Will Violence Escalate?

Glenda McGee forwarded a link on Lucianne.com to a Buffalo News story that someone threw a brick through Congresswoman Louise Slaughter's Niagara Falls office window. Slaughter is a leading advocate of Obamacare and heads the House committee that will structure the House health reform vote.

I wonder if there will be increasing violence directed at the government in response to the health reform fiasco.

Facts about Don Wise's 17-Year-Old Personal Bankruptcy Work in His Favor

Last week I posted a blog about the Kingston-Rhinebeck Tea Party's meeting and Don Wise's statement that he was planning to run against Assemblyman Kevin Cahill. Almost immediately one of Assemblyman Cahill's supporters began hurling mud at Mr. Wise by bringing up Wise's 17-year-old personal bankruptcy.

I spoke with Mr. Wise directly concerning the bankruptcy allegations and decided that the facts reflect positively on Mr. Wise's character. The text of his e-mail is below. The issue is 17 years old; Mr. Wise was in his early twenties when it occurred. Due to circumstances beyond his control he was unemployed and had to cover major medical bills involving a new born son. Since then, Mr. Wise turned his life around. He founded a company, Apex Construction, that has never suffered financial difficulties of any kind and has at times employed as many as 12 people in the region. I am curious as to whether Mr. Cahill has ever employed anyone except through government largess and extraction of taxes from productive taxpayers.

Since assuming office in the late 1990s Mr. Cahill has quietly watched massive bloating and wasteful spending. Property taxes have exploded during Mr. Cahill's watch, but he has had little to say about it. Teachers' salaries have exploded but school children's achievement has been dismal. The Wicks Law, which adds 15 to 30 percent to construction costs and so increases the state's annual budget by several percent, has been passed every year while Mr. Cahill has played it safe and failed to protest. Mr. Cahill has done nothing to stop massive Medicaid waste, fraud and abuse, which likely adds about 15% of pure waste to the state's annual budget. New York has more than double the per capita Medicaid cost that California does.

In other words, Medicaid fraud and the Wicks Law alone likely add about 20% to the State's budget, yet Mr. Cahill has said nothing. Mr. Cahill has quietly watched and applauded as the state's budget has been handed over to greedy public sector unions who have fought for featherbedding at every turn. Mr. Cahill has done absolutely nothing to stop ever-escalating property taxes needed to fund the mismanagement of the state's schools, Medicaid and construction. Mr. Cahill has been happy to glad hand and reap the benefits of the bloat in state government while as many as two million New Yorkers have fled the Democratic Party's depredation, nay the outright annihilation, of the state's productive sector

If there is any hope for this Ottoman-Empire-like State, a state in which democracy has virtually failed due to an absence of competent public debate, it is a candidate like Don Wise. Despite, or rather beacause of his passive record as an Assemblyman, Mr. Cahill's minions throw mud rather than debate issues. The first thing Mr. Cahill should do instead of slinging mud is explain the bloat and fraud in the state's Medicaid plan and why he and his fellow Democrats have not repealed the Wicks Law since 1912.

The text of Don Wise's e-mail to me concerning his personal bankruptcy follow:

Mitchell,
It was a pleasure meeting you and later talking to you, I understand your concerns regarding my past, to clear up any confusion:

About 17 years ago, my wife and I were beginning a family with a child and a new home. At the time Michele was a stay at home Mom and I found myself unemployed with medical expenses for my son who was born with physical abnormalities which required multiple surgeries. This in addition to his propensity to contract illnesses, (such as ear infections), drained whatever nest egg we had.

There were personal issues in addition to my son's illnesses which forced us to pursue the course of action which concerns you. I have, since then refused to be at the hands of others when it concerned the security and welfare of my family and went into business for myself, Apex Construction is a successful enterprise which has at times employed as many as 12 men depending on the economy. I have always striven to be more than just a boss and even in uncertain economic times I have regarded their interests before my own.

If there is any thing else that concerns either yourself or other members of the Tea Party, I will make myself available to you as you see fit.I have never tried to run from my past, In 2007, in my attempt to unseat Nick Woerner, then Town of Ulster Supervisor, I made public every thing either negative or positive in my business and personal life.

Sincerely,

Don Wise

The Progressives' Plan for Your Planned Death

It is revealing that in a week when everyone is riled and activated about health care deform, the Washington Post features an article about planned suicide. I don't normally care what the Democratic Party media has to say (it's always the same monotonous and dim witted line: "We need more government." "We need more government." "We need more government."...) but this article is revealing.

This is the vision for your health care that the Washington Post and the Democratic Party have:

>In the end, they sat together in the cavernous downstairs room of her mother's Cleveland Park home -- Zoe FitzGerald Carter, her husband Joe Guth, and her sister Sarah Barron -- and they waited.

>It was agonizing and terrible, but final. This wait would be the last after years of planning, crying, guilt, resentment, replanning, recommitting. This night meant the end of debating what was legal vs. what was moral, and whether either was as important as what was

>After months of discussion, Mary had decided to end her life not with helium or Seconal but by starvation. The family had been told she would die in a matter of days, but after a week her body was still strong, though she appeared smaller each day, wasting into nothingness. She suffered. She begged Zoe and Sarah -- "Katherine" hadn't come down after all -- for their blessing to allow her to take morphine.

>Mary FitzGerald Carter died a few days after the night of morphine, on July 11, 2001. Her passing brought grief and peace, both in Zoe's ongoing relationship with her mother and in her relationship with her sisters.

Read about the implications of Obamacare here.

Society for Human Resource Management Opposes Obamacare

I teach human resource management, worked as a human resource manager (in the employee benefits field) in corporate America for almost nine years, and so belong to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), the organization that represents corporate human resource officers. SHRM's members range from smaller to the largest corporations.

Because of other responsibilities I haven't had time to carefully review how the lobbying for health reform has panned out. In 1994 I wrote a brief article about the lobbying for the Clinton bill that was published in the Journal of Economic Issues.

SHRM says it does not favor the proposed bill, although I suspect some of its members may disagree because the tone is modest.

The text of the e-mail I just received from SHRM follows.

>HEALTH CARE REFORM VOTE!

Debate on comprehensive health care reform is entering the final stage. Both the House of Representatives and the Senate will likely vote on a comprehensive health reform bill later this week.

The pending legislation contains some provisions that are consistent with SHRM’s official position and some provisions that are contrary to SHRM’s official position. Additionally, the impact of other portions of the bill cannot be fully assessed until more is known about how they will be implemented.

SHRM knows that the health care reform bill affects our various members and their organizations in different ways. This Legislative Alert is intended to help you contact your Representative and two Senators to share your views on this important issue.

Background

The House of Representatives passed H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act, on November 7, 2009. The Senate passed H.R. 3590, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, on December 24, 2009. While SHRM opposed the House bill, the Society took a “neutral” position on the Senate’s health care reform legislation. The Senate bill was consistent with SHRM’s established Health Care Public Policy Position Statement in several areas and contained some positive reforms, however other major parts of the bill were contrary to our policy statement. As a result, SHRM could not support the legislation.

The final bill that will be voted on by Congress in the coming days is a modified version of the Senate-passed legislation, with additional changes. While it contains some positive provisions, SHRM believes the bill as constructed fails to adequately meet many of the critical reform objectives that our members told us were most important. As a result, SHRM cannot support the legislation in its current form.

In keeping with the views of the overwhelming majority of our 250,000 members, SHRM continues to advocate for legislation that lowers costs; strengthens the employer-based system; improves the quality of care; and offers access to affordable coverage for all Americans.

SHRM understands that our members have a strong interest in this issue. Therefore, we want to help you share your views or those of your organization with your elected officials. By following the HRVoice instructions below, you have the opportunity to SUPPORT, OPPOSE, or convey your thoughts about the pending health care reform legislation. Each of the three draft letters emphasizes different aspects of the legislation.

SHRM’s Position

SHRM’s position on health care reform was developed through a rigorous, member-driven process. After surveying members, holding numerous focus group meetings, and consulting with state Legislative Directors and SHRM’s Special Expertise Panels, we drafted a Health Care Public Policy Position Statement, which was subsequently reviewed and approved by SHRM’s Board of Directors.

In keeping with that Public Policy Position Statement, SHRM is committed to achieving comprehensive health care reform that provides high quality, affordable health coverage to all Americans in a manner that strengthens the voluntary employer-based system.

HR professionals understand that the current system, which has health care costs rising faster than inflation, is unsustainable. This is why SHRM has advocated for reforms that control costs. Specifically, SHRM believes comprehensive health care reform should:

Strengthen and improve the employer-based health care system;
Encourage greater use of health prevention, promotion, and wellness programs;
Strengthen the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) to ensure a national, uniform framework for health care benefits;
Reduce health care costs by improving quality and transparency; and
Ensure tax policy contributes to lower costs and greater access.

SHRM compares its objectives for health reform with Obamacare. It opposes coverage mandates and employer penalties, and Obamacare does not meet this objective. It favors improvement of transparency and tort reform, and Obamacare does not meet that objective either. It opposes the excise tax on high-benefit plans.

However, there are many aspects of Obamacare that SHRM likes. These include the bill's inclusion of wellness incentives; its maintenance of the pro-employer (anti-employee) ERISA preemption of state law (of crucial importance to big business). It also supports the bill's provisions for "individual mandates and subsidies for low-income individuals = nearly universal coverage".

With respect to the last point, SHRM likes the fact that low-wage employees who work for small firms will, if the bill passes, be forced to pick up costs that SHRM's members now pay.

My guess is that if the bill fails it will be because the Democrats acted in haste and did not build a coalition that included interests like SHRM and other big business organizations that are supportive of the bill's main objectives but do not like this or that feature of the law.

Few economic interests in America, other than the great productive class of the red states has any interest or knowledge of freedom. The current system is the product of progressive "planning" and now that it has failed the solution is to advocate ever greater degrees of control and planning.