Freedom Line Blog

“As the nation patiently waits for perhaps the final cost estimate of President Obama’s health care plan, taxpayers might be surprised to learn that today the most powerful office in Washington, D.C. is not the Speaker’s office or the Oval Office, but the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).”

So writes Sam Batkins, CFIF’s Director of Public Policy, in an op-ed published today on HumanEvents.com.

Batkins goes on to note:

At perhaps no time in history has a small bureaucratic agency wielded so much power, even though the science of pricing government legislation is far from perfect. …

…Budget projections for health care vary greatly and, more often than not, vastly underestimate actual expenditures.

The Joint Economic Committee took note of the speculative nature of health care cost estimates. In a July 2009 paper, it determined that the original cost estimate for Medicare HI was off by 744%; the Medicare program as a whole came in 917% over original estimates and the Medicaid DHS program exceeded original scores by 1700%. Washington’s crystal ball tends to cloud when projecting future health care costs.

Recognizing that Congressional Democrats have become “crafty” at manipulating CBO scores, Batkins explains how they are using “an accounting sleight-of-hand that even Bernie Madoff would envy” to make their plan for a government takeover of health care appear more palatable. 

Batkins concludes the piece by writing:

Since health care entitlements never seem to go away, the affect on taxpayers has been either more debt or higher taxes.  Expect both if the Obama-Pelosi-Reid health care reform plan is ultimately passed.

Read the piece in its entirety here.

Remember back in 2006 when then soon-to-be House Speaker Nancy Pelosi promised that Democrats would “lead the most honest, most open and most ethical congress in history?” What about the repeated promises by then Candidate Obama to “broadcast [all health care] negotiations on C-SPAN so that the American people can see what the choices are?”

Of course, when it came time to “debate” health care, neither Pelosi nor Obama kept their promises.  Instead, both leaders have steered a process that has resulted in all variations of “reform” thus far being written behind closed doors, out of sight from the American people and with virtually no input from Congressional Republicans. 

As the Associated Press pointed out:

The House passed its version of the bill on a Saturday night. The Senate held its key procedural vote at 1 in the morning, and then provided a lump of coal in our stockings by forcing full passage of its bill on Christmas Eve. The House leadership banned consideration of all but one amendment not offered by leadership itself – forbidding debate on more than 150 of them – then provided just 24 hours for members to study the bill’s final text. The Senate leadership inserted so many tawdry last-minute items that analysts are still finding jokers in the deck 11 days later.

All these shenanigans have driven approval for the government health care bills even lower in public polls than the strong majorities that already opposed them a month ago.

Well, C-SPAN CEO Brian Lamb is now daring Congressional Democrats to put their money where their mouths are. 

FoxNews.com reports:

The head of C-SPAN has implored Congress to open up the last leg of health care reform negotiations to the public, as top Democrats lay plans to hash out the final product among themselves.

C-SPAN CEO Brian Lamb wrote to leaders in the House and Senate Dec. 30 urging them to open ‘all important negotiations, including any conference committee meetings,’ to televised coverage on his network.

‘The C-SPAN networks will commit the necessary resources to covering all of the sessions LIVE and in their entirety,’ he wrote.

There’s only one problem.  Holding true to their back-room strategy, Congressional Democrats are reportedly going to shut Republicans and the American people out of the process again as they seek to combine the House and Senate versions of “reform.”  Maggie Haberman and Charles Hurt of the New York Post reported today:

Congressional Democrats plan to take final negotiations on the massive health-care overhaul behind closed doors — far from the prying eyes of the public and most lawmakers.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) have decided not to impanel a bipartisan ‘conference committee’ because it would give Republicans an opportunity to stonewall certain procedural votes.

Instead, they will do it themselves informally out of their offices without formal public meetings.

And they wonder why the overwhelming majority of Americans oppose their plan … whatever that final plan may be.

Human Events – The Political Budget Office
CNN – Senator Graham Censured in South Carolina
George Will – A Clunker of a Year
Jonah Goldberg – Hangover Time for Liberalism

The Hill – Has Obama Made Us Safer?
Politico – Health Care Debate Resumes
WSJ Editorial – Sen. Nelson’s Unconstitutional Compromise?
Washington Examiner – Obama Flunks First Year

Federal Debt: $12.169 trillion

When asked to identify a leftist counterpart to the wit and wisdom of conservative commentator George Will, liberals commonly cite The Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne, Jr.

Frankly, that’s a bit like a D.C.-area baseball fan offering the Washington Nationals as a counterpart to the New York Yankees, as confirmed again by today’s commentary from Dionne.

In it, Dionne counsels a veritable suicide strategy for Democrats hoping to avoid a landslide defeat in November’s 2010 Congressional elections.  In the face of poll after poll demonstrating widespread public opposition to ObamaCare, Dionne advises Democrats to trumpet its virtues.  He apparently remains blissfully oblivious to the fact that the more people learn about ObamaCare, the less they like it.  Since Obama demanded legislation before the August Congressional recess, the public has swung from narrow approval to wide disapproval, yet he advises that Democrats tell them more?  Dionne subsequently argues, presumably with a straight face, that Democrats should utilize proposed carbon cap-and-tax legislation in their effort to gain electoral momentum.  As is the case with ObamaCare, however, Dionne’s recommendation flies in the face of public skepticism and opposition toward this costly bill that will raise utility costs for everyday consumers, cripple businesses struggling in a weak economy and surrender additional American sovereignty to United Nations-style climate regulation.

Those in the legal profession often advise against interrupting opposing attorneys who are dooming their own cases.  One suspects that Republicans are similarly in no hurry to interrupt Dionne’s advice to Democrats.

Recent Democrat-turned-Republican Parker Griffith (R-AL) is starting off the New Year with an empty office.

In a move that surprises few, all of his staff, including his intern, resigned today as a result of Griffith’s switch to the Republican Party.

In a joint statement released by his former staffers, they sought the future employment of “principled public officials.”  The world awaits the search for these “principled public officials.”  Let us know when you find a few.

Lost during the health care fight in the Senate over the holidays were the votes in the House over yet another round of central planning stimulus provisions.

On its last roll call vote, the House narrowly, 217-212, passed an $180 billion “jobs for main street” bill that will exacerbate the federal deficit by another $64 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

Not surprisingly, not a single Republican offered to support a third/fourth stimulus bill filled with pork-barrel spending and empty wealth transfers.  Democrats defected as well, with 38 voting “No.”

Now, the CBO has officially panned the legislation.  The final price tag over the next decade will be more than $180 billion, meaning Congress authorized $967 billion in 2009 alone for “stimulus” spending.

With all this, the unemployment rate remains at 10% and poll numbers indicate that no amount of wealth redistribution will increase Democratic majorities come Election Day.

Washington Post – A Critical Moment for House Democrats
Political Wire – Democrats to Bypass Conference on Health Bill
Politico – Mitt Romney Headed to Iowa
The Hill – Energy Companies Face Climate Action in States

LA Times – More Health Care Votes Ahead in Congress
Michael Barone – Democrats Should Push Education and Tax Reform
NY Times – In Health Bill for Everyone, Provisions for a Few
PC World – FCC Moves Toward Net Neutrality Rules

Federal Debt: $12.165 trillion

Americans are not apathetic people.  Although liberty took several hits this year with wars and rumors of wars on health care, energy, and taxation, freedom’s defenders among the citizenry did not stand by quietly.  They threw tea parties.  They massed at Washington and hundreds of cities around the country.  They spoke boldly at town hall meetings, and found unlikely support.  They raised money, organized, and propelled candidates and ideas past the nay-saying conventional wisdom types.  They won, they lost, and are learning.  2009 was a dress rehearsal.  2010 is the main event.

Americans, by nature, are not defined by politics.  But when events warrant, Americans are willing and able to refocus the political class’s attention on first principles, reminding their hired hands that the government is by, for, and of the people, and that when the governing authority becomes violent towards the people’s self-evident, God-given rights, the people have the right to wipe the slate clean and start afresh.

There is much to be hopeful for next year.  Before next New Year’s Eve a new Congress will be elected.  Let us resolve this December 31^st to refound America on our constitutional principles so that a year hence our resolutions can move from the public square to the president’s desk.  And let him dare refuse us.

The folks at Foreign Policy have compiled a list of the top ten underreported stories from 2009 that could have a major impact on 2010. They are:

1. The Opening of the Northwest Passage

2. Growing Hostilities between Iraq’s Arab and Kurdish Populations

3. An Intensifying Border Dispute between India and China

4. Uncle Sam Fueling another Housing Bubble

5. Pentagon Edges State Department as Primary Nation Builder

6. Brazil Helping China Expand Its Naval Capabilities

7. Security Breaches in U.S. Passport Procedures

8. Chechen-Related Assassinations

9. American Military Involvement in Uganda’s Civil War

10. CIA Proposes Its Own ROTC-Style Program

If there is anyone still clinging to the notion that Democrats have relented in their pursuit of a single-payer healthcare system, yesterday’s op-ed by Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) should help to pry those fingers free.  Among the shinier pieces in his gleaming collection of fool’s gold is this nugget:

I think of the current health reform bill as something of a “starter home.” It is not the mansion that some might want. But it has a solid foundation, giving every American access to quality, affordable coverage. It has an excellent, protective roof, which will shelter Americans from the worst abuses of health insurance companies. And this starter home has plenty of room for additions and improvements.

Earlier in the article Harkin gives some examples, like promising to eventually ban the current practice of refusing to cover people for pre-existing conditions.  Forget the fact that insurance companies are businesses that make profits by insuring low risk patients.  The more companies pay out in medical expenses means there is less money there to pay employees and shareholders.  For Harkin though, solving the problem of profitability means prohibiting sellers from choosing their buyers.

But the health care “reform” bill does more.  It also requires every American to purchase health insurance.  It is aptly named the “individual mandate”.  If the goal of reform was to end up with a government-run, single-payer health care system, but such a plan didn’t have the votes to achieve it directly, one way to get there would be to require both buyers and sellers to contract with each other.  Next, remove the incentive (then the ability) to make a profit.  Finally, declare that since the private health insurance companies “failed”, it’s time for the federal government to step in and take over.

It’s curious that Senator Harkin would liken the Democrats’ “reform” bill to a housing project being readied for additions and improvements.  After all, when most Americans hear “government housing project” they think of areas overrun with crime, corruption, and poor quality.  If Democrats pass their bill into law Senator Harkin may live long enough to complain about the shoddy locks, paper-thin walls, and lack of central heating in his dream home for other people.  That is, assuming his golden years aren’t cut short by a government cost-control panel.

‘Tis the season for end-of-the-year lists and the folks at Judicial Watch have compiled a list of the “Ten Most Corrupt Politicians” for 2009. A brief summary of their qualifications accompanies the alphabetized list.

1. Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT): Failed to disclose the true value of a home in Ireland, and a sweetheart mortgage rate provided by Countrywide, a company he helps to regulate

2. Senator John Ensign (R-NV): Allegedly broke anti-lobbying laws to quiet a former staffer whose wife Ensign had an affair with

3. Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA): Repeatedly blocked attempts to audit and regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, even claiming in 2003 that there was no impending housing crisis due to questionable lending practices

4. Secretary of Treasury Timothy Geithner: Failed to pay $34,000 in federal taxes, and employed illegal immigrants for domestic help

5. Attorney General Eric Holder: Refused to investigate ACORN for fabricating 400,000 voter registrations, or a group calling itself The New Black Panthers for voter intimidation outside polling places

6. Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL) / Senator Roland Burris (D-IL): After Jackson got caught offering $1.5 million to former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich for Barack Obama’s old senate seat, Burris was eventually named, but only after changing his story about contacts with Blago three times while under oath

7. President Barack Obama: Since promising to have the most transparent administration in history, Obama has claimed that the Privacy Act does not apply to the White House, refused to honor Freedom of Information Act requests, and failed to release visitor logs as required by federal law

8. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA): Apparently, Pelosi likes to use the United States Air Force as her personal airline, but unlike commercial passengers suffers none of the consequences for last minute changes and cancellations – all at the expense of taxpayers and military personnel

9. Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) and the rest of the PMA Seven: Call it cash-for-earmarks because Murtha continued his legacy of funding defense-related pet projects to friendly contractors who then contribute money to his reelection campaigns

10. Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY): In an effort to avoid punishment for “forgetting” to pay taxes on off-shore rental property, Rangel has contributed money to 119 members of Congress, including members of the House Ethics Committee investigating his incomplete financial disclosures

H/T: Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government

Remember a year ago, when the biggest rationale for Republican supporters of Barack Obama was his “first-class temperament?” Well, as the Obama Administration prepares to enter its second year in the wake of a near-miss terrorist attack, there’s signs that “No Drama Obama” can’t even muster a pulse for his job’s highest responsibility: protecting the American people.

From a story in today’s Politico:

“In general, I think that the president’s inclinations as a leader work fairly well for this issue — no-drama Obama,” [Cato Institute defense and homeland security fellow Benjamin] Friedman said. “In some ways Al Qaeda is trying to be relevant and trying to be politically relevant, and in some sense they achieved that. He’s denying them that relevance by acting like it’s not the No. 1 thing on his agenda. We credit them with more power and credibility than they have.”

Obama heading to the golf course, Friedman said, “signals that it’s not a crisis, and he’s the president and he has a lot of things to do and this is just one of them.”

Friedman and his fellow-travelers on the left and the libertarian right are engaging in a quixotic bit of terrorism-as-child-rearing fantasy.  Are we really to believe that the highest maxim of combatting terrorism is “see no evil?” If the targeted Northwest Airlines flight had gone down as planned, would this low-key approach from the President be equally effective in discouraging Al Qaeda? And how has this administration’s orgy of euphemisms (you may remember such hits as “man-caused disasters”) done so far in deterring potential terrorists?

It’s naive to believe there’s no such thing as evil in the world. The only thing more naive may be believing that you can make it go away by ignoring it.

The fracas surrounding Senator Jim DeMint’s (R-SC) hold on Erroll Southers’ nomination to be the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) next chief shows the endurance of two liberal pastimes.  First, the refusal of any of DeMint’s critics to directly address his concerns that Southers will clear the path for TSA workers to unionize.  The second is the enshrinement of unelected bureaucrats as the sine qua non of a workable federal government.

Right now, the TSA’s supposed top priority is to protect Americans traveling through the nation’s airports and on its airways.  If TSA’s workers are allowed to unionize its primary focus, like all other public employee unions, will become job protection and expanding compensation.  To Senator DeMint that means less flexibility in personnel decisions and higher taxes.  Apparently, Southers hasn’t been candid about whether he supports unionization.  Disregarding the senator’s qualms, pilots unions and trade associations are calling for DeMint to relent.  For those familiar with him, that isn’t likely.

Perhaps what’s more amazing (or disgusting, depending on your current level of holiday cheer) is the implied premise of Southers’ supporters that TSA is “rudderless” without a permanent, Senate-approved leader.  Granted, Congress is on an extended vacation and the president is golfing in Hawaii, but no one can seriously argue that TSA, the Department of Homeland Security, the FAA, or the myriad of other federal departments, agencies, or bureaus touching on domestic safety are insufficiently empowered to decide who gets on an American airplane.  If anything, the admission that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s name was on a terror watch list and had been reported to the American government by his own father indicate that “what we’ve got here is…failure to communicate” among various federal entities.

If it takes a new law to make that possible, so be it.  But fast-tracking a stealth unionization administrator can wait until he and his supporters come up with a better reason than a civil servant’s indispensability.

Many anti-war Leftists like to taunt military planners with the Vietnam-era missive that it is sometimes “necessary to destroy the town to save it.” Coupling his distaste for enhanced interrogation techniques with the necessity to neutralize terrorists when possible, President Barack Obama seems to be applying that logic to the lives of individual terrorist leaders. In Pakistan, Afghanistan, and now Yemen, Obama is giving the lie to the notion that his approach to terrorists is more humane than his predecessor’s. As Marc Thiessen explains in today’s Washington Post:

President Obama has shut down the CIA interrogation program that helped stop a series of planned attacks — and in the year since he took office, not one high-value terrorist has been interrogated by the CIA.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration has escalated the targeted killing of high-value terrorists. There may be times when killing a terrorist leader is the best option (for example, his location might be too remote to reach with anything but an unmanned drone). But President Obama has decided capturing senior terrorist leaders alive and interrogating them — with enhanced techniques if necessary — is not worth the trouble.”

In fact, Obama has been ordering drone assassinations of terrorist leaders since his first week in office. Unlike the Bush Administration’s model of capture, detain, and interrogate, Obama and his team are opting for the ultimate end-run around Attorney General Eric Holder’s epiphany to treat Guantanamo Bay detainees like American citizens: kill them before they’re contacted. If enemy combatants are really more like common criminals worthy of civilian trials, are common criminals now able to be killed by law enforcement prior to being contacted? Why hassle about the vagaries of Miranda rights when a cop can just shoot the bad guy on the street?

As Thiessen rightly notes, there may be situations where such attacks are warranted.  But killing people so you don’t have to feel queasy about dealing with their continued existence is not an elegant solution to a vexing moral problem. Then again, this isn’t the first time President Obama has applied such reasoning.

Besides these troubling inconsistencies, there is usually collateral damage in the form of neighbors and passers-by that get killed in the fallout. These are the fruits of an enlightened presidency? How provocative it is to think that terrorist leaders had it better under George W. Bush than Barack Obama. At least under the former they weren’t guaranteed a death sentence.

New York Post – It’s the Incompetence, Stupid
Bob Herbert – Health Care Tax to Hit Middle-Class
NY Times – Terrorists Still Fly
Fred Barnes – Tyranny of the Majority Party

Politico – Handling Problems the Obama Way
The Hill – Former Sen. Chafee to Run for RI Governor
National Review Online – Unhealthy Arrogance in the White House
Washington Post – Allen v. Webb Rematch in VA?

In this, the hair of the dog week of the holiday season, there’s cause for good cheer on the Pennsylvania-New Jersey border. That’s where Lockheed Martin pledged $400,000 to keep alive the state park commemorating George Washington’s daring 1776 Christmas crossing of the Delaware River — a bold act that led to the colonies’ victories in the battles of Trenton and Princeton, and breathed life into what looked like a losing American cause.

I have to admit an emotional attachment to this issue. A year ago, in the waning days of the Bush Administration, I used the Christmas version of the President’s radio address to tout the amazing story of Washington’s Crossing to the American people. With the holiday weekend allowing a rare respite from the White House’s around-the-clock schedule, I spent a Saturday making the drive from my home in Alexandria, Virginia, to the banks of the Delaware River that the father of our country had crossed 232 years earlier.   It was a sight at once inspiring and tragic.

On those shores, where the dreams of an independent republic could well have foundered, is an aging and dilapidated visitor center that looks like it hasn’t been updated or improved for 30 years. Emanuel Leutze’s famous painting of the crossing (which at the time was hanging in the lobby of the West Wing) was replicated on a grand scale — but in an empty auditorium with buckets to catch the leaks from the roof and seating that looked like it had been pried from a condemned elementary school.

The center was reportedly facing closure because of cuts in the Pennsylvania state budget. That’s a shame. If conservatives and liberals can agree to spend money on anything, it ought to be on commemorating the great moments and great men in American history. And frankly (my only call for greater federal power in 2009 is coming in three … two …), as a place of national significance, there’s no reason that the federal government shouldn’t be picking up this ball if Pennsylvania is intent on dropping it.  In the meantime, thanks be to Lockheed. And if you’d like to lend your support, you can do so here.

Forget Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano’s bungled response to the would-be Detroit airline bomber.  According to Slate’s Christopher Hitchens the bigger fiasco was the bureaucratic stasis substituted for swift action in the aborted bombing’s aftermath.

It was reported over the weekend that in the aftermath of the Detroit fiasco, no official decision was made about whether to raise the designated “threat level” from orange. Orange! Could this possibly be because it would be panicky and ridiculous to change it to red and really, really absurd to lower it to yellow? But isn’t it just as preposterous (and revealing), immediately after a known Muslim extremist has waltzed through every flimsy barrier, to leave it just where it was the day before?”

If this is true, the color-coded “threat level” system should be scrapped.  It is doubtful anyone feels safe under any color.  Per Hitchens, most Americans know that precious little can be done to prevent a murderer from succeeding if he intends to die in the process.  While not an argument to do nothing, this realization should prompt DHS big wigs to do better PR than announce a new color scheme or disrobement policy.  Americans deserve more from their government than prophylactic policies that seek to prevent the last terrorist’s security breach.  As Hitchens details though, anything else would be unprecedented.

Upon officially entering the Republican primary to face Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) in next year’s U.S. Senate race, Peter Schiff vowed to “filibuster until I die” if that’s what it takes to convince members of Congress how horrible are their economic policies. However, if Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) gets his way, theoretically Schiff could find himself in a silenced minority of 49 out of 100.

As trial balloons go, Harkin’s idea to eliminate the filibuster is getting more discussion than most. First there was an interview and weekend op-ed via Ezra Klein in The Washington Post. Today, Jay Cost at RealClearPolitics provides a detailed critique (including a graph!) defending the moderating device. While Klein bemoans the “paralysis” caused when the majority party refuses to negotiate, Cost correctly points out the Framers didn’t intend to make governing easy, only possible.

Beyond original intent, though, Klein would do well to remember that not everybody saw light at the dawn of the Age of Obama. In fact, people like Schiff are so angry at the leftward lurch of the federal government that they are willing to stand up in a town hall meeting or the well of the United States Senate and tell their peers why it’s wrong.

Truth be told, the funny thing about filibusters is that they are so rarely forced. In reality, it’s not the use of filibusters that upsets Klein and Harkin, it’s the threat of using them. Announce you’ll filibuster and the governing elites seethe, condemn, and then capitulate. Had then-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) called the Democrats’ bluff to filibuster George W. Bush’s judicial nominees there is little doubt a true round-the-clock filibuster would have run its course within a week; all the while Democratic surrogates would be getting killed on television trying to explain why imminently qualified attorneys shouldn’t be allowed the courtesy of an up-or-down vote.

At bottom, what Klein and Harkin hate isn’t filibusters – it’s any indication that a Democratic majority in Congress doesn’t necessarily reflect America’s majority opinion. With the Tea Party movement gaining steam with the likes of Peter Schiff and Rand Paul, one hopes the filibuster can survive until they arrive in the U.S. Senate. If they bring a majority, maybe Klein and Harkin will rethink their support of the filibuster.

If the Senate’s hyperpartisan Christmas Eve healthcare vote and the Copenhagen climate summit “agreement” constitute “victories” for Barack Obama, one would fear to see anything he’d acknowledge a “failure.” 

At every opportunity, the White House, liberal pundits and media apologists herald both as victories for a foundering presidency.  But just as Obama’s performance has failed to remotely match his lofty campaign rhetoric, neither one comes anywhere close to his professed goals. 

After all, remember the government-run, single-payer system that Obama said was his goal prior to his presidency?  No sign of it in the Senate healthcare bill.  In fact, the bill doesn’t even contain the “robust public option” that Obama sought after he realized single-payer was a bridge too far.  And remember how he demanded them before the August Congressional recess?  Some “victory.” 

And the same goes for the silly Copenhagen climate summit.  Obama arrogantly trumpeted a historic “agreement,” but the only agreement was an agreement-to-agree-to-something-to-be-agreed-upon-at-some-future-climate-summit.  There were none of the economically-crippling carbon limits demanded by environmental extremists, and none of the billions (trillions?) of largess demanded by developing nations. 

The reality is that Obama needes something – anything – to create the mirage of accomplishment for a White House that has failed so miserably that his approval is lower than any President in history at this stage.   His minions and media chorus may label these things “victories,” but that doesn’t make it so.

The American – Why Health Reform Will Cost Taxpayers
David Broder – A Warning Obama Should Heed
Steve Chapman – Global Freedom Had Few Blooms
The Hill – Ten Compelling Gubernatorial Races for 2010

Politico – Dems Urge White House to Drop Cap-and-Trade
National Review Online – Health Fight is Not Over
Washington Times – ObamaCare’s Dirty Deals
Washington Examiner – The President’s Year of Failure