March 28, 2010
By Herman Cain
Now that the shock of passing the Health Care Deform bill against the will of the American people has settled in a bit, the people’s sentiment has gone from mad to fighting mad. President Obama and the Democrats are probably not aware of that fact, because they simply don’t care!
As former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said in a statement released last Friday, President Obama and the Democrats are looking back and saying, “We don’t care how mad you are, we got what we wanted.”
They wanted Obama-Reid-Pelosi care and they got it using consistent talking points that did not always match with reality, gimmicky accounting, factual distortions and bribes to Congressional Democrats to secure their votes. They wanted the American people to know that their political agenda will not be stopped by Republicans, public opinion, e-mails and phone calls, rallies or even a huge potential voter backlash in November 2010.
They wanted the American people to know that despite what they say and promise about transparency and reaching across the political aisles, they believe they know best what is good for us and the future of our country. It is arrogance and political elitism on steroids.
The president and his administration, along with congressional Democrats, believe the anger and opposition will subside by Election Day in November. They also believe it is just about health care, and the stupid public just does not understand their intentions. That’s their problem. We the stupid do understand their intentions and we are not going to be a sit-down-and-shut-up citizenry.
We the stupid are angry about passage of Health Care Deform, proposed Cap & Trade & Tax and Kill legislation, the pending Employee No Choice Act, tsunami spending and an abundance of sneak-a-taxes they hope we will not notice.
Their intentions are to turn this country into the United States of Europe, but the American people are saying not so fast! They are raising their voices and turning up the heat.
The premier Conservative Political Action Conference, held last month in Washington, D.C., attracted a record number of nearly 10,000 people who paid their own expenses to be there to learn and hear from the most respected conservative leaders in the country.
Last weekend, the Tea Party Express launched its 44-stop tour across country, starting in Senator Harry Reid’s hometown and attracting a record number of attendees in the middle of nowhere called Searchlight, Nevada. It will end in Washington, D.C. on tax day, April 15. Rallies will be held at each stop and the crowd sizes are already exceeding expectations.
The FairTax Nation launched a virtual on-line tax revolt less than a month ago (www.onlinetaxrevolt.com) and has attracted nearly 250,000 registered participants. It will also culminate with a rally in Washington on April 15.
A Defending the American Dream conference in Wisconsin two weeks ago attracted a record number of people who paid $45 per person to attend, while a first-time Defending the American Dream conference in Georgia last weekend attracted twice as many paid attendees as anticipated.
Hundreds of rallies and Tea Party events are being planned across the country between now and November, and if members of Congress have the courage to hold town hall meetings during their Easter recess, they will be packed to capacity as they were during their August recess of 2009.
These examples may not seem like a tsunami of anger and outrage, but audience reactions and callers to my nightly radio show suggest that it is real and that people are ready to fight to take back their government.
We the stupid are fighting mad, and we are going to fight!
March 28, 2010
March 21, 2010
Facts don’t matter to Obama and the Democrats
March 21, 2010
By Herman Cain
In December 2008, before President Obama was even sworn in, he said “deficits don’t matter.” Although it’s not true as economist Brian Wesbury explained in an article dated December 8, 2008, President Obama and the Democrat-led Congress have shown that that’s how they roll by increasing the national debt to nearly $4 trillion in Obama’s first year.
The national debt increased by that same amount under President Bush in eight years. That’s just an annoying fact to this administration and this Congress so they just choose to ignore it.
In the president’s last ditch effort to pass Health Care Deform legislation, he and the Democrats have also demonstrated that they ignore facts just as well as they ignore deficits. While the administration and the Democrats have bought enough votes to pass this historic legislative disaster, they continued to stick to their talking points about how great the legislation will be for everyone, while persistently ignoring compelling facts that suggest otherwise.
One of the more egregious factual deceptions using accounting gimmicks, such as the “Doc fix” in Medicare, is the claim by the president and the Democrats that this plan would reduce the deficit by more than $1 trillion over 20 years. Never mind that they had said earlier “over 10 years”. But if you make assumptions far enough into the future it is almost impossible to prove otherwise.
Fact: No government social program has ever hit a budget in the history of this country, and we are supposed to believe that the biggest new bureaucracy in history will actually save money. I don’t think so.
Secondly, according to Americans for Tax Reform, the ObamaCare plan has over $600 billion in new taxes that would hit all taxpayers either directly or indirectly. The bill is a politician’s sneak-a-taxes dream.
Fact: When you impose billions of fees and taxes on the insurance and health care industries, those businesses will pass those taxes on to the consumer. They have to make a profit to survive. But then maybe, the administration and Congress do not want some industries and businesses to survive. I’m just saying!
Third, if people do not want to believe that we would end up like Canada, England and Germany with out-of-control health care costs, and rationed lower-quality health care, then just look at the Massachusetts plan. Fact: Their state treasurer just announced that their well-intended plan is about to bankrupt the state. He also predicts that the same thing will happen to the entire country if ObamaCare passes.
Fourth, mandating health insurance on individuals and businesses is not the land of the free. Singling out certain industries and imposing new taxes to help pay for ObamaCare is not a free market system. Government intrusion will eventually destroy the free-market system, because it will eventually cause business risk-takers to stop taking risks to maintain and create jobs.
Fact: People do not want to work just to pay taxes to Uncle Sam, and to be told how much profit they can make.
The majority of the people in this country still believe in capitalism, not socialism. They believe in limited government, not tsunami government spending, which is destroying our currency and economy. People who take risks to start and run businesses do not want to be constrained by too much government regulation. And most of us are not looking for a bailout if we fail.
We just want the government to get out of our way, win or lose. That’s the spirit of the American people that founded this country.
The president and the Democrats in Congress may not think deficits matter, nor that facts matter, nor that the Constitution matters, but the people of this country believe strongly that they do.
That’s a fact and the people will not be ignored.
By Herman Cain
In December 2008, before President Obama was even sworn in, he said “deficits don’t matter.” Although it’s not true as economist Brian Wesbury explained in an article dated December 8, 2008, President Obama and the Democrat-led Congress have shown that that’s how they roll by increasing the national debt to nearly $4 trillion in Obama’s first year.
The national debt increased by that same amount under President Bush in eight years. That’s just an annoying fact to this administration and this Congress so they just choose to ignore it.
In the president’s last ditch effort to pass Health Care Deform legislation, he and the Democrats have also demonstrated that they ignore facts just as well as they ignore deficits. While the administration and the Democrats have bought enough votes to pass this historic legislative disaster, they continued to stick to their talking points about how great the legislation will be for everyone, while persistently ignoring compelling facts that suggest otherwise.
One of the more egregious factual deceptions using accounting gimmicks, such as the “Doc fix” in Medicare, is the claim by the president and the Democrats that this plan would reduce the deficit by more than $1 trillion over 20 years. Never mind that they had said earlier “over 10 years”. But if you make assumptions far enough into the future it is almost impossible to prove otherwise.
Fact: No government social program has ever hit a budget in the history of this country, and we are supposed to believe that the biggest new bureaucracy in history will actually save money. I don’t think so.
Secondly, according to Americans for Tax Reform, the ObamaCare plan has over $600 billion in new taxes that would hit all taxpayers either directly or indirectly. The bill is a politician’s sneak-a-taxes dream.
Fact: When you impose billions of fees and taxes on the insurance and health care industries, those businesses will pass those taxes on to the consumer. They have to make a profit to survive. But then maybe, the administration and Congress do not want some industries and businesses to survive. I’m just saying!
Third, if people do not want to believe that we would end up like Canada, England and Germany with out-of-control health care costs, and rationed lower-quality health care, then just look at the Massachusetts plan. Fact: Their state treasurer just announced that their well-intended plan is about to bankrupt the state. He also predicts that the same thing will happen to the entire country if ObamaCare passes.
Fourth, mandating health insurance on individuals and businesses is not the land of the free. Singling out certain industries and imposing new taxes to help pay for ObamaCare is not a free market system. Government intrusion will eventually destroy the free-market system, because it will eventually cause business risk-takers to stop taking risks to maintain and create jobs.
Fact: People do not want to work just to pay taxes to Uncle Sam, and to be told how much profit they can make.
The majority of the people in this country still believe in capitalism, not socialism. They believe in limited government, not tsunami government spending, which is destroying our currency and economy. People who take risks to start and run businesses do not want to be constrained by too much government regulation. And most of us are not looking for a bailout if we fail.
We just want the government to get out of our way, win or lose. That’s the spirit of the American people that founded this country.
The president and the Democrats in Congress may not think deficits matter, nor that facts matter, nor that the Constitution matters, but the people of this country believe strongly that they do.
That’s a fact and the people will not be ignored.
March 14, 2010
If Obama makes history, America will remember
March 14, 2010
By Herman Cain
America is on a dangerous cliff called Divided.
President Obama is trying to push through a Health Care Deform plan the majority of Americans do not want. Congress is fiercely divided between Democrats and Republicans. Democrats are divided in Congress over which version of Medicare’s ugly twin sister to pass. And Republicans are divided over how to deliver their message for the way forward.
The president’s last ditch effort to resurrect and pass any version of health care deform is a direct slap in the face of the American people, and his Democrats in Congress are slapping us with the other hand. The president continues the false rhetoric that we must pass health care deform because it is going to reduce costs, cover more people and increase the quality of care. House Speaker Pelosi says “we must pass the bill first, so that you can find out what’s in it.” What?
And let’s not forget Obama’s other reason for wanting to pass health care legislation: “It would be historic.” Yes, Mr. President, it would be a historic disaster. Just look at all of the other countries that have gone down this same road to health care disaster before and are now unable to reverse their course.
But the fierce division between the Democrats and the Republicans on health care legislation is not all bad, because their philosophical approaches to addressing our health care cost issues are polar opposites. As a result, the Republicans have not compromised, because in this case you can’t just “split the baby” in the interest of political compromise.
The Republicans’ resistance, plus the courage of enough moderate Democrats to not cave in to the pressure (bribery) of the president and the Democrat leadership has, so far, saved us from a power grab unmatched in history.
This fierce divisiveness in Washington does not help our economy, nor does it help people to find jobs or make us feel safer from terrorist attacks. In fact, the divisiveness enhances the uncertainty that’s stalling our economy, keeping businesses in a state of stop, and makes us wonder just how safe are we.
We are in desperate need of leadership. It starts with working on the right problems, and developing the right solutions to address those problems. Right now, we have neither.
We have a president who is determined to make history for the wrong reasons with the wrong ideas, and Democrats in Congress who are willing to follow him over that cliff with gimmicky accounting, and parliamentary trickery to pass sweeping liberal legislation at any cost. Despite the massive outcry from the voters at rallies and town-hall meetings, and through phone calls and e-mails to members of Congress, the president and Democratic leaders have shown absolutely no sign of listening to the people.
They are listening to themselves, and their most liberal constituencies.
I was one of the featured speakers at a very successful “Defending the American Dream Summit” in Wisconsin last Saturday, where over 2,000 attendees came to hear and learn what they can do to defend against the liberties this president and Congress are trying to take away from us. I heard the same sentiment that I hear almost every night from callers to my radio show.
Namely, the leadership in Washington is not listening, and we can’t vote some of them out until November 2010 in order to re-establish some resemblance of a balance of power. In the meantime, we will continue to make our voices heard louder and louder, and stronger and stronger.
Some of us have not forgotten the famous words, “United we stand and divided we fall.” We are not going to fall. We will remember in November.
By Herman Cain
America is on a dangerous cliff called Divided.
President Obama is trying to push through a Health Care Deform plan the majority of Americans do not want. Congress is fiercely divided between Democrats and Republicans. Democrats are divided in Congress over which version of Medicare’s ugly twin sister to pass. And Republicans are divided over how to deliver their message for the way forward.
The president’s last ditch effort to resurrect and pass any version of health care deform is a direct slap in the face of the American people, and his Democrats in Congress are slapping us with the other hand. The president continues the false rhetoric that we must pass health care deform because it is going to reduce costs, cover more people and increase the quality of care. House Speaker Pelosi says “we must pass the bill first, so that you can find out what’s in it.” What?
And let’s not forget Obama’s other reason for wanting to pass health care legislation: “It would be historic.” Yes, Mr. President, it would be a historic disaster. Just look at all of the other countries that have gone down this same road to health care disaster before and are now unable to reverse their course.
But the fierce division between the Democrats and the Republicans on health care legislation is not all bad, because their philosophical approaches to addressing our health care cost issues are polar opposites. As a result, the Republicans have not compromised, because in this case you can’t just “split the baby” in the interest of political compromise.
The Republicans’ resistance, plus the courage of enough moderate Democrats to not cave in to the pressure (bribery) of the president and the Democrat leadership has, so far, saved us from a power grab unmatched in history.
This fierce divisiveness in Washington does not help our economy, nor does it help people to find jobs or make us feel safer from terrorist attacks. In fact, the divisiveness enhances the uncertainty that’s stalling our economy, keeping businesses in a state of stop, and makes us wonder just how safe are we.
We are in desperate need of leadership. It starts with working on the right problems, and developing the right solutions to address those problems. Right now, we have neither.
We have a president who is determined to make history for the wrong reasons with the wrong ideas, and Democrats in Congress who are willing to follow him over that cliff with gimmicky accounting, and parliamentary trickery to pass sweeping liberal legislation at any cost. Despite the massive outcry from the voters at rallies and town-hall meetings, and through phone calls and e-mails to members of Congress, the president and Democratic leaders have shown absolutely no sign of listening to the people.
They are listening to themselves, and their most liberal constituencies.
I was one of the featured speakers at a very successful “Defending the American Dream Summit” in Wisconsin last Saturday, where over 2,000 attendees came to hear and learn what they can do to defend against the liberties this president and Congress are trying to take away from us. I heard the same sentiment that I hear almost every night from callers to my radio show.
Namely, the leadership in Washington is not listening, and we can’t vote some of them out until November 2010 in order to re-establish some resemblance of a balance of power. In the meantime, we will continue to make our voices heard louder and louder, and stronger and stronger.
Some of us have not forgotten the famous words, “United we stand and divided we fall.” We are not going to fall. We will remember in November.
March 7, 2010
The Democrats delusional ‘jobs’ bill
March 7, 2010
By Herman Cain
It started with the prediction by the administration that passing the $787 billion stimulus bill would keep the unemployment rate under 8 percent. It exceeded 8 percent in 2009 and has not gone below 9.0 percent since.
The administration then wanted us to swallow the concept of “saved jobs” when it became apparent that the stimulus bill was not working. Most of us did not swallow the imaginary concept.
In the president’s State of the Union, address he declared job creation to be a top priority. So now the Democrat-controlled House has passed a “jobs bill” that might generate 250,000 jobs according to economist Mark Zandi of Moody’s Economy.com. He also points out that the economy has shed 8.4 million jobs since the recession began in December 2007. That’s an average of 310,000 jobs per month.
Oops! All of this legislative hot air to maybe offset less than one month worth of job losses since the recession began.
I will caution you that the date when the recession started is not unanimous among analysts, but we will use the December 2007 date for purposes of this discussion to illustrate two additional simple facts:
The $35 billion House bill is 4 percent the size of the $787 billion stimulus bill
A decrease of 250,000 in the number of unemployed workers would decrease the unemployment rate from 9.7 percent to 9.5 percent. That would assume that employers did not cut any more jobs between now and year end. The administration will argue that not all of the stimulus money has been spent yet. Good! Then stop spending! The $787 billion stimulus bill is not working, so why should we expect the $35 billion House bill to work. We should not, because if you do not invest $787 billion dollars the right way to create jobs, throwing another $35 billion at the problem almost the same way is not going to work either.
To add insult to this delusional jobs-creation legislation, the Senate is working on a $15 billion jobs bill that would have to be reconciled with the House version. It would be a debate over which thimble of Washington water they are going to pour into the Potomac River while looking for a ripple.
Unemployment is very real to the 14.9 million people who would like a job, but can’t find one. Businesses are in real danger of having to let even more workers go because of no real signs that the administration and Congress are going to do anything substantive to stimulate jobs and economic growth. Worse yet – many businesses are in real danger of having to shut down completely.
Exempting businesses from paying the 6.2 percent Social Security payroll tax through the end of the year for new workers, and offering an additional $1,000 tax credit if they stay on the job for a full year, are not real tempting to businesses to start hiring again. Nor is it real tempting to businesses to continue the write-off of equipment purchases that they are already allowed to take.
Now here’s some real jobs stimulus substance!
Exempt businesses from paying both the employer and employee portion of the Social Security payroll tax for one year. Additionally, make the tax credit a tax cut up front for hiring an unemployed person, and make the current tax rates permanent before they expire at the end of the year.
Now add to that list the permanent suspension of repatriated profits and you create not only millions of new jobs, but some certainty in this economy that would cause businesses to invest again, and the recession would soon be in our rear view mirror.
That would be a real jobs bill to help real people, who are having real economic difficulties. Imagine that!
By Herman Cain
It started with the prediction by the administration that passing the $787 billion stimulus bill would keep the unemployment rate under 8 percent. It exceeded 8 percent in 2009 and has not gone below 9.0 percent since.
The administration then wanted us to swallow the concept of “saved jobs” when it became apparent that the stimulus bill was not working. Most of us did not swallow the imaginary concept.
In the president’s State of the Union, address he declared job creation to be a top priority. So now the Democrat-controlled House has passed a “jobs bill” that might generate 250,000 jobs according to economist Mark Zandi of Moody’s Economy.com. He also points out that the economy has shed 8.4 million jobs since the recession began in December 2007. That’s an average of 310,000 jobs per month.
Oops! All of this legislative hot air to maybe offset less than one month worth of job losses since the recession began.
I will caution you that the date when the recession started is not unanimous among analysts, but we will use the December 2007 date for purposes of this discussion to illustrate two additional simple facts:
The $35 billion House bill is 4 percent the size of the $787 billion stimulus bill
A decrease of 250,000 in the number of unemployed workers would decrease the unemployment rate from 9.7 percent to 9.5 percent. That would assume that employers did not cut any more jobs between now and year end. The administration will argue that not all of the stimulus money has been spent yet. Good! Then stop spending! The $787 billion stimulus bill is not working, so why should we expect the $35 billion House bill to work. We should not, because if you do not invest $787 billion dollars the right way to create jobs, throwing another $35 billion at the problem almost the same way is not going to work either.
To add insult to this delusional jobs-creation legislation, the Senate is working on a $15 billion jobs bill that would have to be reconciled with the House version. It would be a debate over which thimble of Washington water they are going to pour into the Potomac River while looking for a ripple.
Unemployment is very real to the 14.9 million people who would like a job, but can’t find one. Businesses are in real danger of having to let even more workers go because of no real signs that the administration and Congress are going to do anything substantive to stimulate jobs and economic growth. Worse yet – many businesses are in real danger of having to shut down completely.
Exempting businesses from paying the 6.2 percent Social Security payroll tax through the end of the year for new workers, and offering an additional $1,000 tax credit if they stay on the job for a full year, are not real tempting to businesses to start hiring again. Nor is it real tempting to businesses to continue the write-off of equipment purchases that they are already allowed to take.
Now here’s some real jobs stimulus substance!
Exempt businesses from paying both the employer and employee portion of the Social Security payroll tax for one year. Additionally, make the tax credit a tax cut up front for hiring an unemployed person, and make the current tax rates permanent before they expire at the end of the year.
Now add to that list the permanent suspension of repatriated profits and you create not only millions of new jobs, but some certainty in this economy that would cause businesses to invest again, and the recession would soon be in our rear view mirror.
That would be a real jobs bill to help real people, who are having real economic difficulties. Imagine that!
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