Tale of the Tape: President Obama’s Millionaires vs. Secretaries

by Rep. Chip Cravaack 

During his recent rallies to galvanize support for his “American Jobs Act,” President Obama stated that he wanted to ensure that millionaires paid the same percentage of taxes as secretaries.  While this is a great soundbite, this statement is inflammatory and demonstrably false.  “Millionaires” in this country, which according to President Obama’s definition now includes small business owners and job creators along with the likes of Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, pay a significantly higher portion of their salary to federal income tax, and pay a disproportionate amount of the entire tax burden.



When President Obama states that high income earners are paying less tax then the middle class, he cites the example of Warren Buffett, a multi-billionaire who only pays 17.4% of his taxable income.  However, Mr. Buffett is an anomaly in the upper tax bracket, because most of his income is earned through capital gains, which is taxed at a relatively lower 15% rate (IRS, February 2011).  According to figures compiled by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), those making over $1 million per year pay an average tax rate of 23.3%, while those making between $30-50,000 dollars pay an average tax rate of 7.2%.

Most people in the upper tax brackets are not receiving stock options as compensation, and are therefore subject to the same progressive tax structure as “secretaries.”

Under the current tax system, millionaires don’t just pay a higher tax rate; they also are responsible for a much higher percentage of income taxes paid.  Again, the most recent CBO statistics available demonstrate that the top 1% of wage earners contribute nearly 40% of all income taxes paid in this country.  The bottom 50% of America’s wage earners contribute only 3% of all income taxes.  Additionally, under the current tax structure created under the Bush tax cuts, lower income citizens received a new lower tax bracket as well as the Earned Income Tax Credit, which has enabled further reductions to their tax burden.

In order to reduce this perceived “inequality” between millionaires and secretaries, President Obama has proposed an increase in capital gains taxes to 28%.  This is a mistake.  While billionaires take advantage of this tax classification to cushion their compensation packages, the lower rate was designed to help the elderly make the most of their golden years (half of all taxpaying seniors have capital gains or dividend revenue) and to help middle class Americans make the most of their earnings.  The low capital gains tax encourages people to invest their earnings in the enterprises of their fellow citizens, enabling business growth and expanding the wealth of ordinary Americans.  Using the guilt ridden complaints of an already privileged few to discourage the attainment of a higher standard of living by hard working citizens is a disingenuous political strategy by the administration at the detriment of the American economy.

President Obama appears to be preparing a stimulus program that will be used to secure his base during his next Presidential campaign.  However, in his rush for re-election, he ignores the fact that American businesses will respond only with a refined financial and regulatory structure that provides efficiency, clarity, and stability, and a workforce trained to fill jobs that are valued in this evolving economy.  Instead of creating friction between “millionaires” and “secretaries,” it is essential that the entire country is committed to improving the condition of every citizen.

We must be  committed to taking every possible step to improve conditions for private sector job creation and to get our economy back on track so that America’s workers and business owners can do what they do best: create, innovate and lead.  We must commit to pro growth policies that eliminate red tape and put Americans back to work.

Big Government

Obama Tries to Put Foreign Tax Law Above U.S. Tax Law

by Dan Mitchell 

Earlier this year, President Obama’s IRS proposed a regulation that would force banks in America to report any interest they pay to accounts owned by non-resident aliens (that’s the technical term for foreigners who don’t live in the U.S.).

What made this regulation so bizarre, however, is that Congress specifically has exempted these account from taxation for the rather obvious reason that they want to attract this mobile capital to the American economy.

Indeed, Congress repeatedly has ratified this policy ever since it was first implemented 90 years ago.



So why, you may be asking, would the IRS propose such a regulation? After all, why impose a regulatory burden on a weakened banking sector when it has nothing to do with enforcing American tax law?

The answer, if you can believe it, is that they want American banks to help enforce foreign tax law. And the bureaucrats at the IRS want to impose this burden even though the regulation is completely contrary to existing U.S. law.

Not surprisingly, this rogue behavior by the IRS already has generated considerable opposition. Senator Rubio has been a leader on the issue, being the first to condemn the proposed regulation.

Both Senators from Texas also have announced their opposition, and the entire Florida congressional delegation came out against the IRS’s regulatory overreach.

And now we have two more important voices against the IRS’s rogue regulation.


The Chairman of the Oversight Subcommittee in charge of the IRS, Congressman Charles Boustany of Louisiana, just sent a very critical letter to Treasury Secretary Geithner, and these are some of his chief concerns.

If the regulation were to take effect, it would not only run counter to the will of the Congress, but would potentially drive foreign investments out of our economy, hurting individuals and small businesses by reducing access to capital.  I write to request that IRS suspend the proposed regulation. …As the Internal Revenue Code imposes no taxation or reporting requirements on this deposit interest, the proposed regulation serves no compelling tax collection purpose.  Instead, it is my understanding that the IRS seeks this new authority to help foreign governments collect their own taxes abroad.  …It is disappointing to see the IRS once again try to impose unnecessary regulations and costs on U.S. banks. To attract investment of foreign dollars into the U.S. economy, the Internal Revenue Code generally exempts these deposits from taxation and reporting requirements.  These foreign investments in turn help to finance a variety of products essential to economic growth, such as small business loans and home mortgages.  Imposing reporting requirements on these deposits through regulatory fiat threatens to drive significant investments out of our economy by undermining the rules Congress has set in place specifically to attract it, and at exactly the time when our economy can least afford it.

But criticism is not limited to Capitol Hill. The Center for Freedom and Prosperity has spearheaded opposition from think tanks, taxpayer organizations, and public policy groups.
And now the business community has become involved. Here’s some of what the Chamber of Commerce recently said, and you can click this PDF file (USCC S1506) to read the entire letter.

Given the fragile state of America’s economic recovery, it is disturbing to see actions by the Treasury that could jeopardize deposits at U.S. banks and credit unions held by nonresident aliens. These deposits, which are not subject to U.S. taxes, are at risk of being abruptly withdrawn and future deposits deterred, which could lead to a reallocation of deposits out of the U.S. banking system and, thus, reduce lending to businesses. Furthermore, complying with the proposed regulation places additional reporting requirements and expenses upon financial firms. Without any real benefit stemming from the collection of this information, imposition of this reporting requirement seems to be a solution in search of a problem.

This may seem like an arcane issue and international tax matters often are not terribly exciting, but a couple of minutes of watching this video will make you realize there are some very important principles at stake.






Only the IRS could manage to combine bad tax policy, bad regulatory policy, bad human rights policy, and bad sovereignty policy into one regulation.

Big Government

Obama campaign organizing against gun owners

By Chris Cox

If there is one thing America has learned over the course of Barack Obama’s presidency, it’s that where he falls short as a president, he excels as a politician. He is a master at using identity politics and class warfare to divide Americans and solidify his base of support. However, the Obama campaign’s latest attempt to spread fear and loathing among the masses falls flatter than his poll ratings.

Last week the president’s campaign launched AttackWatch.com, a website ostensibly aimed at countering anti-Obama “smears” with “facts.” In reality, the site is a thinly veiled attempt to spread misinformation and whip up anger against anyone who disagrees with Obama.

Visitors to the site are asked to submit a detailed report of any “attacks” on President Obama to his campaign. Obama supporters are also urged to give his campaign the private email addresses of anyone they know “who needs to know the facts” so the campaign can send those dissenters an email message.

This attempt by Obama to create an online enemies list must be another example of his incredible web savvy the media keeps telling us about — Obama’s 21st century rendition of President Nixon’s paranoia.

The site also includes Obama’s best effort to portray himself as a friend of gun owners, and declares at the top of its Second Amendment page, “President Obama believes in common sense gun control laws compatible with Second Amendment rights.”

As gun owners and freedom advocates know, whenever a serial anti-gunner like President Obama says he wants common sense gun control, you can be sure that gun-ban policies are around the corner. Former President Clinton used this same “common sense” rhetoric to help sell his gun ban in 1994.

Thank you for the offer, Mr. President, but the Second Amendment and our Bill of Rights already contain enough common sense and your editing isn’t needed here.

As for proof that Obama supports the Second Amendment, the site repeats his claims from the 2008 campaign, when he said: “There’s nothing I will do as president of the United States that will in any way encroach on the ability of sportsmen to continue that tradition.”

Apparently, our president still doesn’t understand that the primary function of the Second Amendment is to protect the fundamental and individual right of all law-abiding Americans to keep and bear arms in order to defend ourselves, our families, our property, our communities and our country. It is not to protect “sportsmen.”

It’s understandable that Obama would have to go back to his 2008 campaign to find anything that remotely resembles pro-gun rhetoric, because his more recent actions have put his antipathy for the Second Amendment on full display.

In addition to appointing two Supreme Court justices with clear records of contempt for our right to keep and bear arms, Obama has also stacked his administration with anti-gun zealots like Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Attorney General Eric Holder and far too many “czars” who are lifelong opponents of legal gun ownership.

You won’t find this on AttackWatch.com, but the Obama administration also launched an initiative to ban the importation of popular sporting and defense shotguns. You know … because he cares so much about sportsmen.

 The site also displays a photo of former U.S. Ambassador John Bolton, splashed in angry red to portray him as an enemy “attacker,” and claims he is spreading false rumors that Obama would use the coming U.N. Arms Trade Treaty to impose restrictions on law-abiding gun owners.

What Obama doesn’t tell you is that his administration changed the official U.S. position on the treaty from strong, unwavering opposition, to support for the treaty if passed by “consensus.” And in a 2010 speech to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, his under secretary for arms control told the audience: “We will work between now and the U.N. Conference in 2012 to negotiate a legally binding arms trade treaty, and we’ll need your help in achieving it. We have made that a fundamental policy commitment.”

NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action has been warning Americans about this U.N. gun control scheme for more than 15 years. We’ve monitored every treaty proposal to date, and there is no doubt that what is taking shape at the U.N. is an all-out attack on the constitutional freedom of American gun owners. An attack the Obama administration has made a “fundamental policy commitment.”

The reason President Obama is so anxious to create a smoke-and-mirrors pro-gun record is because he knows that gun owners are motivated voters with the power to shape an election. And in 2012, we’re going to make Obama stand on his actual record on gun rights — not let him hide behind a few sound bytes and half-truths on a web page.

If that lands us on the Obama campaign’s enemies list, then so be it. In fact, I hope they put us at the top.

Chris W. Cox is the Executive Director of the National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) and serves as the organization’s chief lobbyist.

Daily Caller

Black Pastor Sues Obama & Democratic Party for Racism

September 25, 2011
By Ann-Marie Murrell

I recently interviewed a man who is suing the Obama administration for racial discrimination–against white people.  Normally I wouldn’t describe anyone by their skin color, but it’s interesting to note in this instance that the man filing the lawsuit is Black.

Reverend Wayne Perryman began the lawsuit (case C11-1503)  because he was fed up with all the rhetoric coming from the left, blaming all of Obama’s failures on race.  Perryman and journalist Robert Parks began researching the Democrat Party and became enraged when they noticed the Democrat Party—via their website–was whitewashing their own history.

On the archived Democrat.org site—which has since been scrubbed– they gave a brief acknowledgment that their party was formed over 200 years ago.

  

Over two hundred years ago, our Party’s founders decided that wealth and social status were not an entitlement to rule.

 That was it—no mention of any of their mistakes—including the fact that also over 200 years ago, the Democrat Party blocked all efforts by Republicans to abolish slavery.

When challenged, they added the following paragraph to the history portion of their website:

Change is the inescapable driver of history in the United States. Our party’s founders believed then, just as we do now, that being a Democrat means meeting the challenges of changing times so that all Americans can prosper. That’s why the people of this county have always turned to Democrats when times got tough.

In addition to trying to re-write history regarding Democrats and slavery, they are also trying to hypnotize people into believing the Democrats were instrumental in Civil Rights—not mentioning anything about all the efforts they made to BLOCK all of the Republicans efforts toward Civil Rights:

Democrats are unwavering in our support of equal opportunity for all Americans. That’s why we’ve worked to pass every one of our nation’s Civil Rights laws, and every law that protects workers. Most recently, Democrats stood together to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act.

 On every civil rights issue, Democrats have led the fight. We support vigorous enforcement of existing laws, and remain committed to protecting fundamental civil rights in America.

 This is a blatant lie, and Reverend Wayne Perryman and Robert Parks have called them on it.

“Rev. Sharpton said we never got our ‘40 acres and a mule’, wrote Parks in his legal brief to the courts.

”Yes, we did, and they were taken away by a Democrat.”

From Parks’ legal brief:

On January 12, 1865, General Sherman and Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton went to meet with twenty Black community leaders in Savannah, Georgia to discuss freedom and reparations for former Black slaves.… By June 1865, over 40,000 former slaves were settled on 40-acre tracts of land. Over 400,000 acres were allocated. In September of 1865, Democrat President Andrew Johnson reversed Field Order No. 15, issued special pardons, and returned the land to former slave owners.’ The Republicans gave, yet a Democrat took it away.

Part of the lawsuit is to ensure the Democrat Party is portraying their history truthfully and factually.  Rev. Perryman writes:

Modern-day Democrats must stop preaching that they are the compassionate party of black people and confess that it was their predecessors who started many of the racist practices that we are now trying to eradicate. History clearly shows two things: (1) that the roots of racism grew deep in the hearts and souls of the Democrats and (2) without the past efforts of the Radical Republicans and the Abolitionists, the Civil Rights Legislation of the sixties would not have been possible. Republicans laid the foundation for civil rights by passing legislation and instituting programs that Democrats’ were adamantly opposed to, such as:

  

1.      The Thirteenth Amendment in 1865 to abolish slavery.

  

2.      The Civil Rights Act of 1866 to give Negroes citizenship and protect freed men from Black Codes and other repressive legislation.

  

3.      The First Reconstruction Act of 1867 to provide more efficient Government of the Rebel- or Democrat-controlled states.

  

4.      The Fourteenth Amendment in 1868 to make all persons born in the United States citizens. Part of this Amendment specifically states “No State shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; or deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

  

5.      The Fifteenth Amendment of 1870 to give the right to vote to every citizen.

  

6.      The Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 to stop Klan terrorists to terrorized black voters, Republicans, white teachers who taught blacks, and Abolitionists.

 7.      The Civil Rights Act of 1875 to protect all citizens in their civil and legal rights and to prohibit racial discrimination in places of public accommodation.

  

8.      Freedmen’s Bureau was a social program established by Republicans to feed, protect, and educate the former slaves.

  

9.      The 1957 Civil Rights Act and the 1960 Civil Rights Act were signed into law by President Eisenhower who also established the U.S. Civil Rights Commission in 1958, a commission that was rejected by Truman during his administration.

 10. The 1964 Civil Rights Act which key Republicans pushed law through while key Southern Democrats like Al Gore Sr. debated against its passage. More Republicans (in percentages) voted for this law than Democrats.”

Parks says, “They are ashamed of their past and do not want Blacks to look under the hood of their history.”
Case in point, President Woodrow Wilson is a hero to the Democratic Party but Parks says there is much about Wilson’s racist-driven presidency that he “didn’t learn in college.”

“Wilson allowed various officials to segregate the toilets, cafeterias, and work areas of their departments. One justification involved health:  White government workers had to be protected from contagious diseases, especially venereal diseases, that racists imagined were being spread by blacks. In extreme cases, federal officials built separate structures to house black workers. Most black diplomats were replaced by whites; numerous black federal officials in the South were removed from their posts; the local Washington police force and fire department stopped hiring blacks. Wilson’s own view, as he expressed it to intimates, was that federal segregation was an act of kindness.”

 “Suppose a Republican president had done all that in the past. Democrats would raise hell,” said Parks, adding, “You can Google ‘Woodrow Wilson Segregationist.’  Democrats did not count on the internet to give people access to truth.  Many Democrats don’t want to deal with me when I ask them about Wilson. Why?”

The Amicus Curiae ends with this:  “Since the DNC sees fit to distort and cover-up their true racist history to cause black Americans to feel good towards them, I say to the Democrat Party like Rev. Jesse Jackson said to George W. Bush: ‘Come clean!’  No matter what, the Democratic Party owns its racist history and must admit to black Americans the truth.”

The Patriot Update

Obama Does 'Rich Man, Poor Man'

September 28, 2011
By Jeffrey Folks

On September 25, addressing a DNC event in San Jose, California, the president recited a litany of liberal values dear to his heart: everything from increased spending on education to further subsidies for clean energy.  But the main thrust of his remarks, his "particular vision of what America should be," centered on what he called "the values of shared prosperity."  It is a "big, generous, optimistic" America that Obama says he represents.  Who can argue with that?

That vision of America, the ideal of opportunity and hope, sounds inspiring until one considers what really Obama has in mind.  Shared prosperity, as it turns out, does not mean greater prosperity for all.  It means less for those who have worked hard, applied their talents, and saved, and more government benefits for those who have failed to apply themselves and have spent all that they have earned.  It means that wealth will be taken by way of higher taxes from those who have sacrificed the most and labored the hardest, and redistributed to those who have squandered one opportunity after another over the course of a lifetime. 

Sharing the wealth, and attacking those who refuse to share, is so much a part of Obama's political DNA that he could not resist making the case for higher taxes, even in the company of some of Silicon Valley's wealthiest citizens.  Obama was speaking at the private residence of Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, with LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and other wealthy executives and entrepreneurs in attendance.  The Silicon Valley crowd seemed not at all averse to sharing the wealth, though one suspects that many of them were more interested in the rewards of crony capitalism.

What Obama has in store for the rich of Mountain View, however, is not more opportunity for wealth-creation.  It is much higher taxes for those who are not paying their "fair share," as he sees it.  It's hard to say what a "fair share" would amount to, in his estimation, since the top 1% of earners already pay 38% of federal taxes, according to the National Taxpayers Union.  Perhaps the top earners should be paying 50% or 70% of federal taxes.  But to accomplish that would bankrupt even the über-rich of Silicon Valley.

There are 412 billionaires in America, entirely too many for the president's taste.  Fortunately, Obama and his billionaire buddy Warren Buffett can breathe easy -- their numbers are declining fast.  More billionaires now live in Moscow than in New York.  The world's richest man is not an American; it is Carlos Slim Helu of Mexico.  Two hundred and fifty-eight of these villains reside in Asia, double the number of five years ago.  

With the help of new taxes to pay for Obama's reelection, we might just be able to create more billionaires in India than in the U.S.

But it's not just billionaires who need to pay more.  It's millionaires as well.

As of 2011, 27% of the world's millionaires lived in the U.S.  That sounds good until you notice that 15% reside in Japan, a country with only 38% of our population.  The expansion of wealth in China is even more remarkable.  China, which now boasts 1,300,000 millionaires, recently overtook Japan in total GDP and is projected to overtake the U.S. by 2025.

And, yes, China does boast about the number of millionaires it has created -- something America has not done since Obama entered office.  What Obama has done is berate the rich, not boast of their accomplishments.  And he has done this for crass political gain.

Unfortunately, the uncertainty that Obama has created regarding wealth-creation is the primary factor behind our current economic malaise.  His politics of class warfare have frightened rich individuals and corporations into being extremely cautious with their investments, and lack of new investment has resulted in economic stagnation.  As long as the president continues to attack the rich, there will be no new jobs created, regardless of how many speeches he makes or how much he proposes spending on temporary jobs.

This is not the time for the president of the United States to be attacking the rich, not when our economic standing is in doubt.  What's at stake is not just the fate of billionaires and millionaires, but also the fate of what Obama so patronizingly likes to call "ordinary folks."  Obama wants to turn these middle-class Americans against the rich in the 2012 election, but what he doesn't tell them is that it's those same rich investors who helped create their jobs.

It takes a significant capital investment to create a thriving business -- the kind of business that creates jobs for those with no capital of their own.  According to businessmart.com, the minimum investment to acquire a McDonald's franchise is $250,000 of non-borrowed money.  By definition, then, it would seem that all McDonald's franchisees are wealthy individuals or have access to the accumulated wealth of others (family, friends, or whatever).  But these evil rich types, as Obama would have it, create dozens of jobs at each franchise location.  The same is true of every small business owner in America.

But Obama wants government to seize the profits that create permanent jobs and use them for temporary government jobs and unemployment benefits.  In his June 29 news conference, President Obama insisted that businesses "could afford to pay more" in taxes.  "They want to be able to do whatever they think is going to maximize their profits," he complained.  This is probably the hundredth time Obama has stated that profits are unimportant, and it shows how little he knows about business.  For most businesses, profit margins are extremely thin, and any increase in marginal costs threatens their survival.

Just to spell it out for our spender-in-chief, failure to "maximize profits" can and does lead to bankruptcy.  It is that small margin of profit that determines whether a business will expand and hire new workers or fail and lay off existing employees.  It is the wealth produced by well-run businesses that creates jobs.  Every dollar that government seizes from businesses or business owners, or from investors, is a dollar that is not available for expansion.  Last year, for the top 10% of earners, that was $2.8 trillion in total state, local, and federal taxes collected.  How many start-ups could be funded with even a small fraction of that tax revenue?  

Ideas have consequences, and Obama's campaign of class warfare has already produced damaging results.  

One consequence is that business owners are not willing to risk their capital in an environment in which the president is proposing ever-higher taxes and more regulation.  The White House likes to point out that corporations have record amounts of cash on their books -- as much as $2 trillion according to the president, who can't seem to understand why these funds haven't been put to work to create jobs.  The reason, as business leaders have been insisting for years now, is Obama himself. 

Jeffrey Folks is author of many books and articles on American culture, with the most recent being Heartland of the Imagination (2011).

American Thinker

Germany To Obama: Butt Out, Your Comments Are ‘Arrogant’, ‘Absurd’, And ‘A Cheap Search For A Scapegoat’

Posted by Niccolo Machiavelli Sep 28th 2011 at 6:21 am in Economy, Europe, Featured Story

Berlin,  which swooned over Barack Obama in 2008,  is getting tired of the President’s lectures.  On Monday, at a campaign fundraiser in California,  Obama took aim at Europe declaring that their inaction over the debt crisis was “scaring the world.” The Europeans, he said, “have not fully healed from the crisis back in 2007 and never fully dealt with all the challenges that their banking system faced. It’s now being compounded by what’s happening in Greece.” He continued: “They’re going through a financial crisis that is scaring the world, and they’re trying to take responsible actions, but those actions haven’t been quite as quick as they need to be.”

Obama to Europe:  get your house in order!

Err, you are lecturing us about debt? is the cry heard in Germany.  The left-of-center Der Spiegel reports that Obama’s harsh lecture about Europe’s debt crisis is being denounced as “arrogant” and “absurd” in by the left, right, and center Germany.  Here’s a summary of media comments about Obama’s remarks from today, Wednesday, September 28.  His approval numbers may even be lower in Germany than here in the United States.

The mass-circulation Bild writes:
“Obama’s lecture on the euro crisis … is overbearing, arrogant and absurd. … In a nutshell, he is claiming that Europe is to blame for the current financial crisis, which is ’scaring the world.’ Excuse me?”

“The American president seems to have forgotten a few details. The most important trigger of the financial and economic crisis was US banks and their insane real-estate dealings. The US is still piling up debt … The American congress is crippled by a battle between the right and the left. The banks are gambling just as recklessly as they did before the crisis. The president’s scolding is a pathetic attempt to distract attention from his own failures. How embarrassing.”

The center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung writes:
“One needs to remember the context within which Obama’s scolding of the Europeans took place. It was an event where the president was raising money for the Democrats and where he wanted to explain to voters why the US economy is much worse off than he and his economic experts had believed until recently. Hence his criticism of the EU was simple electioneering.”

“The problem, however, is that the US president is absolutely right. For far too long, the Europeans — including the Germans — treated the financial crisis as a purely American problem. They have still found no solution for their own debt crisis. Now Europe’s problems are having a negative impact on growth and jobs around the world, including in the US. It would not be an exaggeration to say that Europe is threatening Obama’s already precarious chances of reelection in 2012. That is something that surely does not leave Obama cold. In that respect, it doesn’t help much to point out that, once the Europeans have got their house in order, the financial markets will return their attention to America’s debt crisis and its ailing political system. Financially, Europe is currently the most dangerous place in the world.”

The center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes:
“Dark clouds have gathered over the American president. The gloomy state of the economy is putting a dampener on Obama’s future prospects. The optimism of the past is gone, replaced by a cheap search for a scapegoat.”

“Obama thinks he has found one. He blames the Europeans for reacting too late to the debt crisis. We Europeans are apparently taking on too little new debt to get out of the crisis. But we are already feeling the wonderful effects of borrowing too much money.”

The financial daily Handelsblatt writes:
“That’s not how friends talk to each other. That applies particularly to friends who have themselves failed to get a handle on their own, self-made crisis. Barack Obama governs a country where, despite billions in state aid, the economy is stagnating, companies refuse to invest despite calls for patriotism, and which gets embroiled in one political trench war after another … Now this country is dispensing advice, suggestions and finger-pointing.”

Big Peace

Don’t Blame ObamaCare: ‘NBC Nightly News’ Freaks Out Over Rise In Health Costs

Posted by John Nolte Sep 28th 2011 at 3:20 pm in Healthcare, NBC, News, media bias 

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

In a single year, health care premium costs have jumped 9% and nowhere in this report does the NBC Nightly News bother to look at the reasons why. All they appear to be doing is trying to scare people … right into the arms of the federal government and ObamaCare.

Furthermore, at no time does NBC even float the idea that maybe, just maybe, the very idea of ObamaCare – the inevitable burdens, costs and mandates just a year or so away  – might have something to do with this jump in the cost of premiums.

My favorite part of the report, however, is when they announce that 31% of those covered by health insurance pay the first thousand dollars of their health care costs out of their own pocket.

Well, gasp and egads.

As far as I’m concerned, out-of-pocket costs are mostly a good thing. And I say that as someone who regularly pays upwards of  $10,000 a year in co-pays and deductibles. But as someone who puts the well-being of his country over his own selfish interests, I realize that one component in bringing down the artificially-inflated cost of  health care is to have the customers incentivized to shop around a little bit — create something along the lines of a free market atmosphere. As things stand now, there’s no benefit to doing that because insurance pays for everything. But if, for instance, you have to pay for your own MRI, you might actually make a few phone calls.


Why is it that every other technology in America gets cheaper by the year, but not health care?  Computers, televisions, and DVD players are all so ridiculously cheap today that welfare recipients own them. Moreover, some health care actually is getting cheaper. Lasik eye surgery is much more affordable than it was a decade ago. So is plastic surgery. The reason for this is that most insurance companies don’t cover these procedures which forces providers (who face the same red tape and malpractice costs) to compete for customers.

That’s the beauty of the market at work. An MRI, however, remains outrageously expensive. Why? Because health insurance removes the market incentive. There’s also the odious trial lawyer lobby blocking legal reform and the crushing burden of  government red tape EVERYWHERE.

But does NBC even bother to look at WHY there’s this rise in premium costs? No. Obviously, they’re afraid of what they might discover – and worse, what they might have to pass on to their viewers. So instead, at the very end of their report, they pretend that ObamaCare has nothing to do with any of this because it hasn’t really kicked in yet. The dishonest message being: Don’t blame Our Precious One and ObamaCare might just make it all better! 

Worse still, the entire tone and subtext of this report is modulated to make it sound as though paying for your own health care is some kind injustice. It’s also fear-mongering and borderline hysterical.

Remember, Leftists like NBC News never let a crisis go to waste.

Big Journalism