Voodoo Mathematics

Bill Brown 

We have been told since before his first race for the presidency how exquisitely brilliant is Barack Obama.  While I am not fully convinced (I say that with tongue firmly in cheek) of our President’s genius status, I am definitely impressed with the figures that his Administration’s mathematicians have put together regarding the cost of Obamacare.

 

Genius is not a strong enough word to describe those who are able to provide  MUCH more coverage than most of us have ever had or felt we needed to at least thirty million MORE people who have not been able to afford insurance before.  Yes, your insurance will include contraceptive coverage—even if you are ninety years old and sex is only a distant memory.  Your wife may be seventy-five years of age, but her coverage will include obstetric and pediatric insurance, in the unlikely event that she should become pregnant.  You never know, right?  But you will get that extra coverage and so much more for LESS money than your more minimal package cost you before Obamacare! Isn’t that remarkable?  How often these days do you get so much more for so much less?

 

But you haven’t heard anything yet.  Do you remember all those for whom the Progressives used to shed crocodile tears—those with pre-existing conditions that made them all but uninsurable; if they were able to find a company that would insure them, the policy was prohibitively expensive?  Well, rejoice!  Those people will now be insured, whether the insurance companies want to cover them or not.  And the best news is—it won’t cost them any more than your policy costs you—even if you are in the pink of health and have never been sick a day in your life!  And of course, they get all this for LESS MONEY than your more minimal coverage cost you under the old system!  While the insurance company that holds the policy of a person whose illnesses can be depended upon to require treatments costing many hundreds of thousands of dollars annually, the cost of their policy will never be more than $25 or $30 a month; maybe slightly more, as Administration spokespersons explain it.

 

I’m waiting on these same geniuses to show life insurance companies how they can insure a seventy-six year old overweight, chronically tired old man who has endured six or seven surgeries, has high blood pressure and HBP (prostate) and a number of other health issues for one million dollars coverage for $25 a month.  Don’t tell me it can’t be done!  If they can figure out how to provide Obamacare to desperately ill people for the amount of money they claim their insurance will cost, figuring the latter problem out will be a snap. It wouldn’t be fair to lump me in with other old geezers with one foot in the grave and the other foot on a banana peel.  I want to be charged what that eighteen-year-old young man pays who is playing football at an extremely high level because his conditioning and health are perfect.  It would be unfair to charge me more for life insurance simply because I’m old and sick.

 

Any problem you want these brilliant people to solve for you?  You don’t doubt that they can do it, do you?

 

 

 

If anything in this article is overstated, it might be because NOBODY knows what is in this monstrosity of a bill, and NOBODY knows how much it will cost.  All I know is, it will cost a hell of a lot more than the Progressives have told you!

Kee the Focus on Spending, not Revenue

In an attempt to divide and conquer, President Obama has consistently focused his budget discussion on revenue instead of spending. 
The federal government does not have a revenue problem; it takes enough of our money already. What the government has is a spending problem.

Obama spends like a teenage girl with daddy's credit card.

In his speeches, President Obama constantly and irresponsibly calls for higher tax rates on "millionaires and billionaires", and claims they are not paying their fair share.

Republicans, both in Congress and on the campaign trail, need to keep the focus on spending.

They cannot let America forget that Obama only wants more money from the rich so he can spend it buying votes from low-income Americans.

Those who do not see that the federal government has grown outside of its original intent need to reread the Federalist Papers...and the Constitution for that matter.

I fully support the elimination of at least three government bureaucracies, the Department of Education, the Department of Energy, and the Environmental Protection Agency.

The Department of Education is a prime example of the federal government violating the Tenth Amendment by regulating that which it is not empowered to regulate. It also represents a problem of redundancy we have in government.

Departments of Education exist in every state. Locally, education is regulated and operated by boards of education.

The need for a federal education agency is very small if not nonexistent; it also creates a redundant tax burden.

Local schools, in many places, are funded by property tax income. At the state level, income and sales taxes fund the state governments and their agencies. Federally, the Department of Education is supported by the general fund, which consists of all sorts of tax revenues.

Therefore, those who pay property, state, and federal tax are being taxed thrice for education.

The focus in Washington needs to be on creating a more efficient system of government. We do not need education being regulated at three different levels of government.

We do not need a Department of Energy, which creates no energy, but instead over regulates companies that are trying to supply energy at a reasonable cost.

The government's profit and loss statement would be an ugly document to look at if one were created.

As any good accountant knows, when revenues decline, so must spending. Any good politician knows that Americans should not have to pay more in taxes so the government can spend more.

Republican leaders in Congress must keep the pressure on to cut spending. There is no room for compromise on this issue.