The Senate voted this evening by a 60-39 majority to commence debate on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s bill that would radically expand government control over private health care decisions. The bill is over 2000 pages long, costs an estimated $2.5 trillion over the first ten years of implementation and carries a half trillion dollars in new taxes. Many Americans have to be thinking right now — they have heard from their dissenting constituents at Town Hall meetings and have seen the poll numbers for Obama’s health care bill dropping …
“Optimism is important for anything in life-to realize that our condition is never final.” [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLEJ-HyIMcM[/youtube] With unbridled and infectious optimism, Jack Kemp (1935-2009) championed hope, growth, and enterprise to overcome poverty and social breakdown in America and around the world. In his roles as U.S. Congressman, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and passionate proponent of the free market, Kemp’s efforts highlighted the powerful combination of great ideas joined with the good works of neighborhood leaders. Jeff Kemp, son of the late Jack Kemp and President of Stronger Families, pays tribute …
After “many months of discussion” in which the National Federation of Independent Business was engaged in efforts to ensure that the high cost of health care was adequately addressed in reform legislation, the organization yesterday came out in full force against the Senate health care bill, declaring it a “disaster for small business:” Small business can’t support a proposal that does not address their No. 1 problem: the unsustainable cost of healthcare. With unemployment at a 26-year high and small business owners struggling to simply keep their doors open, this …
While the Obama Administration has appeared anything but decisive in response to field commanders’ calls for more troops in Afghanistan, the Administration is earning kudos from some for efforts to protect biodiversity. Rep. Elliot Engle has sent a “dear colleague” urging members to sign a letter to Special Envoy to Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke commending the U.S. State Department for developing a biodiversity program in Afghanistan. According to the Engle’s letter, “…thousands of Afghans have been trained in natural resource management, seven environmental laws and regulations have been drafted and 45 …
House and Senate Democratic leaders are breaking records left, right and center with every new version of Obamacare they roll out. But if you thought they’d be competing to provide better methods for reforming the health care system, you were wrong. Instead, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) are duking it out for who can write the biggest and bloated bill that will actually bend the cost curve up. Senator Reid holds the record at a whopping 2,074 pages.
Sometimes the best offense is a good defense and sometimes the best action is inaction. With unemployment surpassing 10 percent (go here to watch unemployment grow), Midwestern Congressmen want to ensure that Congress will protect three key areas of their respective state’s economy: agriculture, manufacturing and small business. One sure way to protect these jobs is not to implement climate change legislation. Congressman Bob Latta (R-OH) and 31 more Midwestern Members of Congress sent a letter to the Chairmen and Ranking Members of the House Energy and Commerce, Agriculture, and …
Leaders in the House of Representatives recently discussed the possibility of extending the death tax at its current rate and exemption levels for one year through 2010. If this proposal becomes law it would be a massive tax hike. Under current law, the death tax has a top rate of 45 percent and an exemption of $3.5 million ($7 million for couples) this year. But on January 1, 2010 it expires. It only stays expired for one year, however, as it springs back to life in 2011 with a top …
On his radio show yesterday, former Sen. Fred Thompson upped his criticism of President Barack Obama’s handling of the war in Afghanistan, predicting: It really doesn’t matter how President Obama divides the Afghan baby, how he splits the difference between McChrystal and Biden. Because the war has been lost. I say this because of one sad and simple fact. The president does not have the will and determination to do what’s necessary to win it. His heart’s not in it, and never has been. The Taliban knows it. Al Qaeda …
With the event horizon of the vote on the Reid Health Care Bill approaching, it appears that passage of the legislation would, yet again, amount to President Barack Obama breaking his “no new middle class tax” pledge.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) giant new health care bill contains the same provisions as the other House and Senate bills to establish Federal micromanagement of all private health insurance. Like the others, the Reid bill would subject all private health insurance — whether purchased from an insurance company by employer groups or individuals, or provided through an employer or union self-insured plan — to detailed Federal regulation. These so called “insurance reform” provisions amount to a de facto nationalization of health insurance and they would produce that effect …
