Death Panels.
HR3200 dictates that after the fifth year, the Secretary sets prices and content of all insurance, government and private. Since he will have a strong desire to gather the premiums of the participants in private plans, it is obvious to most the private plans will simply be driven out of the market. The "public option" will become single payer. When that happens the committee that gathers to set policy on what will be paid and what won't could also be known as a death panel. There is no provision in HR3200 for a "death panel" per se, but that policy setting committee (a responsiblity specifically assigned to the Secretary in HR3200 and probably delegated to the committee) will set prices and coverage.

An 88 year old man who has paid in to the single payer system for 60 years and contracts cancer will look to his insurance policy for coverage for chemotherapy. Will he get it? Is it likely the Secretary will think it economic to pay for chemotherapy for an 88 year old man? What if all he needs is a hip replacement? Would he get that? What if he were 98?

Somewhere in all this the Secretary will be saying "We aren't going to pay for your medical needs." The reason this is a Death Panel is because

a. If the 88 year old man doesn't get chemotherapy he dies
b. Government forced him to join government plan. If he didn't join he would suffer an 8% tax penalty.
c. Secretary says he doesn't get chemotherapy and man has no appeal. Secretary is beyond judicial review (HR3200).

It is (b) and (c) that distinguishes the Governement death panels from the private death panels. The man has a choice of what to buy from private insurance companies. Also, with private insurance if he doesn't like the decision he can appeal the the state insurance commissioner.

Compulsory end-of-life counciling isn't a death panel. The Secretary is. Think about it.

There are arguments to avoid this.

If you're poor, you die. you won't have enough money to pay for the chemo. The Secretary is a "Death Panel".

If you're middle class, you will have to do what the liberals and HR3200 purport to avoid -- bankrupt yourself to pay for chemo. Alternatively, like in Canada, you can buy supplemental insurance, thus paying for your insurance twice. This is just a tax though it doesn't look like one.

If you're rich, you'll write a check and pray the chemo is successful.

HR3200 removes for all time, any possibility the poor could get expensive care at end of life.

Finally, since the Secretary is beyond judicial review, he could decide not to give heroic treatement for cancer after a person reaches 75 years of age. There's nothing you could do about it. Then, when Ted Kennedy discovers his cancer, the Secretary can make an arbitrary exception and there's nothing you could do about it. Remember, he is beyond judical review.

HR3200 is such a bad law that if everyone read it and understood it and thought for a while about how it might be implemented and operate over the next 10 years almost everyone would vote no. High costs are one of the motivations for HR3200 but costs are not addressed to any significance. To keep costs down, the Secretary will start with price controls. Price controls always lead to shortages (e.g. Canada has 2.2 doctors/1000 people - almost the bottom of US+Europe). The bill itself will be challenged in the courts and major parts of it could be wiped out [e.g. can the Federal government force me to buy insurance and if I don't tax only me because I didn't buy insurance -- where is that in the Constitution?]

Finally, the CBO estimate of cost over 10 years is $1T. However, most of the $1T is spent in the final 6 years AND the CBO said that its estimate was only for the parts of HR3200 that were complete enought to estimate. The CBO is not famous for accurate predictions of future costs, so the $1T is unlikely to be lower, but has a good chance of being higher. Medicare will be bankrupt in 2017. HR3200 is significanly larger in scope and price than Medicare and so far, there is no plan to keep Medicare from going bankrupt. I fail to see how HR3200 will produce anything better that Bankruptcy of the entire country sooner rather than later.

Promises you can't keep

Quoting from the NY Times, President Obama said:

  "Where we do disagree, let's disagree over things that are
   real, not these wild misrepresentations that bear no resemblance to
   anything that has actually been proposed,"

Dear President Obama.

I have some questions for your consideration:

1.  Are you saying there will never be a government
    council that determines which procedures will be
    paid for and which will not?

2.  Why should the country trust the Democratic
    (Republican) party to run a health care system?

3.  Will Congress submit themselves to the same "public
    option" they want to force on the public?
  
4.  Can a person who leaves a private insurance plan
    go to another?
  
5.  Is a person who leaves a private insurance plan
    forced to use the public plan or penalized?

6.  Can a congressman who is on public plan change to the
    CONGRESSIONAL plan once seated?

7.  Are you promising private insurance will be as
    good or better 10 years from now as it is today?
    If you are, what is the basis of your promise?

8.  Should Government run insurance be passed into law,
    what checks and balances are in place to prevent the
    government plan from lowering its prices to drive
    private insurance out of business?
  
9.  What checks and balances are in place to keep the
    Democratic congress and President from simply changing
    the plan 2 years from now to a single payer plan?
  
10. What checks and balances are in place to prevent
    the Secretary from making arbitrary decisions about
    for whom and where health care is best?

11. Would we see red states having worse health care
    than blue states?

12. Why should politics be injected into health
    care? ("the Secretary" is a political appointee).

13. HR3200 starts out today, before it is even passed
    micromanaging health care by specifying in detail
    medical processes (home visitation details, doctor
    consultations with patients on end-of-life issues).

    What prevents you from passing a new law, two years
    from now to have that doctor simply tell the patient
    when medical financial support ends?

14. What prevents the federal government from withholding
    funds from a state, county or city that doesn't strictly
    follow the "Secretary's" rules?

15. What limits the Secretary's power over health care?

16. Why should any American think the government can run
    an insurance plan better than a private company? Are there
    examples where government has proven more efficient
    than private enterprise?

Finally, I don't believe HR3200 can be successfully
funded. Social Security is in poor shape and will
require either increased payroll taxes, lower
benefits or raising the retirement age. Watershed year
is 2040, but with the recent recession, that date is probably
closer.  Medicare is scheduled to be insolvent in 2017. HR3200
is funded the same way as Social Security and Medicare, and
that's the pay-as-you-go scheme. Pay-as-you-go requires a
larger and larger base of people to support the increased size
of the beneficiary population.

17. Why won't HR3200 bankrupt the nation or create a tax
    burden significantly larger than today? [Hint: Identify
    CONVINCINGLY where the 2x cost comes from and how you will
    eliminate it. Hand-waving cost reductions don't answer the question.]

HR3200 is a overly complex solution to much simpler problems.
Your government has not faced that fact. They have not simply identified
the problem and gone about solving them in collaboration with
conservatives, liberals and most important of all, the public.
Your government (and mine) has kept us all in the dark and now has
on the table a bill that all have demonstrated conclusively they
do not understand.

Because none of these questions has ever been answered, you should
speak out against HR3200 as written, now. Tell Congress to go back to the
drawing boards.  BUT WAIT, here's a better idea and you can
take the credit for it.

Create a Health Care convention. Populate it with an equal number of
liberals and conservatives and charge it with producing the definitive
list of exactly what problems a Health care bill must solve. Tell them
to reject from the list any proposed solutions, just list the
problems. Give them 4 months (same as the Constitutional Convention).

Once the list is produced and published, call a second Health Care
Convention. Populate it with an equal number of liberals and
conservatives and tell them to solve the problems in the list and
DO NOT USE a government run pay-as-you-go-scheme.
Give them 4 months.

It would be difficult to have worse results than HR3200.

You can be the President of all the people or the president of
the Democratic party. The choice is yours.

Ed Bradford

On Aug 10, 2009, President Obama said:

  "But ultimately, I think the American people want fairness. And we

  can create a system in which you have strong border security, and an

  orderly process for people to come in. But we're also giving an

  opportunity for those who are already in the United States to be able

  to achieve a pathway to citizenship so they don't have to live in

  the shadows."

[http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/11/world/americas/11prexy.html?_r=1&nl=pol&emc=pola1]

President Obama is right, Americans want fairness. What they don't

understand is how breaking the law to get into the country, and then

being granted citizenship before those standing in line legally in foreign

nations is fair. Neither do I. That is why the previous immigration

bill caused so much furor.

It is up to all people who believe in the rule of law to make

this clear to the lawyer in the White House. It's one thing to know

the law and teach it. It's another thing entirely to understand the law.

Blog early and often against granting citizenship to any illegal

aliens who wish amnesty and citizenship for themselves ahead of

their fellow countryman who stand in line legally.

Obamacare will become single-payer system; an Alternative.


Why would that happen. Lets take an example. The Democrats have
determined that everyone in the country should have an automobile.
Anything less that that is unfair and is a direct cause of economic
inequality. Depriving a person of a car condemns that person to a
lifetime of lower wages and a lower standard of living. For these
reasons, the US Congress passes a bill mandating that all persons should
have an automobile. The President signs the bill (CarBill) into law.

Today, there are 2 1/2 American automobile manufacturers. Of those,
one and 1/2 are owned and managed by the government. Because cars
are so expensive and in an effort to carry out the CarBill, President
Obama lowers the prices of some of the cars in his one and 1/2
car companies, Chrysler, and General Moters company. This
forces Ford to lower the prices also, but if Ford lowers prices, it will
lose money. Ford must compete with 1 1/2 companies that do not have
to make a profit and don't [e.g. Amtrak, USPS].

To further drive prices down, the President increases
taxes on larger cars -- those that GM and Chrysler no longer make.
He does this with a direct excise tax on big cars and by increasing the
gasolene tax. The problem is people are still buying the big cars
and the number of people without cars remains stubornly large.
By increasing the prices of big cars, GM and Chrysler can drive
customers to their brands where Ford cannot compete.
In a very short time, Ford declares bankrupcy and the government
takes over Ford also. Thus, the US Government has entirely
consumed the three American Automobile manufacturers. Eventually
everyone gets a car and the government owns the former
America automobile companies.

This is similar to what will happen with a public option in the health
care bill. By not having to make a profit, the government basically
causes all its "competitors" to lower prices until they go out of
business, When they do, the government swoops in and scoops up the
abandoned now uninsured people into the government program. Without
much further ado, the public option plus private insurance options of
today become single payer system of tomorrow. In fact, that
has been President Obamas plan from the beginning, when
he blessed single payer as the goal:

  "'If you're starting from scratch,' he [Obama] says, 'then a
  single-payer system'-a government-managed system like Canada's, which
  disconnects health insurance from employment-'would probably make
  sense. But we've got all these legacy systems in place, and managing
  the transition, as well as adjusting the culture to a different
  system, would be difficult to pull off. So we may need a system that's
  not so disruptive that people feel like suddenly what they've known
  for most of their lives is thrown by the wayside.'"

It's the difficulty of the transition and the cultural shock that
prevents him from going directly for single payer.

Why is "single payer" bad? Social security is single payer and a
singularly bad investment most of the country has been forced to join.
A good earner will achieve a 1% return on investment and loses it all
if he dies. The average black man makes a negative interest on his
investment -- he is unlikely to collect even the money he contributed.

A monkey could have made better use of the money that the Social
Security plan. Is there any doubt that the same political winds that
swept Social Security into a pay-as-you-go system that requires an ever
increasing payroll tax to fund will overtake Obamacare?
As the program matures, the maximum age for hip replacements
will steadily decrease. Will our government eventually have to outlaw
private medicine because rich 75 year old people can get hip
replacements but poor ones cannot?

Government in Health care is the most depressing thought for America I
can imagine.

ALTERNATIVES

Rather than have the government create this tarbaby, why not fix real
problems. Here's a couple simple laws that should pass in a heart beat
(but won't due to partisan politics):

1. Tort Reform [To Trial Lawyers Assoc. - If Health care is
       nationalized, and doctors are paid by the government, why
       would the government let you sue a doctor? Think about it.]

2. These are rules for all health insurance companies:

     a. You must offer health catastrophe insurance
     b. You must offer planned health care account [annual checkups,pregnancy,childbirth]
     c. No one can be refused.
     d. Entire account is transferrable to another company
     e. Accounts should be able to survive 12 months with no contributions
        and remain active.
     f. Contributions to planned and catastrophic plans are not taxed.
     g. All insurance companies have 2 years to comply.

     There is an issue here of whether or not the US Constitution
     supports such a law. I believe it does. However, if this
     particular law can be written and agreed to by 90% of the US
     congress, then if there are doubts about its constitutionality,
     some minor but precise rewording of it could be converted into an
     amendment to the constitution. Full bipartisan support would assure
     passage of the amendment. However, I do not belive we want to
     California-ize the US Consitituion [California's constitution
     has 340 pages]; avoiding an amendment is much
     preferred.

The above two deal with a lot of "problems" with the current health
system. Another problem is poor people simply can't get reasonable
health. Here are two alternatives for fixing that:

3. Open free clinics and hospitals - This would have to be cheaper than
   $100B/yr and would bring health care to people directly, simply and
   immediately.

4. Invent "health stamps". These are like food stamps. However unlike
   food stamps they cannot be converted to cash. George Wallace gets
   a health stamp that only George Wallace may use. Health stamps are
   legal tender at all hospitals and clinics.

There are a number of complexities with many other Health care issues
that are not addressed here. However, these suggestions would make a
serious dent in the stated problems of the American Health care system.

Government should coerce the private companies to do better.
These suggestions are only a partial solution that would
make an excellent, cheap and instantanious start now.

Time is money (wasted)

The infamous Stimulus bill is scheduled to spend money over a three
year period. The result, we can see, is that the job creation rate is
less than desireable. The Stimulus bill is based on a questionable
theory that government spending of $1.00 creates $1.60 of value
in the economy. The analyses I have read on that number do not
realistically integrate the time delays associated with a huge
government bureaucracy discussing how to spend the money, once the
theory of government spending has been embraced. They also do not
address the concept of scatter -- the government requires $2 to spend
$1 on a useful stimulating project. The other $1.00 goes to
pork projects, federal and state government administration and the
unspent remainder. (While the 2 to 1 ratio is a guess, the ratio is
real and non-zero. One needs only add up the spending projects
in the Stimulus and Omnibus spending bills to get a general idea
of this ratio.)

One of the differences between Government spending versus tax cuts
is time. Money allocated to government spending is subject
to time delays that tax cuts do not suffer. Decisions about when the
money is available, which projects to fund, how to get the money
to the states, how the states will allocate the money and when the
actual projects start mean that a stimulus bill today will result in
some spending spread out over years and little money getting into
the economy quickly. While this delay happens, the economy can change
significantly. The target of the bill is a moving target.

For all government based spending programs, consideration must be
included for "discussion". Discussion means writing a bill and
submitting it to the House of Representatives, sending the bill to
committees, adding pet projects, rewriting pet projects'
in subcommittees and passage of the bill in the committees and
the House. Next the Senate gets involved and sends the bill to committees,
adds its pet projects changing the bill from the House version, avoiding
filabuster by adding more pet projects to keep the opposition from
filabustering and finally passing the Senate version of the bill. Then a
resolution must be derived by House and Senate joint committee to iron
out the differences, possibly producting a new bill. The bill
must then be signed by the President. "Discussion" takes time
and creates the scatter mentioned above -- multiplying the cost
of the stimulus and delaying its effect.

The most recent version of this game took more than a month and
resulted in a bill that no one read. It was signed into law and
now the Federal government will try to spend $800B over three years
ostensibly for creating jobs but in reality, just spending money,
sometimes creating jobs. In addition, many or even most of the
jobs created will disappear before the bill expires.

To date, the success of government spending technique for
stimulating the economy is difficult to defend.


Contrast this with a tax cut. There are two kinds of tax cut. The first
is for individuals and the second is for businesses. Consider the first.
The time required for passage and the complexity of a tax cut bill is an
order of magnitude simpler than a government spending bill. The Spending
bill can be full of favoritism, prejudices and paybacks that
a simple tax cut cannot suffer.

As soon as the tax cut is effective money flows into the hands of
people who will either spend it, save it, or pay off bills.
The money is freed continuously and synchronously
with the effective date of the tax cut and continues to be freed.
If people spend it, the result can be a 3 year acceleration of
economy stimulus versus money scheduled to be spent by the federal
government 3 years from now to address a problem that could well have
disappeared by that time.

If the money is saved, banks holding those
funds will lend it creating investment in new private development.
Bank investments also stimulate. Stimulation investments from bank deposits
are slower than direct spending by individuals but they last longer than
government stimulus because they can be used
for capital investments that result in products which go to market.
Government funds can only be spent on
projects - which translates to wages which may result in capitial
assets (road, bridges,etc) but yield no products.
Private investment is targeted at making a profit which employs people
long term. Public investment is targeted at infrastructure which
produces no products or long term employment. One grows the economy, one does not.

Finally, for those consumers who pay off bills, they will eventually
spend more money either when their bills are sufficiently low or
when the are dept free. In both the savings case and the bill
paying case, the consumers and economy receive a permanent benefit.

For a business tax cut, businesses will make more money and have a
higher probability of reinvesting their money -- now that they have some.
Reinvestment means growth which is what a stimulus should stimulate.

Tax cuts are government spending also. They just spend the money more
efficiently than handing money over to a federal government, who then
must write legislation to spend it. The legislation is subject to
political maneuvering and dilution of purpose. After the bill is
passed and becomes law, it then goes through the same political
process in each state and each level of government, each also requiring a
percentage cut to pay for the administration of the money.

The time associated with the government spending approach is money.
It is money lost because while the economy is changing, the government
is arguing over who gets how much money and where it should be spent and
when it will be spent. While the economy is changing, the money
is being doled out in small increments not addressing today's problems,
but what the politicians thought the problems would be 3 years ago.

Because of Scatter and time delays, I can conceive of no convincing
argument that a government spending program can accomplish anything
useful. Here is an argument, but it is fantastic.

  The Federal Government will start next week to spend
  money on all building projects that have real assets
  as a result. The money will be given directly to
  contractors [bypassing state and local governments entirely]
  who will be on a performance contract basis
  of complete or not be paid in full. All money for the
  project will be put in escrow (so the federal government
  cannot renege). Either the company completes or abandons and
  someone else completes and collects. (Reasonable details
  to be worked out.)

No such statement could credibly come out of our federal government,
but only such a statement could reasonably convince me that
government spending is a useful solution to our economic problems.

When you have a government that is as large as our federal government,
to expect much more that bureaucratic solutions that always bog down is
to believe in miracles. The current theory of government spending to
stimulate the economy is simply sophomoric. Consider the examples of today
and the 1930's to convince yourself that when the spending dies,
unemployment rises. Government spending, per se, does not stimulate
the economy; tax cuts do.

Ed Bradford
Pflugerville,TX
egbegb2 AT gmail DOT com

From HR 2998

[http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.R.2998:]

comes:

--------------------------
        ...P318
   (f) FEDERAL ENFORCEMENT AND TRAINING.ÎíÎñ
13 Where a State fails and local governments in that State
14 also fail to enforce the applicable State or national energy
15 efficiency building codes, the Secretary shall enforce such
16 codes, as follows:
17 Î÷ÎõÎ÷Îõ(1) The Secretary shall establish, by rule,
18 within 2 years after the date of enactment of the
19 American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009,
20 an energy efficiency building code enforcement capability.
22 (2) Such enforcement capability shall be de-
23 signed to achieve 90 percent compliance with such
24 code in any State within 1 year after the date of the

          p319
1 Secretary's determination that such State is out of
2 compliance with this section.
3 (3) The Secretary may set and collect reason
4 able inspection fees to cover the costs of inspections
5 required for such enforcement. Revenue from fees
6 collected shall be available to the Secretary to carry
7 out the requirements of this section upon appropria-
8 tion.
9 (4) In any jurisdiction to which this subsection
10 applies, the Secretary shall coordinate enforcement
11 of the national energy efficiency building code with
12 State and local code enforcement of other building
13 codes.
14 (5) In any jurisdiction to which this subsection
15 applies, the Secretary shall enhance compliance by
16 conducting training and education of builders and
17 other professionals in the jurisdiction concerning the
18 national energy efficiency building code.
19 (6) The Secretary shall coordinate with profes-
20 sional organizations representing code officials, ar-
21 chitects, engineers, builders, and other experts to de-
22 velop training curricula concerning the national en-
23 ergy efficiency building code.

1 (7) If the Secretary enforces such codes under
2 this subsection, the Secretary may, as appropriate,
3 redefine violations of such codes.
--------------------------

If this doesn't scare a lot of people then those calm "intellectuals"
must want a federal government in exclusion to any other, local,
city or state.  The concept of the "Administrator" taking over
building codes for an entire state and inspecing a house at the
point of a gun [here's the fee; pay it or go to jail] is so beyond
the pale that I don't belive I am reading this in a bill that passed
in the House of Representatives.

Please, Americans, all of you write to your Senators and and tell them
forcfully to veto this bill.  There are more morsels in this bill that
are almost as unpalatable.

From HR 2998

[http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.R.2998:]

comes:

--------------------------
        ...P318
   (f) FEDERAL ENFORCEMENT AND TRAINING.ÎíÎñ
13 Where a State fails and local governments in that State
14 also fail to enforce the applicable State or national energy
15 efficiency building codes, the Secretary shall enforce such
16 codes, as follows:
17 Î÷ÎõÎ÷Îõ(1) The Secretary shall establish, by rule,
18 within 2 years after the date of enactment of the
19 American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009,
20 an energy efficiency building code enforcement capability.
22 (2) Such enforcement capability shall be de-
23 signed to achieve 90 percent compliance with such
24 code in any State within 1 year after the date of the

          p319
1 Secretary's determination that such State is out of
2 compliance with this section.
3 (3) The Secretary may set and collect reason
4 able inspection fees to cover the costs of inspections
5 required for such enforcement. Revenue from fees
6 collected shall be available to the Secretary to carry
7 out the requirements of this section upon appropria-
8 tion.
9 (4) In any jurisdiction to which this subsection
10 applies, the Secretary shall coordinate enforcement
11 of the national energy efficiency building code with
12 State and local code enforcement of other building
13 codes.
14 (5) In any jurisdiction to which this subsection
15 applies, the Secretary shall enhance compliance by
16 conducting training and education of builders and
17 other professionals in the jurisdiction concerning the
18 national energy efficiency building code.
19 (6) The Secretary shall coordinate with profes-
20 sional organizations representing code officials, ar-
21 chitects, engineers, builders, and other experts to de-
22 velop training curricula concerning the national en-
23 ergy efficiency building code.

1 (7) If the Secretary enforces such codes under
2 this subsection, the Secretary may, as appropriate,
3 redefine violations of such codes.
--------------------------

If this doesn't scare a lot of people then those calm "intellectuals"
must want a federal government in exclusion to any other, local,
city or state.  The concept of the "Administrator" taking over
building codes for an entire state and inspecing a house at the
point of a gun [here's the fee; pay it or go to jail] is so beyond
the pale that I don't belive I am reading this in a bill that passed
in the House of Representatives.

Please, Americans, all of you write to your Senators and and tell them
forcfully to veto this bill.  There are more morsels in this bill that
are almost as unpalatable.

From HR 2998

[http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.R.2998:]

comes:

--------------------------
        ...P318
   (f) FEDERAL ENFORCEMENT AND TRAINING.ÎíÎñ
13 Where a State fails and local governments in that State
14 also fail to enforce the applicable State or national energy
15 efficiency building codes, the Secretary shall enforce such
16 codes, as follows:
17 Î÷ÎõÎ÷Îõ(1) The Secretary shall establish, by rule,
18 within 2 years after the date of enactment of the
19 American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009,
20 an energy efficiency building code enforcement capability.
22 (2) Such enforcement capability shall be de-
23 signed to achieve 90 percent compliance with such
24 code in any State within 1 year after the date of the

          p319
1 Secretary's determination that such State is out of
2 compliance with this section.
3 (3) The Secretary may set and collect reason
4 able inspection fees to cover the costs of inspections
5 required for such enforcement. Revenue from fees
6 collected shall be available to the Secretary to carry
7 out the requirements of this section upon appropria-
8 tion.
9 (4) In any jurisdiction to which this subsection
10 applies, the Secretary shall coordinate enforcement
11 of the national energy efficiency building code with
12 State and local code enforcement of other building
13 codes.
14 (5) In any jurisdiction to which this subsection
15 applies, the Secretary shall enhance compliance by
16 conducting training and education of builders and
17 other professionals in the jurisdiction concerning the
18 national energy efficiency building code.
19 (6) The Secretary shall coordinate with profes-
20 sional organizations representing code officials, ar-
21 chitects, engineers, builders, and other experts to de-
22 velop training curricula concerning the national en-
23 ergy efficiency building code.

1 (7) If the Secretary enforces such codes under
2 this subsection, the Secretary may, as appropriate,
3 redefine violations of such codes.
--------------------------

If this doesn't scare a lot of people then those calm "intellectuals"
must want a federal government in exclusion to any other, local,
city or state.  The concept of the "Administrator" taking over
building codes for an entire state and inspecing a house at the
point of a gun [here's the fee; pay it or go to jail] is so beyond
the pale that I don't belive I am reading this in a bill that passed
in the House of Representatives.

Please, Americans, all of you write to your Senators and and tell them
forcfully to veto this bill.  There are more morsels in this bill that
are almost as unpalatable.

What appears here is a list of platform planks for any individuals or
parties that want to join the effort to take back our government.
The Republican party is confused and elitist. They don't talk to
ordinary people. They also have been confused for the past N years about
what big government is and why it is evil.

My purpose here is to start a list of planks for candidates for office
for the 2010 and the 2012 elections. My writing style is far from
perfect, so improvements are welcome. I further think there might be
more planks. What have I missed? If this list becomes interesting to a number
of people we should try to rank order it possibly by allowing members to
vote on which ones are most important. The 2010 election is far enough
off to allow us to vote more than once. After some number of votes have
been tallied and the issues ranked, we can simply erase the votes
and start over. The reason to do that would be late entries
ointo the list and late arrivals of people into this network.

My list assumes the worse for the first two years of Obamanation. If,
for instance, Cap and Trade is not passed, then #1 below can be removed
[or parked lest cap and trade be resuscitated in the 2011-2012 session].

I have also avoided all constitutional changes. That effort should
proceed with all due haste elsewhere. It might be a lot slower.

Please comment on this. I think the issues addressed below are extremely
important to our nation. I am already tired of a President who
represents 53% of the country and will not speak to the other 47%.

He works for me despite the fact that I voted against him.

1. Repeal Cap and Trade. All credits are devalued instantly at zero.
    Warning, do not buy these credits as it is likey they will become
    worthless all of a sudden.

2. Compensate Indiana Trust fund participants for the Obama theft.
   Reinstate bankruptcy law. Admit in public that the United States
   Government made a mistake.

3. Repeal Card check. Employees will be given the right to demand
   a secret ballot. A secret ballot can be authorized to form a union
   or dissolve a union. Mandatory arbitration will be eliminated permanantly
   and with prejudice. Government involvement with unions will cease.

3a. Unions will no longer be allowed to contribute to campaign funds.
    Corporations will no longer be allowed to contribute to campaign
    funds. All contributions will be attributable to a human being
    resident of the United States. There will be a limit on the amount
    of the contribution a single human being can make.

4. Health care will be privatized and universal. Health care programs
   will focus on the individual needs and how individuals can optimize
   their choices. If there is a public health care insurance plan in
   place, it will be privatized. Health care efforts by the government
   will focus on increasing supply to drive costs down. Increased
   numbers of MRI machines, medical schools, hospitals  and doctors
   will be the goal.

5. Sell all unprofitable assets to the highest bidders. Our government
   will quickly exit what was private enterprise.
   Amtrak, GM, Chrysler, will go. If they cannot be sold, they will be
   liquidated.

6. There will be no Czars.

7. Repeal the 16-th Amendment (income tax) and install a fair tax --
   thus eliminating income tax returns and most of the IRS. Government
   revenues do not change.

8. Repeal any removal of foreign tax credits.

9. Move the Department of Education into the downtown of cities whose
   schools are below the national average. Remove it from the capitol
   buildings. DOE will be responsible for making excellent
   schools from the Washington, DC school system or the DOE will cease
   to exist. It will be give 3 years so the 4-th year of the president term
   can be used to dissolve or bless it. If DC schools are not above the
   national average after 3 years DOE dies.

10. Global warming will be ignored until panels (juries) of average citizens
    can convict GHG's (Greenhouse Gases) of warming the climate. To convict, the scientists
    must convince a jury that they have a climate model, that it is
    accurate, that other climate models are also accurate and they all
    predict the same thing. Further, they must convince a jury that the
    climate is warming and has been warming since the start of the
    Industrial age. The onus will be on the scientists and
    global warming religious zealots to convict human behavior rather
    than presume the human behavior is the cause.

11. All tax increase bills will be single purpose bills. Nothing but
    tax rates will be allowed. No omnibus spending bills will be signed.
    Congress can halt the government but they will be publicly and
    repeatedly warned about no omnibus bills.

12. Most "pork" will be eliminated through exhaustion. Any pork that
      remains must be passed in individual bills forcing Senators and
      Representatives to have their votes recorded for each item.

13. Senators and Congresspersons will be limited to 12 years in office
    in the Congress. A person can spend 6 years as a Representative and
    6 years as a Senator, but only 12 years total in Congress. This would
    be a constitutional amendment, something I said I wouldn't be doing.
    This one is important, and I break the rule.

14. Companies that hire and keep illegal aliens will probably go
    bankrupt. Such companies will be prosecuted to the full extent
    of the law. All illegal aliens found by any means will be
    given a hearing and if found not legally in this country will
    be deported.

  I support the owners of Chrysler bonds who are objecting to the
  settlement.

  See:
  http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2009/05/guest-post-not-so-fast-indiana-state.html

  Indiana School Teachers Retirement fund, Indiana State Police pension
  fund and others are objecting to the Settlement. Their secured bonds
  which are considered debt should be paid before any other debt in
  bankruptcy proceedings. That is the way bankruptcy has been operated for
  the past 220 years. Now, the Obama administration has deemed the
  US government and auto workers union more important that the teachers
  union and the state police retirement fund by giving the auto union
  55% ownership in the new Chrysler and giving "secured creditors" only
  29 cents on the dollar for their "secured debt". The Indiana funds are
  going to court and they should.

  They should take the case all the way to the SCOTUS. If the government
  wants to steal 70 cents of each secured dollar of investment and give it to someone
  else, then the government should replace each 70 cents it steals by the terms of the
  5-th amendment:

       "nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."

  That would be the US government taking 70 cents of each dollar
  a fund holds and giving it to itself and the UAW.

  THIS IS BAD GOVERNMENT.

  If the Supreme Court blesses this deal, I will be shocked.
  I will be disappointed if the case is not pursued until the Indiana funds win.