Second American Revolution on the Horizon? Bill Clinton Lowered Nations Morality

From Investors.com writers Ernest S. Christian and Gary A. Robbins comes the question "Is the government doing us more harm than good? Should we change what it does and the way it does it?" The writers suggest that to "prune" government we must start with "the imperial presidency."

Obama's Long Shadow Looms Over the White House

Christian and Robbins opine that Bill Clinton lowered the morality bar, which in turn lowered the "tone" and "strength of the nation." That opinion is also my long-held belief.

Once a State head could be kept cooling his heels in the White House Rose Garden while Monica Lewinsky tended to the President's urges, the image of the Oval Office was forever tainted. Even if the leader was Palestinian Yasser Arafat, who shouldn't have been invited to the White House anyway, Clinton's behavior was atrocious.

Knowing that Lewinsky described how she walked down a hallway with Clinton watching, lifted her jacket and flipped her thong undies, we no longer had illusions that voter's revered the esteemed nature of the office of the President of the United States. We had the goods on Clinton's marriage-straying ways before he was elected, but as with Barack Obama, people tend to vote for charming guys with charmless wives. Perhaps Democrats live vicariously through their pitiful leaders.

From Christian and Robbins - one of the best legitimate diatribes to date on Barack Obama.

Veteran Democrat Sen. Max Baucus blurted out that Obama is engineering the biggest government-forced "redistribution of income" in history.

Fear and uncertainty stalk the land. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke says America's financial future is "unusually uncertain." 

 A Wall Street "fear gauge" based on predicted market volatility is flashing long-term panic. New data on the federal budget confirm that record-setting deficits in the $1.4 trillion range are now endemic. 

Obama is building an imperium of public debt and crushing taxes, contrary to George Washington's wise farewell admonition: "cherish public credit ... use it as sparingly as possible ... avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt ... bear in mind, that towards the payment of debts there must be Revenue, that to have Revenue there must be taxes; that no taxes can be devised, which are not ... inconvenient and unpleasant ... ."

 There is much more in this Investors.com article. I'll leave it to you to read, but will add more quote:

A wounded rampaging president can do much damage - and, like Caesar, the evil he does will live long after leaves office, whenever that may be.

 This article begs the question: when and how does a modern day American Revolution get underway? Thanks to Weazel Zippers for pointing the way.

Harry Reid Exempts Nevada: Senate Finance Committee Exempt Reid's Nevada from Expanded Medicaid

Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) knows his senate seat is on the line in 2010 election. His buddies on the Senate Finance Committee, specifically in Max Baucus' proposal, have exempted Nevada from paying their share of the state's new expanded Medicaid costs in the health care reform bill.

Harry Reid

Under that proposal, states will be required to cover all residents living below 133 percent of the federal poverty level, or $29,327 for a family of four. And while Washington would pick up most of the tab of that expansion, states will have to pay a percentage (between 5 percent and 23 percent depending on the relative wealth of the state).

The changes came at the expense of other states, including California, Florida and Illinois, which would see significant increases in state Medicaid spending under the new formula.”

 Other "high need states" are also exempted, but those states have not been officially revealed. Apparently, there are parameters that must be met to meet Senate Finance Chair, Max Baucus', criteria: According to this report, Michigan, Oregon and Rhode Island may quality for exemption.

This is "deal making" at its most egregious. My state will be forced to bear its share of the cost. Your state, unless it is one of the Baucus Four, will be forced to bear its share of the cost of expanded Medicaid - with taxpayer money.

States included in the Baucus Four will receive 100 percent of Medicaid government-mandated increased costs from the government - that means you and I pay more.

Rhode Island has a Republican governor who is term-limited in 2010. Perfect seat for yet another Democrat governor with this little help courtesy the U.S. Senate. Oregon and Michigan have Democrat governors, also 2010 term-limited. Each of the Baucus Four states voted Democrat in the 2008  presidential election.

The email address for the Senate Finance Committee is Health_Reform@finance-dem.senate.gov. I have sent my email. (update: the email came back as undeliverable)

The members of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee are:

Democrat Members:

MAX BAUCUS, MT   Phone: 202-224-2652
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, WV
KENT CONRAD, ND
JEFF BINGAMAN, NM
JOHN F. KERRY, MA
BLANCHE L. LINCOLN, AR
RON WYDEN, OR
CHARLES E. SCHUMER, NY
DEBBIE STABENOW, MI
MARIA CANTWELL, WA
BILL NELSON, FL
ROBERT MENENDEZ, NJ
THOMAS CARPER, DE


Republican Members:
CHUCK GRASSLEY, IA
ORRIN G. HATCH, UT
OLYMPIA J. SNOWE, ME
JON KYL, AZ
JIM BUNNING, KY
MIKE CRAPO, ID
PAT ROBERTS, KS
JOHN ENSIGN, NV
MIKE ENZI, WY
JOHN CORNYN, TX

Hot Air reports that the Committee tried to get the Baucus health care reform bill out of committee and on the floor for a vote before Congressional Budget Office (CBO) could give its assessment of the cost of the mammoth assault on American taxpayers. Read it at Hot Air.

Texas Sovereignty Trumps Government Health Care

Good news for a Saturday morning. Texas may invoke 10th amendment state's rights if the nightmare of government health care becomes reality. I expect other state's to follow.

Rick Perry

Interviewed by conservative talk show host Mark Davis of Dallas’ WBAP/820 AM, Perry said his first hope is that Congress will defeat the plan, which both Perry and Davis described as "Obama Care." But should it pass, Perry predicted that Texas and a "number" of states might resist the federal health mandate.

"I think you’ll hear states and governors standing up and saying 'no’ to this type of encroachment on the states with their healthcare," Perry said. "So my hope is that we never have to have that stand-up. But I’m certainly willing and ready for the fight if this administration continues to try to force their very expansive government philosophy down our collective throats."

"It really is a state issue, and if there was ever an argument for the 10th Amendment and for letting the states find a solution to their problems, this may be at the top of the class," Perry said. "A government-run healthcare system is financially unstable. It’s not the solution."

According to this report, Texas has "a higher percentage of uninsured people than any other state."

Under the Senate version of the bill, she said [Arlene Wohlgmuth - Texas Public Policy Foundation], an expansion of the joint federal-state Medicaid program for the poor could cost Texas $4 billion a year.

With over 1.7 million illegals in Texas in 2007, 14% of the nation's total illegals, providing universal health care to those illegals is already and enormous burden for the Texas taxpayer, but will be even more so if government health care becomes law. Roy Beck at NumbersUSA warns that Obama's coming push for amnesty will deceptively change the real cost of health care for illegals.

Previous studies have shown that illegal aliens account for nearly all of the growth in the uninsured in recent years. One of the reasons open-borders advocates would rather push an amnesty through Congress before health care legislation is that the publicized cost of the amnesty would be far less if national health coverage isn't included.

One bright light in whole depressing aura of government health care is Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) who at least, doesn't seem to think that American's should be paying for the health care of illegals, and who voted against the 2007 amnesty legislation.

A story by Jim Landers of the Dallas Morning News quoted Baucus [Senator Max Baucus] who is the Senate Finance Committee chairman. He said that health care reforms that aim to insure every American won’t provide insurance for illegal immigrants and may not address the cost to state and local governments for providing medical care to this large group of the uninsured.

Baucus recognizes that illegal immigrants comprise 15-22% of the estimated 47 million U.S. residents without health insurance.

Leaders of various open-borders groups cried out that the health care reform has to provide full medical coverage to all illegal aliens. While illegal aliens get all kinds of free medical care already, primarily through emergency rooms and the like, including them in national health insurance would cost the equivalent of a bank bailout.

I see the coming gathering storm: health care and amnesty walk hand-in-hand.