A Liberal Taking a Phrase Too Literally: Biting the Hand That Feeds Him
We conservatives are often the beneficiaries of liberals or progressives when they, as the ultimate expression of their intellectual profundity, offer us their extended middle finger; we graciously decline their invitation, noting that Big Government has already been doing that to us hard-working Americans for decades now.
However, some liberals, unwilling to settle for simply emptying their neighbors' wallets to throw the latter's money down some Big Government rat hole, don't like finger-pointing by conservatives and have resorted to literally biting the hand that feeds them.
A pro-health care reform Moveon.org supporter, unhappy with 65-year-old William Rice's opposition to the prospective federal government's expanded involvement in health care (and most things other than the military and USPS), decided that it was perfectly honorable to get into an elder man's face and pick a fight with him when he didn't care for Rice's rationale. During the ensuing scuffle, the younger man bit off Rice's left pinky finger above the second knuckle. Rice, for the first time using his Medicare policy, was told by doctors they could not reattach the retrieved finger tip due to bacteria from a human bite. Incredibly, while police have been seeking the assailant for questioning, they do not consider him a criminal suspect and don't intend to arrest him.
Na Na Na Na, Hey Hey Hey, Goodbye
White House green jobs adviser, Van Jones, a prominent figure in Barack Obama's post-partisan administration, has resigned over controversies involving his calling conservative critics "a**holes" and espousing crackpot conspiracy theories involving 9/11 events. [Jones, like VP Joe "The Gaffe Machine" Biden, is the gift that never stops giving. Other pre-election videos have surfaced, comparing Bush to a crackhead by pushing for oil self-sufficiency, and, while mocking the problems of white male students, arguing that mass killings like Columbine are distinctly a white race phenomenon. As usual, Obama knows how to vet his staff and his former pastors consistent with his non-combative principles....] In typical liberal fashion, Jones was unrepentant and ungracious to the end, accusing his opponents of organizing a "smear" and "distortion" campaign against him. (No doubt a conservative had a gun to his head, instructing him to use the term "a**holes", to the delight of the progressive crowd in attendance. I'm sure that Obama would have terminated Jones sooner if Jones had said "---ho--s" instead, i.e., Don Imus .)
Time for an Obama Paradigm Shift on Stimulus Spending and Health Care
As we now show a 9.7% unemployment rate nationally (which may well be revised upward), not to mention discouraged workers no longer showing up in the statistics and among the highest rates of unemployment among teens on record (gee, do you think the minimum wage increase that the Democrats so proudly passed has anything to do with that? Too bad the Democrats don't realize "it's good to spread the labor cost around"...), Obama and the Congressional Democrats need to rethink their approach to stimulus spending and health care reform.
Why do I put these two seemingly unrelated items together? Small businesses are a key component of job growth, and as I pointed out in a recent post, small businesses owners, employees and their dependents account for over half of the much-cited 46 million Americans without health insurance, with health insurance costs estimated at 18% higher per insured and approximately 150% more in administration costs over large companies qualifying for self-insurance and ERICA exemptions to a Byzantine system of individual state mandates.
Would Obama put his backing behind past failed legislative attempts to allow small business health care associations to operate across states with the same advantages as large companies? Will he discuss regulations ensuring a fair distribution of high-risk policyholders among various carriers? One can hope, but I'm not holding my breath...
Not while the Democrats continue their demagogic attacks on health insurance carriers. Even liberal GOP Senator Olivia Snowe is setting up a straw man, implying that the issues of health care costs are not impacted by actuarial considerations for an aging population and out-of-control frivolous malpractice suits, among other intrinsic factors, but apparently windfall-profit health insurance companies. Yes, indeed: given all those "windfall profits" in health care, why doesn't Obama's number-one billionaire fan, Warren Buffett, pursue the business through his existing insurance subsidiaries at Berkshire Hathaway? That's how capitalism works. The reason we've been seeing a consolidation in the health care industry is for the same reason we saw consolidation in energy companies as oil fell back towards $10/barrel in the late 1990's and profits were collapsing.
Instead of gimmick reimbursable tax rebates (including to workers whom don't pay federal income taxes), much of which is not spent but saved in anticipation of more tough times ahead--which does not provide the economic starter dough for economic recovery, Obama also needs to consider the third of the economy which is not consumer-driven. The Wall Street Journal suggests in its September 5 editorial rewiring the unspent stimulus government to help businesses on the cost side, e.g., limited-term tax breaks (and other things come to mind, including expedited write-offs for new equipment and the like), which are more direct and immediate than the trickle-down effect of infrastructure spending across the economy on aggregate demand. But once again, I'm not holding my breath...
