The Democrats have decided to go for broke.  Rules of decorum and a couple hundred years of tradition do not matter to this bunch. What matters is winning, while at the same time grabbing bigger and bigger chunks of the private sector for government.

Barack Obama

Health care reform is failing.  The Democrats no longer care if they need 60 votes for anything.  The filibuster is only a valid parliamentarian procedure when Democrats employ it.  Make no mistake, they will shove this terrible health care bill on the American people by hook or crook.  Remember, more government equals more Democrat power.   And Democrats like power, loads of it.

Reconciliation can be used just once a year.  The Democrats planned on using it this year to seize the student loan business.  Their bill, if passed, would make the Federal Government the de facto sole lender in the student loan business.   Since banks are now seen as the Devil’s spawn, the time is right, in their eyes, to seize a chunk of the banks’ business under the guise of helping the “poor” students.  The poor is in quotes because every pretense of stealing another industry by the government is predicated on some “poor” group being bullied by private business. Read the rest of this entry »

As Barack Obama, Kathleen Sibelius, and a tribe of angry Democrats prepare  a round-the-clock-blame-all-health-care-ills-on-insurance-companies full court press, a little perspective is in order.

Barack Obama lashes out at the insurance indusrty.

In 2007, the United States spent a total of $2.2 trillion on health care.  Of that $2.2 trillion, insurance company profits accounted for $13 billion.  That amounts to less than 1% of total health care spending.

Real reform would deal with the issue of why health costs are rising.  Clearly, from the figure above,  it isn’t because of health insurance profits.  Insurance rates are a reflection of the underlying costs of what is being insured.  I guarantee if I approached Lloyd’s of London and wanted insurance against a Martian invasion the policy would be pretty cheap. Read the rest of this entry »

Today I’m reflecting back on the whole Tony Rezko affair.  A year-plus into the Obama era, it is interesting to think about “Rezko”, a scandal that Obama made it through unscathed.  While other politicians have been made to do the Elliot Spitzer shame shuffle for lesser deeds, Mr. Obama suffered no consequences or even serious scrutiny for a shady land deal that he benefited greatly from.

Obama and Rezko

Before Barack Obama was selected as King of the Democrats, Slate wrote the following in 2006 about the Obama/Rezko real estate purchase:

It begins in 2004 with Obama’s $1.9 million book advance for The Audacity of Hope. In June 2005, Obama used the money to purchase a $1.65 million Georgian revival home on Chicago’s South Side—$300,000 less than the asking price. On the very same day, Rezko, a Democratic Party fund-raiser and developer, bought the adjacent empty lot at the asking price from the same owner (the house and the lot were previously owned by the same person). Rezko, who had raised money for Obama and known him since the senator attended Harvard Law School, did not develop the empty lot. In January 2006, he sold a 1,500-square-foot slice of it to Obama for $104,000, a fair sum in that market.

Here’s the question: Did Rezko orchestrate his same-day purchase of the lot at full price so that the seller would give Obama a break on the price of the adjacent house? Was Obama in on the deal? And did Rezko never intend to develop the lot, giving Obama a nice roomy side yard, a favor which he’d call in later?

Obama says he did talk to Rezko before the purchase, but only because a person who had renovated it for a previous owner had once worked with Rezko, who owns other properties in the South Side. He didn’t arrange the joint purchase with him. He bought the house at such a good price, Obama has told the papers, because it was being unloaded in a “fire sale.”

The main house sold in a “fire sale” according to Obama, but Rezko’s wife paid full price for the side yard?  Not likely.  Of course the sale was orchestrated between Obama and the man that had, to that point, raised or donated over $200,000 for Mr. Obama’s various political campaigns.  Give me a break.  After the sale, Obama actually paid for the lawn care of Mr. Rezko’s lot saying at the time that, “Right now my landscaper who comes and does all my work, I have asked him to go ahead and mow the lawn on the other side. My intention was to have the landscaper figure out some pro-rata cost for that mowing and send that bill to Rezko.”  Obama added, “I just haven’t had time to do it.”

Remember, there was no fence between the two properties at the time of purchase.  To a casual observer, they were the same property.  The press downplayed that fact because it made Mr. Obama’s deal look much worse.  A fence was later added, and Mr. Obama bought that fated piece of Rezko’s lot for $104,500. Read the rest of this entry »