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Wednesday, March 17, 2010
The Obama-Baier interview on Fox
If you didn't see it (I didn't), you can read the transcript here. My impression is that Obama came out of this in a very weak position. Kudos to Bret Baier for an excellent interview. Reading this confirms my belief that healthcare reform is a fiasco that is now of the highest order.
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16 comments:
Scott,
You are so right on health care...it is a mess on the highest order.
Simply health care and our current deficit consumes about 30% of our GDP. Add in government consumption on all levels, and about 2/3 of our GDP is government and health care consumption versus less than 20% not too many decades ago.
In order to maintain this mess, we borrowed an insane amount of money in the past ten years....$25 trillion to be exact, and much of it now rests in our retirement accounts in the form of municipal debt, corporate debt, mortgage debt, and other loans. And much of it is under pressure as now New York is holding back tax refunds...it is not just California anymore.
It seems the current focus on health care is so misguided. By running a $2 trillion dollar deficit, how can we increase health care spend when we don't even have the money to pay for the existing system...?
Regarding the interview, Baier mentioned FOX News had asked viewers to e-mail in possible questions for the Obama-Bair interview and that 18,000 e-mails had been received.
Basically it’s a statement by Baier showing that viewers are very, very interested regarding this particular subject matter. People interested to the point of 18,000 e-mail questions.
The immediate response from Obama? I get 40,000 e-mails per day.
One-upmanship was the Obama’s response.! That is, you have 18,000 e-mails yet I have 40,000 e-mails. Obama missed the point of “interested viewers” and immediately went to the narcissistic point of one-upmanship.
In one breath O says "I don't spend a lot of time worrying about what the procedural rules are in the House or the Senate", which as the president of the USA he should be worrying about the constitutional rules. I do not believe this statement. Then he follows it up with "most people will keep their healthcare". If you don't believe the first, you cannot believe the second.
tom: Good point. Obama's inattention to details is amazing. If you pay attention to details you realize the healthcare bill is a monstrosity that will create more problems than it will solve.
Scott: right on the money. Regarding ironic details (from GB last night), the government is railing against too-big-to-fail financial companies and how bad they are, YET they treat themselves as this monsterous too-big-to-fail entity that can do all things for all people.
It was good to see our thug President squirm in the hot seat. I bet he's still seething with anger over Baier's insolence.
Imagine a liberal energy program, that forced every consumer in America to put an additive in their gas tanks, every time they purchased gasoline. In fact, they would have no choice, the additive would be in the gasoline, at 10 percent of volume, and possibly going to 15 percent.
Imagine this additive lowered gas mileage.
Imagine the use of this additive was mandated.
Imagine the use of the additive was heavily subsidized--in addition to being forced to use the additive, you then had to pay taxes to support it, as the free market did not validate this additive.
Imagine oil companies were forced to blend this additive into gasoline, even though it could not be delivered by pipe, being corrosive--it had to be trucked to refineries, at great expense.
Imagine this additive was billed as a "biofuel."
Imagine everytime you went to the pump, you had no choice, and had to use this additive, every day, all year. It was in your face every time you filled up your tank.
Imagine after all of that, it was not clear that this additive was a net energy gain or loss, though the mandated use of it was a federal "energy program."
No doubt, such a liberal energy program would be reviled, daily, by the Becks, Limbaughs, and intelligent right-wing commentators also. The drum beat to kill such a wasteful, nock-kneed program would be deafening.
Of course, what I have described is our national ethanol program, the favorite son of the Red State Socialist Empire.
No right-winger ever utters a peep against ethanol-socialism, and it is never lampooned in right-wing blogs.
I am happy to see Obamacare die. I would be even happier if the right-wing also took on the Red State Socialist Empire. But it never will.
Benj...
About 2/3 our economy is simply government consumption and heatlh care consumption. We have gotten here with the help of both parties and regardless whether we like it or not.
Without health care and government consumption, America really does not have much of an economy....and that is simply the current structure of our economy regardless of which side of the political spectrum you view the world.
Just look around you. Both residential and commercial construction have essentially come to a grinding halt. There was an article today in the NY Times showing how many Big Hi Tech companies are moving overseas. We are all familiar with the rust belt.
If America cuts back on government and health care consumption......we basically will have a very tiny economy left......
This is not a political commentary, simply the facts of having a massive government and massive health care system.....all piled up on $55 trillion of public and private debt.
Alstry-
I agree...but I think the solution is a paring back of federal programs, starting with ethanol, farm subs, and the Department of Defense, and hopefully decreasing, not increasing health care involvement.
Imagine the chutzpah of Benji.
"No right-winger ever utters a peep against ethanol-socialism.."
The ignorance here is just appalling. Obviously, you never listen to Libaugh or read any right-wing journals. Or bothered to look at the legislative makeup of farm states.
Moreover, a right-winger named John McCain spent his entire career voting against and voicing opposition to the ethanol boondoggle (though he weaseled a little in '08. But as The Messiah once said, "just words.")
But instead YOU voted for the socialist thug from Chicago who wholeheartedly supports the bio-fuel boondoggle and even flew around on ADM private jets during the campaign. Possibly the biggest Big Ag whore in the Senate.
Same guy about to destroy our health care system and bankrupting the country at an unprecedented rate.
Paul-
McCain was a right-winger?
How so? Right of who?
Meanwhile, Sarah Palin bragged about her unionist husband, and the fact that every Alaskan got a free check from oil companiues for their common ownership stake in oil fields. My head hurt listening to that. I couldn't tell if I was at a Wobblie meeting or New Deal revival house. Oh, and she borrowed big money and raised property taxes on her hometown residents, for that necessity--a hockey rink. Paid for by public dollars. A publicly owned hockey rink. Oh, that's small government.
And, Alaska is the very picture of a Red Socialist State, getting back nearly $2 in federal dole for every one dollar they send to DC. They are enfeebled, molly-coddled economic poltroons.
Like I said, We have the Tax and Spend Democrats, or the Borrow and Spend Republicans.
Drink your poison.
"McCain was a right-winger?
How so? Right of who? "
His lifetime ACU rating is 83%. He doesn't take earmarks, and voted against Bush's Medicare Part D expansion. That definitely puts him at least to the right of the Big Ag hag you voted for.
Obsess all you like about Palin the #2 candidate. Did your head hurt when #1 candidate Obama bragged about his SEIU devotion? Or when he promised to bankrupt the coal industry?
"Drink your poison."
Not even close. The guy you voted for runs up monthly deficits about equal to what the GOP ran up annually during their years in power.
You oughta sit the next few election cycles out. You've done enough damage.
The Premier of Newfoundland/Labrador who had the choice of getting heart surgery anywhere in Canada left that country and flew to Florida to have minimally invasve geart surgery in the US rather than roll the dice on the surgery available "for free" in his home country. In my view this ends the debate on publicly funded health care.
Steve F., this (the Premier's surgery) does not look like an easy issue to exploit for either side of the healthcare debate. I did some searching on both sides of the political divide and on a right-leaning blog found this interesting comment which bears on the issue:
"In related news, a South Dakota gas station attendant died this morning as a result of an easily treated but pre-existing condition."
For me, the key takeaway was that the Premier was quoted as saying in effect "It's my body, and it's my decision." The Dems' healthcare plan would take that away from us. It's wrong, and it's stupid.
Scott, believe me I am with you on that. I can't believe that they made this the worst of all possible bills. I realize it is highly unlikely we would agree on what would be a good bill, but the mandatatory provision is bad news. It is bad news here in MA and it will be bad news nationally, imo.
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