Liberalism is, at heart, an impossible promise.   A promise that in aggregate the peoples of the world can consume more than they produce, that there is “such thing as a free lunch”.   Its ideal – the welfare state – is just as big a failure as it’s nasty and brutish father, Communism, and – just like Communism – always ends in tears.  A snippet:

Lacking a limiting principle, progressivism cannot say how big the welfare state should be but must always say that it should be bigger than it currently is. Furthermore, by making a welfare state a fountain of rights requisite for democracy, progressives in effect declare that democratic deliberation about the legitimacy of the welfare state is illegitimate.

“By blackening the skies with crisscrossing dollars,” Voegeli says, the welfare state encourages people “to believe an impossibility: that every household can be a net importer of the wealth redistributed by the government.” But the welfare state’s problem, today becoming vivid, is socialism’s problem, as Margaret Thatcher defined it: Socialist governments “always run out of other people’s money.”

The whole thing is pure gold.  Perfect reading for impressionable co-workers and employees.  Print it out and share it.

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Tim Carney’s book Obamanomics does a great job spelling out how and why. We highly recommend this book to you.  Carney also spoke on a Cato panel about his findings. The video of his speech is at fora.tv – definitely worth the watch.

If you think that the current Goldman Sachs SEC probe is a sign of Big Government taking on Big Business, then I’ve got some beachfront land in Iowa to sell you.  Goldman will get a “slap on the wrist” (if anything at all, since it looks like the charges are extremely overblown and may be without merit) while – wink wink – the resulting financial regulation encouraged by their public castigation will ensure that the new and onerous compliance costs hurt Goldman’s smaller competitors.

Big Government gets more power, Big Business gets less competition from smaller competitors.

It’s a familiar story.  Watch it unfold, yet again, in the coming months and years.

Read that Carney book.  Free your mind.

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The Senate health care bill crucial to saving President Obama’s signature domestic initiative will hit the wallets of a quarter of all Americans making less than $200,000 per year, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Joint Tax Committee that assessed the way the bill would hit taxpayers directly through new taxes and fees and indirectly through taxes levied on health care providers and passed on to consumers.

The committee also determined that the bill would subsidized insurance premiums for 7 percent of taxpayers — about 13 million people — while some 73 million people would face higher costs from the new fees and taxes.

“For every family that gets some benefit from this program, in other words, a premium subsidy, three families are going to get a tax increase and those three families obviously include the bulk of people you’d call middle class America,” Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, told Fox News.

Watch the words directly from the Dissembler-in-Chief’s mouth.

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Over the last few weeks Congress and the Administration have been trying to call government takeover of health insurance and health care “competition”.  They have hijacked words and are using them in completely new ways to try and trick people into believing they are selling something they’re not.

The expansionist and interventionist nature of Big Government means that it always has as its goal to set up Monopsonies (single payer systems in which they control the production of goods and services) or Monopolies (single provider systems in which they control the provision of goods and services).  They try to do it in the name of “competition” as if they actually plan on competing fairly (if at all) with the private businesses and charities they’re trying to muscle out of a market.

Battles against Big Government are often won or lost over whether or not we are willing to concede the actual terms of the argument to Big Government, or whether we’ll refuse to conduct the argument with Big Government’s terms.  Below are a few examples of how we can change the terms and, therefore, how people feel about Big Government’s activities.

“Revenue” vs. “Confiscation”

Here’s a glaring example.  Big Government calls taxation by the name of “Revenue”. The agency in charge of collecting taxes is even called the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

Set aside whether or not it’s technically correct or not or has become such through use of the word for a long time, “revenue” is a business word.  That’s our word. That’s the word for sales – the free market exchange of goods and services between voluntary parties who are both made better off by the trade.  Revenue is something freely given for something of value freely received. Taxation is coercion and wealth confiscation by force.

At the very least, we should refuse to grant taxation legitimacy by calling it that.  Moreover, revenue is a “positive” word that government has hijacked.  When our goal is to reduce the size and intervention of Big Government, why would we ever concede to use words that might grant Big Government any semblance of legitimacy?

While taxation is an OK word to use when talking about the means through which Big Government finances itself, it is one that has become desensitized and still does not make strongly enough the central point that it is coercive.

So we propose to use the word “confiscation” instead.  When discussing our opinions with friends, family, employees and co-workers, we would say, “I think government confiscates too much,” or “Government confiscated 10% more of our private property this year than they did last year.”

“Earnings” vs. “Private Property”

Notice that in the statement above we used the word “private property” instead of “earnings.”

“Earnings” actually should be a pretty good word to use because it implies that what is taken from people is something they’ve earned, or labored for, but this word has also been used for so long that people have become desensitized to it.

How about talking about confiscation in terms of “private property“?

Also, how about talking about the confiscation of private property in terms of “productive people” or the “productive sector” funding the “unproductive people” or “unproductive sector”?  Big Government, after all, merely redistributes the confiscated property of productive people, so let’s call it what it is.

“Welfare” vs. “Dependency Programs”

We talk about Government “Welfare” programs in language that implies they help others “fare” more “well”. We even use terms such as “Charity” or “Entitlement” to talk about these Big Government Programs. While it is true that some of these programs can provide temporary relief to those in need, the full truth is that they often create permanent dependencies and reward dependents for inactivity and bad behavior.

Furthermore, private charities (which have to compete for donations) are far more efficient at helping those in need and suffer when Big Government confiscates more private property to itself, rather than allowing those resources to be employed by the more efficient and accountable charitable organizations.

So, instead of calling these programs “welfare programs,” we can call them by the more accurate terms, “Government dependency programs” or “Government handout programs.”

Then we could say things like, “Government dependency programs confiscated 10% more private property from the productive sector” or “Government handout programs saw their rolls grow by 5% in the last quarter.”

That helps others see the truth about Big Government.

Big Government not only uses words to justify its big programs, but it also selects words that can be used to silence dissent and opposition to the programs. Think about the “Patriot Act.” It has nothing to do with being a patriot, but by using that name anyone who opposes the act it can be labeled “not a patriot.”  Cunning.   If you oppose “No Child Left Behind” you can be labeled as someone who does not support helping children succeed.  Think about the Medicare Prescription Drug Improvement and Modernization Act.  Nothing was improved or modernized so much as spending was drastically increased – the biggest Government Dependency Program expansion in decades.  But if you didn’t support it you were labeled as one who didn’t want to improve and modernize Medicare, and therefore were against the well-being of the elderly.

And that’s why it’s important to do our best to not conduct the debate in the terms Big Government tries to force upon us.

Our movement must use the terms we choose, words that expose Big Government for what is really is, helping others to see clearly the forces that impinge upon their freedoms. As we do so, we’ll help undermine the legitimacy of Big Government and we’ll counteract its efforts to hijack and change the plain meaning of our language and then use it against us.

We would love to hear your thoughts about what to call various government agencies and practices in order to more accurately show what they really are.  For example, IRS “audits” are really . . . what?

In the comments below, please provide your ideas for how we can use language to expose Big Government for what it really is. Also, if you’re aware of other resources on the web that have attempted or are working on this project, please provide links to them below.

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He then recounted to us how Arizona came to find itself in this predicament.

At bottom, the cause is a fatal flaw within the state’s Medicaid program.  How that fatal flaw came about is the key lesson that we must not forget during the national health care debate.

The flaw was a Trojan Horse that once entered into Arizona law ensured an economic crisis years down the road, and that day has now arrived.

Some nefarious lies were told to the Arizona electorate that misled them in 2000 into voting for something other than what they thought they were.

Does this sound like any tactics you’ve seen employed by Big Government recently?

In Arizona, the state Medicaid program is known as The Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS, pronounced “Access”).  As a Medicaid program, it is a joint-expense program between the State of Arizona and the Federal Government, by way of its Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
In 1998 Arizona, along with 46 other states, agreed to settle a lawsuit it had filed against the tobacco industry.  The tobacco manufacturers agreed to pay each state a part of the total $206 billion settlement.  The payments were to be made to the states over 25 years, a portion paid each year.

Arizona’s share was at the time estimated to be $3.2 billion, with adjustments for inflation and with a provision to lower payments if the number of cigarettes sold in the US dropped over that time.  Each state was permitted to spend its settlement money in whatever way it saw fit.

Enter Proposition 204.  The proposition was proposed to “Set into law the method of disbursing and spending the approximately $3.2 billion the state anticipated to collect as part of the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement. Targets for the funds include education aimed at the prevention of tobacco use among minors as well as health care.” (emphasis SBABG)

So what you had was this chunk of money coming in, and a proposal to use it to prevent tabacco use among minors and help out with public health care.  Well, who doesn’t want to help kids not to smoke, right?  And if there’s “free money” coming in, heck, we can use it to help provide health care, too, right?

This is what was sold to the public.  A claim that it the proposition was to just use tobacco settlement monies to fund children’s and health programs.

But the actual language of the proposition was far different from what was sold to the public.

The proposition actually changed who was eligible for AHCCCS by broadening the eligibility threshold  from 34% of the poverty level to 100% of the poverty level. And it stipulated that if the tobacco money was not sufficient to cover this increase in spending that the spending increase would have to be covered by general funds and no limitations on enrollment could be made.  Straight from the horses mouth.

That part in bold, just 17 words, tacked onto the end of a paragraph, snuck into a proposition 2 pages, 24 paragraphs, 65 sentences, 836 words long, just 2% of the language in the proposition, was the Trojan Horse.

The taxpayers had no idea that language meant they were on the hook for this program for any amount not covered by the tobacco settlement. They had no idea they had just massively expanded taxpayer exposure to an “all-in” program with no caps on enrollment up to 100% of the poverty line.  And because AHCCCS is a first-dollar program, it meant that all tax revenue went first to meet all AHCCCS needs, and then whatever was leftover would go to the budgets of other programs, like, say, education, police, fire, etc.

And to add insult to injury, the provision allowed persons with incomes above the poverty line to spend down their income on medical bills to qualify for coverage.  Perverse incentives, anyone?

Fast forward to 2009.  What have been the consequences?

If you have a modicum of common sense, what happened was about what you’d expect.  More people went on AHCCCS and more money per person on AHCCCS was spent.  By 2003 Arizona had more people on AHCCCS than they had in public education!

From 2001 to 2003 alone AHCCCS payments increased from $200 million to $1.2 billion – a 500% increase. You’ll remember that the entire tobacco settlement, over 25 years, was only $2 billion more than that!  Gulp.  In three years they gobbled up nearly 40% of the settlement funds.

In 2009 alone the amount spent on AHCCCS is projected to be $1.5 billion.  The tobacco funds are long gone.

Before going on to more carnage, let’s just point out again that AHCCCS is an acronym standing for “Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System.”  You have to love the ironies embedded in Big Government misnomers.

Cost containment.  To be fair, Arizona is a growing state and its population increases regularly, therefore the number of the poor in the state has increased, as well.

However, by 2006 real (adjusted for inflation) per capita spending increased 46% by 2006! (see the graph below, created by the Goldwater Institute).

By 2006 AHCCCS accounted for 22% of ALL state expenditures.  Today, in 2009, 20% of Arizonans are dependent on a health care program that was originally intended for only the poorest of the poor.

And there’s another kick in the teeth. The $3.2 billion is turning out to be less than that amount, because smoking has decreased.

Finally, the end game has arrived.  Barring a miracle, AZ will likely pull a California and begin handing out IOUs at some point this year.  Of course, AZ could always sell the state capitol building and kick the can further down the road.

And all of this because of the unintended consequences brought about by little Trojan Horse snuck into a proposition.

Now, why is this important to the current health care debate?

That there are unintended consequences of giving out free health care that will make costs rise for everyone?  Check.  But that’s no Trojan Horse.  That’s right in the bill and has been well documented by the Congressional Budget Office.

That health care will be rationed and choice reduced?  Check.  But that’s no Trojan Horse, either.  That’s also right in the bill and is being well documented.

Is it that the program doesn’t bode well for the nation or the rest of the states since, “As Arizona Goes, So Goes the Nation?” Well, of course that’s true, but that’s no Trojan Horse.

The Trojan Horse is something called “The Public Plan.”  The Public Plan is a proposal being put forth in the Health Care Plan (HR 3200) which establishes a government-run insurance provider.

The government is telling us that the purpose of this provider is to keep the private insurers honest, to lower costs, and to make health insurance more competitive.

But that’s a lie.  Not only doesn’t it do those things, saying that the purpose of the plan is to achieve those objectives is an effort to obscure it’s real purpose.

Its real purpose it to lay the groundwork for the creation of what’s called a “single payer” program.  That is code for a government-run, socialist, health care system, where the government makes all payments for all health care procedures and therefore, sets pricing, determines care, and determines coverage for all citizens.

Don’t believe it?  Just have a listen to the President and his advisers.  When they thought we weren’t watching, they stated very clearly that their intention with The Public Plan was to reduce choice and competition.

Of course, they are out in full force, trying to spread disinformation, and telling you that they’ve said no such things as you just observed.

And they will tell you that they want an open debate, but they don’t. And they will tell you they’re being transparent, but they’re not.

And they will tell you that their plan will save money, but it won’t. And it will be more expensive than even the Congressional Budget Office’s worst predictions.

You can add that spending to the already projected Budget Deficits:

And let’s not forget the deficits that Social Security and Medicare are already on target to hit over the coming century (A Cumulative Deficit of $83 Trillion by 2080).  Tack the expenses of this plan on top of these.

Public opposition is building against the Health Care Plan and the Public Option particularly. Only 32% of Americans support Single Payer while 57% Oppose it.

Now, watch out. The Senate knows that the public is against single payer, and they know that the public is becoming increasingly informed that the road to single payer is through the public plan, so they’re preparing to introduce a public plan by another name.  They’re calling the plan a  co-op plan. The co-op is Health Care’s version of a Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae.  One Senator warned that it will:

You know this is the case when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid concurs and says:

So don’t be deceived.  It’s the same old Trojan Horse the Public Plan is  They’ll lie about it now.  And in a few short years we’ll have a real mess on our hands.

Learn from Arizona.  Don’t be deceived by what’s being sold you.  Read the fine print in the bills, listen to the past statements of the people who are lying to you now.  Be forewarned.

Reject the entire Health Care Bill as it currently stands, and particularly the Public Plan and its brother-in-arms the Co-Op Plan.  It’s the Trojan Horse of Single Payer.

Please visit DownsizeDC.org and use their free service to send your Representatives a message.

We’re always interested in your hearing from you in the comments below.  If you have any “Trojan Horse” stories of your own, please also share them.

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SBABG.org

There are two big fat lies going around. (UPDATE: a third lie added to the end of the post.)

One is a lie by omission.

One is a lie by distortion.

First, the lie by omission.  Politicians claims that 46 million Americans are “uninsured”.  What they imply is that these people want to be insured or qualify for insurance, or otherwise couldn’t get it if they wanted it.

Here’s the truth, the data the politicians leave out.

Of the 46 million:

• 10 million are ILLEGAL ALIENS (they are only “Americans” in the loosest sense, and to include them in these numbers is misleading).
• 8 million are young and won’t buy it b/c they are healthy and don’t want to pay for it or use it
• 10 million make more than 75,000 per year and STILL WONT BUY for whatever reason they have
• 9.4 million are between jobs and are classified as “temporarily” uninsured, but for the sake of putting the “rosiest” picture on the Big Government argument, we won’t deduct these people from the numbers.

See here for our citations for the above numbers.

So, that leaves 18 million people (or 9 million if you deduct temporaries), or 6% (3% if you deduct temporaries) of Americans – there are 300Million of us – who are “legitimately” not insured.

And you know what?  Many of those 3-6% qualify for Medicaid.

So it’s likely  less than 3-6% of Americans who legitimately don’t have access to health insurance coverage.

So, for less than 6% of Americans, we’re going to throw out the health care system that is the envy of the civilized world?  A system that  93.6% of Americans reported being “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with their physician services.

Someone just sent me this political cartoon from an Investors Business Daily Editorial that visually sums up what was expressed above. (this insertion is an update to the original post)

This is about a power grab and socialism pure and simple.  The problems in our health care system are all ones that can be solved by introducing competition into the health care market.

And that leads into the second lie, the lie by distortion.

Proponents of socialized health care (and this is what the health care proposal IS, socialism), claim that “the free market has failed.”

The lie is that health care is a free market. That completely distorts the reality of the situation.

There are 133,000 pages of health care regulation in the U.S. Federal Register.  If that were a book, it would be a book 44 feet thick!  It would weigh 1330 lbs, more than a half a ton!

That’s the bureaucracy that health care providers wade through and the regulatory burden that providers and insurance companies have to deal with, and that raises costs significantly.  And then there are the regulations on Insurance companies that restrict where and how they can sell insurance.  Does that sound like a free market to you?  One expert estimates that in it amounts to a $169 Billion annual tax.  No wonder health care is expensive.  You’ve seen doctors’ offices.  They employ many people whose sole job is handle the reams of government paperwork they have to file, and some doctors are turning to new systems that allow them to see less patients, but have adverse consequences in other areas of health care.  The remarkable thing is that it’s not more expensive!

How we got there is an interesting story all in itself.  Medical Boards bear much blame for Nationalizing Health Care.  The AMA helped to “Cartelize” medicine, reducing the supply of health care all while government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid increase it (all of which leads to longer wait times, reduction is services, etc.)

If you can believe it, about half of all US health care costs are already government funded, according to the OECD. (note that link resolves to OECD spreadsheet and is an excel file).  When 3rd party taxpayers pick up the tab for much of health care, that’s not a free market.

So, we don’t have a true free market and people who make claims that “the free market has failed” are making false claims.  The “market” that has “failed” (and if by failure you mean “provides the best health care in the world”) is one that has had to fight against massive government intrusion and inefficiency.  Cost increases have been due to many factors, largely self-inflicted by the government and the industry itself.   When you combine supply shortages at the same demand has been increasing due to government picking up the tab for services (when one is picking up the tab for one’s services, there is a tendency to save on costs, to shop, to look at differing options), you have a recipe for cost increases.  (And then tack on skyrocketing malpractice insurance costs because  of runaway jury awards that award not just actual damages, but also punitive ones . . .)

Imagine what a truly free health care market would be like!  As good as our services are, they could be better, cheaper, and more timely.

Want to read about more lies and broken promises related to Health Care (or ObamaCare, as it’s increasingly being called)?

Here’s a great roundup of myths surrounding the US Health System.

The New York Post has a whole roundup of broken Health Care promises.  This is perhaps the best article I’ve seen on the issue.

There’s a great blog run by a small business owner called The Coyote Blog: Dispatches from a Small Business that I’d encourage you to follow for great insights about how the proposed Health Plan will affect small businesses.  Some recent highlights include:

• My Greatest Fear on the Health Care Bill
• More on the Health Care Bills
• Follow up on Preventive Care
• Perhaps the Most Egregious Statement of the Health Care Debate

Again, keep up the fight.  Join the DownsizeDC.org campaign and it is, I believe, the easiest,  most effective way for citizens to pressure their representatives on this issue.

UPDATE: We’re adding a third lie, since this one is getting a lot of play today.  Supporters of government run health care are claiming that the a World Health Organization report says that the US has only the 37th best health care out of 121 countries.  It’s a bogus report. The biggest variable in the report on “quality of health care” has nothing to do with quality of delivery or timeliness of delivery, it has to do with whether the government pays for it. It’s a worthless report.  So, the most important factor used to measure the quality of health care treatments has to do with whether or not someone else picks up the tab?  It’s nonsense.

The WHO report already been debunked and you can read the debunking it here.

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*Note: Wording at the beginning of the article changed on Aug 21  from “It has been established that” to “We have argued that” on the suggestion of a reader.

New White House spin: Stimulus not designed to … stimulate

ABC Reports today that White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said at a briefing Thursday,

The $787 billion “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act” (AARA) was not designed for full economic recovery, but rather to “stabilize” the downturn.  That’s the word from White House officials today, who held off-camera briefings with reporters on how the AARA is working so far.  “This legislation was designed to cushion the downturn,” said White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.”

Right.  Not to call you a liar, but . . . your boss, President Obama, said in January when you were scare-mongering the passage of the stimulus (sorry) “stabilization” bill:

That is why I have moved quickly to work with my economic team and leaders of both parties on an American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan that will immediately jumpstart job creation and long-term growth. …

There is no doubt that the cost of this plan will be considerable.  It will certainly add to the budget deficit in the short-term.  But equally certain are the consequences of doing too little or nothing at all, for that will lead to an even greater deficit of jobs, incomes, and confidence in our economy.  It is true that we cannot depend on government alone to create jobs or long-term growth, but at this particular moment, only government can provide the short-term boost necessary to lift us from a recession this deep and severe.”

Slublog has a great question:

If the stimulus wasn’t meant to stimulate economic recovery, why is the website called recovery.gov?

People, be warned.  This is a precursor for the second stimulus bill that is going to soon be formally proposed (and is already being proposed by some in the Administration). By saying that the fist bill was not a stimulus bill, they are laying the groundwork a second stimulus bill, which they will insist is really the first one, since the one in January was never really intended to be a stimulus, but merely a “stabilization bill.”

Throw all the bums out.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you …. (drumroll)

Hope.  Change.  (And a big fat memory zapping device).

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