Free Republic

President Obama has again employed a straw man argument in trying to sell the newly minted health care reform package. But taking a stern tone, Obama accused his health care critics of "defending the status quo." He said he wants the House and Senate to pass out bills before the August recess, so that they can settle on one unified bill that he can sign shortly after lawmakers return from break. "This is a problem that we can no longer defer," Obama said, flanked by nurses. "Deferring reform is nothing more than defending the status quo -- and those who...

People who seek the services of auto mechanics want car repair, not "auto care." Similarly, most people who seek the services of medical doctors want body repair, not "health care." We own our cars, are responsible for the cost of maintaining them, and decide what needs fixing based partly on balancing the seriousness of the problem against the expense of repairing it. Our health-care system rests on the principle that, although we own our bodies, the community or state ought to be responsible for paying the cost of repairing them. This is for the ostensibly

Right after the mortgage crisis occurred, I bet most of the layman in the country got a quick lesson in the complicated nature that is our mortgage market. For instance, I'm sure that most folks thought that the banks that approved your loans also were the ones that kept them and made money on them. That's not so in the majority of cases because of a process known as mortgage securitization. In this process, a financial firm bundles hundreds, thousands, and even tens of thousands of loans together turn them into bonds and sell them on trading markets. We've learned...

One of the worst things that can happen to an administration is for them to see things as rosey while the citizenry suffers. It's sometimes called the Pollyanna effect. Especially when they are talking about the economy, the administration is always in a difficult position. If they sound gloomy, they talk down an economy. Furthermore, economic health is the administration's responsibility. So, if the economy is suffering, who's responsibility is it? Remember how Jimmy Carter addressed the nation and presented a near doomsday scenario. That didn't help him or our nation. Yet, when you proclaim everything just fine while things...

The air is seeping out of the Great Liberal Hot Air Balloon. American liberals have been hoping, wishing, and praying--okay, maybe not praying--for over a quarter-century for an end to the ghastly interlude of conservative dominance ushered in by Ronald Reagan. Surely it was all a bad dream, a waking nightmare, a bizarre deviation from the preordained path of history. With the Democratic congressional victories in November 2006, the nightmare seemed to be ending. And in November 2008, with the election of Barack Obama and increased congressional majorities, it seemed to be over. A new era had dawned.

The government is now floating the idea of giving small businesses money from the Troubled Asset Relief Program. The Obama administration is working on a plan that would make available funds from the $700 billion banking-system bailout package to millions of small businesses struggling to survive the recession, FOX News has confirmed. Gene Sperling, a top adviser to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, developed the idea of using funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to help small businesses as part of a department-wide push to generate ideas to pump life into this ailing part of the economy. The concept...

Congress Woman Carolyn Maloney held a hearing on the growing commercial real estate crisis. To understand what a threat the current state of the commercial real estate market is one only needs to read the testimoney of James Helsel of the National Association of Realtors. Here are some of the pertinent numbers that will contextualize the problem. Starting in 2007, commercial real estate transactions dropped from $498 billion in 200, to $143 billion in 2008, to $15 billion year to date. At the same time, there were $230 billion in Commercial mortgage backed securities issued in 2007, $12 billion in...

Obama’s health care proposal is, in effect, the repeal of the Medicare program as we know it. The elderly will go from being the group with the most access to free medical care to the one with the least access. Indeed, the principal impact of the Obama health care program will be to reduce sharply the medical services the elderly can use. No longer will their every medical need be met, their every medication prescribed, their every need to improve their quality of life answered.

Conservatives are working themselves up into a lather over two stories today. The first came from testimony from Ed Rendell's testimony on Capitol Hill. I would like to see a second stimulus devoted solely to infrastructure," he said. "It's what produces jobs, and produces orders for factories, American factories." ... Look, I think the stimulus bill was misnamed," he said. "Part of it was stimulus, part of it was job creation, but a lot of it was relief," such as increased unemployment insurance and food stamps.

One thing that both Conservatives and liberals alike need to acknowledge is that we have a health care system that is on the verge of not merely falling apart but ready to take the entire country down with it. There are so many problems with the system that it's difficult to unravel them all. For instance, there are far too many different entities that are dependent on the health care system: lawyers, doctors, patients, insurance companies, medical records, etc. By the time everyone gets their piece of the pie, the whole thing becomes too expensive for everyone.

In his landmark 1942 book, "Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy," economist Joseph Schumpeter emphasized the key role that creative destruction plays in generating long-run economic growth. It is the driving force of capitalism. There have been numerous accusations that President Barack Obama is intent on reforming America as a socialist nation. Obama himself may have fed the beliefs with his own words, saying, as he did, that he believes government should "spread the wealth around." He also said, in 2003, that he favors a single-payer system for American health care.

I’m here in Big D, hanging at the Ewing mansion. Will speak shortly. Via Breitbart TV, here’s a livestream embed (for archived clip, go to the sidebar, click on “menu,” browse “on demand library,” and select the clip labeled “09:23:34PM.” Forward to 22:00 for my speech). Tea Party On!

The most troubling part of the June jobs report was likely not even the lost jobs (467000) but the average work week. In June, the average workweek for production and non supervisory workers on private non farm payrolls fell by 0.1 hour to 33.0 hours--the lowest level on record for the series, which began in 1964. The manufacturing work week rose by 0.1 hour to 39.5 hours, and factory overtime was unchanged at 2.8 hours.

Shock waves were sent through both our economy and our political apparatus yesterday. They were swift and significant and in fact, no one has yet fully determined these shock waves. These shock waves occurred after the release of June's employment data. The June numbers showed job losses of 467,000. This number is important on several different levels. First, the number is awful in its own vacuum. Second, the jobs numbers were improving for four months in a row. June broke that mini streak. So, where is our economy? Not only are we losing an extraordinary amount of jobs but it's...

Only the Senate and House Republicans can save Obama now by compromising and lending his extremist legislation the veneer of bipartisanship in order to remove it as a political issue. If the likes of GOP Sens. Olympia Snowe (Maine), Susan Collins (Maine), Chuck Grassley (Iowa), Orrin Hatch (Utah) and others refuse to go along with Obama on healthcare and on cap-and-trade, they will force him to pass both programs as one-party bills. Not only is it possible that as public support runs out on these measures he will fail even to get 50 votes to pass them, but it is...

Presidential advisor said something fairly startling regarding health care this morning. In response to a question about whether or not taxing employer provided health insurance benefit would be off the table, here's how Axelrod responded. One of the problems we’ve had in this town is that people draw lines in the sand and they stop talking to each other. And you don’t get anything done. That’s not the way the president approaches us. He is very cognizant of protecting people — middle class people, hard-working people who are trying to get along in a very difficult economy. And he will...

"In the beginning," says a character in a Peter De Vries novel, "the earth was without form and void. Why didn't they leave well enough alone?" When Washington is finished improving health care, Americans may be asking the same thing. Certainly the debate will compel them to think more clearly about this subject. Most Americans do want different health care: They want 2009 medicine at 1960 prices. Americans spent much less on health care in 1960 (5 percent of GDP as opposed to 18 percent now). They also spent much less -- nothing, in fact -- on computers, cell phones...

There's been a major break through on cap and trade. They still call it the Waxman-Markey climate-energy bill — but it’s Nancy’s bill now. By saying she would pass the massive — and massively controversial — cap-and-trade bill by the start of the July 4 recess, the House speaker took a big gamble, setting herself up for a daring political victory or the biggest defeat of her six months as President Barack Obama’s legislative ramrod. And on Monday, Pelosi doubled down, scheduling a Friday vote on the legislation, overriding the objections of farm staters and moderates who fear the vote...

Last week, there was a fairly obscure story that was treated mostly with amusement. President Obama isn't just rewriting rules regulating the environment and the financial markets -- he is also going after the food industry. Target and example No. 1: Cheerios. "Based on claims made on your product's label," the FDA said in a letter to manufacturer General Mills, "we have determined (Cheerios) is promoted for conditions that cause it to be a drug because the product is intended for use in the prevention, mitigation and treatment of disease." If the government's enforcement action against Cheerios were to hold...

Have you noticed that Democrats are cutting deals everywhere to cut medical costs? Just the other day, Senator Max Baucus (D Montana) said he had reached an agreement with drug companies to cut costs for prescriptions by $80 billion over the next ten years. Giving a boost to health legislation after a bruising week, the pharmaceutical industry struck a deal Saturday with Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and the White House to commit $80 billion over 10 years to help pay for comprehensive reform.