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Jewish World Review
April 18, 2012/ 26 Nissan, 5772
Obama's interventions help a few by the most autocratic, complicated, ineffective means possible, yet hurt many more
By
Jay Ambrose
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
President Barack Obama can't seem to get anything right, or at least no more than half right, as when he said the other day that Google and Facebook "would not exist" without government spending on basic science and research. It is true that the Internet arose out of a military project, and it is also true that one of the few places Obama is willing to cut spending is the military. Go figure.
Spending is Obama's first love, ideologically speaking. Like most everyone else of leftward bent, he thinks throwing public money at whatever looks evil will make it good, will make it shine, will render Utopia. What it will actually do is destroy America, and you would think that voters would fight back by doing some throwing themselves, as in throwing the rascals out.
Sadly, voters get led into silliness, first by the politicians and then by too many reporters looking for zing instead of substance while wasting an awful lot of breath speculating on who will win. They need to get around more to serious issues. And no, I do not mean the story about Republicans being against contraceptives that will somehow go away without the blessing of the healthcare reform law known as "Obamacare."
The GOP is not against birth control. The truth is that everyone can get contraceptives cheaply while the poor can get them for free and that insurance companies have been providing contraceptive coverage for years. The chief contraceptive innovation of Obamacare, besides achieving nothing by forcing some religions to act against their faith, is to end co-payments, thereby forcing everyone to pay more on insurance premiums.
The provision sums up part of what Obamacare is about: interventions helping some by the most autocratic, complicated, ineffective means possible while hurting many others. But Obamacare is also about crazy spending.
If you are in doubt, meet Charles Blahous. He is a terrifically smart guy whose specialty is entitlement programs. I myself met him when he was a top economic adviser to President George W. Bush. He is now a trustee for Medicare and Social Security, appointed to the position by Obama, and has lately come out with a peer-reviewed, fact-filled analysis refuting political blather to the effect that Obamacare will actually save money.
Though Obamacare was supposed to lessen total health care spending, Blahous tells us, over the next 10 years it will boost it by some $1.15 trillion while adding somewhere between $340 billion to $530 billion to federal deficits. But, hey, what's with these straightforward calculations? Doesn't Blahous know Washington prefers to operate in the midst of numerical confusion?
For decades, the Congressional Budget Office has eased political life on both sides of the aisle by scoring the costs of some programs in a manner that says you have cut spending when you haven't. Whoopee, said the Obama administration, looking to help subsidize Obamacare medical treatments for tens of millions of people with Medicare cuts that aren't really cuts at all. They are in effect funds to be used for Medicare benefits in years to come.
Are there lifeboats for this fiscal Titanic of ours? We could go under. The debt is projected to reach $16 trillion by the end of the fiscal year, and both parties' plans would increase it by trillions more over the next 10 years. The chief Republican plan at least increases it by less and focuses on some important reduced-spending ambitions with tax reform. The Obama plan seeks big-time tax hikes without true reform, meaning you can kiss economic growth goodbye. Obama virtually ignores the icebergs of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
Wait -- my view is just a conservative extreme, right? Wrong. Any number of reasonably moderate economic thinkers are shuddering out loud these days. The nation should pay attention, and, by the way, someone ought to tell Obama the most significant technological innovations have come from private entrepreneurs.
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Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Comment by clicking here.
Jay Ambrose, formerly Washington director of editorial policy for Scripps Howard newspapers and the editor of dailies in El Paso, Texas, and Denver, is a columnist living in Colorado.
Previously:
• 04/16/12: Overregulation strikes again: The nanny state threatens to turn us into children
• 04/11/12: Obama is not bonkers
• 04/04/12: Will America vote against authoritarianism?
• 04/02/12: 'Tipping point' on federal restraint approaches
• 03/28/12: Obama truth from an open mike
• 03/21/12: The progressive campaign for voter fraud
• 03/19/12: Public pensions will get us if we don't watch out
• 03/14/12: Politics needs reporting, not speculation
• 03/12/12: Home of the free, the brave, the endangered
• 03/07/12: Obama used Limbaugh as scapegoat
• 03/05/12: Campaign substance lost in media melodrama
• 03/01/12: When Big Brother drowns
• 02/24/12: Obama goes gaseous on gas
• 02/22/12: Political tears for trust in personal empowerment --- except in the bedroom
• 02/17/12: Of cut-off ears and silenced mouths
• 02/15/12: Obama is a joke whose antics aren't funny
• 02/10/12: An energy boom looms, despite Obama
• 02/08/12: Obama's assault on faith
• 02/03/12: Can Romney get serious?
• 01/27/12: Obama is like an Italian ship captain
• 01/25/12: Newt Gingrich's first 100 days
• 01/20/12: Obama's Keystone pipeline lies
• 01/18/12: Critics worse than urinating Marines
• 01/13/12: Ron Paul is a cartoonish character
• 01/11/12: Newt Gingrich upset by Mitt Romney's brilliance
• 01/09/12: How about regulating presidents, too?
• 01/04/12: How America smothers itself
• 12/30/11: A tax break that helps break the nation
• 12/28/11: Watch out for the banana peel, Newt
• 12/21/11: A tale of two men
• 12/16/11: Strange happenings in Russia
• 12/14/11: Tim Tebow is a man of character
• 12/09/11: A populist, envy-mongering fraud divisively exacerbating resentment among different groups of Americans
• 12/07/11: Tax games threaten nation
• 12/05/11: Why Wal-Mart serves us better than Barney Frank
• 11/30/11: Not writing off Newt
• 11/28/11: Answers to the Iranian threat
• 11/23/11: Failure of the incumbency investment
• 11/18/11: Occupiers: Chop off their heads!
• 11/16/11: Obama asks jobless to sacrifice
• 11/09/11: Michael Moore's insufferable occupation
• 11/04/11: Political tipping point is coming
• 11/02/11: Idealogues versus 7 billion
• 10/28/11: Obama games on student loans
• 10/26/11: Wit and quick moves v. humanity and thoroughgoing honesty? It's no contest —- or at least shouldn't be
• 10/07/11: Baptists, bootleggers and Wall Street protesters
• 10/05/11: Federal law will get you even if you watch out
• 09/28/11: Leftist bugbears on the march
• 09/23/11: Still hope for coal to help us
• 09/21/11: Obama's Madoff ploy
• 09/19/11: U.S. can't afford to wait until it happens
• 09/14/11: Defending -- and strengthening -- gung ho collectivism
• 09/12/11: A pipeline to better times
• 09/08/11: Obama just keeps destroying jobs
• 09/06/11: Ultra-feminists thwarting justice
• 08/31/11: Corporations are people? Yes, Count the ways
• 08/26/11: What an earthquake tells us about debt
• 08/25/11: The tyranny of scientific consensus
• 08/23/11: Fracking hardly a public health threat
• 08/17/11: Why Obamacare won't control births
• 08/15/11: Balanced budget amendment unbalanced idea
• 08/10/11: Kerry's war on citizen speech
• 08/05/11: Upside to the compromise leaving the door open for obnoxious maneuvers
• 08/03/11: The people who may save America
• 07/29/11: On making deals, Obama is no LBJ
• 07/27/11: The threat behind the debt
• 07/23/11: Mean opposition to means-testing
• 07/20/11: Leftist babble makes debt crisis even worse
• 07/18/11: Time to raise demagoguery ceiling
• 07/13/11: Obama treating treaties badly
• 07/08/11: Is decline of U.S. exaggerated?
• 07/05/11: Not math deficiency, but demagoguery
© 2011, SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE
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