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Politics : Liberalism: Do You Agree We've Had Enough of It? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: FJB who wrote (98758)	1/21/2011 9:35:45 AM
From: TideGlider	2 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 224755

I think the governor definitely indicated he cannot find the long certificate, just some notation and of course how is that to be used as some sort of official document. This entire conversation with the governor doesn't pass the smell test at all.

To: FJB who wrote (98758)	1/21/2011 9:36:51 AM
From: tonto	4 Recommendations Respond to of 224755

Everything starts with repeal By Charles Krauthammer Friday, January 21, 2011 Suppose someone - say, the president of United States - proposed the following: We are drowning in debt. More than $14 trillion right now. I've got a great idea for deficit reduction. It will yield a savings of $230 billion over the next 10 years: We increase spending by $540 billion while we increase taxes by $770 billion. He'd be laughed out of town. And yet, this is precisely what the Democrats are claiming as a virtue of Obamacare. During the debate over Republican attempts to repeal it, one of the Democrats' major talking points has been that Obamacare reduces the deficit - and therefore repeal raises it - by $230 billion. Why, the Congressional Budget Office says exactly that. Very true. And very convincing. Until you realize where that number comes from. Explains CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf in his "preliminary analysis of H.R. 2" (the Republican health-care repeal): "CBO anticipates that enacting H.R. 2 would probably yield, for the 2012-2021 period, a reduction in revenues in the neighborhood of $770 billion and a reduction in outlays in the vicinity of $540 billion." As National Affairs editor Yuval Levin pointed out when mining this remarkable nugget, this is a hell of a way to do deficit reduction: a radical increase in spending, topped by an even more radical increase in taxes. Of course, the very numbers that yield this $230 billion "deficit reduction" are phony to begin with. The CBO is required to accept every assumption, promise (of future spending cuts, for example) and chronological gimmick that Congress gives it. All the CBO then does is perform the calculation and spit out the result. In fact, the whole Obamacare bill was gamed to produce a favorable CBO number. Most glaringly, the entitlement it creates - government-subsidized health insurance for 32 million Americans - doesn't kick in until 2014. That was deliberately designed so any projection for this decade would cover only six years of expenditures - while that same 10-year projection would capture 10 years of revenue. With 10 years of money inflow vs. six years of outflow, the result is a positive - i.e., deficit-reducing - number. Surprise. ad_icon If you think that's audacious, consider this: Obamacare does not create just one new entitlement (health insurance for everyone); it actually creates a second - long-term care insurance. With an aging population, and with long-term care becoming extraordinarily expensive, this promises to be the biggest budget buster in the history of the welfare state. And yet, in the CBO calculation, this new entitlement to long-term care reduces the deficit over the next 10 years. By $70 billion, no less. How is this possible? By collecting premiums now, and paying out no benefits for the first 10 years. Presto: a (temporary) surplus. As former CBO director Douglas Holtz-Eakin and scholars Joseph Antos and James Capretta note, "Only in Washington could the creation of a reckless entitlement program be used as 'offset' to grease the way for another entitlement." I would note additionally that only in Washington could such a neat little swindle be titled the "CLASS Act" (for the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports Act). That a health-care reform law of such enormous size and consequence, revolutionizing one-sixth of the U.S. economy, could be sold on such flimflammery is astonishing, even by Washington standards. What should Republicans do? Make the case. Explain the phony numbers, boring as the exercise may be. Better still, hold hearings and let the CBO director, whose integrity is beyond reproach, explain the numbers himself. To be sure, the effect on the deficit is not the only criterion by which to judge Obamacare. But the tossing around of such clearly misleading bumper-sticker numbers calls into question the trustworthiness of other happy claims about Obamacare. Such as the repeated promise that everyone who likes his current health insurance will be able to keep it. Sure, but only if your employer continues to offer it. In fact, millions of workers will find themselves adrift because their employers will have every incentive to dump them onto the public rolls. This does not absolve the Republicans from producing a health-care replacement. They will and should be judged by how well their alternative addresses the needs of the uninsured and the anxieties of the currently insured. But amending an insanely complicated, contradictory, incoherent and arbitrary 2,000-page bill that will generate tens of thousands of pages of regulations is a complete non-starter. Everything begins with repeal. letters@charleskrauthammer.com

To: FJB who wrote (98758)	1/21/2011 12:38:59 PM
From: MJ	2 Recommendations Respond to of 224755

Mr. Obama and the Democrats have been sucking this for all it is worth for over 2 years. Mr. Obama has failed to produce the documents for the citizens of the United States of America. I went to the passport office in D.C. to get a passport for going to Europe when Mr. Obama was just 10 years old. I did not have the copy of my birth certificate from my state with me as I discovered was required by the Passport Offices at that time-----no birth certificate----no passport. I scurried home, brought my birth certificate and coincidentally my mother. The Passport office did not like the birth certificate as it was a duplicate(a copy of the original mailed to me by the state for college and work)-----finally the gentlemen agreed to give me a passport based upon having my elderly mother with me who attested to the fact that I was who my birth certificate said I was. This brings me to a major point----when Obama was 10 years old I was required by the Federal Passport Office in D.C. to have a copy of my birth certificate for them to copy and verify that I was who I said I was and my drivers license so that I could obtain an international permit to drive a car in the countries I would be going to in Europe. While Obama would not be driving a car at the age of 10----certainly he would have been required to have a birth certificate for travel to and from America to foreign countries. Where are the documents that were used for his travels during those 10 years and later? What is in the archives of the Passport Offices regarding Barrack Hussein Obama, Jr.? Most Americans do not believe that Mr. Obama is an American Citizen. He spent several millions ignoring the requests during the Primary ------in American vernacular---"shirkling" his responsibility and that of the Democrat party to provide documents supporting his run for POTUS. If both the Democrat Party and Obama had not shirked their duty the whole question may have quelled the rightful concern by Americans that Mr. obama might be an usurper to the Presidency-----considering the lack of openess and transparency. Certainly the way he and the Democrat Party have handled the whole episode is suspect to many Americans. How much longer will Mr. Obama and the Democrats milk this issue. When will Mr. Obama and the Democrat Party provide the documents if they exist?