Obama tax on work cell phones?
June 15, 2009 by Steven Ting
Filed under Business, Economy, General
It came out over the weekend that the IRS and the Obama administration are looking to tax the use of work cell phones as a fringe benefit. This is after all of the talk of Obama wanting to tax health benefits that are paid by employers. What happened to Obama’s promise to not increase taxes for those of us making less than $250,000 a year? Obama tells us another lie, and the people keep buying his crap.
We have to look further into the issue. Why is Obama wanting all of these taxes? It’s not really a matter of want. Obama actually needs these taxes. He needs these taxes if he is going to fund his government run health care program. All of the sheeple out there think this Obama health care is going to be great. They think it’s going to be free or less expensive. While you may not pay money when you visit the doctor, they’re paying for it with higher taxes. That’s the only way things like this work.
While I generally dislike taxes, this type of tax would be more regressive than progressive, affecting those that make less money. As Stacey Higginbotham puts it, “Cell phones are no longer the status symbols of the privileged few who work in international finance or software sales.”
Keep your health plan, keep your bailouts, and keep your hands out of my pocketbook.
Obama’s Health Care Policy
June 5, 2009 by Steven Ting
Filed under General, Health Care
Let’s take a closer look at Obama and what he wants to do with our health care system. The following information is from Obama’s Home Page as of June 5, 2009.
The Current Situation
Making sure every American has access to high quality health care is one of the most important challenges of our time. The number of uninsured Americans is growing, premiums are skyrocketing, and more people are being denied coverage every day. A moral imperative by any measure, a better system is also essential to rebuilding our economy — we want to make health insurance work for people and businesses, not just insurance and drug companies.
The Solution
Reform the health care system:
We will take steps to reform our system by expanding coverage, improving quality, lowering costs, honoring patient choice and holding insurance companies accountable.
Promote scientific and technological advancements:
We are committed to putting responsible science and technological innovation ahead of ideology when it comes to medical research. We believe in the enormous capacity of American ingenuity to find cures for diseases that continue to extinguish too many lives and cause too much suffering every year.
Improve preventative care:
In order to keep our people healthy and provide more efficient treatment we need to promote smart preventative care, like cancer screenings and better nutrition, and make critical investments in electronic health records, technology that can reduce errors while ensuring privacy and saving lives.
So in the analysis of the “Current Situation” as described by Obama, his statement makes it sound as if millions of American’s don’t have access to health care. The fact is that everyone has access to health care. Health care is not a right. It is a privilege. If you have the money, you can get health care. But even if you don’t have money, hospitals are still willing to treat you. A good example of this is shown by the illegal alieans that use your health care system. Many of them receive health care, at the expense of tax-payers.
Obama mentions that “more people are being denied coverage every day.” This refers to health insurance, not to health care. There is no such thing as a right to insurance. Insurance is a business and they can’t do everything for free. People can still get health care, if they are responsible and pay for it.
Let’s take a look at the first part of the “solution”. Obama wants to “take steps to reform our system by expanding coverage, improving quality, lowering costs, honoring patient choice and holding insurance companies accountable.” When was the last time government took over a business and did something good? Remember the long lines at the DMV? How about the long lines at the US Postal Service? How about the VA Administration and hospitals? Government and business do not work.
As it stands, health insurance covers a lot of areas. The quality is pretty good and the costs are reasonable. When an emergency procedure needs to be done, people usually come to the United States. We have the best health care in the world right now. It sounds like Obama wants Health Insurance reform than health care reform.
In the second step, Obama wants to put “responsible science and technological innovation ahead of ideology when it comes to medical research.” Um, this would be great if the government had a research department. Unfortunately all of this is handled by private business. We do have researches in state universities, but I don’t think they’re working on medical research. In the second sentence, he talks about the capacity of “American ingenuity to find cures for diseases.” I wonder were most of this capacity is found? That’s right. It’s found in private business, which is usually found in capitalism.
Obama wants to take all of the research and technology from private industry and give it away for free, without compensation. This is another step into socialism. With the institution of a new “Pay Czar” for the financial industry, he’ll probably do something similar for the pharmaceutical industry, since they all make too much. But if you take away the purpose of a business, nothing is going to get done. Obama may demand that a drug company offer their product for free or at very reduced prices. If a drug company is forced to comply, what is their incentive to research and create new drugs? Obama will destroy your health care industry with his plans.
The third part to Obama’s plan is to improve preventative care. This is a great goal but Obama lacks the leadership to get this done. Preventative care lies with the people. If someone is going to eat fast-food for every meal, no amount of policy or regulation will help with their preventative care. The people have to want to be better.
Cancer screenings, better nutrition, all good ideas. But it’s not going to be free and it shouldn’t be provided by the government. Each person needs to be responsible for their own well-being.
And the last part about electronic health records and ensuring privacy? That’s not going to happen. Whenever anything is electronic, you will have no privacy. Mistakes will happen. Case in point, the list of US nuclear sites that was released the other day. While the information is not classified, it was not meant for public release.
Looking at the goals set by Obama, they’re good. But from what I know about Barack Hussein Obama, being the far-left liberal that he is, he will destroy this country trying to achieve his goal.
The author from New Black Bourgeoisie is also scared of what an Obama policy will do to our health care system.
We must all seriously consider the impact of a predominantly state sponsored health care system. Physicians should not be the group only concerned about how these changes could significantly alter physicians’ abilities to perform with the autonomy which they enjoyed in past times, but which has been greatly diminished with the advent of managed care. Although universal health care is available in most major developed countries, there are significant differences amongst physician salaries, availability and quality for patients in these places. Of course the situation varies from nation to nation, but there is a reason why the United States is the preeminent nation for modern health care. I agree that health care costs should be reigned in, but as more and more citizens become dependent on these government services the situation becomes more dire. Physicians are already working harder to stay afloat with continued cuts in reimbursement by the government and CMS (Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services). These factors in addition to the tax burden that physicians (statistically in the top 2% of earners) are sure to shoulder make me realize that many of my colleagues are correct in their politics and more conservative stances on this issue. My plea to the President is to not diminish the greatest health care system in the world by employing measures and creating policy which will increase apathy and drive some of the best and brightest amongst us away from, and out of the field of medicine.
Obama Says Iran has Right to Nuclear Energy
June 2, 2009 by Steven Ting
Filed under General, International, Politics
In another naive interview given by Obama, he suggested that Iran may have some right to nuclear energy. The only stipulation is that Iran “prove” that it’s aspirations are peaceful. Obama has now given propaganda material to Iran. They will use this to say, “See, even the US says we should have Nuclear Power.” The content of the interview will now make it harder for the US or the United Nations to deter the proliferation of nuclear technology. But, the comments by Obama do not only affect Iran, it also affects other countries. Will Obama continue to be dumb? What will he do next? Next thing you know he will be traveling to North Korea and saying they have a right to nuclear power. Obama has set a dangerous precedent.
Obama was quoted saying:
What I do believe is that Iran has legitimate energy concerns, legitimate aspirations…
Legitimate energy concerns? They’re a member of OPEC. They have a bunch of oil? So now they need nuclear? What are their legitimate aspirations? To eliminate Israel off the face of the earth? Obama doesn’t think. Obama is then quoted saying the following with regard to the time line.
Although I don’t want to put artificial time tables on that process, we do want to make sure that, by the end of this year, we’ve actually seen a serious process move forward. And I think that we can measure whether or not the Iranians are serious.
Does Obama actually think that Iran will comply with US demands? We’ve known that Iran has been working on nuclear technology for a couple of years. They’ve had plenty of time to show that they are serious. I think when Obama says serious, he’s going to wait until Iran has missiles fitted with nuclear warheads.
The following is the end of the article.
Obama leaves in the evening on a trip to Egypt and Saudi Arabia aimed at reaching out to the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims. He is due to make his speech in Cairo on Thursday.
Obama sounded an optimistic note about making progress toward resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, although he offered no new ideas for how he might try to secure a freeze on new building of Israeli settlements. The United States has called for a freeze, but Israeli leaders have rejected that.
Asked what he would say during his visit about human rights abuses, including the detention of political prisoners in Egypt, Obama indicated no stern lecture would be forthcoming.
He said he hoped to deliver the message that democratic values are principles that “they can embrace and affirm.”
Obama added that there is a danger “when the United States, or any country, thinks that we can simply impose these values on another country with a different history and a different culture.”
So, we can’t impose our values on another country? Does the same also apply in reverse? It appears that Iran and a few of the other countries are trying to impose their values on the United States. Using this statement from Obama, this means that we should not be lecturing China about human rights violations. We should not be lecturing Israel on how to handle the Palestinian conflict. Obama contradicts himself in more than one way in this article. Obama continues to disappoint and continues to be dumb.
Obama requires Leap of Faith
May 28, 2009 by Steven Ting
Filed under General, Politics
A recent Wall Street Journal article compared the life of Obama by using “South Park” as an analogy.
Consider the 1998 “Gnomes” episode — possibly surpassing Milton Friedman’s “Free to Choose” as the classic defense of capitalism — in which the children of South Park, Colo., get a lesson in how not to run an enterprise from mysterious little men who go about stealing undergarments from the unsuspecting and collecting them in a huge underground storehouse.
What’s the big idea? The gnomes explain:
“Phase One: Collect underpants.
“Phase Two: ?
“Phase Three: Profit.”
Lest you think there’s a step missing here, that’s the whole point. (“What about Phase Two?” asks one of the kids. “Well,” answers a gnome, “Phase Three is profits!”)
The article then goes to describe a bunch of other Obama policies. Let’s look at Guantanamo, the Middle East, North Korea and Nuclear Weapons, Energy, Health Care, and the Government Deficit. You’ll get the idea once we get started.
Guantanamo
- Order that Guantanmo is Closed during first weeks of Presidency
- ???
- Close Gitmo!
Umm. What’s Step 2? In this case, it could be to move the prisioners somewhere else. It could be to get funding for the closure. Have any of these happened? No. Is Obama Dumb? Yes.
The Middle East
- Talk to Iran, Syria, Antagonist States
- ???
- Peace!
So what’s missing here? From the article:
In this case, the administration seems to think that diplomacy, like aspirin, is something you take two of in the morning to take away the pain. But as Boston University’s Angelo Codevilla notes in his book, “Advice to War Presidents,” diplomacy “can neither create nor change basic intentions, interests, or convictions. . . . To say, ‘We’ve got a problem. Let’s try diplomacy, let’s sit down and talk’ abstracts from the important questions: What will you say? And why should anything you say lead anyone to accommodate you?”
North Korea and Nuclear Weapons
- Tell NK they’ll be punished if they continue Nuclear development.
- ???
- No more nukes!
This is a fail by both Bush and Obama. We told NK that they were doing bad things. We told them they would have consequences. We even condemned their actions. But what was done? Nothing. What did the United Nations do? Nothing. I thought everyone loved Obama and would do what he said. With the ballistic missle launch by NK last month, the UN Security Council failed to get the votes for a resolution condeming NK. And even if they did, does it affect NK? No. It’s just a piece of paper. Is Obama dumb because he thinks he can bring change? Yes!
Global Warming and Energy
- Use Renewal and Clean Sources of Energy
- ???
- Carbon Neutrality!
Universal Health Care
- Provide Insurance to the Uninsured
- ???
- Everyone Has Insurance!
Reduce the Deficit
- Spend Trillions of Dollars
- ???
- No More Deficit!
Save the Automobile Industry from Bankruptcy
- Raise the CAFE standards to 35.5 MPG
- ???
- Auto Industry is Strong!
Is there a pattern here with Obama? As you can see, Obama has all of these dreams. He hasn’t woken up to experience reality. It’s great to have an idea and to have an end result. We just need to know how to get there. Anyone can propose ideas. An effective president will show us how to achieve these ideas. So far Obama is lacking on the effective side and on the leadership side. Since November 2008, things have just gotten worse. I thought once he took office, there would be some type of change? The only change I see is from bad to worse.
Just because Obama went to Harvard does not mean that he is smart. In many instances, Obama is Dumb.
Guantanamo: Not Closing Yet
May 22, 2009 by Guest Writer 1
Filed under General, International, Politics
President Obama faces a major setback in his plans and promises of change, as the Senate has disallowed all funding for the closure of the Guantanamo Bay military prison. This marks the first real opposition to Obama’s agenda by Majority Democrats, who are largely responsible for blocking the funds for closing the prison.
Here is some of what has occurred lately in the Senate over this issue:
Democrats had been hammered by Republicans, many of whom don’t want Guantanamo shuttered at all, over the possibility that detainees could be sent to live in the United States — in prisons or otherwise.
… It’s unclear what Democrats would be okay with approving in a closure plan. The party has been a state of disarray over the issue recently.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., nearly had it both ways on Tuesday.
He first said, emphatically, that Democrats “will never allow terrorists to be released in the United States,” and then said Democrats also don’t want detainees to be transferred to U.S. prisons.
The suggestion was that the United States should not taken [sic] any prisoners under any circumstances, raising questions about where the Democratic leadership wants detainees to go should the closure plan be executed.
But Reid’s spokesman walked back his statement, saying the leader went too far and would actually be open to putting them in American prisons, if the administration puts forward a plan to do so.
The discord between Reid’s own words was emblematic of the clash among Democrats on Capitol Hill.
Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va, said on a Sunday talk show that he opposes the release into the United States of 17 Chinese Uighurs who were captured in Afghanistan after Sept. 11, 2001. The prisoners, de-listed as enemy combatants by a federal court that deemed them not a danger to the U.S., are eligible for release.
The administration is considering releasing them in Northern Virginia, something Webb vehemently opposes. Webb’s language left the door open to an even broader opposition to any Gitmo detainees being released in the United States.
Sens. Jon Tester and Max Baucus, both Montana Democrats, have said emphatically that no detainees will be brought to their state. The same goes for Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb.
FBI Director Robert Mueller told the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday that he’s concerned some detainees could support terrorism if sent to the United States, either through financial support to terror networks, radicalization of others or taking part in attacks.
Still, Inouye left the door open to bringing the prisoners to the U.S. eventually, refusing to rule out any opportunity to incarcerate detainees on U.S. soil.
Reid’s No. 2, Dick Durbin of Illinois, told FOX News that while Democrats were very concerned about taking a vote defending moving prisoners to the United States, he is not opposed to it, adding that American prison facilities can hold these prisoners safely.
Durbin took on Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on the Senate floor Wednesday, saying that while it’s true no prisoner has ever escaped from the Guantanamo, “it’s also true that no terrorists have ever escaped from U.S. supermax prisons.”
The outcry in the U.S. over the issue of closing the prison and where to house the prisoners has also caused some problems with foreign relations, and presented no solutions to the Obama administration:
Both Democrats and Republicans have been retreating from an uproar in their districts over the possibility that terror suspects would be housed in local prisons.
That’s a fairly empty sales pitch for administration officials who are trying to persuade European and Muslim allies to take some of the detainees.
And they got no help Wednesday when FBI Director Robert Mueller told Congress that bringing Guantanamo detainees to the United States could pose a number of risks, even if they were kept in maximum-security prisons.
Gibbs and Attorney General Eric Holder both quickly responded that Obama would never do anything to endanger Americans.
Obama has named senior diplomat Daniel Fried as special envoy on the issue. So far he’s had little success in garnering commitments abroad and his task only grows more onerous with the votes in Congress to deny money to close the prison.
While France has accepted one prisoner, fulfilling a promise made when Obama attended a NATO summit in April, other European allies have refused or given nonspecific commitments.
It seems that though Obama may be passionate about closing this prison, he has very little support from people in this country or others in how to practically make that happen. The people and leaders are justifiably concerned about the safety of their countries and/or states with the possibility that some of the most dangerous terrorists (and now possibly with more cause to hate the U.S. than ever) would be released or transferred to places where they could pose a greater threat than they ever had before.
