Borrow, print and tax -- Healthcare Utopia

The ability of the government to tax is the only thing backing government spending. We aren't producing enough to back our spending. This is like me being laid off, but increasing the amount I spend -- it will eventualy lead to bankruptcy and loss of credit worthiness.

When we gave government the ability to tax income with no limits, we cleared the way for our downfall. At one time, the government was limited regarding the amount of taxes it could collect, and this limited government's power, but now they can spend until we're no longer able to borrow or print anymore money, but before we get to that point government will increase taxes as a way to show our lenders we're good for the money. Government generates revenue by taking our money, and as long as we have money they can take, they will borrow, print and spend.

I'm saving the links to articles written by moderate statist Republicans who are calling for cooperation regarding the healthcare reform efforts in congress which are championed and led by the Obama administration. These moderates believe that Republicans should be assisting to craft healthcare legislation rather than simply resisting the current bills.

When this monstrosity of healthcare reform reveals its true cost, I'm going to go back to the articles written by these moderates to compare what they are saying then with what they are saying now. Nothing the Republicans propose now as a means to compromise, even if it's accepted, will have any effect on the outcome of healthcare reform being pushed through by the Democrats. The small compromises/amendments being proposed are low leverage, and they address symptomatic problems with symptomatic solutions.

The moderate statists are eager to join the healthcare reform effort out of fear of being seen as obstacles to change -- they will accept a certain amount of statism -- government control of healthcare -- if they can get a few low leverage amendments through which show that they are helping the reform cause. The progressive healthcare reform movement is about government control of healthcare and everything healthcare touches, which includes capitalism, lifestyles and individual liberty. The free market will have no influence on healthcare, regardless of which low leverage amendments are accepted. 

Ostensibly free citizens will be required to buy healthcare insurance against their wills. It won't matter if everyone is given an option of which policy they buy, all policies will be regulated by government. Government will regulate healthcare insurance, healthcare delivery and the healthcare choices of each individual. When costs explode, and are revealed, after ten to fifteen years, America will be in a financial meltdown like we've never experienced. Goodbye, dear billion, we barely knew you -- welcome trillion! Trillions in debt, we'll have no way to pay for it all. The government will raise taxes as much as they can without killing the goose laying golden eggs. Capitalism will be a memory. Finally, the government will have tamed the free market, and politicians will be in full control of the economy.

Every failure of healthcare reform will be blamed on private players who are not cooperating, so regulations will have to increase so that social engineers have the power to make this plan work. When costs explode, our lifestyle choices will be severely limited, as will be our access to healthcare. Everything than can be taxed, will be taxed -- we'll be nudged into government compliance -- and if nudging doesn't work, we'll be slammed into compliance. The healthcare reform plan will work, no matter what the government has to do to make it work -- the government will not admit defeat and go back to free market solutions. Defeat would be fatal to our present statist government. Success of healthcare reform will destroy what's left of the free market.

The only hope we have is that the coming elections change the makeup of government so that representatives work hard to dismantle what the progressives are now putting in place, but this is not comforting. The Republicans, even when in power, have not proven to be revolutionaries for limited government. We need revolutionaries, not spineless moderate statists.

So, you want an unprincipled party? Welcome to the New Majority!

Some days it's almost impossible to respond to the political mish-mash in the news and in the blogosphere. All the politically clever moves, the brilliant spins, the simple evasions, the smears, the specious justifications and rationalizations, it all gets to be a bit much, and for anyone who has a hunger for straightforward analysis which addresses the underlying structure of the ideas floated around, or the overarcing principles involved in political disagreements, well, they will starve in this current environment.

 

Today, David Frum finds clarity in these ideas:

What is clear to me is this:

* The world financial system nearly collapsed in September-October. It had to be saved. TARP was messy, TARP rescued a lot of people who didn’t deserve rescuing, but TARP was indispensable. We’ve lived through a 1929-31 type experience, but without TARP we might have rediscovered the horrible difference between a 1929-31 style severe recession, and a 1932-33 style economic collapse.

* Monetary policy had done all it could do for the US economy by January 2009. Fiscal stimulus was needed. I’d have preferred a payroll tax holiday to the spending measures put in place by the Obama administration, but I prefer those spending measures to doing nothing. Those spending measures, including cash for clunkers, cushioned the fall of the US economy in the second quarter of 2009, and they reduced the rate of decline to almost zero in the third quarter. They offered real (if expensive and inefficient) help when help was needed.

* The indications are that employment recovery will be slow and painful. (See the ominous words of San Francisco Federal Reserve board president Janet Yellen here: “The strength and durability of the expansion is in question. … The danger is that demand may grow at too anemic a pace to support vigorous expansion.” Republicans must – MUST – offer answers to this predicament, and our usual inventory of policies will not suffice. A capital gains tax cut will do little at a time when almost all investors are looking at huge accumulated capital losses.

* The Obama administration’s most serious economic policy failure has been its inability to devise a policy to remove the bad debts from the books of financial institutions and get them lending again. Let’s criticize them for that! But our criticism will only have bite if we have an alternative remedy to offer. How can we do that if any attempt to address the problem elicits only angry cries of “No bail outs!”

* There’s a big difference between addressing a systemic financial crisis and rescuing individual non-financial companies struggling with chronic economic failure of their own making. Condemnation of the GM and Chrysler bailout is a valid and useful bright line to separate Republicans from Democrats.

* No responsible governor could have refused the federal money on offer in 2009. States must balance their budgets. In the span of 12 months, tax revenues collapsed for most states: by 11.5% for example in Florida. What was Gov. Crist supposed to do about that? Chop state spending by 11.5% on six weeks’ notice? And what effect would it have on the nation’s economy if big states were laying off teachers, halting all road maintenance, and closing hospitals? If we make refusal of stimulus funds a litmus test of political acceptability, no sitting governor who cared about his or her job would be eligible for a Republican nomination for anything. We’d be left only with the governors who had physically or mentally checked out of their jobs: the Sarah Palins and the Mark Sanfords

 Sorry, but I don't find clarity in TARP -- the money wasn't used as it was proposed to be used, and if the big banks had failed, other lending institutions would have taken up the slack. You either believe in the free market or you don't -- you don't get to pick and choose. It's obvious that TARP was corporate welfare doled out to government cronies in the financial industry.

I don't find clarity in the idea that the stimulus was good in any way you can look it. Only someone who doesn't support capitalism, but does support pragmatic statism, can see any necessity in the stimulus. The stimulus is misdirected money which will not help the economy -- it will only delay recovery and reward Democratic special interests.

 I don't find clarity in minimizing the benefit of lowering capital gains taxes, especially when the administration and congress is proposing a 69% increase in capital gains taxes. Small businesses are the backbone of our economy -- TARP, the stimulus and high capital gains taxes, all hurt small businesses, yet Frum cannot acknowledge this.

 I don't find clarity in the idea that Republicans should come up with more clever, statist, financial gimmicks than the Democrats in order to be viable. Frum has no center. Moderates like Frum simply want to out-statism the Democrats while posturing as free market proponents, which brings us to principles. Frum, to be sure, would say that principles don't win elections -- principles don't get legislation passed -- principles don't build a political majority -- principles don't bring home the bacon to states.

 If Mr. Frum and the other moderates are saying -- "Join the Republican Party -- we can be even more unprincipled than the Democrats!" -- then I say -- "To hell with both parties." 

 

http://www.frumforum.com/can-conservatives-govern

Where have all the real liberals gone?

In the tradition of Sukarno, Nehru and Nasser, Obama is an internationally favored celebrity who talks much better than he manages, and who destroys the domestic economy while pontificating on global advances of cosmic proportions. America is in dire need of leaders who understand capitalism. Even if many liberal goals are questionable, true liberals must still exist, right?

 

The business of America is business, and liberal goals will never be achieved by destroying capitalism, so I have to wonder where the principled liberals are hiding. Its clear that the right opposes Obama's progressive agenda, but where are the liberals? I don't believe that all liberals are progressives -- writers like Alan Wolfe, for instance.

Most modern liberals depend too much on the state to achieve their goals of public welfare, but many liberals still believe in the free enterprise system. Obama states he believes in the free market, but his actions, past statements and associations contradict this claim. And, aside from Obama, other progressives in power have made no secret about their disdain for capitalism.

 

In order to stop the war against capitalism, courageous liberals must step forward and join the alliance aimed at fighting against the progressive onslaught. Luckily, not much damage has been done so far, but if progressives have their way, capitalism will be completely savaged and replaced with state marketism -- much like has happened in European countries with mediocre economies which would collapse if these countries had to pay for their own defense and weren't propped up by our research, development, innovation and funding of the IMF and World Bank.

 

This brings up another point -- the world can't afford the destruction of capitalism in America. Perhaps there's some type of One World Order strategy where nations think they can bleed industries of the money necessary to bring about a global governance, but this is highly unlikely. Productive people aren't going to produce on demand -- production requires the freedom inherent in a capitalist system -- the lessons of Russia are still fresh, so it's amazing that liberals here in America can't see this.

The healthcare war against rights

When Hillary Clinton designed her Rube Goldberg healthcare plan the reaction was short and not so sweet -- there was a resounding "WTF!" and it was over. Plus, when Hillarycare was designed, it was done in the cover of darkness so that the nation was spared the daily spectacle of cronyism, deal-making, incompetence, back-stabbiing, and the general inanity of the effort.

With the present reform, and with the information age going into high gear, we're inundated with the ugliness of government central planning and the stark reality of myopic special interests. Politicians, the media and academics have denigrated capitalism for many decades now as a failed system which cannot address the greater good of the many and only benefits the powerful few. You can be assured that what we see now in the healthcare debacle is not capitalism -- it's statism and the process of socialization.

Capitalism has never promised that businesspeople will act in some ideal fashion of perfect competition. Most people who understand capitalism realize that systems are important, and that capitalism is not about individual businesses or individual business people, it's about a system where businesses fail or succeed based on how well they provide what consumers desire, and by how well businesses are managed to deliver products and services and to maximize profit. Capitalism requires freedom from government interference, except when government interferes to prevent any violation of rights. The economic system of capitalism depends on the basic, individual rights to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness. If these basic rights aren't protected, then you can't have capitalism. This makes capitalism, above all else, a moral system, even if practiced by some immoral players. However, if government is doing its job protecting the public from coercion in any form, then the bad players are weeded out -- the only way bad players can survive is if they are protected by government. 

The economic system under which we presently operate is not capitalism -- it's what I call State Marketism. The State is managing the economy through laws and regulations which have less to do with protection of individual rights and more to do with picking winners and losers and socializing losses of favored businesses and industries. Government interference and protection have allowed large enterprises to survive which in a capitalist system would have failed -- GM is a prime example. Now, politicians are preparing to kill off some businesses while co-opting others to work for State purposes.

Since State Marketism is the new system, businesses are scrambling to position themselve as winners, or to at least get some scraps thrown their way. In the healthcare reform process, drug companies, physicians, hospitals, insurance companies, unions and consumers are forced to fight for the best deal to protect their interests. Government holds the power to choose winners and losers, and in the process individual rights will be violated. As a nation we are dangerously close to embracing and finalizing the acceptance of an idea which has infected and slowly killed the capitalist system -- individual rights take a backseat to the greater good (whatever that is decided to be by whatever gang is in power).

Protection of individual rights has always been the core of the American Experiment, but for years individual rights have become less important than what politicians determine to be best for the "people" -- or is it what's best for the State?

Members of congress are going forward with their healthcare plan, despite opposition from the public, making deals with the drug industry, trying to satisfy the unions, attempting to co-opt the physicians, and developing plans to squeeze the insurance companies -- the whole healthcare industry is balkanized into warring groups. The jungle and guerilla war of capitalism, as the left is disposed to frame it, are nothing compared to what the State has created with its power to coerce and violate rights -- what we're entering now is unbearable -- it's a war against life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness.

Let the free market handle healthcare. 

We socialize the people

Bouncing off my previous post, I, for one, resist socialization. There appears to be many people who all might not understand the details of what's happening but are also resisting what they see as too much government interference. Once this is clarified in the minds of the public there will be much more resistance, especially as people begin to realize that government interference is a big reason for unemployment, economic stagnation, struggling and broke big cities, community dissolution and rampant ignorance caused by the failure of our public schools.

Socialization efforts by the State work only when the State can control information, but that has changed and information is now free and uncontrolled. The internet revolution has exposed the State. The extreme socialization of other countries was possible because the State could convince the people, through the control of information, that the State knew best, and the socialization process was largely hidden.

Many Americans know better, and until the State can control information for several generations, the knowledge of capitalism and free markets and our Founders' intentions will prevent propaganda from having its effect. This seems to place the State in a nefarious position, but that's not my intention. The State doesn't have to have nefarious purposes to promote socialization -- good intentions are more likely. The State, with all its diverse players, surely believes they know best and that their plans are for the good of all.

It's not necessary to demonize the State in order to resist socialization or to believe there's a better way -- we can resist good intentions by well-meaning social engineers just as energetically. As they say -- the road to hell is paved with good intentions. No, we can calmly, reasonably, and without pitchforks, resist the State's well-intentioned intervention and meddling.

"I beg to differ, my good Sirs and Madams, but we most respectfully resist your plans."

No thank you is enough, then vote out the socializers and vote in the free-market/limited government proponents. This is America -- we're civilized and polite -- well, for the most part.

There seems to be a movement afoot to frame all opposition to socialization as wild-eyed fanatics and right-wing southern rednecks, but that's simply silly, dear Chaps. Seriously, the games should be ended so that we can get down to the business of making decisions regarding direction. I've heard so many mixed analyses regarding the half-socialization of Europe, who knows what's true, but we aren't Europe, and what Europe accepts might not be what we need and accept. I certainly don't see any overall European booming prosperity and wealth creation, or spiritual renaissance enlightening the rest of the world. I see puttering nations kept going to the extent they still allow capitalism to operate. Without the U.S. spending billions to protect them, they could be faced with defense expenses which would send them under, or place them in the hands of tyrants.

If all of a sudden the innovation necessary to progress and prosper were the sole responsibility of Europe, could they meet the challenge, or would they slowly disintegrate by draining their resources? I don't know, but capitalism has provided the environment for many great achievements in the U.S., which have benefitted the world, and it seems wrong to socialize even more now when the need for capitalistic growth and prosperity is so great. I wouldn't agree with it, but I could see modeling Europe in prosperous times, but I can't fathom modeling Europe during a financial crisis.