American Republic Online

Medicare is currently costing the US almost $500,000,000,000 per year (and growing) which equates to 5.77% of EVERYONE’S paycheck.  Unfortunately we are currently only taxing 2.9% of everyone’s check so we have a $180B shortfall.  Which is currently being picked up by the general budget and some past overages.  Once the overages run dry, it will become difficult for the general fund to cover the entire difference.  But I digress.

Medicare currently covers around 40M people or 13% of Americans.  Now I think most people will agree that the medical coverage of medicare is mediocre at best but it allows for a reasonable comparison of the costs of baseline (borderline) coverage.  So we do the math and:

EveryoneCare would cost Everyone’s Paycheck 44%!!! - and I mean EVERYONE just like Medicare taxes the Fry Cook along with the Wall Street Banker.  So can we really afford universal health care?

Of course, these numbers assume that the burden is shared equally like Medicare.  If you imposed a “progressive” structure that omitted or reduced the burden on anyone it would result in an even higher numbers for those still footing the bill.  And remember that this is ONLY the cost of Medicare expanded to everyone.  This would be in addition to your current taxes and what not that come out of your check.  It also doesn’t include any increases related to providing care that is better than the admittedly mediocre Medicare.  It also omits any additional expenses in expanding the current systems bureaucracy tenfold. Read the rest of this entry »

Back in December, Senator Bob Corker advocated letting GM go through bankruptcy as a way for the company to lose some of the millstones around it’s neck and emerge a stronger company that could stand on it’s own.  Democrat’s decried the suggestion as a terrible idea and “un-American”.

Two bailouts of GM and $20,000,000,000 later, Obama is taking GM to bankruptcy court as the “best solution”.  Wow, why didn’t we see this sooner? We could have saved all that money.

Unfortunately, Obama is not removing millstones so much realizing that the 3rd bailout in 6 months would probably hurt his approval numbers - so he’s calling this government intervention a “structured bankruptcy”. And worse still for the taxpayer, Obama is leading with his strong suit which is politics not profits:

Every decision the feds have made since December suggests that nonpolitical management will be impossible. First they replaced Mr. Wagoner — whom they are nonetheless still paying — with the more pliable Fritz Henderson as CEO and Kent Kresa as Chairman. The latter are good at playing Washington but unproven in making popular cars. Then Treasury bludgeoned the bond holders in both Chrysler and GM to take pennies on the dollar, which will not make creditors eager to lend to the companies in the future.

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Democratic Rep. G.K. Butterfield wants to spend $50 MILLION of tax payer money in the fight against -gasp- Bed Bugs!

The Don’t Let the Bed Bugs Bite Act of 2009 (yes that’s really it’s name) would train health inspectors how to recognize signs of the insects, require public housing agencies to submit bedbug inspection plans to the federal government. It would add bedbugs to a rodent and cockroach program in the Department of Health and Human Services . It also would require the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to research bedbugs’ impact on public mental health.

I guess Congress has to find SOMETHING to spend $3,690,000,000,000.00 on.
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The Dept of Education’s latest report showed the DC pilot voucher program has been very successful in improving the educational opportunities for poor Black & Hispanic kids.  As this didn’t help the position of anti-voucher political allies, Obama’s administration held back the positive news until after Congress killed the program.

Glad those poor minority students now have better representation with the first Black President! Too bad the inner city kids didn’t have a powerful lobby that could donate lots of money to Obama’s political campaign.  Otherwise he not only would have kept their scholarships - he might have purchased a 55% stake in their private school for them!!!
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Wesbury and Stein at Forbes remind us that even “if the government increased the top tax rate [(for the highest income-earners)] from the current rate of 35% to 100% (yes, that’s right 100%), it would only collect an extra $400 billion this year. In other words, confiscating all the income that is currently taxed at 35% would not raise enough revenue to cover any of the annual deficits projected in the next 10 years. There is no way that tax hikes on the rich alone can pay for proposed spending in the current budget.”

Kind of puts the “only raise taxes on the rich” in perspective.  And shows how utterly out of hand it has become.

Juxtapose that to this:
Obama’s spending vs. Obama’s spending cuts in pictures

I almost spit my coffee out when I saw that.

Glen Beck has an excellent 4 minute summation of the motivation behind the mobs of people assembling in Tea Party Protests around the country.  If you are for the Tea Parties it will speak to you. Or if you don’t understand the parties (for instance if you think they are anti-Obama) it will open your eyes (and you may find you agree with them more than you think).

• Fox Video

After inserting the provision into the bailout to allow AIG type bonuses into the bailout law - Chris Dodd now wants to tax them at 90% because Congress wasn’t aware about such bonuses!!!

Is anyone even paying attention any more???

Senator Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) on Monday night floated the idea of taxing American International Group bonus recipients so the government could recoup the $450 million the company is paying to employees in its financial products unit. Within hours, the idea spread to both houses of Congress, with lawmakers proposing an AIG bonus tax.

While the Senate constructed the $787 billion stimulus last month, Dodd unexpectedly added an executive-compensation restriction to the bill. That amendment provides an “exception for contractually obligated bonuses agreed on before Feb. 11, 2009,” which exempts the very AIG bonuses Dodd and others are seeking to tax. The amendment is in the final version and is law.

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As the Dow continues to drop day after day, I thought it might be telling to look at the market’s reaction to several historical events… (Note elections end after the market closes)

G. W. Bush Elected Nov 7, 2000

11/07/00 - 10,952
11/08/00 - 10,907

9-11-01

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An interesting piece from two Economists: Prof. Bittlingmayer, University of Kansas & Prof. Hazlett, George Mason University.  For those that don’t understand what “shorting” means check here.

…So the Obama theory - government spending is stimulus. If so, financial markets should feel the love. The U.S. budget is awash in red ink, and $800 billion more of it should easily move the needle on our economic prospects. Indeed it has - in the wrong direction. Financial markets don’t want more government debt or a scramble for “shovel-ready” spending projects. They want the skeletons in the banking sector’s closet exposed and expunged.

The Bush Economy went up in smoke in September-October 2008. The financial meltdown hit Wall Street, devastating bank equities and laying waste to America’s 401-Ks. The Republican ticket, McCain-Palin, was a 50-50 bet on Sept. 15; by Oct. 15 it was a 5-1 long-shot. Voters saw the carnage: the Dow Jones Index lost 17% of its value from Sept. 2 through Nov. 3. In a flash, Americans lost years of toil, and Republicans the election. Decisively.

The election marked a turning point. Investors looked forward to the economic policies crafted by Democrats in Congress and the White House. More pointedly, they wanted decisive, well-crafted action on the banking crisis. Hence the Dow soared 6.5% Nov. 21 on news that Timothy Geithner, the highly-respected head of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, was Obama’s pick for Treasury Secretary.

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