Obamacare opponents have been raising red flags around this issue for some time, but today the IRS has finally issued preliminary guidelines for the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. The legislation is expected to cost America tens of thousands of jobs, while also sending some high-end industries overseas. There’s more from the IRS available at the links in text below. That it’s being released on a Friday afternoon is no coincidence.

On February 3, 2012, the IRS and the Treasury Department issued proposed regulations on the new 2.3-percent medical device excise tax (IRC §4191) that manufacturers and importers will pay on their sales of taxable medical devices starting in 2013. Additional information is available in the Medical Device Excise Tax FAQs.

The IRS and Treasury Department request comments on the proposed regulations by May 7, 2012. Comments may be submitted electronically, by mail or hand delivered to the IRS. The preamble to the proposed regulations provides instructions on how to submit comments.

Industry sources have already begun weighing in through press releases of their own. There’s also a detailed analysis of the implications of the proposed guidelines here. (more…)

President Obama, in his State of the Union address Tuesday night, was right to focus on the challenges the United States faces as domestic companies try to compete with low-cost global competitors. But he was wrong to suggest that the United States can “win the future” by getting Washington more involved in innovation and education.

As the president conceded elsewhere, Washington is, in fact, a big part of the problem—with high corporate tax rates and excessive regulation.

Just a week earlier in a Wall Street Journal article, the president elaborated on this, rhetorically declaring a truce with business and laying out the administration’s strategy for moving “toward a 21st-century regulatory system.”

Mr. Obama said this new system would need to strike a balance between the innovativeness, job-creating capacity and robust growth produced by free markets and the responsibility of government to impose “common-sense rules” to protect the public. He called for a “government-wide review of . . . rules already on the books,” and said that “careful consideration” would be given to the costs and benefits of all pending regulations. But as Yogi Berra once said, “This is like deja vu all over again.”

Presidents Clinton and Reagan both signed executive orders requiring that proposed federal regulations be implemented only if their economic benefits exceeded the costs of complying with them. Reagan even established a branch within the Office of Management and Budget—the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA)—to make sure executive branch agencies complied. The executive orders by and large were ineffective.

In fact, the federal government has been expanding its control of the private economy since the 1890s, on the theory that vulnerable people must be protected from cradle to grave by an omniscient bureaucracy that knows what’s best for them. The growth in regulation typically has been justified by analyses, prepared by the regulatory bureaus themselves, which grossly overstate regulation’s benefits and understate its costs.

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On September 22, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issued The Emancipation Proclamation: 

“That on the 1^st day of January, in the year of our Lord 1863, all persons held as slaves within any state or designated part of a state, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom. . . And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God.”

With these words President Lincoln ended slavery – a  flagrant violation of the institutions of the United States of America, “a government of, by and for all the people.”

The institution of slavery denied essential freedoms to fellow Americans. Today, in 2009, another freedom is being denied to every man, woman and child — freedom of health care. Some in the HMO industry, many in the insurance industry, and many federal “Big Government” bureaucrats are denying Americans their freedom of health care.  The Obama Health Care Plan is the instruction manual and play book for this mandate.

 These “Masters” of  Health Care are trying to deny individuals the freedom to choose what doctor you can see, what medicine you can take, what hospital you can go to, and how you spend your health care dollars.  They even take it a step further in the Obama Health Care Plan, determining – IF – yes, IF you can be treated.  These “Masters” of Health Care are driving us to unnecessary pain, suffering, and, in some cases, death.

 We can all agree that the US health care system needs drastic reform, but not at the cost of destroying the entire system.  We face a defining crossroads, as we as a nation decide the face of this reform. If we really want to improve the system, reform must be based upon the bedrock of providing each person, family and business fundamental healthcare freedom.  

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Taxpayers foot the bill for office items lost or stolen by members of Congress

Half-a-million dollar NSF stimulus grant pays to search for alternatives to Facebook

Stimulus funds pay to create an online database of bugs

Stimulus funds to pay for talking buses in Ohio; Human voices to replace beeping sounds that alert pedestrians of approaching buses

Congressmen successfully pressure the Food and Drug Administration to approve medical device manufactured by campaign contributor

Spending bills stalled by decision of Appropriations Committees to withhold government reports from the public and other members of Congress

Political ‘scientists’ lobby to keep millions of dollars in federal science grants

Congress will spend more than $100 million to put sand on beaches

Today, the Senate Finance Committee is scheduled to vote on Senator Max Baucus’ health care overhaul.  Like most Americans, I believe that our health care system needs to be reformed.  However, this bill is a tax and spending bill masquerading as a health reform bill.  It gives government bureaucrats far too much power and encroaches on freedom more than any legislation since LBJ’s Great Society experiment.  It is bad for the country and bad for the economy.

 Senate Democrats are pushing a vote on the 1,000-page bill now because the Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that the bill cost “only” $829 billion over the next 10 years. In truth, the bill raises taxes immediately, but the benefits do not kick in for another four years, so the 10-year numbers are distorted. This is an expensive experiment that cuts Medicare, and exacerbates state government budget problems by dramatically expanding Medicaid without providing additional funding.

How do the Democrats propose to pay for the rest of the new spending? There are a massive amount of tax increases in the bill, including over $200 billion in tax increases on insurance premiums, new taxes on individuals and employers, and over $120 billion in new taxes on medical device makers and other health care businesses.  All of these tax increases concern me, but the latter category does so especially: My state is the home of Medtronic, Boston Scientific, 3M, St. Jude Medical and other medical technology makers that employ 60,000 Minnesotans and save and improve countless lives. Increasing taxes on these businesses would not only be an unwise burden on these employers, but would siphon money otherwise spent on research and development.  It would also risk the cost of increased taxes being passed on, directly or indirectly, to those who rely on such devices or who cover their cost.

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