.
Polls show increasing public distrust and opposition to these proposals. Where are those stimulus jobs? Why isn’t there more domestic oil exploration? Will health care end up being rationed?
After constituent calls, letters and e-mails to Washington failed to get lawmakers to put the brakes on this headlong dash toward socialism, people began taking their concerns face-to-face with lawmakers.
Those who feel disfranchised by the way liberals are running Washington are showing up at town hall meetings to make sure their representatives - liberal, moderate and conservative - understand their concerns.
In a change from the Bush years, however, it appears liberals no longer consider dissent to be patriotic. A Washington Post reporter wrote that town halls have “transcended their original purpose and become a kind of professional wrestling for the civically engaged.” More cynical critics suggest those exercising their constitutional rights are racists.
The leftists who selected Obama saw him as a vessel to pass the most radical agenda in decades. They seem to have strategized that, once public opinion shifted away from them, they would use his race to try to silence his detractors.
In an interview with the Huffington Post, Representative James Clyburn (D-SC) - a member of the congressional leadership - likened disgruntled constituents to mobs opposing the civil rights movement. Clyburn said about current protests: “This is an attempt on the part of some to deny the establishment of a civil right.”
Representative John Dingell (D-MI) told MSNBC: “[T]he last time I had to confront something like this was when I voted for the civil rights bill… At that time, we had a lot of Ku Klux Klan folks and white supremacists and folks in white sheets and other things running around causing trouble.”
Speaking of MSNBC, host Carlos Watson worried on-air “whether or not ’socialist’ is becoming the new n-word for, frankly, for some angry upset birthers and others.”
“Birthers” refers to those concerned the President’s reluctance to release his birth certificate may mean he was not born in America and thus ineligible to be president. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman also imposed this fringe movement’s beliefs on all town hall dissenters when he wrote “[T]he driving force behind the town hall mobs is probably the same cultural and racial anxiety that’s behind the “birther” movement, which denies Mr. Obama’s citizenship… Does this sound familiar? It should: it’s a strategy that has played a central role in American politics ever since Richard Nixon realized that he could advance Republican fortunes by appealing to the racial fears of working-class whites.”
People speaking out at town halls are genuinely concerned about the direction our nation is being pushed. They are frustrated because they feel they are removed from governing.
They are not racists.
What about their opposition? The White House suggested supporters “punch back twice as hard.” At least one Obama follower took this literally in Missouri when Kenneth Gladney, a black man, was roughed up and reportedly called the n-word while handing out “Don’t Tread on Me” flags at Representative Russ Carnahan’s (D-MO) August 7 town hall meeting.
The actions. The disfranchisement. The hate speech. When all the facts are on the table, it’s clear who’s bringing race into all this: Obama and his team.
# # #
Kevin L. Martin is a member of the national advisory council of the Project 21 black leadership network. Comments may be sent to Project21@nationalcenter.org.
By Star Parker
Barack Obama won the presidency under the persona of healer. He promised to unify a divided nation and said how he would do this.
He’d put ideology aside and solve problems. And he’d bring new open, bipartisan governing to Washington, devoid of special interests.
Now, six months into this presidency we have exactly the opposite.
Rather than temperatures dropping, they have steadily risen to their current fever pitch.
Rather than becoming more unified, we’ve never been more divided.
According to the Pew Research Center, the gap between approval rates for the president from Democrats (85 percent) and Republicans (19 percent) is now 66 points. For George W. Bush at about the same time in his presidency, this gap was 51 points. For Bill Clinton it was 45, George H.W. Bush 38, Reagan 46, Carter 25, and Nixon 29.
It’s not just Republicans. The gap between the president’s approval from Democrats and from independents has expanded from 25 points last February to 37 points today.
And the new open, bipartisan approach to governing?
Listen to remarks (posted on You Tube) by Rep. Tom Price, a Republican from Georgia, to Democratic committee chairman George Miller, during mark-up several weeks ago of the health care bill.
Here’s an excerpt: “…we would have loved to have worked with you on this…but you know there was no opportunity to do that…Speaker Pelosi told a member of your conference that if you talk with Republicans about this, you’ll be shut out of the room…you know that this hasn’t been a bi-partisan effort.”
Price, a soft spoken physician who practiced medicine for over 25 years, brandished the thousand page bill and went on about what the government takeover of medicine will do to health care in this country. The sheer arrogance of trying to re-write the rules for almost one fifth of the American economy, more than $2.5 trillion dollars in annual expenditures, with a few weeks of deliberation is without precedent. How can such an effort be done openly or responsibly?
Now we learn that the pharmaceutical industry’s support for this initiative has been bought by the administration with promises that, in exchange, there will be no government meddling in the pricing of drugs.
Soon we’ll see glowing TV ads extolling the virtues of the Democrats’ health care plan, probably talking about the special interests trying to stop it, being paid for by those special interests. Report is that PhRMA, the pharmaceutical industry trade association, is kicking in $150 million.
The head of PhRMA, Billy Tauzin, who negotiated with the administration on behalf of his member drug companies, is a Washington insider poster child. He was a congressman from Louisiana for 25 years who then parlayed his accumulated contacts and influence to get hired to head PhRMA for a reported $2.5 million in compensation.
This is the new way we do business in Washington? How we reform health care? How Washington operators tirelessly protect the interests of citizens and work to preserve a great country? Six months into this Democrat administration, we find that Americans have been duped by a great bait and switch.
We were sold promises of a sparkling new era, stripped down of ideology and influence peddling. What we have gotten is a hyper-ambitious government take over of our economy, driven by left wing ideology, carried out using the most cynical business-as-usual inside Washington influence peddling. And to lend irony to it all, when outraged citizens grasp what is happening and protest, they are accused of disrupting democracy and racism.
To recall the words of economist Herbert Stein, “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.” Hopefully this will stop before we’ll need history books to recall the once American dream of freedom and prosperity.
By Herman Cain
Since April 15, 2009, I have been a keynote speaker at no less than a dozen events called tea parties, rallies or town hall meetings. I have even done live broadcasts of my radio show from several of these events, some of which you can view at “The Best of Herman Cain”.
Regardless of what you call them, the sentiment being expressed by people in attendance is not Astroturf or manufactured emotions as described by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. The people are not wackos, paid plants, extremists or any of the other names used by the Democrats and some in the media to try and marginalize, demean, discourage and intimidate “We the People”.
But we are crazy.
We are crazy about the freedom to choose. We choose our religion, our spouse, our profession, our lifestyle, our doctors, and our end-of-life care.
We are crazy about spending our hard-earned money the way we want to spend it, if there’s any left after all the taxes we pay. If we want to set fire to $100 dollar bills on any street in America, then it’s our choice.
Social Security taxes we pay all of our working life are rationed back to us in the form of benefits, which usually represent only a fraction of what we put in. Most of us are not too crazy about that, but we are required by law to continue to surrender those dollars. The Social Security system did not start out that way, but that’s the way it is now.
The law to temporarily use Social Security funds for purposes other than retirement benefits passed over 40 years ago. Bills introduced in Congress to restore the use of Social Security funds for benefits only have been voted down repeatedly.
And now we are supposed to believe that a government health insurance option would remain an option, our choices in doctors and medical care would not be gradually taken away, and that end-of-life counseling would remain voluntary.
We are not that crazy!
I include myself as one of the thousands of people who have turned out to say no to Obama-care, Democrat-care and “Cap and Trade and Tax and Kill” legislation. We are saying no to tsunami federal spending, members of Congress not reading bills before they vote for them and the all-out power grab by Congress and the Obama Administration.
The smallest event I attended had 700 attendees, while an event on July 3 had 7,000 people in attendance. The America’s Health Care Town Hall event on August 15 in Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Park had over 12,000 people in attendance.
That trend is happening all over the country, and it does not suggest a bunch of fringe wacko racists as some critics have claimed. And unlike the town hall meetings Democrats have encountered during their August recess, there has been no pushing and shoving, shout-downs or disrespectful behavior by attendees.
There has been a lot of cheering and applause when people hear something they support, and they support keeping their health care choices out of the hands of government bureaucrats.
People are turning out to town hall meetings in record numbers because they will not have socialized medicine or any other socialist legislation shoved down their throats. We are not sit down and shut up type citizens.
And if people get loud at some of the town hall meetings, it’s because their elected members of Congress are trying to sell them a Trojan horse instead of listening.
They will be listening in November 2010, and that’s not crazy.
© 2009 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.
By Armstrong Williams
While the Washington press corps was fixated last week on the latest developments surrounding President Obama’s trillion dollar co-pay in the guise of health reform, followed by backyard beer swilling, IRS bean counters quietly went about their business.
Their mission? Find a way to pay for the massive zeroes this administration continues to add at the end of the government’s mounting debt. In what some privately likened to an ancient an archaeological find teeming with treasure, revenue agents discovered a potential $80 million golden pot of money – at the home of Michael Jackson.
That’s what the Feds stand to collect if they enforce a massively onerous and confiscatory tax on the King of Pop’s estate, affectionately referred to as the death tax. And you can bet they’re coming to a neighborhood near you.
Until President Bush’s tax reforms of 2001 that lowered the levy to 45%, the death tax in America ranked second only to Japan as the highest in the world – stifling enterprise in subtle yet noticeable ways.
The Obama Administration, however, has no plans to keep the Bush reductions in effect. They have too many bills to pay to surrender the approximately $60 billion in revenue the tax generates each year.
But what the Left fails to recognize is that by keeping the tax in place (or worse, allowing it to return to pre-Bush levels), they are planting the federal boot on the necks of an emerging class of survivors from this economic crisis.
Both sides frame the debate as an issue of fundamental fairness – spreading the wealth versus keeping what is rightfully yours. But when Americans are posed the question directly, the death tax is decreasingly one of social justice with left and right parameters, but20instead a fatally-shortsighted policy with a base of support shifting beyond traditional party lines.
According to a recent survey conducted by Strategy 360, the polling arm of Dutko Worldwide, 55 percent of America’s “middleman” – the independent voter – favored a continued phase-out of the estate tax.
When told that the phase-out could create 1.5 million small business jobs (one-third of those promised by President Obama), according to a report by former CBO director Doug Holtz-Eakin, the margin of support among independents expands to 64%-28%. And when they hear that economic conditions make this the wrong time to raise taxes, support among independents expands to 63%-29%. Predictably, Democrats were less likely to support a phase-out, but even a 49% plurality favored the policy over establishing a permanent tax rate.
What’s apparently changed about this issue is not the party affiliation, but rather the age and income classes of those opposing the White House’s plan. This is not a rich landholder versus poor worker clash. The Dutko 360 poll uncovered that Americans favor the phase-out regardless of income, with support ranging from 53% among those with household incomes under $35,000 to 70% among those with household incomes of at least $100,000.
Think younger voters don’t care about death and taxes? Think again. The Dutko 360 poll surveyed adults ages 18-34 and found 61% of this demographic wanted the death tax buried. Folks, this ain’t your granddaddy’s tax anymore.
Fearing that nearly half of earned assets will be los t at death, the emerging class with visions to accumulate capital with age seeks to claim its stake in what some have characterized as an otherwise end-of-life debate.
And20therein lies the fundamental problem for the Democrat Party when it comes to forming economic policies. The Left’s logic fails to recognize a fantastical aspiration every American strives toward – the insatiable drive of income mobility. It’s a political blind spot that has haunted them for generations. Yes, there are millions of Americans who earn no more than $30,000 per year, and struggle to make ends meet on that relative pittance. But more importantly, name me one who plans to stay at that income level, if they have anything to say about it?
The push to increase the death tax strikes at the heart of enterprise in this country because it clumsily tries to snuff it out. According to the Left, wealth is an inherent evil. Is an inheritance now, too? Has class envy by a select few forced Baron Barrack to declare heirs an enemy of the state? We think you died with too much. We want to spread that around. And since you’re dead, it’s not theft.
The certainty of death and tax articulated by Poor Richard at this nation’s birth was hardly a permission slip to tax at death. Especially in a starving economic environment, investing into businesses is critical. We have a policy here that is expected to actually create (not just save) jobs, in addition to stimulating over a trillion dollars of Made-in-America capital. Yet sadly, today’s economic debate has devolved into worthless banter over “Cash for Clunkers” which take billions out of the government so participants can purchase Japanese Toyotas and German Volkswagens.
While entrepreneurial Americans are working at the grassroots to reconstruct today’s broken economy, the federal budget is utilizing the death tax to constrain the long-term intergenerational effects of small business development. In 1980, Lawrence Summers coauthored a study that explained “intergenerational transfers account for the vast majority of aggregate U.S. capital formation.” Yet today, President Obama’s chief economic advisor discourages the very actions that he once argued would boost the country’s financial system.
When government sends a check to dead people, its called fraud. When government expects a check from dead people, it’s called paying your fair share. Until a pop icon’s assets were threatened by auction with the IRS, this job-killing policy escaped public debate. Yet no amount of class war mongering will suppress Americans from aspiring to one day achieve financial success and independence.
The Survivor Class is emerging from the economic ashes. It’s time to give them the boost they need to create and grow capital and investment that doesn’t end on death’s doorstep.
“The Armstrong Williams Show” is broadcast daily on XM Satellite Power 169 from 8:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.
By Ken Blackwell
It is summer vacation in Russia and Kremlin muscle man Vladimir Putin is flexing once again. Internet photos show the ripped Premier riding shirtless on horseback. He’s projecting anything but the image that Vice President Joe Biden recently gave us of a Russia in decline. Biden tried to say that Russia’s population decline– Russian women average nine abortions in their lifetimes– is a sign of trouble ahead for the former superpower. (Biden’s bid to fund Planned Parenthood’s 350,000 annual U.S. abortions would seem a bizarre response to what he says is killing off Russia’s future.)
Biden’s stumbling over Russia policy came after President Obama very publicly showed disdain for the real strongman in the Kremlin. While in Moscow, the President played up to Putin’s puppet, Dmitri Medvedev. And that misstep occurred after Secretary of State apologized, in effect, for George W. Bush’s Russia policies, but couldn’t find her “reset” button.
Bush famously met with Putin back in 2001 and reported he had looked into the Russian’s eyes and could see his soul. He said Vlad was a good man. Bush took a lot of heat, mostly from his own base. Conservatives quoted former Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky’s comments at the time of the Bush-Putin meeting. “I have looked into many eyes of KGB agents and I did not see good men.”
To Bush’s credit, however, he quickly and quietly reassessed his first impressions and put the Russia-U.S. relationship on a more realistic basis. Bush and Obama could do no better than to remember Ronald Reagan’s famous words: Trust, but verify.
It’s not just his biceps that Putin is flexing. For the first time since the end of the Cold War, there are Russian nuclear submarines off our Eastern Seaboard. We may think we won the Cold War. Reagan is credited– even by liberals like Bill Clinton– for winning the Cold War. But nobody has asked Putin about this.
The Russians are sending their Akula class subs to within 12 miles of our shores. There is increased Russian military activity in the Caribbean. The Russians are sending naval vessels on goodwill tours of defiantly Communist Cuba and doing joint sea trials with Hugo Chavez’s navy.
Americans are waking up to the negative impact of President Obama’s economic and health care plans. They are worried, they tell pollsters, about the looming deficits. Bush deficits were unconscionably large– but Obama’s deficits will be four times as great.
It may take longer for Americans to see the consequences of a U.S. foreign policy of weakness and apology. But we are being watched. Russia is not sleeping. Putin is preparing. And those submarines are shadowing our coasts. Just remember, in Russian, akula means “shark.”
By Walter Williams
President Barack Obama won an unprecedented 96 percent of the black vote. That’s not much of a news story since blacks typically give their votes to the Democratic candidate. Blacks are probably the most politically loyal people in the nation and it is almost taken as gospel, at least among civil rights organizations and black and white liberals, that the only way black people can make socioeconomic progress is through the politics of race and special government programs. However, such a vision can be subjected to empirical evidence.
In 1940, when blacks were politically impotent, their poverty rate was 87 percent. By 1960, before blacks achieved much political power, it fell to 47 percent. During that interval, in various skilled trades, the incomes of blacks relative to whites more than doubled. Before 1960, there were no anti-poverty programs or affirmative action programs that can explain an economic advance that exceeded any other 20-year interval, though there were Truman and Eisenhower administration attacks on some of the gross forms of racial discrimination. A significant chunk of black progress occurred simply through migration from rural areas in the South to big Northern cities. Between 1960 and 1980, black poverty fell roughly 17 percent and continued falling to today’s 24 percent. The decline in black poverty between 1960 and 1980 might have simply been a continuation of a trend starting much earlier and cannot be attributed solely to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, President Johnson’s War on Poverty, or Richard Nixon’s affirmative action.
Most of the major problems that many black people face are not amendable to political solutions and government anti-poverty programs. Let’s look at some. In 1940, 86 percent of black children were born inside marriage, and the illegitimacy rate among blacks was about 15 percent. Today, only 35 percent of black children are born inside marriage, and the illegitimacy rate hovers around 70 percent. Today’s breakdown of the black family is unprecedented. It began in the 1960s with the War on Poverty and the harebrained ideas of the welfare state. In the mid-1960s, Daniel Moynihan sounded the alarm about the breakdown in the black family in his book “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action.” At that time black illegitimacy was 26 percent. Moynihan said, “(A)t the heart of the deterioration of the fabric of the Negro society is the deterioration of the Negro family.” He added, “The steady expansion of welfare programs can be taken as a measure of the steady disintegration of the Negro family structure over the past generation in the United States.” Moynihan’s observations were greeted with charges of racism and blaming the victim. By the way, the welfare state is an equal opportunity family destroyer. Today’s illegitimacy rate among whites, at nearly 30 percent, is higher than it was among blacks in the 1960s when Moynihan sounded the alarm. In Sweden, the mother of the welfare state, illegitimacy is 54 percent.
Blacks hold high offices and dominate the political arena in Philadelphia, Detroit, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., New Orleans and other cities. Yet these are the very cities with the nation’s most rotten schools, highest crime rates, high illegitimacy rates, weak family structure and other forms of social pathology. I am not saying that blacks having political power is the cause of these problems. What I am saying is that the solution to most of the major problems that confront many black people won’t be found in the political arena and by electing more blacks to high office. In fact, politicians tend to be hostile to some of the solutions to problems many blacks face such as school choice as a means to strengthen education, the elimination of oppressive licensing restrictions for various occupations, and supportive of job-destroying labor legislation such as minimum wage laws.
The bottom line is there is very little evidence anywhere on the planet that political power is a necessary condition for economic power.
Originally published at www.TownHall.com
For Release: August 7, 2009
Contact: David Almasi at (202) 543-4110 or e-mail dalmasi@nationalcenter.org
Washington D.C. - The Project 21 black leadership network is condemning New York Times liberal columnist Paul Krugman for scurrilously pinning racist motives on critics of President Obama’s health care proposals. The group is calling upon President Obama to condemn all efforts to derail legitimate public debate, specifically including this effort to stifle debate with race-baiting tactics.
“Paul Krugman is the one with race on the brain,” Project 21 Chairman Mychal Massie charged. “Specifically, he is using race in the lowest and most repulsive declinations. He is using it because every other argument to stem the growing tide of condemnation for the proposed health care reform bill has failed. Ergo, when all else fails, parade out the race card and attempt to incite blacks into becoming the useful idiots.”
“Opposition to the proposed health care bill isn’t based on race,” Massie added. “It is based on a people who are tired of Congress and the President spitting in their faces. It is the collective resolve of a people who are tired of being tread upon. One would think a Nobel prize-winner such as Krugman could figure that out.”
Krugman’s racial comments generated outrage from many Project 21 members, including:
Joe Hicks (Los Angeles, California):
“I must have somehow missed the articles from Krugman and other liberal and leftist members of the mainstream media that were critical of the activities of ACORN - the radical, leftist group Barack Obama once represented. Somehow, their heavy-handed activities - that many argue bent the boundaries of legality - were just considered to be the organized expression of disadvantaged communities.”
Now the same shameless, clueless writers are trying to convince us that those Americans who rightfully feel threatened by government-run health care and confront Obama’s noxious scheme at public forums are somehow the acts of a ‘mob.’ Krugman reveals his bias by admitting that people are genuinely angry without bringing himself to understand exactly why they are mad. Smearing the rightful anger and concern of everyday Americans as collections of angry, old white folks - or part of the ‘birthers’ movement - shows the elitist disdain that liberal journalists such as Krugman have for democracy in action.”
Joe Hicks is a Pajamas Television commentator and vice president of Community Advocates, Inc. of Los Angeles. He is a former executive director of the Los Angeles City Human Relations Commission and former executive director of the Greater Los Angeles chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
Deneen Borelli (East Chester, New York):
“Krugman’s commentary shows he is as out of touch as many of our elected officials are with real Americans. What’s happening at town hall meetings has nothing to do with race and everything to do with concern over the rapid expansion of government.”
Americans are frustrated that letters, phone calls and e-mails to their elected representatives have had no impact on significant pieces of legislation such as cap-and-trade and stimulus spending. Americans are taking the next logical step by directly voicing their opinions to their representatives at town hall meetings.”
Deneen Borelli is a full-time fellow with Project 21. She serves on the board of Trustees of The Opportunity Charter School in Harlem, New York and previously served as Manager of Media Relations with the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).
Bishop Council Nedd II (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania):
“I have nothing to do with the ‘birther’ issue, but I do have concerns about health care. So do the people in my parishes and in the local diner where I eat every day. Living in central Pennsylvania, these truly are the people portrayed in the Norman Rockwell painting about freedom of speech that Krugman reference in his column. To imply these people are now racists is racist in itself.
Approximately half of the U.S. population didn’t vote for Obama in the first place. Why is Krugman shocked that there is opposition to the Obama health care plan, and that people dare to voice their concern at public meetings? The Obama plan inserts government officials into end-of-life decisions for seniors and those among us with the least. That is not a race issue, that is a privacy issue. The Obama plan has given a whole new meaning to the idea of government for the people. This health plan is a bitter pill shoved down people’s throat against their will.
Council Nedd is an Anglican bishop serving the Diocese of the Chesapeake.
Bob Parks (Athol, Massachusetts):
“Why is it when liberals want to make their points, their knee-jerk reaction is to go racial? Paul Krugman is supposedly a journalist. Before throwing out the race card while speculating, he should give us some attributed quotes. Minus that, what he thinks is irrelevant.”
Bob Parks is a Project 21 member and media commentator. He runs the Black and Right website.
Jimmie Hollis (Millville, New Jersey):
“I knew the moment Obama became a presidential candidate that anyone disagreeing with him would be called a racist, and that any opposition to his political views would be seen as racism. The left has always played the race card because it works.”
But I am nonetheless happy to see that people on the right and many in the middle are now beginning to speaking out firmly and with passion against policies they oppose. President Obama should speak out and condemn Paul Krugman racial commentary.”
Jimmie L. Hollis is a Project 21 member and is retired from the U.S. Air Force, in which he served from 1962-1987.
Geoffrey Moore (Chicago, Illinois):
“This is not about race. It is about government control. The system is not perfect, but there is no need to have the government take over control of the entire health care system. The government has not demonstrated the ability to efficiently control costs and provide good service.
Believe it or not, there are a lot of people who are not up in arms about their insurance. There are people who are somewhat pleased with the coverage they have. The government getting involved will create enormous expense and waste, while creating more problems than they intend to solve.”
Geoffrey Moore is a Project 21 member and marketing analyst in Chicago.
In his Times commentary, “The Town Hall Mob,” available at http://tw9.us/G2, Krugman wrote:
[T]he driving force behind the town hall mobs is probably the same cultural and racial anxiety that’s behind the “birther” movement, which denies Mr. Obama’s citizenship… And cynical political operators are exploiting that anxiety to further the economic interests of their backers.
Does this sound familiar? It should: it’s a strategy that has played a central role in American politics ever since Richard Nixon realized that he could advance Republican fortunes by appealing to the racial fears of working-class whites.
Many people hoped that last year’s election would mark the end of the “angry white voter” era in America. Indeed, voters who can be swayed by appeals to cultural and racial fear are a declining share of the electorate.
Project 21, a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization supported 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 www.project21.org/P21Index.html.
By Harry R. Jackson, Jr.
Last week, I shared a very personal story of my struggle with both cancer and the insurance companies. My doctors informed me that I had two near-death experiences along with a mini-stroke that temporarily caused by whole right side (face, arms, and leg) to be paralyzed. Although I am fine now, that was a scary season in my life.
During my health challenges I met scores of foreigners at Johns Hopkins, hoping the American doctors could save them. Middle Easterners, South Americans, and Europeans were among those that frequented various Hopkins departments. Surprisingly, the day I met with my surgeon to lay out the plan for my 7½-hour surgery, an aging man all the way from Hong Kong sat with several family members waiting to see my internationally known doctor.
Whether we want to admit it or not, the flawed American healthcare system has developed the best doctors in the world. Had my hospital not been on its game, I would not be here today. Many Americans could say the same. Our most obvious challenge is how we give access to everyone who needs help, while maintaining the best treatment in the world.
It seems to me that the healthcare “reforms” currently offered by the administration may have deadly consequences for the average person. Delay and denial of services will literally spell death for thousands. What is most disappointing about the healthcare debate today is that it has deteriorated to partisan wrangling in which the common good is often forgotten.
Healthcare continues to bounce from corner to corner of the political spectrum as opinions fly instead of real answers. The Democrats are continuing town hall meetings to rally support for the president’s health care legislation. They have been met with jeers, taunts, and in one case effigy. Despite Democratic public relations efforts, citizens have lots of questions. In fact, people have so many questions that the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Rep. Chris Van Hollen (MD), stated that vulnerable Democrats have scheduled more than 1,000 meetings this month.
Every week, I hear a new complaint about the ramifications of the Obama plan. Last week, thousands spoke out against the idea of government-sponsored insurance that includes abortion. This week, Sarah Palin attacked the administration’s plan because she believes her Down syndrome baby’s care would be based on the “level of productivity.” She called the policy “down right evil.” Palin stated that there would be a “death panel” which would determine the fate of children like hers.
One can only wonder what nuance of the plan will be criticized next week. Although the administration has attempted to cast these concerns as part of a partisan anti-Obama campaign, I think the healthcare problems are part of a big systemic problem that occurs when one party controls most of the votes in Congress.
Ideologically based solutions that are not properly vetted out sometimes are pushed forward because of legislators’ party allegiance instead of rigorous bi-partisan analysis. When this happens, half-baked ideas are passed off as solutions. Opponents are demonized, and the people are short changed.
Several recent polls, however, indicate that many Americans are not comfortable with the healthcare plan as it stands. The most vigorous debate is whether one of the options would be a government-run insurance company. At this time, a government-run insurance option will not pass in Congress.
From where I sit several things are obvious - our healthcare system is expensive and inefficient. Because of the inherent inefficiencies that a government-run system will incur, the administration’s plan will ultimate increase costs, producing staggering deficits, give less healthcare options, and thus lower the quality of our care. As a grassroots leader who has started many new programs, innovation works best when it is built with proven building blocks. In other words, we should test, explore, examine and then implement best practices. The rate and the pace of these changes reflect the problems of having a genius-prone president who lacks proven field generals to implement his plans. Proven plans with a twist would be better than reinventing the wheel.
We as citizens must demand that Congress take things step by step. Let’s first strip away the inefficiencies in our current system before attempting to dramatically “improve” what we have. Next, let’s encourage the best doctors in the world to remain the best. For example, the threat of malpractice alone pressures doctors into ordering unnecessary procedures. One doctor friend of mine stated, “Even the families of 80 year old patients may sue you because of unrealistic expectations. When things go bad, they always think you could have done more.” Because of this “cover yourself” dynamic, some estimate that 25% of the total prescribed procedures may be unnecessary.
Finally, patient choice must be preserved. The system has to be adjusted so that a person receives compensation in order to choose their own healthcare provider. In my case, had I chosen the wrong hospital, I would be singing in the “heavenly choir.” For many people, the healthcare choice may insure life, while healthcare denial or delay may spell death.
Let’s let our representatives know! Call or write your congressman and senator today!
