Free Republic

The purpose of the General Welfare Clause of the Constitution was only to limit the tax power of the Government. The words "General" and "Welfare" were not placed there to give the Government authority to spend on whatever they want (ie healthcare), they're there to simply make it known that the Government has to always spend for the country as a whole, not for some single group. The clause doesn't give the Government authority, it limits it!

WASHINGTON — The Senate today passed a $1.1 trillion spending bill with increased budgets for vast areas of the federal government, including health, education, law enforcement and veterans' programs. The more-than-1,000-page package, one of the last essential chores of Congress this year, passed 57-35 and now goes to President Barack Obama for his signature. The weekend action underlined the legislative crush faced by Congress as it tries to wind up the year. After the vote, the Senate immediately returned to the debate on health care legislation that has consumed its time and energy for weeks. Senate Democrats hope to reach...

By the end of the year, the federal government may have totally restructured the American healthcare system. This health-insurance industry takeover may lead to widespread taxpayer subsidies for elective abortion. A new national energy tax may be imposed to reduce carbon emissions. The secret ballot for union organization may be effectively eliminated, swelling Big Labor’s ranks and coffers. Or maybe none of these things will have happened. Hard as it may be to believe, that last prospect looks most likely. It is a real possibility that none of these major legislative items—all considered inevitable after the Democratic victories of 2006...

Reform: Only a Bernie Madoff could believe the Senate's health care bill will extend coverage to 31 million Americans while cutting deficits by $127 billion over 10 years. It would be the first profitable entitlement. But that's what Majority Leader Harry Reid, citing Congressional Budget Office estimates, tells us the 2,074-page bill — said to cost only $849 billion over a decade — would do. Like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, he seems to be following Vice President Joe Biden's admonition at an AARP town hall meeting that "we've got to spend money to keep from going bankrupt." We suspect Reid's...

Another member of the far left, "Obama approved" media member has jumped off the Obamacare Titanic. John Cassidy, a staff writer for The New Yorker, is a fervent supporter of socialized health care, and whose essay on Karl Marx was nominated for a National Magazine Award, gives a blunt, logical, and revealing breakdown of H.R. 3962.

When I see the Obama Administration trying to force their version of health care on us; trying to shove Cap and Trade down our throats; and telling us that we can have everything we want without any tax increases, it sounds like the irresponsible parent telling the children they can do what they please without any fear of consequences. Of course, the natural result of such liberalism is a bunch of spoiled brats with an entitlement mentality. Sadly, that's what too many Americans have been conditioned for during the past 30 to 40 years. The reason we're in this economic...

There has been a lot of talk in Washington recently about senior citizens, mostly about how various healthcare reform models would help or hurt them. But there is another critical issue that has quietly devastated seniors financially over the last few decades. It concerns how the cost of living is calculated. How does the administration justify not giving a cost of living increase to Social Security recipients this year? According to the official Consumer Price Index calculation, life has gotten cheaper for the first time in decades. If the government can show statistically that the cost of living has gone...

SafeLink Wireless is a government supported program that provides a free cell phone and airtime each month for income-eligible customers. Yes, the newest entitlement - a free cellphone and airtime for a wide variety of people. Including those who get free school lunches. And you thought the Obamassiah was going to stop at just nationalizing the auto industry, the banks, and the health industry. No, he's going after telecom, too!

Entitlements, Social Problems and the FamilyINDEPENDENT AMERICAN MOVEMENT FOR CONSTITUTIONAL RESTORATION This essay is by Steven Thayn, a 2nd term legislator in the Idaho State Legislature from the 11th District. It is a thesis about how current government entitlement programs do not encourage independent living or the formation of stable families, but instead increase social problems, add to our tax burden, and decrease our standard of living. It documents the truth of that statement and introduces a solution through the family and establishing it as the primary delivery mechanism of social relief within society. I urge all citizens and...

Contrary to what the Left and their media minions told Americans in 2005 when President George W. Bush wanted to reform Social Security, the nation's largest entitlement program is now projected to run deficits for at least the next two years. In an article on the subject published Sunday, the Associated Press mysteriously hid the seriousness of this revelation while never once mentioning the Republican push to solve this problem four years ago, or that Democrats in January 2006 -- including Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) -- actually applauded the death of the previous year's reform efforts.

The US Federal Reserve's policy of printing money to buy Treasury debt threatens to set off a serious decline of the dollar and compel China to redesign its foreign reserve policy, according to a top member of the Communist hierarchy. BY AMBROSE EVANS-PRITCHARD Cernobbio, Italy. Cheng Siwei, former vice-chairman of the Standing Committee and now head of China's green energy drive, said Beijing was dismayed by the Fed's recourse to "credit easing". "We hope there will be a change in monetary policy as soon as they have positive growth again," he said at the Ambrosetti Workshop, a policy gathering on...

NEW YORK – A government that is constitutionally required to offer each citizen a "useful" job in the farms or industries of the nation. A country whose leadership intercedes to ensure every farmer can sell his product for a good return. A nation that has the power to act against "unfair competition" and monopolies in business. This is not a description of Cuba, communist China, or the USSR until 1991. It's the vision of the future of the U.S, as mandated by a radical new "bill of rights" drawn up and pushed by President Obama's newly confirmed regulatory czar, Cass...

We’re about to reach a new milestone on the road to ruin: the national debt will soon pass the $12 trillion mark. If you REALLY want to get exercised over this issue, I highly recommend that you periodically visit the U.S. Debt Clock Online. It’s like riding in an insane taxi with dozens of meters running.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen. John McCain is refusing to consider raising taxes to reduce the ballooning deficit. McCain was asked on ABC's "This Week" whether he would make a similar pledge as Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to do whatever it takes to bring down the deficit over the long run, such as raising taxes. The Arizona Republican said "no."

CHICAGO – Activists disappointed that the Obama administration has not given immigration top billing are trying to yank the issue off the back burner by pressing ahead with lobbying and legislation plans they hope will reinvigorate reform efforts. By honing in on national lawmakers they believe are sympathetic or can be swayed to support their cause and drawing on voters who said reform was a top priority, many immigrant rights advocates are striving to make headway at a time when the economy has become the top priority. "We're not going to just be chanting, 'Yes we can! Yes we can!'"...

[...] Perhaps as early as this year, Social Security, at $680 billion the nation's biggest social program, will be transformed from an operation that's helped finance the rest of the government for 25 years into a cash drain that will need money from the Treasury. In other words, a bailout. [...] Unlike the pigs feeding at Uncle Sam's trough, the people who qualify for Social Security old-age benefits -- the ones who'll benefit from the bailout -- have played by the rules and paid Social Security taxes for decades. It would be immoral to tell them, "Sorry, we have to...

WASHINGTON – Armadillos, marshmallows and American liberty. U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn managed to connect those three in a speech Thursday on the Senate floor to explain how he traps armadillos that visit his yard in Muskogee and what Americans could learn from their fate. "They'll ruin a good yard 'cause they like grub worms,'' the Oklahoma Republican said in remarks on federal spending that could be described as vintage Coburn. "So all you have to do is to lay a few marshmallows out and then put a marshmallow or two in the trap cage. You'll catch those suckers.'' According to...

The advocates of socialized medicine have insisted for decades that health care is a right. They now feel emboldened enough to proffer the absurdity that health insurance is a right, and they do not bother to make a distinction between the two. "Health care is a right, not a privilege," proclaims Sen. Bernie Sanders in a Huffington Post op-ed calling for the nationalization of medicine. Medicine has become "a business" instead of a higher calling of selfless service, President Obama ruefully tells the American Medical Association. A right is a political principle defining and sanctioning freedom of action in a...

<p>Raised in an individualistic culture, Americans dislike the concept of the "welfare state" and do not use the term. But make no mistake, the United States has a welfare state, and its future is precarious. The true significance of General Motors' bankruptcy lies more with this welfare state than with the battered condition of American capitalism.</p>

A new report issued today by the Congressional Budget Office, which analyzed the Kennedy plan coming from the Senate, found that to move just 16 million of the people in this country who are claimed to be without health care coverage into some form of government-provided health insurance will cost the nation 1 trillion dollars over ten years. The CBO also estimates total costs to move all who aren’t currently being covered by some form of insurance into the government’s new plan to be over 3 trillion dollars. We ask the question again: Who out there believes this will be...

As we all know, the Senate is gearing up to begin the debate on Obamacare. As we move forward one of the first scheduled stops will be in the Senate on June 16 as the Health Education, Labor and Pensions Committee moves to begin its mark-up of the Health Care Reform Bill. But what are the basic assumptions that underlie this bill? Let’s take a look at one of them. In a statement issued by Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Chairman of the HELP Committee, we see at least one assumption that is popular on the left, but one that should...

We notice that Congressman Charles Rangel, the Democrat from New York who apparently never met a spending program he didn’t like, has floated a proposal from out of his committee that says we can have all the free health care we want, and it will only cost us from 600 billion to 1.5 TRILLION dollars, for starters. Given government’s habit of grossly underestimating what the true cost of just about anything will be, we can envision at least 3 trillion dollars in costs for poorer healthcare than we already receive. This will soon become another entitlement we cannot afford, but...

No except allowed, story here .

Instead of seeing older workers staying on the job longer as the economy has worsened, the Social Security system is reporting a major surge in early retirement claims that could have implications for the financial security of millions of baby boomers. Since the current federal fiscal year began Oct. 1, claims have been running 25% ahead of last year, compared with the 15% increase that had been projected as the post-World War II generation reaches eligibility for early retirement, according to Stephen C. Goss, chief actuary for the Social Security Administration. Many of the additional retirements are probably laid-off workers...

There has been a particularly annoying advertisement running on the radio in Minneapolis over the last couple of weeks. As messages go, it is pretty good, since it is inspiring me to let all of you know about it...but as an advertisement, it fails, since it sends a stronger message about our culture than it does about the company (I can't even remember the name of the product for sure). Let's walk through the ad and see what we can find. The commercial appears to be set in a Movie Theater. It begins with a dialogue between a cheerful young...

The Social Security Board of Trustees releasted its latest report on the health of the Social Security system, and has projected that the cost of benefits will exceed payroll tax revenues in 2016 -- a year sooner than last year's report. If that isn't depressing enough, "Medicare's financial status is much worse," the Trustees conclude. "As was true in 2008, Medicare's Hospital Insurance (HI) Trust Fund is expected to pay out more in hospital benefits and other expenditures this year than it receives in taxes and other dedicated revenues. The difference will be made up by redeeming trust fund assets....

The financial health of Social Security and Medicare, the government's two biggest benefit programs, have worsened because of the severe recession, and Medicare is now paying out more than it receives. Trustees of the programs said Tuesday that Social Security will start paying out more in benefits than it collects in taxes in 2016, one year sooner than projected last year, and the giant trust fund will be depleted by 2037, four years sooner. Medicare is in even worse shape. The trustees said the program for hospital expenses will pay out more in benefits than it collects this year and...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Senators are considering limiting—but not eliminating—the tax-free status of employer-provided health benefits to help pay for President Barack Obama's overhaul plan and provide coverage to 50 million uninsured Americans. Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., said Tuesday that there are no easy options. Senators began grappling with how to finance guaranteed coverage for all Americans, even as independent experts put the costs at about $1.5 trillion over 10 years.

Key lawmakers from both parties have held tentative talks about overhauling the Social Security system, and Congress could turn its attention to the federal retirement program as soon as this fall if a bipartisan concensus emerges, House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer said yesterday. "I am hopeful. It's a tough issue," Hoyer (D-Md.) said in an interview. . . . . So far, Democrats have found a willing partner in the Senate, where Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) has stated his desire to work with President Obama to make changes to keep Social Security solvent. . . . . Graham...

The city's experimental anti-poverty program that pays poor New Yorkers for good behavior like seeing the doctor and attending parent-teacher conferences handed out an average of $3,000 per family in its first year. Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration said it is too early to know whether it is a useful tool to fight poverty. Officials say it will take five years for a full evaluation of the program, which is the first of its kind in the nation. But a report released Tuesday by the mayor's Center for Economic Opportunity did contain some preliminary data. It said 80 percent of the...

GALKAYO, Somalia -- The mother of a teenager facing trial in the United States for piracy off Somalia wants President Barack Obama to pardon her son because he was misled into joining a sea gang. Abdiqani Hassan reporting for Reuters writes that Abduwali Abdukhadir Muse (who is going to be tried as an adult) was captured by U.S. forces when they rescued an American sea captain being held hostage by pirates. Three of Muse’s comrades were killed in the operation. “My son was influenced by other gangs. He only got into piracy 15 days before he was captured. He is...

Federal budget worrywarts (myself included) have been fretting for years about the arrival of the Dread Fiscal Year 2017, when Social Security was projected to start becoming a drag on federal finances. Well, no need to worry about 2017 any more. Thanks to the worst economic downturn since the 1930s, the moment of reckoning is already almost here: According to both the budget proposed by the White House in February and projections issued by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in March, Social Security benefits ($659 billion, according to the CBO) will exceed payroll taxes ($653 billion) in fiscal 2009 for...

The Tribune would not let me capture any text, but I urge you to read this outrageous letter from "Religious Leaders". ***** This is out of line and insulting that even my Nazarene District Superintendant signed it. ***** It's true... Even the elect will be deceived!

Most of our nation's great problems, including our economic problems, have as their root decaying moral values. Whether we have the stomach to own up to it or not, we have become an immoral people left with little more than the pretense of morality. You say, "That's a pretty heavy charge, Williams. You'd better be prepared to back it up with evidence!" I'll try with a few questions for you to answer. Do you believe that it is moral and just for one person to be forcibly used to serve the purposes of another? And, if that person does not...

GOP governors turn down $66M in aid for jobless. MONTGOMERY - Despite Alabama's rising jobless rate, Gov. Bob Riley on Monday rejected $66 million in the federal economic stimulus funds earmarked to help states fund unemployment benefits. Riley made the announcement after returning from a National Governors Association meeting in Washington, where he and other governors met with President Barack Obama Sunday night. An influential legislator accused Riley of playing politics, along with other Republican governors in the South. But Riley said the stimulus law requires states to change their laws to expand jobless benefits to those who don't normally...

The pool report by Amy Goldstein of The Washington Post on the Fiscal Responsibility Summit's breakout session on Social Security follows:The session was held in room 350 of EEOB, a large conference room in which participants sat around a rectangular table. At the head of the table, with an American flag on each side of them, were the two administration officials who led this breakout: Lawrence Summers, director of the WH's National Economic Council, and Gene Sperling, counselor for domestic policy at Treasury. An ideological eclectic mix of 24 guests participated (a partial list follows), including senators and House members,...

BY JACKIE CALMES WASHINGTON — President Obama is eager to seek a bipartisan solution to ensure the long-term solvency of Social Security, people who have spoken with him say, but he is running into opposition from his party’s left and from Democratic Congressional leaders who contend that his political capital would be better spent on health care and other priorities. Mr. Obama considered announcing the formation of a Social Security task force at a White House “fiscal responsibility summit” that he will convene on Monday. But several Democrats said that idea had been shelved, partly because of objections from House...

What do the "Blue States" of Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Illinois and California have in common recently? They are all in dire need of Federal taxpayer-funded "bailout" bucks. This is no coincidence. These states are also leaders in adoption of public assistance and other "entitlement" programs - - the very types of measures that President Obama and the Congressional Democrats want to adopt on a national scale. Who bails us out when that house of cards collapses?

The significance of Obama's naming Gregg at Commerce was lost amid the Daschle disaster yesterday. No one in Washington has been more persistent or more passionate about reining in entitlement programs, which the GAO tallies at $53 trillion in unfunded liabilities. Today Gregg said Obama "specifically asked me to come down to address this." The Commerce post is traditionally a shill for business interests and a plum handed out to a president's closest political ally or fundraiser. That's what the originial pick, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson would have been. Naming Gregg means Obama has in mind something entirely different....

Stephen Moore writes that the central themes of Ayn Rand's massive book are playing out even now in Washington D.C. as an incompetent government hurries to create massive new legislative programs to dole out ever greater amounts of money to mis-run businesses, all under the guise of keeping the American economy healthy. The current economic strategy is right out of "Atlas Shrugged": The more incompetent you are in business, the more handouts the politicians will bestow on you. That's the justification for the $2 trillion of subsidies doled out already to keep afloat distressed insurance companies, banks, Wall Street investment...

ALBANY, N.Y. – Four hospitals in New York state paid kickbacks to get more patients into their drug treatment programs, which billed Medicaid for services that weren't standard or necessary and lacked state certification, lawsuits allege. Another hospital paid people to search homeless shelters and other places for patients to enter a three-day stay in detox in exchange for cigarettes, beer, food, and other items, according to the lawsuit brought by state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and U.S. Attorney Benton Campbell. The lawsuits allege those five hospitals and two others fraudulently billed Medicaid for more than $50 million in more...

Taking a lead from Dickens’ "A Christmas Carol," the “Ghost of America’s Future” could point to a frightening future for America—a perfect storm of forces racing toward its natural conclusion, the Entitlement Crash of 2010! The Democrat’s gaining political dominance, the growing economic crisis and looming entitlement shortfalls, the cultural expectations of American citizens and the tax fatigue successful Americans will face are coming together to overwhelm the entitlement nirvana that many Americans have wanted to create. Politically, Obama has the power, the media support and the precedence to make radical changes in America. Obama feels his election victory has...

One of the hallmarks of a free society is that citizens have direct and personal access to the judicial system. From time to time, that access is abused, but not nearly so much as tort-reform lobbies would have us believe. But then there are abusive suits filed by public officials, seemingly determined to set a bad example.

SAN FRANCISCO -- A San Francisco judge struck down a state law Tuesday that requires low-income women to live in California for six months before qualifying for state-funded care during pregnancy and immediately after childbirth. The 1991 law violates the Constitution by penalizing women who exercise their right to move to California, said Superior Court Judge Patrick Mahoney,

Experts are saying that the selection of former Sen. Tom Daschle as the secretary of health and human services by President-elect Barack Obama suggests that a significant health information technology spending increase is on tap for the incoming administration. Daschle’s book, Critical: What We Can Do About the Health Care Crisis, published in early 2008, notes that “we are years, if not decades, behind European nations in harnessing health care information technology’s potential.” The book calls for removing much health care policy-making from the political arena but states that at the same time the executive branch of the federal government...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former American International Group Inc (AIG.N) Chief Executive Maurice "Hank" Greenberg said on Tuesday the U.S. government support for the giant insurer will have to continue until the hobbled company is back on its feet.

The Death Of An Americam Idea An electorate living high off the entitlement hog. By Mark Steyn ‘Give me liberty or give me death!” “Live free or die!” What's that? Oh, don't mind me. I'm just trying out slogans for the 2012 campaign and seeing which one would get the biggest laughs. My Republican friends are now saying, oh, not to worry, look at the exit polls, this is still a “center-right” country. Americans didn't vote to go left, they voted to go cool. It was a Dancing With The Stars election: Obama's a star and everyone wants to dance...

Although many Americans believe immigration is a domestic issue that should be excluded from talks with other governments, this is not a view held by other nations – or by the United States. Indeed, the US negotiated its first immigration deal in 1907, maintained for more than two decades a controversial treaty with Mexico covering immigration, and has kept up immigration talks and deals even with Fidel Castro since the early 1960’s. For many Latin American nations, not just Mexico, immigration is the single most important issue in their relations with the US. The Caribbean islands all have a similarly...

CNSNews.com) - A loophole in a Massachusetts state law has allowed Zeituni Onyango - Barack Obama’s aunt and an illegal immigrant - to live in state-funded public housing in Boston since 2003, even though a federal immigration judge ordered Onyango to leave the country in 2004 after her request for asylum was denied. The Boston Housing Authority (BHA) told CNSNews.com that illegal immigrants like Onyango can qualify for the state-funded housing in Massachusetts because, unlike federally funded programs, Massachusetts forbids the BHA from even asking about an applicant’s immigration status.

Obama Campaign to Return Aunt's Donations Updated 1:01 p.m. By Matthew Mosk The campaign of Sen. Barack Obama will refund a small number of contributions made by Obama's aunt, who has been living in the United States illegally, according to a published report. The woman, Zeituni Onyango, lives in public housing in Boston and is the half-sister of Obama's late father. The Associated Press reported today that Obama's aunt had been instructed to leave the country four years ago by an immigration judge who rejected her request for asylum from her native Kenya. Obama campaign reports filed with the Federal...