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.

The House of Representatives sends a message to America

Pelosi's healthcare reform bill passed in the House 220-215. It's funny how you never hear about Obamacare since the bills coming from the Democrats became more unpopular. I guess Obama ordered his name be removed from this effort. I don't blame him, because this passage is a slap to the face of the nation.

In essence, the Democrats are saying they have little concern for the majority's opinion that this bill is not good for the country. The representatives (a term used loosely) have sent the message that congress will decide what the country needs and they will do what they want to do with whatever legislation they want to do it with. The Democrats, however, are not showing any perverse virtue here, they are showing cowardice. The Democrats are more concerned with avoiding the wrath of the progressives than they are concerned with avoiding the wrath of the American people who mostly oppose progressivism.

Plus, they know that this is a power grab of huge significance. The Republicans didn't fight this with intelligent vigor -- they opted for photo-op sessions and soundbites. There was no concerted intellectual resistance from the Republicans, no persistent, clear and philosophical delineation. Maybe a handful of Republicans were persistant, but overall, they failed to formulate a solid opposition. Just not voting for it and saying "socialism" every once in awhile is not a resistance movement. The Tea Party movement was the only real resistance and many among them rejected the Republican Party as weak and corrupt.

The American people will now have to act as the wall between the Senate and the next step. It would be good if a clear voice could arise from the Republican Party which articulates the philosophical resistance to statism -- that would be nice, but I'm not sure if any of them know how to articulate America's founding philosophy, and I'm not sure that any of them will stick their heads above the crowd and risk their political careers on principles.

More on Moderates

I've said some unpleasant things about moderates, especially moderate politicians and pundits. This doesn't mean I have anything against the concept of moderation, nor do I think all moderate human beings are squishes. Many people moderate their drinking, shopping, emotional responses, sexual conduct, their time spent working, their gambling in places like Vegas, their food consumption, etc., and this is admirable -- however, I'm not convinced the virtue is transferable, necessarily, to politics.

The problem I have with the Thomas Dewey-like moderates is that they are okay with government intervention as long as it's paid for. The term "moderate", in politics, is troublesome -- some moderate Republicans even refer to their political designation as "progressive" Republican. Is this a Teddy Roosevelt progressivism? I also wonder what is the difference between moderate Democrats and moderate Republicans, and if "progressive" is thrown into the mix, the lines are blurred to the point of being senseless.

I often hear pundits say that moderate Democrats are separating themselves from liberals on a given issue -- if the moderate Democrats are not liberal then this also begs the question -- what makes them different from the moderate Republicans? Does it all boil down to how much debt is acceptable? In other words, is statism acceptable to moderate Republicans, moderate Democrats, liberals and progressives with the only difference being how much statism and debt each group is willing to accept? I suppose, if this is true, that at some point a line is drawn separating the moderate Republicans from the Democrats, therfore distinguishing which party the moderates fall within. We know that the liberals and progressives fall within the Democrat Party, but the line is blurred with moderates from each party.

But even this is not clear, because Republican moderates also claim to be fiscally conservative and socially liberal, so which really defines them, if they accept that a certain amount of statism is acceptable? Don't moderate Democrats claim the same thing -- that they are fiscally conservative and socially liberal? Is it really just a matter of degree? This doesn't seem to be a big enough difference to justify different party designations, because even within the Democrat Party there are disagreements among moderates over how much government intervention is acceptable, so Republican moderates, like Arlen Specter used to be, could fit right in, just as Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, and others could blend right in. It appears the Blue Dog Democrats and the Republican moderates are all in the same political group with marginal disagreements over how much statism is acceptable. The particular local issues are not that important when looking at the difference between parties -- here, I'm more concerned with political philosophy in a broader sense, as between statist and anti-statist.

As a libertarian-leaning thinker, I can understand fiscal conservatism and social liberalism, but where I separate from the moderates, and the liberals and progressives, is their willingness to use government intervention in the economy and for the greater good of society, especially after the performance of the state since the turn of the 20th century. Moderates aren't working for a limited government and private realm solutions to social problems, and they appear to see the Constitution as fluid according to the needs of the time. So, who is left to defend the classical liberal principles on which America was founded, or have we moved past our beginning into a more global political philosophy, or anti-philosophy, of socialization and internationalism?

Most libertarians still uphold the classical liberal principles of limited government, individual rights, charity, and self-determination, and the conservative movement is presently re-embracing these principles, although many in the base have always embraced these principles, they've just been too willing to use statsism to achieve socially conservative ends, and the conservative choice of Bush in 2000 showed a statist weakness in the Republican Party.

The moderates might be right when they say that if the Republican Party is to re-gain power it will require moderate support, but what good is the Republican Party in power if it advances statism? The Democrats are doing a better job of advancing statism, if that is the goal -- the Democrats just need to get spending under control, and the moderates in the Democrat Party are working on that -- the Republican moderates can join them and give them more fiscally conservative firepower. The question is who is going to fight against statism? Are the libertarians and conservatives enough? Will the libertarians and conservatives split over social issues? Is the independent movement a new, anti-statist, political formation?  

Next, as a follow-up, I'll write about the concerns I have surrounding the liberal/progressive definitions. The current babble regarding political designations is simply too confusing.

The diversity of independents

It's a big mistake to look at events like Tuesday's's elections and see only a conservative faction at work, a group of automatons led by Dick Armey and Sarah Palin who all think alike and act in unison.

There are probably some broad divisions which can be made, like those who favor an interventionist government because of whatever benefit they're getting from government, and then those who don't really get any extra benefits (other than the normal government services that apply to everyone) from government who prefer that the state not interfere in our lives.

These divisions have existed for quite some time, and not all those who prefer less government intervention have been politically active -- they've simply cursed a little at times when the subject comes up, but mostly they go about their business and think very little about government - however, now that the progressives have power and they are intervening in major ways, and now that the Information Age is wide open, people are realizing just how nannyish and dangerous big government has become.

Yes, there is the radio talk-show group, although they are not monolithic, and, yes, there is a conservative base which has relatively similar ideas about politics, and, yes, there are white racists who blame minorities, although they are a fringe element, and the race element is manifested in different ways, not all a simple hatred of people of color, but rather a sense of reverse discrimination, plus there are independent people of color, and, yes, there are libertarians who, of course, want a limited government, but libertarians are varied and some lean left, and, yes, there are some who are rich businesspeople, but they don't think and act alike -- on and on. So, the independent movement is not so easy to buttonhole.

The independent movement, if you can really call it a movement at this stage, is beginning to coalesce around a few ideas -- out of control spending, too much government power, high taxation in many areas and fear of taxes going higher all over the country, unemployment, bailouts of big corporations and corruption.

I certainly wouldn't look at the increase in independents as just a conservative movement related to the Republican Party. There are political figures who would like to co-opt independents for their own purposes, but independents are too diverse to define as a political group, and it's best to see independents as representative of the private realm, not necessarily seeking power, but, rather, seeking to limit power by insisting on change in Washington D.C.

Many independents thought they were getting change with a new type of president in Barack Obama, but increased government power isn't what they had in mind. It speaks to the political naivette of many people that they thought Obama would clean up Washington and bring in a new style of responsible governance -- but people are quickly getting a lesson on politics and a refresher course on the Constitution. Many people don't like what America is becoming -- they had been asleep, and now they are waking up.

Those isolated in political intrigue in Washington D.C. don't understand the independent movement and see conspiracies behind every placard -- they are convinced that evil capitalist forces are at work putting forth an army of conservative soldiers to destroy Obama. The conservative movement makes up only a portion of the independents and they are not brain-dead foot-soldiers, just, for the most part, ordinary conservative Americans concerned about government over-reach, but it's a mistake to see this as a classical conservative/liberal, Republican/Democrat battle for political control. An apolitical movement is forming which transcends the old political divisions, and this movement makes up what used to be called the Silent Majority -- it's a diverse group with very few political demands, and very few special interests. This awakening has more to do with the private realm being left alone, a desire for a vibrant economy and the limitation of government power. Government is held responsible for unemployment and people are sick of big corporations being favored at the expense of small businesses and jobs.

It's also not traditional class warfare -- it's a war between the people and the government. Although the economy is the biggest concern, it's quickly becoming a moral issue of liberty vs domination.

Scozzafava shows her true colors

http://rsmccain.blogspot.com/2009/11/ny23-live-from-watertown-ny-surprise.html

The fact that Scozzafava is now backing the Democrat can't be written off as sore losing -- it's confirmation that she is a Democrat in Republican clothing. So, why couldn't the Republicans who supported her see this?

There's a deep schism in the Republican Party which is more than adjustment after losing the election. This is an ideological split. The Republican moderates are filling a vacuum created by the Democratic hard shift leftwards. The progressives have moved so far into statism, that the ordinary mixed idea of statism/free market, which has given us a mixed economy regardless which party has held power, has left a vacuum between the progressives and limited government/free market advocates who still exist in the Republican Party. This vacuum is being filled by Democrat and Republican moderates.

It's a strange political breakdown. Although the media is attempting to frame the conservative base as the far-right extremists, they aren't. The far-right extremists who've been associated with racism or religious fanaticism have been marginalized -- you don't see the David Duke or Jerry Falwell types having any influence in the Republican Party. And, to associate Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter with the old far-right extremists is a stretch even for the most partisan Democrat hack. The conservative base is becoming the opposition, while the moderates are in that strange space created by the extremes of progressivism. Where the moderates from both parties have power is that they can block progressive policies, along with the Republicans who represent the base -- or the moderates from both parties can help implement the progressive agenda, fighting over not if the government should control the economy, but how much of the economy government will control.

This is why I still have little confidence in the Republican Party -- the moderates are really moving to an old Democrat position, one of mixed ideology and support for a mixed economy. The limited government movement will either become the new Republican Party, or they will be a movement without a party and the Democrats will be in power for a long, long time. It's becoming clear that the limited government movement will not vote for moderate/mixed economy Republicans.