Click here to listen to the broadcast of You Tell Me on KTBB AM 600, Friday, March 30, 2012.
Did you hear the demonstrators outside the Supreme Court as oral arguments on Obamacare were getting underway? One audio cut that I heard really caught my ear.
There for you, there for me,
There for every fam•uh•lee.
Those chanting this delightful little rhyme were, of course, speaking in favor of Obamacare and against the big old meanies that want to take it away.
And thus the infantilization of the hitherto strongest republic in all of history continues apace. The guiding vision of what was once the most economically powerful nation on Earth has been reduced to a ten-word couplet chanted like a nursery rhyme in front of TV cameras by ostensible adults – adults who at one time we might have thought would be busy earning an actual living at a job somewhere.
What is at issue before the Supreme Court with respect to Obamacare is whether or not the provision in the law that requires every single American to purchase health insurance or pay a fine is constitutional. Opponents of the law state, correctly in my judgment, that if individuals can be compelled under the law to buy something on the grounds that some greater good is served, then there is no effective limit to what the federal government can compel. As Justice Kennedy observed, it fundamentally changes the relationship between the federal government and the citizens.
Proponents of the law argue otherwise.
Thus we are all getting an education in constitutional law.
But there’s a much more practical reason for opposing Obamacare that can be easily understood even by those of us who lack law degrees.
We can’t afford it.
It is hard to understand how anyone can think that the United States can afford a new entitlement on the scale of Obamacare. Given that every single entitlement that Congress has ever enacted has greatly exceeded initial cost estimates, and given that Obamacare starts with breathtaking cost estimates, how anyone thinks the nation can afford Obamacare is beyond comprehension.
We are, apparently, numb to the parlous state of the country’s finances. The word “trillion” doesn’t sound that much different from “billion” which itself isn’t so much different from “million.” The fact that each time you change the first letter of the word you are multiplying by 1,000 simply doesn’t compute.
So try to compute this. Right now, before Obamacare is even close to being fully implemented, in order to pay its bills the United States has to borrow an amount of money equal to the entire annual gross domestic product (GDP) of Canada every year.
No country, kingdom, or empire has ever been as broke as the United States is at this very moment. Forget about debt to GDP ratios and other metrics being used by the ruling class to lull us into believing that it’s not really as bad as we think.
In absolute dollars, pounds, dinars, yen, shekels, florins, kopeks, marks, francs or lire, no country has ever owed as much money as the United States owes right now.
To pile on a new entitlement that will cost $1.76 trillion by the latest cost estimate is simply irresponsible.
Representative Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, recently proposed a budget plan that has been pronounced dead on arrival and roundly booed by Democrats as being grossly unfair to the old and the poor. So what does this Draconian plan put forth by Ryan do? It proposes to bring the federal budget back into balance by the year 2040 – a year that many of us now reading this essay will not live to see.
It’s good for you, it’s good for me.
And best of all we get it free.
Forget the esoterica of the constitutional arguments. Forget that Congress has arrogated to itself power over your life on a scale never before seen.
The real problem is that upwards of four out of ten in the United States believe that entitlement on such a scale is even possible.
Paul,
My explanation of the reckless actions of the Socialists who have accepted the astronomical (temporary?) debt crisis is that their philosophy of cradle-to-grave command and control of our lives (being forced by the Left) is worth it, so long as they gain total supremacy in the end. Obama-care is their Trojan horse to bring this about.
At that time, I’m sure the Washington bureaucrats believe in their brilliance to manage a redistribution of the national wealth by currency devaluation, property seizure, income leveling, taxes, fines, etc., in order to avoid financial collapse of the country. When totalitarianism is the norm, the government has no limit on how the nation’s resources are spent, including its human assets. National debt and a monopoly on health control (not care) are the perfect vehicles to force the citizenry into submission, is it not?
So true Paul. Just wish my so called fellow conservatives would have recognized this with G. Bush’s war in Iraq. Afghanistan made sense. Iraq? Baloney. We need real conservatives.
Paul, the lesson in constitutional law and economics is lost upon those who feed at the trough for free. They don’t care, don’t have a clue as they cozy up to the breast feeding nanny state. Part of America has lost it’s way. Partly due to out and out laziness, part due to being a basic criminal and partly due to being forced into the life style via unemployment and finding it easier than working for a living. Contrary to the Left, people are not having their feet cut off for profit, they are not dying in the streets and we don’t want to revert to putting the elderly on ice floes as Obama care would do. It is time that Some Americans grow up and stop hanging onto the government teet and “grow a set”. That’s my thoughts.
The thing about this is, it didn’t happen over night. The socialist have been at work in our system for a very long time. Manipulating people by using any kind of guilt trip they could lay on us. End poverty, help the needy, feed the children and the list goes on and on. Only their solutions are through the government, only the government knows how to help those in need. History has PROVEN time and time again that socialism does NOT work, yet here we have, yet another group of socialists trying to convince us to give it another try! The ONLY ones that socialism helps are the ones in POWER. I have worked my whole life to get what I have today. No one, especially the government, has given me anything except higher taxes and more smothering laws! I don’t mind helping someone who is truly in need, but draw the line to those who feel it is MY duty to see to it they have a roof over their head and food to eat.
We have been like the frog and the stew pot my Granny always liked to tell me about. Put a frog in hot water and he will jump right out, but if you put him in water he is used to and then gradually turn up the heat,he will just sit there till he is COOKED! This is how the socialists work, they gradually get you used to this program and that program until we never notice the heat being turned up on us. Obama turned the heat up a little more than he should have and we took notice. But I fear it is far too late to save us. As we have just now found out, it is almost IMPOSSIBLE to turn back and make things right again.