In another sign of disapproval of President Barack Obama and his broad health care overhaul, Arizona voters approved a measure that would change the state’s constitution to ban forced participation in health care plans.
Voters who approved Proposition 106, which won 55 percent of the vote, tended to be conservative, angry or dissatisfied with the way the federal government is working and strongly supportive of the tea party movement, according to an Associated Press analysis of exit poll results and pre-election polls.
Seventy percent of those who voted for Republican Gov. Jan Brewer approved the measure, while 66 percent of those who voted for her opponent, Democrat Terry Goddard, voted against it. Brewer won the race.
The measure, intended as a roadblock to federal intervention in health care, prohibits requiring a person or employer to participate in a health care system. It bans penalties against patients or businesses who pay for health care services on their own.
Again: Obama omits ‘Creator’ from speech
Monday night in Rockville, Md., President Barack Obama told Democratic Senate candidate donors: “As wonderful as the land is here in the United States, as much as we have been blessed by the bounty of this magnificent continent that stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific, what makes this place special is not something physical. It has to do with this idea that was started by 13 colonies that decided to throw off the yoke of an empire, and said, ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that each of us are endowed with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’”
Today, The Heritage Foundation released its 2010 Index of Dependence on Government. This annual report tracks the growth of dependence-creating federal programs, programs that crowd-out what was once America’s great civil society. At one time, social obligations and services were carried out by community groups, family networks and even local governments. Now, an ever growing and ever more unaccountable federal bureaucracy undermines our spirit of self-reliance and self-improvement by making more and more Americans dependent on Big Government. In 2010, we witnessed a record-breaking surge in American dependence on the federal government including:
-
Government support for dependent persons has grown from $7,293 per person in 1962, to $31,950 per person today (adjusted for inflation).
-
132.5 million Americans either pay no income tax or live in a household that pays no income tax. This is up from just 34.8 million in 1984.
-
Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid eat up 41% of all non-interest federal program spending. Unchecked, this will grow to 62% over the next decade.
Yesterday [July 29,2010], President Obama delivered a major speech on education in an effort to garner support for his Race to the Top grant program and his push for national education standards and tests. The President’s remarks came on the heels of a speech delivered by Education Secretary Arne Duncan on Tuesday at the National Press Club, during which Duncan attempted to paint the Administration’s policies as part of a “quiet revolution.”
Duncan certainly got the quiet part right. Since his Administration came into office, President Obama has quietly been reworking the country’s education system, doing an end-run around normal legislative procedure. With the U.S. Department of Education’s (DOE) funding doubled thanks to the so-called “stimulus,” the Administration has little need or incentive to bother negotiating its education agenda through Congress. Instead, the DOE is using that windfall of funding and power to stage a significant overhaul of local schools; dangling grant money before cash-strapped states on the condition they adopt key pieces of the Obama education agenda. And this is all happening without public consideration, even though it means that parents will now have to trek to Washington to petition an unaccountable bureaucracy if they want to see changes in their children’s curriculum. Knocking on the door at the DOE (the lowest rated federal department) is unlikely to produce a response.
The push for national education standards and tests began last year when the National Governors Association (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) began writing standards for what all U.S. students should learn in school. Meanwhile, the Obama Administration has been backing the effort with federal dollars, pressing Race to the Top grants in front of fiscally starved states while making it clear that they also intend to make Title I funding (the largest federal education program at $14.5 billion) contingent upon acceptance of these standards. A number of states have signed onto the standards to position themselves for federal grants-without the American people ever having the opportunity to weigh in on such a drastic change that will soon be coming to a school near you.
Federal Government Overpaid $47 Billion a Year Today, the White House is launching its second annual SAVE Award, which encourages federal employees to submit ideas on how to save taxpayer dollars. Federal employees will be able to rank the submissions submitted by colleagues, and then the general public will be able to vote on the top submissions later this year. Last year’s contest generated more than 38,000 submissions from government employees and more than 84,000 votes. Last year’s winner? A Department of Veterans Affairs employee from Colorado who suggested that VA medical centers should permit patients to take home extra bandages and medication when they are discharged. Estimated savings: $14.5 million by 2014. Not bad. But we have a better idea. How about paying federal employees what they would be worth in the private sector? Potential savings: $47 billion a year.
After helping to strike down the Chicago handgun ban, the winners in today’s Supreme Court decision promised, in an exclusive interview with the Heritage Foundation, that more such cases would be coming in the next few weeks. Alan Gura, lead attorney for the plaintiffs, promised, “There will be future cases, I will be bringing cases in the days and weeks to come.” When asked about the decisions impact, he said, “We will see laws that serve no useful purpose other than to annoy gun owners struck down and others that are actually critically necessary for public safety upheld.”
Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) is under fire from the White House and the Beltway media for his statement to BP today: “I’m only speaking for myself. I’m not speaking for anyone else, but I apologize. I do not want to live in a county where anytime a citizen or a corporation does something that is legitimately wrong, [it is] subject to some sort of political pressure that, again, in my words, amounts to a shakedown.”
Barton should have been apologizing to the American people, not BP, but other than that he is 100% correct. What happened in the White House yesterday was a “shakedown” of Godfather-like proportions. Lets review:
1) BP agreed to pay $20 billion over four years to an “independent” party; 2) BP immediately identified $20 billion in U.S. assets that could be liquidated should BP not be able to pay on time; 3) BP received no assurances that the ultimate economic damages would not be higher; 4) BP is still liable for all individual and state claims in court; 5) The fund is completely separate from any environmental damages, which the Obama administration says could top $30 billion; 6) BP paid another $100 million for workers made unemployed by President Obama’s indefinite ban on offshore oil drilling; 7) BP received no assurance that the White House would not ask for more money if the ban becomes permanent.
Late Saturday night President Barack Obama sent a letter to the leadership of the House and Senate urging them to approve a tax and spending bill currently being debated in the Senate that already would add $80 billion to our nation’s budget deficit. But coming off of last year’s $862 billion stimulus, President Obama is not happy with just another $80 billion in debt for this year. He also requested another $50 billion in deficit spending earmarked for bailing-out state and local governments. Without this “emergency” money, the President claims thousands of government union jobs would be lost. But even among his own party, the President faces an uphill climb. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told The Washington Post: “I think there is spending fatigue.” “Bailout fatigue” is more like it. And the President’s envisioned spending spree is full of both.
A fudgelike goo coating Louisiana’s marshes. A thick oil slick stretching across the Gulf of Mexico. A plume of oil miles below the ocean surface. A tragic loss of life. Reverberating economic consequences. Throw in a poll that shows that 53 percent of Americans rate President Barack Obama “poor” or “very poor” in his handling of the Gulf oil spill, and it’s no wonder the President yesterday broke his 308-day self-imposed press conference moratorium in hopes of conveying some semblance of leadership amid an environmental, economic and human catastrophe that has spiraled out of his control.
But if Americans were looking for signs of leadership from their President yesterday, they were disappointed. What they got from President Obama was a glimpse of a White House in total disarray, where one hand doesn’t know what the other hand is doing and where there are more questions than answers. At 12:45 PM EDT yesterday, President Obama stood before the country and did his best to convey one clear message regarding the oil spill – the federal government is in control and that he will hold BP to account. Obama said:
The American people should know that from the moment this disaster began, the federal government has been in charge of the response effort … BP is operating at our direction. Every key decision and action they take must be approved by us in advance.
Unfortunately for the President, he couldn’t maintain that message for the duration of his 63-minute press conference. When it came time to questions, he admitted that the federal government just doesn’t have what it takes to keep the oil spill under control.
It isn’t easy being Arizona these days, especially when President Barack Obama puts politics before Americans’ interests, a foreign head of state before the United States, and an agenda of apology before much-needed, sensible reforms.
But that’s just what happened this week when Mexican President Felipe Calderon visited Washington, DC. President Obama extended a warm hand to Calderon and demagogued Arizona’s illegal immigration law all in the name of politics. Standing in the White House Rose Garden with Calderon, President Obama took the unprecedented step of publicly siding with Mexico against Arizona, saying:
We also discussed the new law in Arizona, which is a misdirected effort — a misdirected expression of frustration over our broken immigration system, and which has raised concerns in both our countries…
And I want everyone, American and Mexican, to know my administration is taking a very close look at the Arizona law. We’re examining any implications, especially for civil rights. Because in the United States of America, no law-abiding person — be they an American citizen, a legal immigrant, or a visitor or tourist from Mexico — should ever be subject to suspicion simply because of what they look like.”
