Saturday, 3/20/2010 Congressman John Campbell

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Quote of the day: “Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so.” - Ronald Reagan, October 27, 1964.

The Latest: I just finished walking through a noisy and energized tumult of about 20,000 people outside the Capitol cheering “Kill the Bill”, who are obviously opposed to the health care bill. At the time I am writing this, the President is speaking to the Democrat Caucus to make one last pitch before tomorrow’s expected vote on this disaster. Democrats announced just a few moments ago that they will no longer employ the “deem and pass” method and will have a vote on the Senate passed Healthcare bill. Here are just a few things you may not yet know about this piece of ……well…I don’t think I can use any of those words on a government computer. But you know what I mean. And after you read this, you will agree:

• Under this bill, about 9.5 million veterans who get their health insurance from the vets TriCare system, will be fined annually because that coverage does not meet the standards set out in the bill.  Great, we’re going to fine veterans for having veteran’s coverage….How does that make sense?

• The bill will require the hiring of 16,500 more IRS agents to enforce all the taxes, fees, fines, and penalties in the bill. To determine whether you have to pay any of this, they will need to know exactly what medical insurance you have, how much it costs, what it covers, and any medical plans or payments you have made outside of insurance.  And you thought the Census was intrusive.

• There continues to be lots of bipartisanship here….in opposition to the bill!  This includes conservatives and moderates of both parties fighting against the very liberal of the Democratic Party.

• The Democrats in favor of the bill often talk about the 30 million they say will be insured by this bill. Fine.  Let’s assume for the moment that they are correct. There are over 300 million people in this country now. What about the other 270 million? ALL of them will suffer. According to CBO, some will lose the insurance that they now have, because they are priced out and their employer can’t afford the fines. Some will lose their jobs as the taxes and mandates set in. Some will lose good medical care as doctors will quit practicing and hospitals will close. Everyone will pay the taxes or fines either directly or indirectly. And everyone who does not get their insurance for free will have to pay more; this is all according to the President’s own actuary.

• The President’s actuary said today that they did not have enough time to score the bill. So, if we vote on it, this will break another of the President’s promises. But of course if I had a nickel for every promise this President has broken……..

• But the President’s actuary did say that the bill will raise total health care costs in the U.S. by $222 billion. The actuary went on to say that they estimate that 20% of all health care providers who accept Medicare will become unprofitable and likely go out of business within 10 years.

• One of the arguments of the proponents of this bill is that those opposed to it want to help the insurance companies. This is garbage.  25 years ago California had among the lowest health care costs in the country. Now we are near the top. Why? Because, since that time the state legislature has mandated so much coverage that it has driven up costs. But they also drove out many companies who no longer found it profitable to do business in California. So, there are now really only about 4 insurance companies left in California, and Blue Cross/Blue Shield has the dominant market share. Like any company with a huge share and little competition, they have raised their prices. So, as usual, government will not save us from high prices. Government is why we have high prices. If we were allowed to buy insurance across state lines, as every Republican proposal has suggested, you would have over 1,000 new competitors and I bet Blue Cross would lose share and have to drop prices. But instead this bill will create less competition and, according to the President’s own actuary, raise prices.

• On top of it all, there are 27 national medical associations and 12 state medical associations, representing nearly 500,000 physicians, who oppose this bill.  To view them all, click here.

I was in the elevator on my way to a vote today with a few other Democrat and Republican Members of Congress.  In talking about the protestors outside, one of the Democrats remarked “did you see all those nutcases outside?”  The blood was rising up my cheeks. But before I had time to explode, one of my Republican colleagues remarked “You have it wrong. The nutcases are here in Congress and at the White House. That’s America outside.”

Truer words were never spoken. Don’t give up America. The battle is still engaged.

Until tomorrow, I remain respectfully,

Congressman John Campbell
Member of Congress

America's undermining of Israel

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Posted: March 20, 2010
1:00 am Eastern
© 2010 

Vice President Joe Biden, speaking for the Obama administration at Tel Aviv University this week, decried Israel's announcement that 1,600 apartments would be built in Jerusalem, saying it "undermined the trust required for negotiations."

Biden was speaking for President Barack Obama, but does the Obama administration speak for the American people? Fifteen years ago, Congress passed the Jerusalem Embassy Act, which stated that "Jerusalem should be recognized as the capital of the State of Israel; and the United States Embassy in Israel should be established in Jerusalem no later than May 31, 1999." A loophole in the act has allowed presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama to postpone implementing it for reasons of so-called national security, but the Jerusalem law remains the will of the American people.

Washington, D.C., has been the capital of the United States for about 200 years, and no Israeli politician would presume to question plans for housing in the District of Columbia. Jerusalem has been the capital of the Jewish people for about 3,000 years, since the time of King David – yet for 15 years no president has seen fit to move America's embassy there.

The reactions to the Jerusalem housing plan were a spectacle of hypocrisy in the theater of the absurd, beginning with the condemnation by the Obama administration and followed by the expected handwringing of the European Community. They were exceeded only by the blatant hypocrisy of Mahmoud Abbas' Palestinian Authority.

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Besides their political agenda, all of these reactions reflect a basic ignorance of the actual geography and history of Jerusalem. It is no coincidence that this week's brouhaha over Jerusalem housing followed the exact same script as a similar housing alarm several months ago.

The latest Israeli "threat to the peace process" involves municipal approval for 1,600 badly needed housing units in the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood, located – surprise! – in northwest Jerusalem. It is a sign of the basic irrationality of the conflict that every point on the Jerusalem compass is referred to erroneously as "East Jerusalem." This loaded term is cynically used to designate anywhere that Arabs live in the city, despite the reality that more Jews than Arabs live in Jerusalem's geographically eastern neighborhoods.

The eternal capital of the Jewish people was reunited in June 1967, after being divided under Jordanian occupation for 19 years. Its municipal boundaries were established on June 28, 1967, and included the bare hillside that became Ramat Shlomo, a neighborhood of devoutly religious Jews. As the crow flies, it is a couple of miles west of Jerusalem's Old City, the only part of the city that truly justifies the moniker of East Jerusalem.

Ramat Shlomo is just as much a part of Jerusalem as Givat Ram, where the Knesset, the Supreme Court and other government institutions are located. Questioning Israel's right to build apartments in Ramat Shlomo makes as much moral sense as questioning its right to locate its parliament or highest court in any part of the city.

Virtually the same hypocritical castigating of Israel's sovereign right to build on its own land occurred last November regarding the southwest Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo. Although the uproar over Gilo might have stemmed from the State Department's ignorance of the difference between Har Gilo and Gilo, this is no excuse.

The former, the hilltop adjacent to Gilo, was the site of a Jordanian Arab Legion artillery position that shelled civilian Jerusalem repeatedly over the years and was captured by Israel during the Six Day War. As it lies over the Green Line, this disputed territory – even though it was captured in a war of self-defense – is indeed not an appropriate place for building a planned 900 Israeli apartments.

However, the land upon which Jerusalem's southernmost neighborhood of Gilo was built – of course referred to as East Jerusalem – was purchased from its Arab owners by the Jewish National Fund before 1948. Gilo was once indeed occupied territory: It was Jordanian-occupied Israeli territory from 1948 to 1967, after which its Israeli sovereignty was restored.

It is as insulting for the Obama administration to object to construction in an area that has always been part of Israel's capital as it would be to object to similar construction in Tel Aviv.

With all this loose talk about Israel undermining trust, what really deserves condemnation by the United States is the unceasing incitement against Israel by the Palestinian Authority. To cite just the latest example, why didn't Vice President Biden condemn the PA for scheduling a ceremony in Ramallah during his visit to name a public square there for Dalal Mughrabi, the terrorist who led a 1978 massacre in which 37 Israeli civilians were murdered, 12 of them children?

Contrary to agreements it signed, the Palestinian Authority's textbooks continue to teach little children that murderers are heroes. The PA names schools, youth movements, sports teams, even streets to glorify terrorism – and breed a new generation of terrorists. And don't forget that Hamas still calls for Israel's destruction. So who is undermining whose trust?

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Michael D. Evans, a No. 1 New York Times best-selling author, is the author of "Jimmy Carter: The Liberal Left and World Chaos." A television special based on the book is currently being produced. Evans' latest book is "Atomic Iran, Countdown to Armageddon."

Rasmussen: Obama more disliked than Bush?

posted at 3:52 pm on March 19, 2010 by Ed Morrissey

Today’s Rasmussen numbers from their daily presidential poll puts Barack Obama into an unusual position.  In just 14 months, he has made himself more unpopular than his predecessor, at least by the measure of strong disapproval.  Obama’s approval index has tied its lowest mark yet at -21:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Friday shows that 23% of the nation’s voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty-four percent (44%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -21. That matches the lowest Approval Index rating yet recorded for this President (see trends).

Each time the President leads a big push for his health care plan, his job approval ratings suffer. For Members of Congress, the impact may be more tangible. Just 34% say they’re more likely to vote for someone who supports this legislation. Fifty-percent (50%) are less likely to vote for a Member of Congress who supports the health care reform plan proposed by the President and Congressional Democrats. …

Overall, 45% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President’s performance. Fifty-five percent (55%) disapprove.

Yid with Lid notes that Bush’s final strong-disapproval number was 43%:

Well that didn’t take very long, in January 2009 Rasmussen reported In the final full month of his Presidency, just 13% of American adults said they Strongly Approved of the way that George W. Bush performed his job as president. Forty-three percent (43%) Strongly Disapproved.

This morning, the same Rasmussen Presidential Tracking Poll reported that 23% of the nation’s voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty-four percent (44%) Strongly Disapprove of his performance. (I wonder if that means he will start blaming everything on Obama).

YWL mixes apples and oranges a bit here, since the Obama rating is the daily poll result and not the monthly poll that he quotes for Bush.  It’s worth noting, though, that Bush’s approval rating at the time of his exit from the White House was 35%, ten full points below that of Obama.   That wasn’t even Bush’s worst monthly showing, either.  He hit 32% in July 2008.

What do these numbers show?  Despite Bush’s reputation as a polarizer, Bush attempted to govern on domestic policy much closer to the center, which kept the “strong disapproval” numbers somewhat lower even when his popularity ebbed to its nadir.  Clinton did the same after 1994, and still was a polarizing figure in politics.  Barack Obama, on the other hand, has pushed through a radical, statist agenda since his inauguration, which has more actively polarized the electorate than happened with either of his predecessors.

The comparison shows that people who disapprove of Obama are much more likely to feel strongly about that disapproval.  Those who approve of Obama are a lot less likely to feel strongly about it than Obama’s critics.  That comes from the ideological approach Obama and the Democrats have adopted.  As long as his support remains in the 40s, comparisons to Bush as “more unpopular” are not terribly credible — although if Obama continues on this trajectory, he may get there a lot sooner than did Bush.

On the other hand, the fact that the RCP polling average has Obama underwater for the first time is pretty significant, especially since Obama is still stuck on agenda item #2.

March 19, 2010 - Healthcare Tax Increases – Congressman John Campbell

Quote of the Day: “So tonight, to you, the great silent majority of Americans, I ask for your support.” – President Richard Nixon, November 3, 1969

However, this time, I think that the majority of Americans who in every poll oppose this health care travesty are not and will not be silent. I thank you for that. And remember, there is strong bipartisan opposition to this bill. The partisan side is the extreme left wing of the Democratic Party who are driving this thing and will not work together with the rest of us who want to go in a direction which will not hasten our economic failure. The word is that Speaker Pelosi still has not persuaded enough Democrats to vote for the bill against their constituents and in many cases against their own beliefs.

Tax Increases: The “final” bill came out yesterday afternoon. Here is a partial list of the tax increases included in this reprehensible and immoral bill:

• A new 3.6% tax on all investment income including capital gains. That means that the capital gains tax rate (including California state tax) will rise to 33.9%. The tax on dividend income will rise from 15% today to 53.7% including California tax. 
• Additional Medicare tax on self employment income and wages.  This removes the current cap on wages subject to this tax and it will effectively move the top income tax rate from 35% to 43.4% within a couple of years. Add in the California tax again and would then be close to a 54% marginal tax rate.  I believe that this is the highest of any major industrialized country. But because spending is so high we would still have $1 trillion dollar annual deficits even after this tax.
• There is a 2.9% tax on all medical “devices”, which basically means everything used in a doctor’s office or hospital. Including gowns, syringes, and the like.  This will increase health care costs for everyone who does not get free government insurance.
• The deduction for Medical expenses is currently limited to those expenses that exceed 7.5% or your income. This will be raised to a threshold of 10% of your income. This means that fewer people will get any tax relief from medical expenses they pay for themselves.
• There are various taxes on anything a person might do to pay for their own medical expenses. Things like Health Savings Accounts, Cafeteria Plans, and Flexible Savings Accounts are ways for people to save their OWN money for their OWN medical care on a pre-tax basis will be limited and taxed. This is all part of the way that President Obama gets to government run health care by making it illegal or costly to pay for your own care so you have to go to the government.
• A 10% tax on tanning services. I call this the “Jersey Shore tax”. This one has to be really upsetting to ‘The Situation’, Snookie, and Pauly D.
• A tax on self-insured health plans. This is another penalty on those who try to pay for their own health care.
• A new tax on pharmaceutical manufacturers. This will raise the price of drugs for everyone who does not get them from the government for free.
• A new tax on “Cadillac” health plans. This is an up to 55% tax on any health insurance that costs over about $800 per month including employee and employer contributions. This tax does not apply if you are a union member or your plan is from AARP or Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan. These are major Democratic constituencies and they exempted them. For everyone else, this discourages comprehensive health coverage. Isn’t that what the President says he is trying to achieve? Like most of what the President says, his actions are not even close to his words.
• There is a new tax on all 'for-profit' health insurance companies (except for a few favored ones).  This will also raise the costs of premiums for everyone not getting free care from the government.
• If you don’t buy health insurance (as dictated acceptable by a new federal czar), you will be fined up to 2.5% of your income even if you pay all of your medical expenses yourself. If your company does not provide said health insurance to all employees, the company will be fined up to $2,000 per employee.

All of this will cause growth and jobs to decline, medical costs to go up, deficits and debt to increase, and quality doctors and providers to leave the business. It will cause fewer people to pay for their own care, and more to seek government care. And that is exactly what the authors want.

In spite of all of these taxes, this bill will create deficits of at least half a trillion dollars MORE than what we already have at the federal and state levels over the next 10 years, and a great deal more after that. So, lots more taxes, lots more spending, and lots more deficits.  The time at which the Treasury will not be able to sell debt any more, except at a huge rate, is approaching fast. America, in my opinion with this bill, is much more likely to collapse under the weight of our own fiscal excess than to be seriously threatened by any external force.

Until tomorrow, I remain respectfully,

Congressman John Campbell
Member of Congress

Obama Rules U.S.Constitution is Unconstitutional

March 18, 2010, 07:12 PM

Barack Obama has ruled.  The United States Constitution, which requires laws to be passed by Congress is unconstitutional.
"Article I, Section 7 of the U.S. Constitution states:
"Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If after such Reconsideration two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent, together with the Objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that House, it shall become a Law. But in all such Cases the Votes of both Houses shall be determined by Yeas and Nays, and the Names of the Persons voting for and against the Bill shall be entered on the Journal of each House respectively.
But Obama, like a Hugo Chavez, has determined that the laws are what he says, not the laws passed by the States called the "Constitution".
"According to the (Democrat/Obama) plan, the House would pass a special rule governing debate on the budget reconciliation bill that has been crafted by the House Democratic leaders to make "fixes" in the Senate health care bill desired by House Democratic members. Under this rule, the Senate health care bill itself would be "deemed" to have been passed by the House if the full House subsequently voted to pass the budget reconciliation bill.  At no time would the House actually hold a vote on the Senate health care bill itself before sending it to Obama to sign.
This is how totalitarian government operate--outside the law and with force.
Some might even call this effort by Obama a "coup".  What do you think this is?

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College Bound Indentured Servants

Posted by reddog53 (Profile)
Sunday, March 14th at 12:23PM EDT  - Red State Blogs

The proposal by the administration to have the government take over the ENTIRE student loan enterprise is worrisome on a lot of different levels.  But the greatest concern should be the loss of freedom of the recipients.

Student loans burden graduates with huge amounts of debt that must be repaid when they can least afford it — in the first ten years after graduation. Instead of using the money to start businesses, buy houses, or start families, it is increasingly typical for young graduates to delay ‘growing up’ in order to pay for their loans.

Owing a bank can be a pain in the butt, and the rules for handling student loans are onerous and invasive as it is– but they can be deferred for hardships, so they are not completely unreasonable.

Owing the government, on the other hand, is a real problem.  Government can reach in and take the money in ways that it sees fit: garnishment, income tax refunds, etc are within its reach.  Government can also ‘incentivize’ repayment through programs that provide services to ‘underserved areas.’  You can get student loans forgiven by teaching in the inner city, serving as a medical doctor in a clinic, etc.

In the hands of a government run by a ‘community activist,’ it’s easy to see where else this could head:  incentives for buying ‘green products’ that the market can’t sustain; incentives for using public transportation vs having a car; incentives for lifestyle choices that the government deems more useful — the list is practically endless.

Because education continues to be more and more expensive, having the government control the flow of funds to students and then ‘forgiving’ portions of the debt based on these incentives will become yet another massive transfer of wealth from those paying taxes to those who don’t.

It will also control the behavior of the recipients in ways they do not realize (see incentives above), making it more likely that they will choose options that benefit the government rather than pursuing their own path. If the government is responsible for your educational level, what is the likelihood that you will be critical of its policies in the future?  One only has to look at the fierce loyalty of Depression Era working folks to FDR and the Democrats to see what lies ahead with the coming cadre of college graduates.

If we are serious about liberty and freedom, we Conservatives need to figure out a better way, and do so quickly!  We need to figure out ways to deliver quality education through new channels (iTunes U anyone?) and reduce the cost.

As Dave Ramsey is famous for quoting the Scripture, “the borrower is slave to the lender.”

This is not the relationship between citizen and government envisioned by the Constitution — we need to give this a really hard press NOW!