LRWF_Blog

Tonight President Barack Obama will deliver a prime-time Oval Office address on Iraq. Acting as President of the United States, the leader of a country, not a movement, tonight would be a perfect time for Obama to give due credit to those commanders who made the current progress in Iraq possible. He should thank General Ray Odierno, who implemented the counterinsurgency strategy that led to the dramatic decrease in violence in Iraq, General David Petraeus, who oversaw all coalition forces in Iraq during the surge, and President George W. Bush, who had the courage to explain the new strategy to the American people at a time when it was extremely unpopular to do so.

Unfortunately, if the Weekly Address President Obama delivered from his rented vacation home on Martha’s Vineyard is any indication, none of that will happen. Instead of uniting the country behind our effort in Iraq, this is how President Obama chose to open his remarks: “As a candidate for this office, I pledged I would end this war. As President, that is what I am doing. We have brought home more than 90,000 troops since I took office.” The President’s love affair with first person singular pronouns aside, this is just plain false. Throughout the campaign, candidate Obama promised the progressive movement that he would “immediately begin to remove our troops from Iraq,” specifically calling for the removal of “one to two combat brigades each month.”

Fortunately, when Obama finally took the oath of office, he did not “rely on some plan that he’s crafted as a presidential candidate or a U.S. Senator,” as his former adviser Samantha Power predicted. Instead, he adopted a less ambitious 19-month drawdown that promised combat would “end” by August 2010. In truth, the Administration’s self-imposed “end of combat” is a semantic distinction that does not adequately reflect the situation on the ground. Hostile Iraqi and foreign forces in Iraq have not ended their attacks on allied forces.

On August 12, Iraq’s top military leader, General Babaker Zebari, warned that Iraqi security forces will not be able to fully secure their own country until 2020. “If I were asked about the withdrawal,” he said, “I would say to politicians: The U.S. Army must stay until the Iraq Army is fully ready in 2020.” The President should acknowledge this need for continued military assistance, signal that the U.S. remains firmly engaged as a dependable ally, and dispel the growing perception that Washington is intent on a quick exit regardless of the dangerous consequences of such a gamble.

Instead of sending these calming signals, President Obama seems intent on giving sustenance to our enemies by sticking to arbitrary and unrealistic political deadlines. For Iraq, Obama again made clear on Saturday that he plans to remove all troops by the end of 2011. And in Afghanistan, President Obama still maintains that he will begin drawing down forces by July 2011. One would hope that the Obama administration would have learned from its abject failure to close Guantanamo Bay that arbitrary political deadlines are a fool’s errand.

As a candidate, Barack Obama could afford to indulge in irresponsible rhetoric about “ending” the war in Iraq without regard for the disastrous consequences of losing that war. But as President, Obama should act decisively as the nation’s commander-in-chief and protect vital American interests by successfully finishing the jobs in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Health care isn’t something most students worry about. Government stats show about 80 percent of college students are covered under a parents’ plan. For them, Obamacare may mean they can keep the insurance they already have for a few years beyond college, but it won’t affect the coverage they carry during school.
But what about kids without parental coverage? The new law’s requirement that insurance cover children up to age 26 won’t make any difference for them.
Currently, college students without coverage can enroll in low-cost student health plans offered through universities. These plans may include limits to keep costs down, but are often designed around to complement university health services to provide comprehensive coverage. Affordability is further achieved by rating student health plans on a campus-wide basis rather than according to the whole individual market.
Seven percent of students currently receive coverage from their school, but that could change under Obamacare, a concern that the American Council on Education expressed in a recent letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.
“The application of several provisions under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), including certain insurance market reforms and the individual mandate, could make it impossible for colleges and universities to continue to offer student health plans,” the Council warns.
As the new law currently stands, it’s unclear whether student health plans would meet federal requirements to qualify as minimum essential coverage. If they don’t, students would have to find coverage elsewhere or pay the individual mandate in addition to the premiums of their student health plan.
Though the law includes a rule that institutes of higher education will not be prohibited from offering student insurance plans, the Council explains that problems arise because, “Short-term limited duration insurance, including many student health plans, does not qualify as either group health insurance coverage or individual health insurance coverage under the existing Public Health Service Act (PHSA) definitions. As a result, a student with comprehensive SHP coverage would not satisfy the minimum essential coverage requirement due to a definitional technicality.”
Schools may also find that some provisions of Obamacare might forbid them from offering coverage solely to their student populations, rather than the individual market at large.
Critics of student health pans, who see these low-cost options as inadequate, would prefer to apply Obamacare’s rules to student coverage. But, as Julie Appleby writes for Kaiser Health News, colleges fear that “requiring them to meet even some of the new rules could drive up premiums.”
Removing affordable options would likely discourage many students from carrying insurance altogether—yet another example of how Obamacare, which was supposed to improve insurance coverage, may end up making it worse.

Congratulations to all Republicans moving forward to the General Election:

 
Marco Rubio United States Senate

Rick Scott Governor

Pam Bondi Attorney General

Lizbeth Benacquisto State Senate 27

Matt Caldwell State Rep Dist 73

John Manning County Commissioner District 1

Brian Bigelow County Commissioner District 2

In December 2009, President Barack Obama delivered his long-awaited decision on the way forward in the War in Afghanistan and pledged 30,000 additional troops for the effort under the condition that they would begin to come home in 18 months. While praising the President’s decision to send more troops, conservative lawmakers blasted the President’s announcement of a deadline for withdrawal, arguing that it would undermine our allies and embolden our enemies. Yesterday, the President’s policy met with another high profile critic, retiring U.S. Marine Gen. James Conway, who told reporters that the July 2011 withdrawal date has given a morale boost to Taliban insurgents who now believe they can simply wait out NATO forces.

General Conway confirmed what Heritage Foundation analysts have been warning about for the last nine months, that the deadline is “giving our enemy sustenance.” Conway revealed that indeed the U.S. has intercepted communication of Taliban insurgents telling each other that they only needed to hold out for so long.

Conway is right. As we noted last year, the President’s decision to impose a timeline was purely a political one, meant to appease the leftist base of the Democratic Party, not to ensure the security interests of the American people. But there are signs the Obama administration now recognizes the damage the timeline has done to U.S. strategy and is seeking to walk it back. That’s good news for America as it fights a war we must win.

Last week, Gen. David Petraeus, Commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, indicated that any troop withdrawal would depend on the “situation on the ground,” and on Monday, he noted that next year’s deadline is “not the date when the American forces begin an exodus.”

Vice President Joe Biden, during a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Indianapolis earlier this week, also signaled the Obama administration is changing its message on Afghanistan. During that speech, the Vice President said, “We are not leaving in 2011, we are beginning a transition.” Biden also called for allowing the new strategy in Afghanistan time to succeed and gave a ringing endorsement of Gen. Petraeus. Biden said, “Don’t buy into that we have failed in Afghanistan…We are now only beginning, with the right general and the right number of forces, to seek our objectives…We needed the best general we had, and we now have him.”

Announcing a timeline for withdrawal of U.S. troops even before they had deployed was bad policy. Hopefully the Obama administration now recognizes this fact. But in order to reassure our allies and signal our enemies of U.S. commitment to the war, President Obama must unequivocally revoke the timeline.

Succeeding in Afghanistan will require more patience from the American people. A summer of high casualty rates and reports about corruption of Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s administration are casting doubt among Americans about the effort. A recent poll shows six in ten Americans oppose the war. But the United States and its allies cannot walk away from Afghanistan before the job is done. The military’s new strategy is sound, and our troops should be given the opportunity to succeed. As The Heritage Foundation’s James Carafano writes:

Fighting terrorists in South Asia is not easy. But it is a worthwhile effort that offers the promise of a more enduring peace and a safer world for our civilians and allies. Now is the time to vanquish al-Qaeda and its affiliates, not give them a second lease on life. Running away would end nothing. Indeed, it would be but the prelude to more 9-11 style misery.

Maintaining that commitment won’t be easy, either. While President Obama is facing criticism for imposing a withdrawal deadline from the right, he is also facing criticism from the left for backing away from his withdrawal pledge. But there is more at stake for the President than scoring political points. Hanging in the balance is the future of Afghanistan, where failure would spell the return of the Taliban, a resurgent Al-Qaeda, a new wave of terrorism in South Asia, increased potential for conflict between Pakistan and India, and the makings of the next 9-11.

For the United States, failure is not an option, it’s a choice President Obama shouldn’t make, and it’s a result the American people should not accept.

On Tuesday, the National Association of Realtors reported that July sales of existing homes fell by 27% from June of this year and by 25.5% compared to July 2009. This annual sales rate of 3.83 million homes was the lowest since NAR began keeping track of sales in 1999. Then yesterday, the Commerce Department reported that July sales of new homes fell 12.4% from June and by 32.4% compared to July 2009. This annual rate of 276,000 new units sold is the lowest since 1963, when government records were first kept. The source of the plunge is no secret: July’s numbers reflect the first month when existing home sales received no boost from the home buyer tax credit.

Americans have seen this movie before. Last fall after the Obama administration’s Cash for Clunkers program dried up, new automobile sales plummeted. General Motors’ sales plunged 36 percent in September 2009 compared with August. Ford plummeted 37 percent. Chrysler dove 33 percent. And Americans are still feeling the hangover from the original car spending binge. Thanks to the destruction of traded-in cars mandated by President Obama, used car prices have soared this year. This means that the most cash-strapped Americans who are already dealing with 9.5% unemployment now are finding it harder to find an affordable car, all thanks to government intervention in the marketplace.

The problem with both of these liberal programs is the same: there is no such thing as a free lunch. In both cases the additional government spending did not create any new demand; it only shifted the time at which American consumers were going to make a purchase they had decided to make anyway. Instead of ensuring an environment where market participants could ascertain the true prices of the goods they want to purchase, these government interventions added uncertainty into the economy by making it harder for existing businesses and entrepreneurs to plan their next move. These government interventions, paid for with borrowed dollars, did not create new wealth. They just diverted capital and resources from the other places where markets would have invested it spontaneously absent government action.

This is the same problem with President Obama’s failed stimulus. Government spending does not stimulate economic growth. All it does is move resources away from one sector of the economy to another. And government has a horrible track record at efficiently allocating resources. All that really happens is that, on net, jobs get destroyed in the transfer process. But the left refuses to recognize this reality.

In February 2009, at a House Democratic retreat in Williamsburg, Va., President Obama pressed for passage of his stimulus plan, reasoning: “This is not something that we’re just doing to grow government. We’re doing this because this is what the best minds tell us needs to be done.” But what if the people who President Obama believes have “the best minds” are just wrong? Forty-five years earlier, then-Gov. Ronald Reagan told the American people: “Anytime you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders, we’re denounced as being against their humanitarian goals. They say we’re always “against” things—we’re never “for” anything. Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.”

Last week a group of economic bloggers met with some Treasury officials, including Secretary Timothy Geithner. When pressed on the failure of President Obama’s Home Affordable Modification Program to help homeowners avoid foreclosure, the Obama officials explained that they judged “HAMP to be a qualified success because it helped banks muddle through what might have been a fatal shock.” Shocked at the admission that HAMP was meant to bail out banks and not help owners, Media Matters fellow Duncan Black wrote: “When Liberalism Doesn’t Work It Discredits Liberalism.” Liberalism is not working. We’ll find out in the coming months just how discredited it is in the eyes of the American people.

 The following segment is part of the Heritage Foundation’s newly released “Solutions for America.”
 
The health care system needs reform, but not the types of changes enacted under the new health care law. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act moves the health care system in the wrong direction.
This highly unpopular law would assert federal control over health care benefits and financing, erect a complex one-size-fits-all health system, and centralize America’s health care decisions in Washington.
Instead, Congress should transform the health care system into one that empowers individuals and families, not Washington, to control more of their health care decisions.
 
THE FACTS:
Health Care Spending. The U.S spends over $2.6 trillion on health care, roughly 17 percent of gross domestic product.
More Government Control. Health care spending will increase by $311 billion between 2010 and 2019 under the new law. Soon, the government will control over half of all health care spending.
Rising Crisis in Health Care Entitlements. The Medicare program alone faces a $30.8 trillion unfunded obligation with an onslaught of 77 million retiring baby boomers. Medicaid has become a growing fiscal problem for the states, accounting for over 21 percent of state spending—second only to education.

No Two States Are Alike. State health insurance markets differ radically, reflecting differences in demography, levels of poverty, regulation, and underlying health care costs. Rates of uninsurance range from 25% in Texas to 5% in Massachusetts, while premiums for individual policies range from $2,606 in Iowa to $6,630 in New York.
THE SOLUTIONS:
Repeal Obamacare.  There is a precedent for repealing highly unpopular and misguided laws: the Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act of 1988. History may be repeating itself. Recently, over 70% of Missouri residents rejected a key provision of Obamacare­—the requirement that individuals purchase a health insurance plan designed and approved by government bureaucrats.
The rebellion at the state level, in fact, is both widespread and multi-dimensional. Some states will vote on similar repeal measures; in others, legislation has been introduced challenging various aspects of the law; still others have banded together to challenge the constitutionality of the individual mandate in lawsuits. The House of Representatives even voted recently to repeal one provision of Obamacare that will impose draconian paperwork requirements on millions of small businesses. The easiest way to address all these grievances: repeal Obamacare.
Promote Personal Control Through Tax Equity. Today, workers who purchase coverage through their employer receive an unlimited tax break on the value of their health care benefits. However, those who purchase coverage on their own receive no comparable tax break. Ideally, the current tax exclusion should be replaced (or at the very least capped) with a system of universal tax credits for taxpayers.
Concurrently, existing health care spending, such as Medicaid and SCHIP (the State Children’s Health Insurance Program) should be redirected to help low-income individuals and families purchase private health insurance. Putting Americans in charge of their health care dollars and decisions will go along way toward bringing about greater efficiency and cost reduction to the health care system.
Fix Current Government Health Programs. To address the country’s looming entitlement crisis, Medicare and Medicaid must be transformed. Specifically, Medicare should be a defined-contribution system in which the government provides a contribution for benefits and seniors are able to apply their contribution to the health plan that suits them best.
Medicaid should be restructured to mainstream healthy moms and kids into private health insurance through premium assistance while patient-centered models of care should be integrated into Medicaid to give the disabled, the elderly, and their families a say in the care and services they receive. Updating these programs would make the costs both more predictable and sustainable for beneficiaries and taxpayers alike.
Promote Federal–State Partnerships. A one-size-fits-all federal solution cannot accommodate the unique and diverse health care challenges facing the states. States should take the lead in health care reform by identifying the key health care challenges facing their citizens, structuring a consumer-based marketplace for health insurance, and expanding affordable health care options for their citizens, including setting up pooling arrangements to protect persons with pre-existing conditions while not unduly burdening taxpayers.
Beyond reforming the tax treatment of health insurance and restructuring health care entitlements, the federal government should promote interstate commerce in health insurance, extend certain protections for those who maintain continuous coverage, and provide states with technical assistance and relief from federal rules that inhibit innovation.
Provide Portability. Individuals—not the government—should be able to choose the health coverage that best suits their needs. To accomplish this, private health insurance must be portable—that is, owned by Americans so they can take their package from job to job.
Portability, in turn, will require lawmakers to end the bias against individuals now in the tax code (see above) and for states to take the lead in guaranteeing that individuals can choose from among competing plans in transparent and lightly regulated marketplaces.

Last night at the Beverly Hills home of  “West Wing” producer John Wells, after the string quartet quieted down, President Barack Obama told the assembled Hollywood elite, who paid $2,500 a person for cocktails and $30,400 a couple for dinner: “We have been able to deliver the most progressive legislative agenda – one that helps working families – not just in one generation, maybe two, maybe three.” Half an hour later, after the President concluded “Even as the other side wants to offer fear, we’re going to offer hope,” the Beverly Hills crowd responded with loud applause.

But as much as the decadent Hollywood left may love Obama’s progressive agenda, the American people have soundly rejected it. Yesterday, for the first time in his Presidency, the Gallup daily tracking poll found that a majority of Americans disapprove of the job Obama is doing as President. Even worse for him, last week Gallup found that a majority of Americans disapprove of the President’s policies on eight out of thirteen issues. And according to the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll 58% of Americans believe our country is on the wrong track.

There is little wonder as to why. Since 2000, federal spending has grown across the board. Discretionary spending has expanded 79 percent faster than inflation. The federal government now spends $30,543 per household compared to $21,875 per household in 2000. Under President Obama’s budget, Washington is projected to spend $3,618 billion, raise $2,118 billion, and run a $1.5 trillion deficit in 2010. By 2020 President Obama’s budget would double the publicly held national debt.

On every issue, the left has only two answers: more federal spending and more federal control. Conservatives have not, and should not, shy away from opposing these policies. But conservatives also must offer an alternative vision of America’s future; one that is consistent with our nation’s founding principles and empowers the people to compete in the 21st century. Today, The Heritage Foundation is releasing just such an alternative: “Solutions for America”

Heritage Foundation President Ed Feulner describes Solutions as “a comprehensive guide for getting our nation back on the right track. Some of the policy recommendations are groundbreaking. Others are familiar. Some are being debated right now. They all have two things in common: They return power to the people, and they are all transformational ideas.” For example, Solutions recommends:

Cap Federal Spending: Washington has no enforceable limits on its spending and discretionary spending has nearly doubled since Congress let its spending caps expire in 2002. Congress should enact a firm cap on the annual increase in total government spending, limited to inflation plus population growth. Lawmakers should exert all effort to keep overall federal spending to less than 20% of U.S. GDP, the historical post–World War II average for federal spending.

End the Era of Entitlements: Spending on the Big Three entitlements (Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid) is on autopilot – increasing automatically every year without any budgetary scrutiny. Congress must bring entitlement spending into the congressional budgetary process. We should raise the Social Security retirement age, and encourage people to work longer by eliminating payroll taxes for those over the retirement age. We should let needy families choose how to spend their Medicaid dollars and establish a new Medicare “defined contribution” system as we transition away from today’s costly and inefficient fee-for-service system.

Restore Our Free Economy: Our corporate income tax rate, currently the second highest in the developed world, must be cut to restore U.S. competitiveness. The corporate tax rate should be set at or below the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development average of 26% to eliminate the incentive for businesses and jobs to move overseas. We should also stop taxing businesses as individuals, but rather reduce rates to 25%, which would help business to grow and create jobs.

Revive Federalism: Over the course of the 20th century, the administration of government has been increasingly centralized under the federal government. In 1900 almost 60% of government spending took place at the state and local levels. Today, the federal government spends more than twice as much as all other levels of government combined. Washington must cede vast swatches of its policymaking authority—and the funding that goes with it—to states willing to reassume leadership in traditional state roles such as transportation, education, health, homeland security, and law enforcement.

Invest in Peace through Strength: A robust military is the surest way to deter aggression and reinforce U.S. diplomacy. To accomplish this, the Pentagon procurement holiday must end. Congress must refurbish our armed forces, especially our depleted Navy fleet and vital missile defenses.

These are just some of the ideas contained in the more than 20 chapters and over 120 specific policy recommendations contained in Solutions for America. Contrary to what the President says, these ideas are not based on fear, but on faith in the American people and the vision of our nation’s founders. The policies articulated in Solutions are calculated to make that vision a reality, to build an America where freedom, opportunity, prosperity, and civil society flourish.

Today the House of Representatives is expected to approve yet another bailout for those states that have proved incapable of controlling their spending on government worker pay, benefits and pensions. The $26.1 billion price tag will be funded in part by $11 billion in tax hikes on U.S. companies that compete internationally. From his trillion dollar economic stimulus to his $3 trillion tax hike it has become clear that President Barack Obama views the private sector the same way the Huns viewed a city – as something to be sacked and plundered for the benefit of public sector workers.

The effect of President Obama’s policies is becoming clear. The Wall Street Journal reports that personal incomes fell across the U.S. last year except in areas with a high concentration of federal government jobs. Washington D.C. was one of just three metro areas that saw both net earnings and personal income rise. And those gains were due entirely to the growth of the federal government; private sector compensation in the Washington metropolitan area actually fell. Nationally, private wages fell six percent in 2009 while government pay rose 2.6 percent. And USA Today reports that federal employees’ average compensation has grown to more than double what private sector workers earn.

Responding to the new numbers, National Treasury Employees Union President Colleen Kelley told USA Today: “The data are not useful for a direct public-private pay comparison.” And it is true: federal workers often are better educated and more experienced than private sector workers. But after controlling for education and experience, The Heritage Foundation’s James Sherk found that federal employees get paid 22 percent more per hour on average than private-sector workers. Throw in the lavish benefits that federal government workers receive, and federal employees earn approximately 30 to 40 percent more in total compensation than comparable private-sector workers.

And it is not just federal worker compensation that has been insulated from the current recession. Unlike the private sector, the federal government has actually been adding jobs, too. According to Heritage Foundation analyst Rea Hederman, since the start of this recession in December 2007, private sector employment has fallen by 6.8 percent while federal government employment has actually increased by 10 percent. Even after factoring in state and local government job losses, governments, on net, have added 64,000 jobs during this recession while the private sector has lost 7.8 million jobs.

Also according to USA Today, while President Obama may have ordered a freeze on bonuses for 2,900 political appointees last week, he also requested a 1.4% across-the-board pay hike for the other 2 million federal workers who are also eligible for additional seniority pay hikes.

This is why Obamanomics is failing. Instead of forcing federal, state and local governments to make the hard decisions on government worker pay, benefits and pensions, President Obama is bailing them out. Instead of cutting and simplifying taxes, the President wants to raise them and use the tax code to punish American companies that compete overseas. Instead of cutting the marginal cost for private employers to hire new workers, the President is creating new taxes and regulations that make hiring more expensive. At 9.5% unemployment, every private sector worker must be worried about their job under the Obama regime. But not government workers. President Obama will always have a bailout ready to protect their jobs.