PHIL KERPEN: Obama’s Top Three Health Care Campaign Lies
By Phil Kerpen
Lie Number 1: I Won’t Tax Your Health Benefits
What Obama said on the campaign trail (Newport News, Va., October 4, 2008):
“So here’s John McCain’s radical plan in a nutshell: he taxes health care benefits for the first time in history… Well, I don’t think that’s right.”
What Obama says now:
Obama ally Sen. Max Baucus told the Washington Post that Obama is now willing to tax employer-provided health benefits. Baucus said: “Yeah, it’s something that he might consider. That was discussed. It’s on the table.”
Limiting or ending the tax-free status of health benefits makes sense if it’s used to cut other taxes and put all health insurance—employer-provided or not—on a level playing field. The existing benefit is an artifact of World War II-era price controls and creates a tax penalty for people who buy their own insurance.
But unlike the McCain plan, which would have taxed employer-provided health benefits and used the money to pay for a new health care tax credit, the plan now being considered by Democrats, including Obama, would tax employer-health benefits to fund increased government health care spending. For the 250 million-plus Americans who already have health insurance, this is a raw deal—they pay more taxes and get nothing in return.
Lie Number 2: I Won’t Force You to Buy Health Insurance
What Obama said on the campaign trail (Janesville, Wis., February 13, 2008):
“The main difference between my plan and Senator Clinton’s plan is that she’d require the government to force you to buy health insurance and she said she’d ‘go after’ your wages if you don’t.”
What Obama says now:
President Obama sent a letter to Democratic Senators Ted Kennedy and Max Baucus yesterday that says—using the new code word “responsibility” to refer to the same kind of mandate he slammed in Hillary’s plan:
“I understand the Committees are moving towards a principle of shared responsibility — making every American responsible for having health insurance coverage, and asking that employers share in the cost. I share the goal of ending lapses and gaps in coverage that make us less healthy and drive up everyone’s costs, and I am open to your ideas on shared responsibility.”
While President Obama did say he would like a waiver process in hardship cases, there is no reason to have a mandate other than to force people to buy insurance who don’t want to, mostly young people who are healthy and want to spend their limited income on their young careers and families. According to the Census Bureau, about 60 percent of the uninsured are under age 35, with the highest rates in the 18-24 bracket (28.1 percent uninsured) and the 25-34 (25.7 percent uninsured) bracket. This is about forcing some people who don’t want health insurance to pay for other people through a new government program. It’s more spreading the wealth around.
President Obama is poised to accept this provision for the same reason Sen. Clinton proposed it—to buy off insurance companies. Democrats learned a lesson from the 1993 HillaryCare fight when the insurance companies stopped a Washington health care takeover. The mandate is a giveaway to insurance companies to buy their support this time by forcing healthy young people who use less health care to pay insurance premiums.
Lie Number 3: If You Aren’t Rich, I Won’t Raise Your Taxes
What Obama said on the campaign trail (September 12, 2008, Dover, N.H.):
“I can make a firm pledge. Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.”
What Obama says now:
Well, it’s hard to keep up because new ideas are floated every day, but they all would involve taxing people who make less than $250,000. In fact, even his income tax hikes for the rich have now been dropped down to start at $235,000. Then there’s the soft drink excise tax, the cap-and-trade energy taxes, and most recently the VAT, a form of national sales tax. And of course the tax on health benefits I mentioned above would also break the only-tax-the-rich pledge.
What all these proposals have in common: we all pay, big-time, likely trillions of dollars in higher taxes for “free” government health care. In fact, that’s probably the biggest lie of all—that government health care is free.
Mr. Kerpen is director of policy for Americans for Prosperity. He can be contacted through www.philkerpen.com. He records a free daily Podcast available here.
Showing posts with label Obama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Obama. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
So What is the real problem with ACORN?
The Inside Story of ACORN
ACORN (American Community Organizations for Reform Now) is among the most misunderstood and most powerful organizations in the country. Its structure is extremely sophisticated and often terribly secretive and it's likely this is done on purpose in order to hide or misdirect from many questionable and often illegal activities. While this last campaign brought to light a series of accusations of voter fraud, the reality is that the malfeasance that goes on at ACORN only scratches the surface when talking about voter fraud. The most significant case of malfeasance so far brought to light was the case of Dale Rathke who embezzled millions from ACORN. This case is important mainly because Rathke is the brother of Wade Rathke, one of the founders of ACORN. When someone so close to the top commits such a brazen act of criminality, questions should be raised. More troubling still is that the embezzlement occurred in 2001 but didn't come to light till months ago, just after the statute of limitations had expired.
ACORN is in fact not really one organization but rather a collection of many affiliates. These affiliates are all classified in a number of different ways. For instance, some are 501 (C)3's. A 501 (C)3 gets special treatment from the government and as such, it also must remain non partisan. Other affiliates are 501 (C)4's. This is a different classification of the tax code and such an organization can be partisan. The flagship, ACORN itself, is a 501 (C)4. It's get out the vote arm, Project Vote, is a 501 (C) 3.
Much of the malfeasance of ACORN comes from its nebulous relationship with a private company called Citizen's Consulting Inc. CCI is a sort of accounting and financial services firm. CCI also only has one client, or shall I say a series of clients...ACORN and all its affiliates. Whenever ACORN receives any money, be it from the federal governmnent or other resources, it first goes to CCI. Then, CCI filters that money to anyone of ACORN's affiliates. Of course, this creates all sorts of room for malfeasance. If the government were to give money to say Health Care for America Now to provide health care services in poor neighborhoods, that money will first wind up at CCI. Where that money ends up is anyone's guess. Why? That's because CCI is a private company and so getting a look at its books is no easy task. In fact, I doubt more than a handful of politicians even know the relationship between ACORN and CCI.
In fact, ACORN is such a sophisticated organization that often politicians will get on the floor of the legislature to rail against ACORN and then turn around and meet with one of their affiliates and authorize funding. That's because more times than not a politician has no idea that they are dealing with an ACORN affiliate.
The structure of ACORN is also rather sophisticated. ACORN has a board of directors but these folks have largely ceremonial titles. Most of the board are zealots of the cause. They rose through the ranks of ACORN often starting as foot soldiers fighting for causes near and dear to them. Since ACORN is often associated with causes for poor, most of the board are themselves poor. As such, they are often rather unsophisticated and thus will be overwhelmed by the sophisticated nature of the organization itself. In fact, the real power at ACORN lies in it executive committee. The executive committee is currently made up of Maude Hurd, Alton Bennett, Maxine Nelson, Carol Hemmingway, Alicia Russell, Pedra Reavis, and Marie Pierre.
There is no question that ACORN is ideological, however in reality ACORN is really driven by something much different than ideology. That drive is greed. ACORN's real goals aren't necessarily any sort of change but rather to create a plethora of constant campaigns. The work on such campaigns as living wage, universal health care, and providing housing for the poor. As such, whatever accomplishments like the Community Reinvestment Act had in influencing society, what they really did was provide ACORN with a nearly never ending platform.
The Community Reinvestment Act
United States federal law designed to encourage commercial banks and savings
associations to meet the needs of borrowers in all segments of their communities, including low- and moderate-income neighborhoods.[1][2][3] The Act was intended to reduce discriminatory credit practices against such neighborhoods, a practice known as redlining.[4] The Act requires the appropriate federal financial supervisory agencies to encourage regulated financial institutions to meet the credit needs of the local communities in which they are chartered, consistent with safe and sound
operation. (See full text of Act and current regulations.[1]) To enforce the statute, federal regulatory agencies examine banking institutions for CRA compliance, and take this information into consideration when approving applications for new bank branches or for mergers or acquisitions.[5]
allowed ACORN a never ending campaign in which ACORN would "enforce it". Enforce it they did and often with heavy handed tactics. They would picket banks, show up at homes of bank managers, and often demand boycotts of those banks they felt weren't complying with CRA. Because enforcing something like CRA is perpetual, CRA became a perpetual campaign. Worse yet, often ACORN would go directly to the federal government, through HUD, for funding. In other words, their heavy handed tactics were being subsidized by the tax payers. Of course, we'll never know how much money these campaigns got because all of it first started at CCI and then who knows where it wound up.
The mac daddy of ACORN, if you will, is Project VOTE. Project VOTE is their voter registration arm. It is also where their biggest malfeasance occurs. Because Project VOTE is a 501 (c) 3, it cannot support anyone candidate. What Project Vote is supposed to do is register voters anywhere anytime. Here's what really happens. ACORN, the 501 (C) 3, will back some candidates, often in local, county, and state elections, then they will disperse Project VOTE only in those areas where the candidates they support have a significant voter advantage. This sort of cherry picking is completely against the law. It also allows a 501 (c)3 to get around their supposed non partisan status. Do they register voters? Absolutely, except the overwhelming majority of the voters registered favor one candidate, the one that ACORN is backing. They get away with this because most politicians don't even know that Project VOTE is affiliated with ACORN let alone the scheme they run.
ACORN has hundreds of affiliates though no one, outside the insiders, knows exactly how many. It likely receives hundreds of millions of Dollars from the government. Though again, no one is sure because all of it is hidden by using the private CCI as an initial weigh station. It works with HUD, HHS, and the Department of Labor along with a host of philanthropies in order to continue its operations. All of it is done in the shadows through a very sophisticated network of affiliates and one private company, CCI, doling out the money. By doing this, it becomes nearly impossible to track its activities. What I have brought to light is only scratching the surface but should give everyone an idea of just how powerful and dangerous ACORN is.
Posted by mike volpe at 7:47 AM
Labels: acorn, Corruption, domestic policy, universal health care
ACORN (American Community Organizations for Reform Now) is among the most misunderstood and most powerful organizations in the country. Its structure is extremely sophisticated and often terribly secretive and it's likely this is done on purpose in order to hide or misdirect from many questionable and often illegal activities. While this last campaign brought to light a series of accusations of voter fraud, the reality is that the malfeasance that goes on at ACORN only scratches the surface when talking about voter fraud. The most significant case of malfeasance so far brought to light was the case of Dale Rathke who embezzled millions from ACORN. This case is important mainly because Rathke is the brother of Wade Rathke, one of the founders of ACORN. When someone so close to the top commits such a brazen act of criminality, questions should be raised. More troubling still is that the embezzlement occurred in 2001 but didn't come to light till months ago, just after the statute of limitations had expired.
ACORN is in fact not really one organization but rather a collection of many affiliates. These affiliates are all classified in a number of different ways. For instance, some are 501 (C)3's. A 501 (C)3 gets special treatment from the government and as such, it also must remain non partisan. Other affiliates are 501 (C)4's. This is a different classification of the tax code and such an organization can be partisan. The flagship, ACORN itself, is a 501 (C)4. It's get out the vote arm, Project Vote, is a 501 (C) 3.
Much of the malfeasance of ACORN comes from its nebulous relationship with a private company called Citizen's Consulting Inc. CCI is a sort of accounting and financial services firm. CCI also only has one client, or shall I say a series of clients...ACORN and all its affiliates. Whenever ACORN receives any money, be it from the federal governmnent or other resources, it first goes to CCI. Then, CCI filters that money to anyone of ACORN's affiliates. Of course, this creates all sorts of room for malfeasance. If the government were to give money to say Health Care for America Now to provide health care services in poor neighborhoods, that money will first wind up at CCI. Where that money ends up is anyone's guess. Why? That's because CCI is a private company and so getting a look at its books is no easy task. In fact, I doubt more than a handful of politicians even know the relationship between ACORN and CCI.
In fact, ACORN is such a sophisticated organization that often politicians will get on the floor of the legislature to rail against ACORN and then turn around and meet with one of their affiliates and authorize funding. That's because more times than not a politician has no idea that they are dealing with an ACORN affiliate.
The structure of ACORN is also rather sophisticated. ACORN has a board of directors but these folks have largely ceremonial titles. Most of the board are zealots of the cause. They rose through the ranks of ACORN often starting as foot soldiers fighting for causes near and dear to them. Since ACORN is often associated with causes for poor, most of the board are themselves poor. As such, they are often rather unsophisticated and thus will be overwhelmed by the sophisticated nature of the organization itself. In fact, the real power at ACORN lies in it executive committee. The executive committee is currently made up of Maude Hurd, Alton Bennett, Maxine Nelson, Carol Hemmingway, Alicia Russell, Pedra Reavis, and Marie Pierre.
There is no question that ACORN is ideological, however in reality ACORN is really driven by something much different than ideology. That drive is greed. ACORN's real goals aren't necessarily any sort of change but rather to create a plethora of constant campaigns. The work on such campaigns as living wage, universal health care, and providing housing for the poor. As such, whatever accomplishments like the Community Reinvestment Act had in influencing society, what they really did was provide ACORN with a nearly never ending platform.
The Community Reinvestment Act
United States federal law designed to encourage commercial banks and savings
associations to meet the needs of borrowers in all segments of their communities, including low- and moderate-income neighborhoods.[1][2][3] The Act was intended to reduce discriminatory credit practices against such neighborhoods, a practice known as redlining.[4] The Act requires the appropriate federal financial supervisory agencies to encourage regulated financial institutions to meet the credit needs of the local communities in which they are chartered, consistent with safe and sound
operation. (See full text of Act and current regulations.[1]) To enforce the statute, federal regulatory agencies examine banking institutions for CRA compliance, and take this information into consideration when approving applications for new bank branches or for mergers or acquisitions.[5]
allowed ACORN a never ending campaign in which ACORN would "enforce it". Enforce it they did and often with heavy handed tactics. They would picket banks, show up at homes of bank managers, and often demand boycotts of those banks they felt weren't complying with CRA. Because enforcing something like CRA is perpetual, CRA became a perpetual campaign. Worse yet, often ACORN would go directly to the federal government, through HUD, for funding. In other words, their heavy handed tactics were being subsidized by the tax payers. Of course, we'll never know how much money these campaigns got because all of it first started at CCI and then who knows where it wound up.
The mac daddy of ACORN, if you will, is Project VOTE. Project VOTE is their voter registration arm. It is also where their biggest malfeasance occurs. Because Project VOTE is a 501 (c) 3, it cannot support anyone candidate. What Project Vote is supposed to do is register voters anywhere anytime. Here's what really happens. ACORN, the 501 (C) 3, will back some candidates, often in local, county, and state elections, then they will disperse Project VOTE only in those areas where the candidates they support have a significant voter advantage. This sort of cherry picking is completely against the law. It also allows a 501 (c)3 to get around their supposed non partisan status. Do they register voters? Absolutely, except the overwhelming majority of the voters registered favor one candidate, the one that ACORN is backing. They get away with this because most politicians don't even know that Project VOTE is affiliated with ACORN let alone the scheme they run.
ACORN has hundreds of affiliates though no one, outside the insiders, knows exactly how many. It likely receives hundreds of millions of Dollars from the government. Though again, no one is sure because all of it is hidden by using the private CCI as an initial weigh station. It works with HUD, HHS, and the Department of Labor along with a host of philanthropies in order to continue its operations. All of it is done in the shadows through a very sophisticated network of affiliates and one private company, CCI, doling out the money. By doing this, it becomes nearly impossible to track its activities. What I have brought to light is only scratching the surface but should give everyone an idea of just how powerful and dangerous ACORN is.
Posted by mike volpe at 7:47 AM
Labels: acorn, Corruption, domestic policy, universal health care
Thursday, April 16, 2009
5 Pillars according to Islam?
Obama's Five Pillars of ............ April 14, 2009 | Pamela Geller
If any of you watched Obama's propaganda speech earlier today, did you find it as shocking as I did when he described his plan for America in the context of "five pillars"?
Last month Obama revealed his Five Pillars of Education ...............
Today he declared his dedication to what he called the "five pillars" of his new "house upon a rock".
Obama pledged "an unrelenting, unyielding, day-by-day effort from this administration to fight for economic recovery on all fronts." Unrelenting indeed. Dear leader is on our TV screens every day.
He is looting our wealth, our children's wealth, and the country's future wealth to the tune of nine trillion dollars............. and he speaks of recovery. And as scary as that is, that is not what is so unnerving.
President Obama's speech called "A New Foundation" and his five pillars. Obama says it's meant to explain his economic strategy "as clearly as I can."
There is a parable at the end of the Sermon on the Mount that tells the story of two men. The first built his house on a pile of sand, and it was destroyed as soon as the storm hit. But the second is known as the wise man, for when “…the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house…it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.” We cannot rebuild this economy on the same pile of sand. We must build our house upon a rock.
[...]. It’s a foundation built upon five pillars that will grow our economy and make this new century another American century: new rules for Wall Street that will reward drive and innovation; new investments in education that will make our workforce more skilled and competitive; new investments in renewable energy and technology that will create new jobs and industries; new investments in health care that will cut costs for families and businesses; and new savings in our federal budget that will bring down the debt for future generations. That is the new foundation we must build. That is our future.
Obama ends the speech by noting the Biblical story again:
It is that house upon the rock.
Read the complete excerpts here.
Just for knowing:
In Islam, the Five Pillars of Islam (Arabic: أركان الإسلام) is the term given to the five duties incumbent on every Muslim.
These duties are Shahada (Profession of Faith), Salat (Prayers), Zakat (Giving of Alms), Sawm (Fasting during Ramadan) and Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca).
From Dhimmiwatch The Five Pillars of Islam
The five pillars of Islam constitute the most basic tenets of the religion. They are:
1. Faith (iman) in the oneness of Allah and the finality of the prophethood of Muhammad (indicated by the declaration [the Shahadah] that, "There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah").
2. Keeping of the five scheduled daily prayers (salah).
3. Almsgiving (zakat).
4. Fasting (sawm).
5. Pilgrimage (hajj) to Mecca for those who are able.
The five pillars in and of themselves do not tell us a lot about the faith or what a Muslim is supposed to believe or how he should act. The second through fifth pillars -- prayer, almsgiving, fasting, pilgrimage -- are aspects shared by many religions. The finality of the prophethood of Muhammad, however, is unique to Islam. To understand Islam and what it means to be a Muslim, we must come to understand Muhammad as well as the revelations given through him by Allah, which make up the Quran.
President Hussein gives the lone jihadi syndrome a whole new meaning.
If any of you watched Obama's propaganda speech earlier today, did you find it as shocking as I did when he described his plan for America in the context of "five pillars"?
Last month Obama revealed his Five Pillars of Education ...............
Today he declared his dedication to what he called the "five pillars" of his new "house upon a rock".
Obama pledged "an unrelenting, unyielding, day-by-day effort from this administration to fight for economic recovery on all fronts." Unrelenting indeed. Dear leader is on our TV screens every day.
He is looting our wealth, our children's wealth, and the country's future wealth to the tune of nine trillion dollars............. and he speaks of recovery. And as scary as that is, that is not what is so unnerving.
President Obama's speech called "A New Foundation" and his five pillars. Obama says it's meant to explain his economic strategy "as clearly as I can."
There is a parable at the end of the Sermon on the Mount that tells the story of two men. The first built his house on a pile of sand, and it was destroyed as soon as the storm hit. But the second is known as the wise man, for when “…the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house…it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.” We cannot rebuild this economy on the same pile of sand. We must build our house upon a rock.
[...]. It’s a foundation built upon five pillars that will grow our economy and make this new century another American century: new rules for Wall Street that will reward drive and innovation; new investments in education that will make our workforce more skilled and competitive; new investments in renewable energy and technology that will create new jobs and industries; new investments in health care that will cut costs for families and businesses; and new savings in our federal budget that will bring down the debt for future generations. That is the new foundation we must build. That is our future.
Obama ends the speech by noting the Biblical story again:
It is that house upon the rock.
Read the complete excerpts here.
Just for knowing:
In Islam, the Five Pillars of Islam (Arabic: أركان الإسلام) is the term given to the five duties incumbent on every Muslim.
These duties are Shahada (Profession of Faith), Salat (Prayers), Zakat (Giving of Alms), Sawm (Fasting during Ramadan) and Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca).
From Dhimmiwatch The Five Pillars of Islam
The five pillars of Islam constitute the most basic tenets of the religion. They are:
1. Faith (iman) in the oneness of Allah and the finality of the prophethood of Muhammad (indicated by the declaration [the Shahadah] that, "There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah").
2. Keeping of the five scheduled daily prayers (salah).
3. Almsgiving (zakat).
4. Fasting (sawm).
5. Pilgrimage (hajj) to Mecca for those who are able.
The five pillars in and of themselves do not tell us a lot about the faith or what a Muslim is supposed to believe or how he should act. The second through fifth pillars -- prayer, almsgiving, fasting, pilgrimage -- are aspects shared by many religions. The finality of the prophethood of Muhammad, however, is unique to Islam. To understand Islam and what it means to be a Muslim, we must come to understand Muhammad as well as the revelations given through him by Allah, which make up the Quran.
President Hussein gives the lone jihadi syndrome a whole new meaning.
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