While the health care debate seems to have taken a back seat for a bit,  House and Senate negotiators are trying to hammer out details of legislation upon which both chambers can agree. It'll be an arduous process.  No one is certain how it will play out and what the final bill will look like. But one thing we do know is that whatever bill comes out of the Conference Committee, it will be bad for America's seniors.

It's no secret that the Democrats hope to cut $500 billion from Medicare, which covers America's disabled and those 65 years of age and older. But even without the cuts, the Mayo Clinic announced starting the first of this year that they will stop accepting Medicare patients at one of its primary-care clinics in Glendale, AZ. It’s feared that this move will be replicated by family doctors, many of whom have already stopped accepting new patients from the program because the U.S. government reimburses them too little. 

Here are some startling statistics revealed in the Bloomberg article:

~ Mayo’s hospital and four clinics in Arizona, including the Glendale facility, lost $120 million on Medicare patients last year. The program’s payments cover about 50 percent of the cost of treating elderly primary-care patients at the Glendale clinic.

~ Nationwide, doctors made about 20 percent less for treating Medicare patients than they did caring for privately insured patients in 2007.

~ While 92 percent of U.S. family doctors participate in Medicare, only 73 percent of those are accepting new patients under the program.

While no one here in Congress argues that America's health care system is perfect the way it is, what is clear is that the Democrat's plans to reform it will make it worse.

Republicans have presented a better way, but it's fallen on Democrat leadership's deaf ears here in the Capitol.

This week, I sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, along with 108 of my colleagues, urging him not to extend the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) into 2010. While there will be ups and downs along the way as our economy struggles to regain its footing, TARP was passed with the intention of providing immediate support and emergency stabilization to our financial system. And yet, we see the President and the Democrat Majority in Congress floating the idea of paying for a second economic “stimulus” with TARP funds, a blatant distortion from TARP’s original purpose. TARP is not and was never intended to be a revolving door slush fund that the government can tap into as they see fit. Instead, the federal government’s first priority should be paying back the taxpayers.

A copy of the letter to Secretary Geithner is available here.

Today, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, clearly flustered that his government-run health care bill has met stiff opposition from Republicans and even some Democrats, made the following remarks on the Senate floor in a seemingly desperate attempt to rally support for the Democrat’s flailing health care bill:

“Instead of joining us on the right side of history, all Republicans have come up with is this slow down, stop everything, let's start over. You think you've heard these same excuses before, you're right. When this country belatedly recognized the wrongs of slavery, there were those who dug in their heels and said, 'Slow down, it's too early. Let's wait. Things aren't bad enough.'

    “When women spoke up for the right to speak up, they wanted to vote, some insisted, 'Slow down, there will be a better day to do that. The day isn't quite right.'

    "When this body was on the verge of guaranteeing equal civil rights to everyone, regardless of the color of their skin, some senators resorted to the same filibuster threats that we hear today. History is repeating itself before our eyes. There are now those who don't think it is the right time to reform health care. If not now, when, madam president? But the reality for many that feel that way, it will never, never be a good time to reform health care."

Maybe, Senator, Americans aren’t buying the health care reform you’re trying to sell because it’s really bad legislation. Just because someone doesn’t agree with you doesn’t make them racist and it doesn’t mean they want to oppress women. People are concerned about the potential takeover of health care because they don’t want to see the best health care system in the world fall into the hands of the government – the same government that can’t responsibly manage our postal service, and the same government that can’t administer a used-car program effectively. The American people deserve a better bill that doesn’t break the bank and leaves health care decisions in the hands of patients and doctors, not a government bureaucrat.

With the future of cap-and-trade currently in limbo in the Senate, President Obama and liberal leaders in Congress are getting a bit nervous about the prospects of their national energy tax becoming law, and rightly so. More and more evidence is pointing to the highly skeptical statistics of global warming trends, and the scientific community is becoming increasingly wary about the soundness and significance of man made global warming.

In fact, recently revealed emails written by scientists at the Climatic Research Unit of the U.K.'s University of East Anglia and their peers calling into question the scientific rationale for regulation have turned the global warming debate on its head.

But, if you were worried that facts and figures would get in the way of the United States pursuing a radical agenda, have no fear. Where Congress falls short, we have the EPA to pick up its pieces.

Today, the EPA officially declared carbon dioxide a dangerous pollutant. This is bad news for businesses and jobs alike.

The Wall Street Journal reports that:

"an 'endangerment' finding by the Environmental Protection Agency could pave the way for the government to require businesses that emit carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases to make costly changes in machinery to reduce emissions -- even if Congress doesn't pass pending climate-change legislation. EPA action to regulate emissions could affect the U.S. economy more directly, and more quickly, than any global deal inked in the Danish capital (Copenhagen Climate Change Conference), where no binding agreement is expected."

U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Donahue released a statement on the EPA's costly decision, saying the EPA's endangerment finding "could result in a top-down command-and-control regime that will choke off growth by adding new mandates to virtually every major construction and renovation project."

The National Association of Manufacturers had harsher words stating that the EPA action won't do much to combat climate change and "is certain to come at a huge cost to the economy."

The timing of this announcement is no coincidence. President Obama is scheduled to fly to the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference later this month, and now he has something to show his similarly misguided peers.

With unemployment at 10%, our government and its agencies shouldn't be looking for ways to eliminate jobs and make it more expensive for businesses to operate. They should be doing exactly the opposite. But again, what else would you expect from liberal leadership that is more focused on seeing through their radical agenda instead of creating jobs and getting our economy back on track.

Credit to Scott Johnson at Powerline for a great Thanksgiving day post featuring the work of Professor Paul Rahe, "one of the academy's foremost authorities on the history of republics." Reflecting on Thanksgiving, Rahe points to the Pilgrims as an example of how we today can better understand how socialism thrwarts hard work and innovation while discouraging what should otherwise be a productive and fruitful society:

On Thanksgiving, it is customary that Americans recall to mind the experience of the Pilgrim Fathers This year, it is especially appropriate that we do so--as we pause, in the midst of an economic maelstrom, to count our remaining blessings and to reflect on the consequences of our election of a President and a Congress intent on "spread[ing] the wealth around."

We have much to learn from the history of the Plymouth Plantation. For, in their first year in the New World, the Pilgrims conducted an experiment in social engineering akin to what is now contemplated; and, after an abortive attempt at cultivating the land in common, their leaders reflected on the results in a manner that Americans today should find instructive.

William Bradford, Governor of the Plymouth Colony, reports that, at that time, he and his advisers considered "how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop than they had done, that they might not still thus languish in misery." And "after much debate of things," he then adds, they chose to abandon communal property, deciding that "they should set corn every man for his own particular" and assign "to every family a parcel of land, according to the proportion of their number, for that end."

The results, he tells us, were gratifying in the extreme, "for it made all hands very industrious" and "much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been." Even "the women now went willingly into the field, and took their little ones with them to set corn; which before would allege weakness and inability; whom to have compelled would have been thought great tyranny and oppression."

Moreover, he observes, "the experience that was had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years . . . amongst godly and sober men, may well evince the vanity of that conceit of Plato's and other ancients applauded by some of later times . . . that the taking away of property and bringing in community into a commonwealth would make them happy and flourishing." In practice, America's first socialist experiment "was found to breed much confusion and discontent and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort."

In practice, "the young men, that were most able and fit for labor and service, did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men's wives and children without any recompense. The strong, or man of parts, had no more in division of victuals and clothes than he that was weak and not able to do a quarter the other could; this was thought injustice. The aged and graver men to be ranked and equalized in labors and victuals, clothes etc., with the meaner and younger sort, thought it some indignity and disrespect unto them. And for men's wives to be commanded to do service for other men, as dressing their meat, washing their clothes, etc., they deemed it a kind of slavery, neither could many husbands well brook it."

Naturally enough, quarrels ensued. "If it did not cut off those relations that God hath set amongst men," Bradford notes, "yet it did at least much diminish and take off the mutual respects that should be preserved amongst them. And [it] would have been worse if they had been men of another condition" less given to the fear of God. "Let none object," he concludes, that "this is men's corruption, and nothing to the course itself. I answer, seeing all men have this corruption in them, God in His wisdom saw another course fitter for them."

The moral is perfectly clear. Self-interest cannot be expunged. Where there is private property and its possession and acquisition are protected and treated with respect, self-interest and jealousy can be deployed against laziness and the desire for that which is not one's own, and there tends to be plenty as a consequence.

But where one takes from those who join talent with industry to provide for those lacking either or both, where the fruits of one man's labor are appropriated to benefit another who is less productive, self-interest reinforces laziness, jealousy engenders covetousness, and these combine in a bitter stew to produce both conflict and dearth.

We've had our own modern day fling with great society welfare state policies.  And after trillions and trillions spent we've purchased neither more personal industry or frugality.  Rather, if people can obtain for free what other men endeavor to labor for, the former learns to keep the latter busy.

If you thought that the first economic “stimulus” put in place by the Obama Administration was a bust, get ready for a disappointing round two. Democrats in Congress are closer than ever to passing a second stimulus in a misguided effort to spur job growth. According to the AP, “House Democrats are looking at swelling deficits further, at least temporarily, on a jobs-producing bill in response to double-digit unemployment and a sense within their ranks that the party needs to do more to put people back to work.”  

The first stimulus was sold largely on the basis that it would cap unemployment at a worst case scenario rate of 8%. Proponents claimed that jobs would be created immediately, and our economy would be on the upswing by the end of the year. That couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, unemployment now sits at 10.2%, and jobs are nowhere to be found.

How much of your hard-earned money does the government have to waste before they realize that throwing money at a problem isn’t a viable solution?

Just look at the $700-billion financial industry bailout known as TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program). Earlier this month, Neil Barofsky, the Special Inspector General in charge of overseeing the TARP bailout said the program “will ‘almost certainly’ result in a loss to taxpayers." According to Barosky: “We need to temper or be realistic about our expectations; a dollar-for-dollar return is just highly unrealistic. It’s almost certainly going to be a loss.” Furthermore, “Tens of billions of dollars are likely to be lost on the automotive bailout. In addition, some banks that received TARP money are failing, so the aid they received will be wiped out.”

Bloomberg also reports that Barofsky is conducting 65 investigations of possible fraud with the implementation of the TARP.

Clearly, the last thing we need is another bailout or stimulus or whatever you want to call it. We need to allow Americans to keep more of their own money, not take it away. While simplistic, it’s a tried and true method for economic revitalization and sustained prosperity.

The President’s economic “stimulus” package appears to be working so marvelously that it’s even creating nonexistent jobs in nonexistent locations. While the evidence continues to pile up that the President’s stimulus package has been a failure with unemployment rising to over 10%, Americans continue to ask: Where are the jobs? Visiting the federal government’s stimulus tracking website sure won’t help anyone find them. You can try, but your search will lead you in all sorts of different directions.

In fact, ABC News has located “several examples on the government's web site outlining hundreds of millions of dollars spent and jobs created in Congressional districts that have been misidentified.”  

Minnesota has eight Congressional districts, but the website lists 19 different districts, all of which have received stimulus funds. Taken together, the 11 mystery congressional districts posted received more than $7 million in stimulus spending, and created or saved about 50 jobs.  Who’s in charge of managing the accuracy of this website and properly distributing stimulus dollars?  The same federal government that wants to take control of your health care. Talk about a lack of fiscal responsibility and transparency. This is government accountability at its best.

On Veterans Day, we pause to remember the brave American heroes who sacrificed so much to preserve our great nation.

Though we celebrate Veterans Day once a year, we reap the benefits of freedom everyday.  America's courageous sons and daughters who have chosen to fight for the freedoms and liberties upon which our country was founded deserve to be honored for their tremendous sacrifices.  From the Halls of Congress to Main Street, millions of Americans use this important day to thank our soldiers and their families for their strong commitment to our nation. We must not make the mistake of waiting until our heroes have passed on to recognize their sacrifices and tell them "thank you."

I want to express my deepest gratitude for each and every veteran that has fought for our nation's freedom, safety, and prosperity. I also encourage the American people to thank and pray for the men and women in uniform who are continuing to carry the torch and keeping the flame of liberty burning bright.

May God bless the men and women who serve the cause of freedom so cherished by our nation.

This morning, House Democrats held a press conference to unveil their health care reform bill, which they claim will expand coverage for all and decrease costs. Sounds good, but once you peel away the “feel good” rhetoric, there’s nothing to be excited about. This 2,000-page bill includes a job-killing employer mandate, an individual mandate that requires Washington bureaucrats to define what kind of coverage is acceptable, burdensome tax increases, Medicare cuts, and a huge expansion of Medicaid that will break already strained state budgets.  

You see, the Democrats are playing a game of bait and switch when they talk about the costs of this legislation. For instance, they say that costs will be kept under the arbitrary $900 billion cap that President Obama has requested. Well, they’ll stay under the cap simply by expanding Medicaid eligibility. In other words, they’ll be shifting the costs off one set of taxpayer-funded books to another set of taxpayer-funded books.  And, don’t forget: we just had to bail out those states in large part because their Medicaid budgets were bleeding them dry!

Social Security is broke, Medicare is broke, Medicaid is broke – and all of them were created with the best intentions. But we have to face reality. Our deficit is at an all-time high. Our debt is nearing $12 TRILLION with no signs of slowing. We’re on a crash course for financial ruin. This isn’t conjecture, it’s basic economics.

Republicans have put forth alternative after alternative taking a patient-centered approach -- not focused on government, focused on you -- that will keep costs down, but each and every one of them has fallen on deaf ears. They weren’t even considered by Democrat leadership. Yesterday’s Chicago Tribune did a great job highlighting several of these Republican alternatives that won’t break the bank (a bank that’s already bankrupt).

 As the Tribune points out:

“Let insurers sell policies across state lines. That would loosen the strangling state-by-state regulations and unleash competition to drive premium prices down.”

“Give people who buy insurance in the private market the same tax breaks as those who get it through employers. Now, employers that offer coverage get a tax break on the premiums they pay for employees. And employees don't pay taxes on the value of the coverage they receive. People who want to buy insurance in the individual market should get the same tax breaks. That would help millions of people acquire coverage.”  (That’s what my Health Care Freedom of Choice Act does!)

“Expand the ability of small businesses, trade associations and other groups to set up insurance pools to offer coverage at more attractive rates.”

“Control health costs in part by reining in the medical malpractice system that raises insurance premiums and forces doctors to order tests to protect themselves from lawsuits. Limiting certain kinds of damage awards would reduce spending on health care by about $11 billion in 2009, or about one-half of 1 percent, the Congressional Budget Office estimates. Think about that in human terms: Reform would save millions of patients the expense and trauma of unnecessary tests and procedures.”

As this health care debate plays out, please don’t fall for the rhetoric and take a closer look at what the Democrats’ bill really means. If you do, you’ll realize that it’s a prescription for economic disaster.

Do you remember the famous chart that Christina Romer, then the chief architect of President Obama’s plan and now Chairman of Obama’s Council of Economic Advisors, produced to help sell the President’s “stimulus” plan to the public?
 
Her analysis found that unemployment would drop to 7% by the end of 2010 if we passed the “stimulus” bill.  Her analysis also showed that even without the “stimulus,” unemployment would peak at 9%.

That hasn’t been the case. 2. 7 million jobs have been lost since “stimulus” began. Seven months after the “stimulus” was passed, 49 of 50 states have lost jobs. Manufacturing and construction, which the White House promised would gain the most jobs, are actually among the largest job losers by percentage. And, economists – including Ms. Romer – now agree that unemployment will hover around 10% through 2010.

And what’s worse, apparently we’ve already seen the biggest jolt that was expected from the “stimulus.”  Romer said last week in testimony before Congress that, “Most analysts predict that the fiscal stimulus will have its greatest impact on growth in the second and third quarters of 2009.  By mid-2010 fiscal stimulus will likely be contributing little to further growth.”

Yet, we continue to hear stories each week about how your “stimulus” dollars are really being used, and abused. For instance, it’s been reported that Wichita, Kansas is using part of its $26 million to spay and neuter pets.  Eric Cantor, the Republican Whip, first brought some of the abuses of this funding to light on his blog, including this one:

Eight Tampa Bay cosmetology and massage schools are receiving $2.3 million in stimulus funds to pay the tuitions for hairdressers, masseuses and nail technicians. The $2.3 million is coming out of the Pell Grant program which received $17 billion in federal stimulus grants.

Monica Ponce, the owner of Tampa’s Muse The Salon, doesn’t believe there is actually a demand for more beauty school graduates in the bay area. Chad Malm, owner of Tampa’s Salon Jack, agreed with Ponce noting there are already plenty of hairdressers in the area. According to Malm, not only is the idea of subsidizing beauty school tuitions ridiculous, it’s also “wasting tax dollars.”

In fact, only 1 to 2 percent of beauty school graduates will be working in the field five years from graduation, according to the Florida Cosmetology Association. Meaning, American taxpayer money is going towards non-permanent jobs within a profession that isn’t hiring.

Source: Tampabay.com
 
What’s worse:  Congress hasn’t seemed to have learned its lesson!  Later today, the House is expected to consider and pass a new continuing resolution to keep government funded until Congress finishes its work on the fiscal year 2010 spending bills.  And, the Democrats have turned it into a “mini-stimulus,” according to news reports!  They’re loading it up with more “stimulus” provisions, including provisions to allow Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – the housing giants that perverted their mission of providing mortgage assistance to the poor, leading to the housing market meltdown – to provide mortgages for up to nearly $730,000. 

With fiscal irresponsibility like this, it’s no wonder why Americans have such a low opinion of Congress. Let’s get real.