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.
