Members of the Obama administration do not care whether Catholics and those of other faiths are angry about the ObamaCare mandate regarding contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs. It’s quite possible that, like exhibitionists, the White House enjoys the shock value that accompanies all their edicts and executive orders to people of main-street America. Waiting for average Americans to recover from the shock gives them a window of time to amuse themselves at the reaction as they also develop their talking points and spin. But, this year, they have an election to win.

To appease those they view as rigid, conservative Catholics, the administration’s talking points are that they’ll “work it out” with them, give them a year to “adapt” their consciences to engaging in behavior that is against their values, and, perhaps, the favorite means of the White House to ensure a minimum of voter loss: hand out a waiver.

But, exactly what should be “worked out?” “Adapt” to what? A “waiver” from what? All of this talk of flexibility is helping the White House to muddy up the real issue.

The spin by the White House, in the midst of this constitutional crisis, is simply a variant on its age- old theme that healthcare is an unalienable right that the government must give to people. Remember that, in liberalism, unalienable rights come from the government, not from the Creator. With the contraception, etc. mandate, the administration just tweaked the message a bit- made it a bit “pinker,” dare we say: that all women deserve access to free contraception- including Catholic women. How could we leave Catholic women out? After all, that would be discriminatory, right? Wrong.

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Bob Lutz is a good man.  A Swiss-born immigrant American success story.

He’s held big gigs at BMW and Ford.  He also worked way up the food chain at (now $85 billion bailed-out) Chrysler and General Motors (GM) – retiring as GM’s Vice Chairman in 2010.

And he has recently written a piece:

Chevy Volt And The Wrong-Headed Right

…in vociferous defense of the Chevy Volt.

You know, the more-than-$200,000 in government-subsidies-per-unit-sold Volt.

The overproduced, unprofitable, unpopular, combustible Volt.  (And January 2011’s sales were no less disappointing.)

That Chevy Volt.

Are we on the Right wrong-headed?  Let’s take Mr. Lutz’s piece piecemeal and see.

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House Republicans will be prepared with a plan to replace ObamaCare with free-market alternatives after the Supreme Court delivers its decision in June. The High Court is planning to hold oral arguments on the healthcare law in March.

Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pennsylvania), who serves on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and chairs its Subcommittee on Health, said that Republicans will be ready for the open window provided by a Supreme Court ruling regardless of the nature of that decision.

Congressman Pitts said he expects the High Court to strike down the individual mandate, but not the entire law. He added that it is also possible the Court could say that federal tax law precludes its decision on the mandate’s constitutionality until after 2015. “We’ll have a window of opportunity with everyone looking to explain that the Affordable Care Act is not fully implemented yet…We’ll use that opportunity and that window to discuss the full ramifications of the Affordable Care Act,” Rep. Pitts said.

Rep. Pitts, who has a Heritage Action for America score of 79%, indicated that the Republican plan will include long-standing GOP priorities, such as limits on medical malpractice suits, the ability to purchase health insurance across state lines, and expansion of the use of health savings accounts. In addition, his committee plans the following:

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I attended Wednesday’s 8:00am (8am?!?) House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing entitled:

Volt Vehicle Fire: What Did NHTSA Know And When Did They Know It?

The witnesses were killer:

National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA), Barack Obama-appointee Administrator David Strickland.

And General Motors (GM), Barack Obama-appointee CEO Dan Akerson.

The scope of the hearing was a bit too narrow – leaving out some fairly important attending facts.  Like, say, the (at least) five other Chevy Volt fires that have occurred besides the one being discussed.

This hearing was all about a single June Volt blaze.  The battery burst into flames about three weeks after a test crash at and by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA).

A fire about which Obama’s NHTSA did tell the Obama White House.

But a fire about which neither Obama’s NHTSA, the Obama Administration nor Obama’s GM told the American people for nearly six months – and then did so only when forced by a looming Bloomberg news story.

But:

The White House had no role in the decision to delay disclosure of a fire that broke out in a crash-tested Chevrolet Volt, the Obama administration told Congress on Friday.

Of COURSE not.

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President Barack Obama is in full 2012 reelection mode.  Part of that process is preparing to possibly take on Mitt Romney – whom (it appears) he thinks has the strongest chance to be his Republican opponent.  Which he and many Democrats think is very good news.

Romney fits right into the Left’s absurd anti-capitalism, “robber baron,” Occupy Wall Street anti-1%-er, scorched earth storyline.

Romney is very wealthy, which for Obama and his Democrats is the height of eee-vill (except – these Donkeys are mostly rich…).  Never mind that Romney’s wealth is right in line with many past Presidents and candidates – including 2004 Democrat nominee John Kerry.  (The difference?  Romney earned it, Kerry married it.)

And as Romney recently told us, he these days pays the 15% capital gains tax rate – rather than the (absurdly) higher income tax rates those of us receiving salaries do.  Never mind that this is perfectly legal (and good fiscal policy, and “fair”) – it is culled right from the Leftist, Warren Buffett “I pay less in taxes than my secretary” fraudulent script.

—–

How did Romney make his coin?  Via the epitome of eeeee-villll free market entities – the venture capital firm.  His was, of course, Bain Capital.

Yes, Bain sometimes invests in failing companies.  Some of which they determine to be not worth saving, so down they go.  Welcome to Reality, Boys and Girls.

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What’s an absurd Leftist policy without an agitprop song to accompany the inanity?

The attempted spoonful-of-sugar to help force down the bad Progressive medicine they are pushing.

Which brings us to General Motors (GM) and one of the Leftist ideological windmills at which they tilt – the Chevy Volt.

We the Taxpayers have spent billions subsidizing the Volt.  And continue subsidizing it still.

We bailed out GM ($50 billion) and Chrysler to the tune of $83 billion.  On which the Obama Administration now admits we’ll lose (at least) $23.6 billion.  (President Obama once upon a time promised us we’d actually make money on the deal.)

We the Taxpayers are still stuck holding 500 million shares of GM stock – on which we are poised to lose tens of billions of dollars more.

But you know what makes all of this terrible-ness so much less worse?  GM spent some of our money on – the Chevy Volt official song and music video:

Don’t you feel better?

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Repeal and Replace. That was the common refrain when House Republicans actually repealed ObamaCare in their chamber a year ago. Of course, the Senate Democrats rejected the repeal. But now there is a chance- some would say even a strong chance- that ObamaCare will be declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court before the election in November. If the high Court decides that the individual mandate, which forces individuals to purchase health insurance, is unconstitutional, and that President Obama’s signature legislation cannot go forward without that mandate, ObamaCare will stop dead in its tracks. Then what?

That’s where the Replace part comes in. Now, I won’t whine and complain about how things seem to take a long time to get done in Washington, but the replacement for ObamaCare should be on the assembly line, waiting to be packaged and sent to stores near all of us. We know the talking points that make good common sense: purchase health insurance across state lines, own our health insurance policies so they are portable, tort reform, free-market principles, etc. Of course, House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin), the reliable person that he is, has thought through a great deal of this, and has based his conservative answer to health care reform on his Medicare reform proposal.

But, where are the details and how do we plug ObamaCare’s replacement into our lives if the law is declared unconstitutional?

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What’s a Barack Obama Administration multi-billion dollar boondoggle without a Czar to oversee it?

For the automobile industry bailout, the Lord Overseer was Car Czar Steven Rattner.

This is the same Steven Rattner who late last year reportedly paid a $6.2 million Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) fine and accepted a two-year ban from associating with broker-dealers or investment advisers.  For an alleged “pay-to-play” New York state pension fund kickbacks scheme he orchestrated after leaving Washington and his Czar-ship.

DC-Wall Street nexis, anyone?  Crony Socialism, anyone?

His current gig – besides being a (shocker) MSNBC Morning Joe “Economic Analyst”?  Managing New York Mayor – and 1%-er billionaire – Michael Bloomberg’s personal and philanthropic assets.

DC-Wall Street nexis, anyone?  Crony Socialism, anyone?

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The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), under Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, released a surprising bulletin on Friday, announcing that states will have greater flexibility in implementing ObamaCare.

The announcement comes on the threshold of the presidential election year, when President Obama must defend his signature legislation both to the Supreme Court, which will take up the constitutionality of the law in the spring, and the American people, the majority of whom want the law repealed. The administration likely hopes that the new flexibility offered to states will help to minimize the perception that the federal government is “taking over” healthcare.

Regarding the announcement, Secretary Sebelius said:

Under the Affordable Care Act, consumers and small businesses can be confident that the insurance plans they choose and purchase will cover a comprehensive and affordable set of health services. Our approach will protect consumers and give states the flexibility to design coverage options that meet their unique needs.

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On the same day that the Supreme Court announced that it would take up the challenge to President Obama’s healthcare reform law, Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) launched the Health Care Innovation Challenge, a competitive program that will award up to $1 billion in taxpayer-funded grants to applicants who will “implement the most compelling new ideas to deliver better health, improved care, and lower costs to people enrolled in Medicare, Medicaid and CHIP…” At a press conference, on Monday, Ms. Sebelius said, “Efforts like these to improve the health of communities and reduce cost while sparking the economy are a priority of the Obama administration.”

Using the Obama administration’s new theme of “We Can’t Wait,” a slogan which refers to Congress’ inability to obtain the votes to pass the president’s Jobs Act, the secretary said, “In recent weeks, Congress has failed to act on the full jobs agenda, so we will continue to do what we can.”

A new Rasmussen poll, however, indicates that most American voters oppose the Obamacare jobs plan, and believe the president should wait to enact the plan in order to reach an agreement with Congress. 63% of those polled said that the president should wait to work with Congress.

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We have oft spoken of how ridiculous Government General Motors (GM) has continued to become since receiving $50 billion of our bailout money.

And of the Barack Obama Administration’s puffing up for political and campaign purposes GM’s alleged “recovery” from its bankruptcy.

(A bankruptcy, by the way, that could have just as easily transpired without our $50 billion.  But I digress….)

It’s not really much of a recovery when one considers the fact that GM’s thus far $7.4 billion in 2011 profits is greatly fostered and augmented by the Obama Administration’s years-on-end GM federal tax exemption.

A Crony Socialist boon to the tune of as much as $45.4 billion.

(How’s that for federal deficit reduction?  Is absolutely nothing at all GM’s “fair share?”)

GM’s is an even less impressive “recovery” when we remember that We the People still own just over 500 million shares of GM stock.  On which to break even we need to sell at $53 per – and it is currently trading at around $23.

Which sets up We the Taxpayers for a more than $15 billion loss.

Not quite the GM “success” President Obama is repeatedly touting on the Trail to 2012.

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The Supreme Court has announced today that it will hear the challenge to President Obama’s signature health care reform law. The Court is expected to hear oral arguments in February or March, with a decision given by June of next year.

A key issue of the challenge, brought by 26 states, is that of the individual mandate in the new health care law, which requires nearly all Americans to purchase health insurance by 2014 or receive penalties. Many economists, as well as states, have strongly suggested that the law cannot stand without the individual mandate.

As the oral arguments are heard at the same time the presidential race heats up, it will be interesting to see how Republican candidate and former Massachusetts Governor, Mitt Romney, who supported an individual mandate in his state’s health insurance reform plan, distances himself from the mandate on the federal level. Mr. Romney has said that, if elected President, he would repeal Obamacare.

The Barack Obama Administration has been absolutely atrocious in signing off on terrible legislation and policy prescriptions.

ObamaCare.  The $878 billion alleged “stimulus.” The $30 billion bump (to $50 billion) of the General Motors bailout.  Cash for Clunkers.  Cash for Caulkers.  Dodd-Frank.  Lilly Ledbetter.  And on, and on, and on…

Then there’s the stuff the Obama Administration tried–and failed–to rush through the Donkey Congress (2009-2011).  But because these things were also so heinous and because the Administration and Congressional Democrats had already reached their Heinous Maximus quotient, they were unable to pile them on We the People. There was Cap and Trade.  And Card Check.  And Net Neutrality.  And…

Being stopped in Congress didn’t stop the Administration.  It didn’t even slow them down.  As President Obama said, there’s more than one way to skin these cats. These ways aren’t Constitutional.  They are, in fact, dictatorial.  But this from all appearances doesn’t bother Obama a whit. He is using his every Department, Commission, Agency and Board to jam through these terrible ideas–and more–via executive branch regulatory fiat. All of this goes a very long way towards explaining why we remain mired in plus-9% unemployment and less-than-1% economic growth.

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The Obama administration has admitted that it cannot move forward with a major feature of Obamacare, its long-term care insurance program, due to the fact that it contains a critical design flaw.

The Community Living Assistance Services and Supports program, known as CLASS, a pet program of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D- Massachusetts), was to have been sponsored by the federal government but maintained as a voluntary plan to which healthy, younger, working Americans would contribute in the event they became disabled later on in life. Participants would have paid a monthly premium that ranged widely between $235-$3000, depending on income, during their employment years, and then collected a daily cash benefit of at least $50 if they became disabled.

The tragic flaw in the plan is that unless large numbers of healthy people are willing to sign up for the program during their working years, the cost of the program would become prohibitive due to the needs of the disabled who would benefit from the plan. Unlike the purchase of long term care insurance in the private sector, CLASS did not offer lower premiums to healthier participants. Thus, the program attracted those who were already disabled in some way, yet able to work to some extent, and who anticipated the need for long term care in the future. Without healthy subscribers paying into the system, these individuals would not likely be able to afford the steep premiums. (more…)

There has been news aplenty about the Solyndra solar power company.

The chock-full-of-Barack-Obama-Administration-cronies-and-donors corporation that received more than half a billion dollars in government-guaranteed loans to build the alleged future of energy.

Which President Obama hailed as such after the government-backed checks had cleared.

Which turned out to be totally untrue, and Solyndra’s solar folly an abject failure.  In fact, a bankrupt one.

Which anyone who knows anything at all about “green” energy knew would be the result long before it was even a glint in Obama’s Crony Socialist eye.

(This is Crony Socialism.  It has very little to do with – and is even less successful than – Crony Capitalism.)

And as it turns out, the those-in-the-know included the Obama Administration.  Who were repeatedly warned that the company was in hay-yuge trouble before the first check was cut, but pushed through the loan guarantees anyway.

And now the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has raided the joint, walking out with boxes and boxes of documents.  (We don’t yet know if this is the beginnings of a real inquiry, or a Clinton-esque move where the paperwork vanishes, only to turn up years from now in the White House residence wing.)

Was the Administration so hurriedly adamant – despite all the evidence screaming “Stop” – because of the company’s Obama cronies and their campaign cash?

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You’ve heard the expression “building on success.”

Where you identify something that’s working – and work to maximize and further broaden its fruition.  In large part by determining what’s working – and seeking to replicate it.

The Left has always remained blissfully unfamiliar with this concept.

Probably at least in part because they are perpetually too busy building instead on failure.

Take the Barack Obama Administration and their D.C. Leftist cohorts.

They in 2009 spent nearly $1 trillion on an alleged economic stimulus.  Which would, we were told, keep unemployment below 8%.

Oops.

That having failed miserably, the D.C. Leftists built upon their failure by spending more “stimulus” coin on Cash for Clunkers, Cash for Caulkers and a whole host of other pitifully failed attempts at publicly invigorating the private sector.

Oops.

Building on failure.

We all now anxiously await September’s latest-in-a-long-line of famous President Obama problem-solving speeches.  In which, we are told, he will focus like a laser on creating the jobs they have thus far failed miserably at creating with their top-down, centrally-planned borrowing and spending.

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The transformation of General Motors (GM) to Government Motors (GM) has cost a lot of Americans a lot of money.

Many, many of them under questionable and in fact illegal circumstances.

Let us begin with the $50 billion ‘We the People’ were forced to “invest” in General Motors – including a $30 billion Barack Obama bump so as to give his Administration greater sway in how things would subsequently go down.

We were originally told – by Obama himself – that we would make money on the bailout.  Now we’re told we’ll lose somewhere between $11 and $14 billion (and given the stock price’s long, slow slide, maybe even more).

And about which we were lied to by the Administration.  Which said this titanic loss of coin is less than they were expecting – just seven months after Obama his own self said we’d turn a profit.

Then there was the 2009 GM bankruptcy filing (which we were told our $50 billion would forestall – oops).

Through which the Obama Administration’s new toy car company eviscerated existing law to benefit their union, campaign-funding cronies at the illegal expense of GM bond holders – who should have by law received preferred treatment.

The ripped off didn’t take too kindly to being the Administration’s latest dupes:

We believe the offer to be a blatant disregard of fairness for the bondholders who have funded this company and amounts to using taxpayer money to show political favoritism of one creditor over another….

No kidding.

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Obamacare Flow Chart/Heritage Foundation

They passed it, and now we are finding out what is in it.  For over a year now experts have been painstakingly poring through the 2500+ pages of legislation and mandates created in The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (HR 3590) and The Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 (HR 4872) and the debate continues on whether to repeal or fix it.  As the timeline rolls out for compliance over the next few years it will become increasingly clear that there are quite a few mandates thrown in that our representatives will deny having any knowledge of, since they did not read it! What we have seen so far from this disastrous monstrosity of legislation is that we and our physicians will be so tied up in bureaucracy; from mountains of paperwork, to bureaucrats getting in between our doctors and ourselves, to employers providing insurance that contains “minimum essential coverage” which has yet to be fully disclosed for their employees, to the policing of our coverage by the IRS to make sure we have purchased what the government deems to be acceptable health insurance coverage.  Physicians will also be subject to fines for not providing care to their patients as dictated by a panel of bureaucrats.

The individual mandate in this bill is unprecedented in our history.  The Cato Institute’s Michael D. Tanner has published a comprehensive analysis of this heath care reform bill in his much more readable 61 page Bad Medicine: A Guide to the Real Costs and Consequences of the New Health Care Law.  He states that “what we are finding increasingly looks like it will leave Americans less healthy, less prosperous and less free.”

In his analysis he breaks down the timeline of what provisions will go into effect and when.  Already implemented:

• A ten percent tax imposed on tanning salons.
• Seniors with prescription drug costs of at least $2700.00 will receive a check for $250.00
• $5 billion temporary insurance program for employers who provide health insurance for retirees over age 55 who are not yet eligible for Medicare. The program ends in 2014.
• Insurers are required to provide coverage for children regardless of preexisting conditions. The prohibition on excluding preexisting conditions does not apply to adults until 2014.
• High risk pools established to cover adults with pre-existing conditions, but will be eliminated after the ban on excluding preexisting conditions goes into effect in 2014.
• Parents may keep their children on their insurance plan until the child reaches age 26.
• Lifetime caps on insurance benefits are prohibited.
• Restaurants and vending machines are required to post calorie counts.

This week we discovered that, effective August 1, 2011, according to the U.S.Department of Health and Human Services “Under the Affordable Care Act, women’s preventive health care – such as mammograms, screenings for cervical cancer, prenatal care, and other services – is covered with no cost sharing for new health plans.”  The list of services that are to be covered with no co-payare; well-woman visits, screening for gestational diabetes, human papillomavirus testing, counseling for sexually transmitted infections, screening and counseling for human immune-deficiency virus, contraceptive methods and counseling, breastfeeding support, supplies and counseling, and screening and counseling for interpersonal and domestic violence.  This will surely drive up the cost of health insurance premiums and cause more employers to opt out of providing coverage for their employees and pay the fines instead.  The administration will vilify these corporations, calling them greedy, corporate jet-flying, profit-making millionaires and billionaires.  It has structured the laws in such a way that in the long run it will be cheaper and involve less bureaucracy for corporations to opt out.  Nationalized health care was the goal of this president and despite all of the opposition it is what we now have.  Most Americans do not realize this yet, because of the extended timeline for the rollout of the various aspects of this bill.

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Candidate Obama said he would “transform the Untied States of America” and unfortunately this is the one promise he kept.  Two and one half years into his presidency, the National Debt has climbed to 100% of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the first time since World War II; GDP growth for the first six months of this year has been a meager 0.8%; we continue to run a $1.5 trillion annual deficit, essentially growing the Debt by 10% versus the 0.8% GDP growth; 25 million Americans are unemployed, under-employed or have dropped out of the work force; 45 million Americans are on food stamps; and now Standard & Poor’s (S&P) has downgraded our country’s credit rating from AAA to AA+ for the first time in our history.  America has truly been transformed!

I could add to this list a number of foreign policy decisions that have elevated our enemies and trashed our long-time allies, but the economic failures of this president are more striking and more easily understood.  His $900 billion economic stimulus bill did little more than pay the salaries of state workers for one year and increased the Debt.  His re-distributive one-time programs of cash for clunkers and mortgage-restructuring failed and added to the Debt.  The overbearing healthcare legislation, that the Congressional Budget Office now says will increase the cost of healthcare, did nothing but create uncertainty for business.  Massive new and restrictive regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Congress, when under full Democratic control, has forced private capital to the sidelines and almost completely stalled economic growth.  These are only some examples of Mr. Obama’s transformation of our country.

S&P warned us several months ago that our credit rating was in danger of a downgrade and pointed to the lack of leadership in Washington, D.C. as the main problem.  Mr. Obama still does not get it.  His reaction to the weak GDP growth and recent slide in the equities markets was to blame the earthquake in Japan, the economic problems in Europe and the uprisings that formed the Arab Spring.  His supporters are already saying publicly that Obama inherited a situation that was “worse than we thought.” Translation – blame former President Bush.  Mr. Obama will not take responsibility for a failing economy that he has managed since January of 2009 and it is this clear lack of leadership that is at the root of S&P’s downgrade.

The truth is that Mr. Obama’s socialist experiment of hyper-spending has done nothing more than add $4.5 trillion, or 45%, to the Debt since taking office.  He has over regulated the economy into a private sector coma.  It is time for real leadership and a return to free market capitalism. S&P made that clear with its downgrade.

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