Amy Ridenour's National Center Blog

Who Says Conservatives Can't Solve Public Health Problems?

2013-05-21T00:14:21Z

Just because conservatives think the government ought to stay out of our kitchens, doesn’t mean we don’t have positive ways to address obesity. We do.

In an op-ed in Tuesday’s Washington Examiner, Dr. Henry I. Miller joins me in contrasting the left-wing approach to obesity, which, as you’ll read, has become rather creepy, to a conservative approach based on free markets and innovation.

We explain,

Obesity is a public health time bomb. But is curbing it primarily the responsibility of the government? The food police think so. Along the way, their extreme rhetoric demonizes industry and characterizes food marketers as little better than child molesters.

Read the full piece here.

Black Conservatives Call Obama’s Morehouse Commencement Speech “Divisive,” More of the Blame Game

2013-05-20T16:33:16Z

As the commencement speaker at the all-male and historically black Morehouse College in Atlanta this past weekend, President Barack Obama used what should be a moment of celebration and honor to preach what can only be considered more of the same politics of division that seem to be the hallmark of his presidency.

While praising the graduates, Obama nonetheless seemed to suggest that it was more luck and divine intervention than intellect and ambition that got him to the White House and might be the salvation of Morehouse graduates. The Ivy League-educated former community organizer made sure the new grads were aware that — in his apparent opinion — “the bitter legacies of slavery and segregation” are not over and that not “for the grace of God” he might be in prison, unemployed or unable to take care of Michelle, Malia and Sasha.

Obama expected that “many” of the grads “know what it’s like to be an outsider, to be marginalized, to feel the sting of discrimination.” To show that he did not mean to single out blacks, Obama complained about immigration policies that allegedly target Hispanics and unfair policies and attitudes that harm Muslims and homosexuals.

This Obama speech is being criticized by members of the National Center’s Project 21 black leadership network, who consider the President’s words to be overly fractious and inappropriate for the venue.

Project 21 member Jerome Hudson, for instance, said:

President Obama should be ashamed of himself.

Obama’s speech at Morehouse College was needlessly divisive, sophomoric and served as a 30-minute race rant that recalls his former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright. It was not an uplifting message of pride and achievement one expects from a president in this situation.

It would be nice if, for once, President Obama could resist the urge to brazenly slander Americans as anti-immigration, Muslim-hating homophobes. He apparently cannot, and I’m tired of his hypocritical drivel.

Lisa Fritsch, another Project 21 member, added:

Once again, President Obama has shown off his prowess at giving advice that he himself does not follow and empathizing with situations he has never endured.

God’s grace is the reason so many of us have found success in life — but not landing in prison, abandoning one’s children and being a criminal also has a great deal to do with making a choice.

On one hand, President Obama tells these promising black men to make good choices. But, soon after, he justifies bad choices by blaming racism and poverty. Funny that Obama doesn’t mention that they will be able to blame his presidential agenda— namely ObamaCare — as the reason for having a hard time finding employment.

Oh well, there is always all those millions of people from China and Brazil — and our stain of discrimination to explain that pitfall.

Arctic Council Meeting Proves It's A Circular World

2013-05-17T16:16:54Z

Nunavut, over 725,000 square miles.The Arctic Council, an intergovernmental organization, held its eighth annual meeting this week in Sweden.

History was made when Nunavut’s Leona Aglukkaq took over the helm of the Arctic Council, becoming the first Inuk ever to lead the Council.

Artic Council members include Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the United States. Nations granted observer status to the Arctic Council meeting were China, India, Italy, Japan, Singapore and South Korea.

The Council denied observer status to Greenpeace, along with other non-governmental organizations such as energy industry groups.

And Canada blocked observer status for the European Union due to an ongoing dispute over a ban on trade in seal products including seal meat, seal oils and natural fiber clothing.

Seal pelts at auction in Canada.Oddly, the ban gives synthetic clothing made from fossil fuels an edge in the EU marketplace over natural fiber clothing made by those living in Canada and Nunavut.

One cannot hold a meeting on the Arctic without discussing changes in climate — reportedly driven, says the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (UNIPCC), by man releasing CO2 into the atmosphere, primarily from fossil fuels.

And so discussion ensued regarding short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs) including hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Sergey Lavrov signed a declaration calling for an amendment to the Montreal Protocol treaty to phase out HFCs.

HFCs are synthetic greenhouse gases used as refrigerants and in air conditioning systems. They were substituted for the ozone-depleting gases (CFCs and HCFCs) that were phased out under the Montreal Protocol, a U.N. treaty in force since the 1980s.

Ironically, the U.N. World Food Program ignores the ban and still uses the gases in 80% of its air conditioning systems.

Meanwhile, law abiding U.S. grocery stores are attempting to comply with the constantly changing laws. They pass these compliance costs along to the consumer in the price of our food. Reported Supermarket News:

The food industry has known for some time that HFCs could be subjected to regulation and phaseout in the manner of HCFCs. Retailers have been understandably miffed that, having replaced HCFCs with HFCs, they may now have to replace HFCs. But the good news is that the HFC replacements include less costly natural refrigerants — notably CO₂, which in this context is environmentally friendly — that will not have to be replaced again. And the transcritical refrigeration technology that uses only CO₂ has arrived in the U.S., with at least two retailers — Whole Food Market and Angelo’s Caputo’s Fresh Markets — planning one-store tests this year.

The familiar frozen foods section, soon to be home to CO2. Yes, you read that correctly. Whole Foods is replacing its HFCs, the synthetic greenhouse gases, with a natural greenhouse gas, CO2, “which in this context is environmentally friendly” and the CO2 “will not have to be replaced again,” concludes Supermakert News.

I wouldn’t bet the store on that.

It’s a circular world and, sometimes, so is politics.

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Teresa Platt is the Director of the Environment and Enterprise Institute at the National Center for Public Policy Research. She also blogs at www.teresaplatt.com.

Photo of seal pelts: Dion Dakins, Carino Processing Limited, Newfoundland, Canada.

All others: iStockPhoto.com

NAACP Leader’s Double-Standard on Alleged IRS Abuse

2013-05-16T19:42:26Z

If there is anyone in the world who should have some sympathy for what the Tea Party movement and like-minded conservative organizations are going through right now with the IRS, it should be NAACP chairman emeritus Julian Bond.

Even though the NAACP spent a lot of time and money in a failed effort to demonize Tea Party activists over the past few years, including alleging them to be racist, the NAACP should supportive of the complaints of the Tea Party right now because they endured their own brush with the IRS back in 2004.

Back in July of 2004, at the NAACP’s annual convention, then-chairman Bond pointedly criticized then-President George W. Bush — who was up for re-election the following November — and the Republican Party to which he belonged in a major convention address. Among other things, Bond said Republicans appeal to “the dark underside of American culture” that “reject[s] democracy and equality.” Bond further encouraged blacks to “work for regime change” and “be registered, organized and mobilized.”

For those NAACP chapters that wouldn’t play along, Bond said “[a]ny NAACP branch that isn’t registering voters ought to turn in its charter.”

Approximately four months later, the IRS informed the NAACP that Bond’s speech may have “intervened in a political campaign.”

Bond complained that the IRS investigation was “an attempt to silence the NAACP” before the election. He complained: “They are saying if you criticize the president we are going to take your tax exemption away from you.”

Now, however, when it seems that organizations on the right are under investigation and are having their applications for tax-exempt status held up by the IRS for simply opposing President Obama and supporting the Constitution (among other conservative principles), can Julian Bond see the parallel? Can he see across political divisions to speak out against what he considered wrong when it happened to him?

Of course not.

Asked about the ever-growing Tea Party-IRS scandal plaguing the Obama Administration while on MSNBC this past May 14, Bond said “there are no parallels between the two” investigations.” Calling the Tea Party “admittedly racist” (really?). He further went on to repurpose an old slur by calling the Tea Party “the Taliban wing of American politics.” He used the same slur back in 2001 — just before the Twin Towers fell — to describe Bush Administration’s political appointees.

The man who, in 2005, said “I thought the right to condemn a president of the United States came to every American, whether he or she heads a tax-exempt organization or not” now says “I don’t think there’s a double standard at all” when asked if he can understand what Tea Party leaders are going through.

This obvious double-standard — whether Julian Bond will admit it or not — is shocking to members of the National Center’s Project 21 black leadership network.

For instance, Project 21 co-chairman Horace Cooper, a former congressional leadership staffer and constitutional law professor, said:

NAACP chairman emeritus Julian Bond’s recent statement that Tea Party activists deserve the IRS abuse they have endured over the last two years is beyond the pale.

During the last administration, the shoe was on the other foot when Bond decried the IRS for opening up a preliminary audit of the NAACP. At the time, he called it “an attempt to silence the NAACP.”

Let me be clear, no group — right or left — deserves to have the hellfire of the IRS rained down on them.
For Julian Bond to call out his political opponents for IRS scrutiny is dangerous and Nixonian.

The hypocrisy here is mind-boggling. Regardless of who the president is, we as a nation must be vigilant to ensure that the IRS and its venomous powers aren’t unleashed on people or groups merely because of their point of view.

Any bona fide leader of a civil rights group would especially understand this principle.

Similarly, Project 21 member Kevin Martin, a Tea Party activist in suburban Maryland, said:

Julian Bond seems to be okay with the IRS engaging in political profiling when it’s the Tea Party movement and like-minded organizations in the crosshairs. Are we to assume he also approves of the newfound probes of religious and minority groups as well?

As the scandal widens and the diversity of targeted groups grows, perhaps we should check back with him from time to time to gauge his level of approval.

Right now, Julian Bond uses the title of civil rights activist as his calling card. But, at the same time, he is essentially encouraging the tactics of a power-hungry administration looking to silence its opponents through illegitimate means.

The very fact that Julian Bond now approves of a situation he once decried when his own group was under scrutiny would indicate that he is likely nothing more than the same kind of power-hungry partisan. He will apparently defend government tyranny as long as his political allies are running that government.

This is the hypocrisy that conservatives like me have been trying to point out. After years of complaining about every little perceived scandal of the Bush Administration — from Valerie Plame to the U.S. attorney dismissals to tapping the phones of suspected international terrorists — showing no outrage over the scandals involving the IRS and the Associated Press and Benghazi hurts the credibility of the political left and Julian Bond in particular.

Charles Butler, a radio host and community activist in Chicago, added:

As a young man, when I was a community activist and received a great deal of criticism from those seeking to maintain the status quo, my parents showed great wisdom when they told me to “consider the source” of the criticism.

Those people back then didn’t merit my concern or my respect. The same can be said today about the NAACP’s Julian Bond. In fact, I think he has been a questionable source all of the time.

I consider Julian Bond to be out of touch with traditional black America. I think he’s a socialist. I believe his past leadership as chairman of the NAACP alienated many blacks and left the group in worse shape than when he joined it. That’s why I resigned from a local chapter in San Diego during his tenure and haven’t been back.

I see that a storied and glorious civil rights icon has been greatly damaged by the direction in which Bond took it.

Julian Bond was the target of personal attacks in the past from personal and political critics for alleged drug abuse. As chairman of the NAACP, his actions brought about an IRS investigation based on the notion that he turned the group partisan. He vociferously denied and fought these charges as lies and character assassination.

Yet, when questioned if he has any empathy for others he might not agree with suffering from the same apparent sort of abuse, he seemed enthusiastic about it rather than horrified.

This reveals Julian Bond’s dark side, and it calls his civil rights credentials into question.

The Health Care You Get Will Depend On Your Political Clout--Specialty Drug Edition

2013-05-16T16:53:00Z

A previous blog post pointed out that one of the drawbacks of any government-run health-care system is that the care you get will depend in part on how much political power you have. This is particularly bad news for those who are really sick. They tend to lack political clout because: 1. The very sick are relatively few in number, which means they amount to a very limited number of voters, too limited to have much impact on elections; and 2. They are too sick to engage in the type of political activities such as organizing, protesting, etc., necessary to bring about change in health care policy.

Apparently some people who need expensive “specialty drugs” are about to find that out the hard way under ObamaCare:

To try to keep premiums low, some states are allowing insurers to charge patients a hefty share of the cost for expensive medications used to treat cancer, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and other life-altering chronic diseases.

Such “specialty drugs” can cost thousands of dollars a month, and in California, patients would pay up to 30 percent of the cost. For one widely used cancer drug, Gleevec, the patient could pay more than $2,000 for a month’s supply, says the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

It’s not entirely clear how many people take specialty drugs. The best statistic appears to come from this study by the Center for Studying Health System Change which estimates that “specialty drugs are prescribed for only one in every 100 commercial health plan enrollees.”

To apply that to enrollees in the exchanges, we’ll add the number of people who, according to the Census Bureau, bought their insurance directly (i.e. didn’t get it from their employer) to those who are uninsured. The first is about 30,244,000 and the second is 48,613,000 for a total of 78,857,000. One in 100 of those equals 788,570, and that is how we get a rough estimate of the number of people in the exchanges who will need specialty drugs.*

So, how much political power is that? Well, divide it by 435 House Districts and you get about 1,813 potential voters. Most House elections are decided by margins considerably larger than that. Divide it by 50 states and you get about 15,771 votes. In 2012 only two Senate elections, North Dakota and Nevada, were decided by margins less than that.

And forgive me for repeating myself here, but let’s not forget that people aren’t taking specialty drugs unless they’re quite ill. That means they probably aren’t organizing get-out-the-vote drives, protests, lobbying efforts, etc.

We’ll be seeing a lot more of this in ObamaCare in the months and years to come.

*Of course, not all of those people will go into the exchanges. Even with the exchanges, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that about 30 million will remain uninsured. The analysis also assumes that the uninsured will use specialty drugs at the same rate as those who have coverage, which may not prove to be the case. What that means, however, is that even fewer people on the exchanges will use specialty drugs, thereby reducing what little political clout they have even further.

Photo: iStock Photo

The IRS, Charlie Manson And Pirates Versus Patriots

2013-05-15T19:29:24Z

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is discouraging “patriots” working to “make America a better place” while giving Charlie Manson’s followers and “pirates” tax-exempt status.

The IRS sanctioned Sea Shepherd’s “pirates” as a tax-exempt charity in 1982 and gave Charlie Manson’s Air Trees Water and Animals (ATWA) tax-exempt status in 2012 - for the second time. ATWA was first issued tax exempt status in 1997 but after the families of Manson’s murder victims and others complained in 1999, ATWA lost its charitable status. Temporarily, it seems.

In an article entitled “In defense of tree-spiking” published by the Earth First! Journal in 1990, Sea Shepherd’s leader, Paul Watson, said:

I was the person who first thought up the tactic of tree-spiking and as such I feel obligated to defend this child of my imagination.

In 2013, the 9th Circuit Court in San Francisco labeled Sea Shepherd “pirates” and the group announced its leader Paul Watson had jumped ship to avoid arrest.

But Sea Shepherd’s status as an IRS-sanctioned charity seems secure.

Beyond “pirates” supporting tree-spiking, the IRS believes Charlie Manson’s supporters are worthy of tax-exempt charitable status.

The California Secretary of State’s website reveals Charlie’s group Air Trees Water and Animals, ATWA, once suspended, went active again in 2011:

The IRS followed California in 2012 when it granted ATWA tax exempt charitable status (EIN 77-0405193) and, with the IRS’s blessing, ATWA is now busy raising money from the public on its website and Facebook.

The IRS describes ATWA’s work promoting Charlie Manson’s philosophy as:

Environmental Quality Protection, Beautification.

At least Manson’s followers were smart enough to not say they wanted “to make America a better place.”

So, if you’re a “patriot” working “to make America a better place,” you’ll have trouble clearing IRS scrutiny.

But if you’re a pirate promoting tree spiking or a Charlie Manson groupie, you’ll sail right through.

Go figure.

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Teresa Platt is the Director of the Environment and Enterprise Institute at the National Center for Public Policy Research.

Top Photo: iStockPhoto.com; Sea Shepherd’s pirate flag: Discovery Channel; Chart: California Secretary of State; Charlie Manson’s August 1996 Mugshot: California State Prison, Corcoran.

About That 'Shorter' ObamaCare Application

2013-05-15T11:51:04Z

Grace-Marie Turner of the Galen Institute has an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal showing that the supposed reducition in the size of the form for applying for insurance on the ObamaCare exchanges is not quite what it seems:

During his news conference last week, the president sounded defensive in trying to tamp down fears of an impending ObamaCare train wreck. One positive note was his boast about whittling down from 21 pages to three the application for subsidies that individuals have to file. But even that may need some defending.

The three-page application is for people who don’t get health insurance at work and are seeking coverage and subsidies for themselves. One big reason the new form is shorter: the type is smaller, with less space for answers.

The much-derided 21-page application was for families. It is now down to 11 pages, thanks to a trick. Eight pages in the longer application called for filling in information for four additional family members. The new form cuts these pages but says that if you have children, “make a copy of Step 2: Person 2 (pages 4 and 5) and complete.” The work required of the applicant remains the same.

She also notes that there is a follow-up application that is still in the draft stage that amounts to 61 pages.

It seems that the Obama Administration is taking its inspiration on paperwork from this Ditech commerical:

Black Conservatives Discuss Guilty Verdict in the Gosnell Abortion Murders Case

2013-05-14T01:47:02Z

Abortionist Kermit Gosnell was found guilty of first-degree murder today in the cases of three children who were born alive and later put to death during illegal late-term abortions that were conducted in his West Philadelphia clinic.

In a practice said to be routine when such botched abortions occurred at his below-standards clinic, Gosnell was convicted of cutting the spinal cords of babies with a pair of scissors to cause their deaths.

Gosnell was also found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the death by drug overdose of an adult patient. Further, eight other employees at Gosnell’s clinic already pleaded guilty to murder and lesser charges.

The jury in the Gosnell case will reconvene on Tuesday to consider if the evidence in the conviction is enough to sentence Gosnell to death.

Members of the National Center’s Project 21 black leadership network – who spoke out early in the case when Gosnell’s attorney attempted to play the race card to his client’s advantage – are commenting about the verdict and what it says about Americans in these turbulent times.

Project 21 member Derryck Green, one of the members commenting on the race card, said upon news of the Gosnell verdict:

The guilt of Kermit Gosnell has been confirmed by a jury of his peers.

Convicted of three counts of murder in the first degree, whether he’s sentenced to life in prison or the more fitting punishment – in keeping with Genesis 9:5-6 – of the death penalty.

Whatever the sentence, Gosnell will no longer be free to continue the morbid and soulless evil of infanticide – when he delivered live, viable infants and intentionally murdered them under the deceptive guises of “choice” or a “woman’s right.”

The jury should be commended for discounting the charade of defense attorney Jack McMahon, who blamed the prosecution of his client on racial discrimination in a sad attempt at deflecting attention away from his client’s moral depravity for which he was charged.

Hopefully, this case forces Americans to re-evaluate the ethics, morality and the religious and theological implications of human life as well as the viability of infants and the need to protect them. As a society, we are in desperate need of re-evaluating the justifications – emotional as well as those steeped in reason – of the immorality of abortion, legality notwithstanding.

This testimony heard in this case, the media blackout of it and Planned Parenthood’s relative silence in light of it demonstrates the logical conclusion of abortion on demand.

May God bless the souls of every child whose life has been cut short resulting from the facade of a woman’s “right to choose.”

Project 21 member Lisa Fritsch, an author and radio talk show host (and a mother), adds:

The kind of evil the Kermit Gosnell and those working in his clinic committed against innocent babies in particular and humanity in general is very difficult to accept.

No matter how many charges they find him guilty of, there is no earthly justice that can correct or punish what he has done. One can only hope that this will open our nation’s eyes as to how bold evil can get if left unchecked.

Stacy Swimp, a member of Project 21 who will be participating in a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday about the impact of abortion on black America, declared:

It is time for government to do what is right in God’s eyes.

The Word of God makes two unequivocal points pertinent to the discussion of the abortion industry. The first is Psalm 51:5, which says that life begins at conception: “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.” The second, Exodus 20:13, says that abortion is murder: “Thou shalt not murder.”

The abortion industry begat the mass-murderer named Kermit Gosnell. The rejection of God by our government begat the abortion industry and created an inroad for evil men and women such as Gosnell and Margaret Sanger to bring about the mass murder of God’s precious creation of the unborn.

The United States Constitution does provide protection for the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to unborn persons. It is now time for our nation’s government to do what is right in the eyes of God and protect the right to life for unborn Americans.

Our great nation should never again have to bear the horrific tragedies brought about by the likes of Kermit Gosnell.

Health Care Odds & Ends

2013-05-08T16:39:46Z

1. Having previously given grief to PapaJohn’s and Five Guys for complaining about how ObamaCare regulations will hurt business and jobs, the Huffington Post has now reported what only the fiercest ObamaCare partisans won’t admit: ObamaCare is going to reduce the hours of a lot of workers. A study from UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education, not exactly a right-wing think tank, finds ObamaCare “will put some 2.3 million workers at the greatest risk of reduced hours.” And that may be on the low side. As the study notes:

While the penalty only applies to firms with more than 50 full-time equivalent employees, due to data limitations we show all results for workers in firms with more than 100 total employees. Thus, the tables may slightly understate the number of potentially affected workers.

While we’re on the topic, it’s not just fast-food restaurants anymore, or universities and colleges, or state governments. Now, the Head Start program in Oregon is worried about ObamaCare: “To reduce Obamacare costs, [Nancy Nordyk, director of the Head Start program in southern Oregon] will likely reduce full-time staffing, perhaps lay people off, and spend more hours on paperwork. “The bookkeeping information for it will be substantial because if you make a mistake, there’s quite a big [financial] penalty,” Nordyk said.

2. The New England Journal of Medicine study has sent shock waves through the health-policy community, especially those parts that believe in expanding Medicaid. (See previous blog post here.) The New York Times, at its Room for Debate site, solicits the thoughts of Michael Cannon, Grace-Marie Turner, Austin Frakt, Drew Altman and Robert Reich.

While Frakt, Altman and Reich make some interesting points, they also swing away at straw men, especially the suggestion that Medicaid be converted “to catastrophic-only coverage.” Has someone on the political right suggested that? Neither Reich nor Frakt, who make the charge, provide links to anyone.

As Cannon puts it: “The notion that Medicaid should provide only catastrophic coverage likewise misses the point. Congress should have to produce evidence of benefit before it forces taxpayers to fund any such program. Yet there’s no reliable evidence that government-provided catastrophic coverage would improve enrollees’ health, either.”

While Turner surely doesn’t speak for every person in favor of free-market based health care, she probably speaks for a lot of them when she writes:

We need to modernize the program to free recipients from the Medicaid ghetto so they can have the dignity of private coverage. The Healthy Indiana Plan is one creative option that has been highly popular. Citizens earning up to 200 percent of poverty start out with a POWER account they can use to purchase routine care, and catastrophic coverage kicks in for bigger medical bills.

3. More on Medicaid. Two new studies on Medicaid from the Galen Institute. Grace-Marie Turner and Avik Roy examine why states should not expand Medicaid, while Chris Jacobs explores alternatives to Medicaid that states can pursue. Finally, my old haunt in Iowa, the Public Interest Institute, explains why states should avoid both the exchanges and the Medicaid expansion.

4. Will the recent slow-down in health-care spending continue? Well, it’s a tie, with two studies saying yes, and two saying no. More here.

5. Do hospitals “cost-shift” to private insurance when Medicare rates are too low? This study in Health Affairs says no. In fact, quite the opposite: ”…hospitals facing cuts in Medicare payment rates may also cut the payment rates they seek from private payers to attract more privately insured patients.” You mean hospitals can compete on price? Paging Steven Brill…

Image: iStock Photo

Black Conservatives Comment on Upcoming Benghazi Hearing

2013-05-08T01:16:26Z

On Wednesday, three State Department whistleblowers are scheduled to testify before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. They will discuss the events of September 11, 2012 as they relate to the terrorist attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya that left four Americans – including the U.S. ambassador to Libya – dead.

In particular, these witnesses are expected to testify about how political considerations loomed over the entire affair. In the immediate aftermath of the massacre, the Obama Administration was slow to call it an act of terrorism – instead blaming a short film uploaded to YouTube that was being protested in other Muslim countries. Since then, information has leaked out that shows the White House knew a lot more a lot sooner than was originally suggested. And the talking points, like the ones used by American ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, went through a thorough editing process that seemed more geared for pre-election damage control than sharing real information.

Members of the National Center’s Project 21 black leadership network are speaking out about the hearing and the Benghazi debacle.

Project 21 member Darryn “Dutch” Martin, a former State Department diplomat who served on the African continent, said:

I firmly believe that the congressional hearings on the Benghazi scandal will make Watergate look like a walk in the park.

Whereas nobody died during Watergate, four Americans – including our ambassador to Libya – were killed in a planned terrorist attack. It was not the result of some spontaneous anti-American demonstration as first claimed by the Obama Administration.

I consider the whistleblowers who stepped forward to testify to be patriots. They are honoring the memories of those Americans whose lives were lost last September 11 by coming forward and letting the truth be known.

Project 21 co-chairman and former congressional leadership staff member Horace Cooper said:

So many falsehoods, and so little time.

The truth about the loss of lives of a U.S. ambassador and other brave Americans will not go away. Almost everything the Obama Administration told us about the terrorist attack has proven to be false.

We were told that it was all about a movie. That’s false. They said it was a spontaneous protest. That’s false. They said there was no evidence of al Qaeda or terrorism. False. They said they did all they could to help the victims. False. They said they did not prevent help from coming. False.

Hopefully, the hearings will let the American people and especially the families of those killed at least understand what really happened. Then it’s our job to hold the responsible parties accountable.

Cherylyn Harley LeBon, the other co-chairman of Project 21 and a former counsel for the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, added:

This congressional hearing will hopefully provide clarity and perhaps some closure for the families of the Benghazi victims.

Despite claims from the Obama Administration that a thorough investigation has occurred, testimony is apparently forthcoming which is contrary to White House assertions. In fact, a U.S. diplomat alleges that the reluctance to send Special Forces may have deprived wounded Americans in Benghazi of first aid.

The families and rest of America really deserve honest answers.

Project 21 member Demetrius Minor said:

The apparent White House cover-up of the Benghazi murders that occurred last September is beyond appalling.

It should make every American uncomfortable that lies are still constantly being told while the truth has remained clandestine.

Kevin Martin, a Project 21 member and veteran of the U.S. Navy, pointed out:

Finally, after more than eight months of blockage, Congress will hear from whistleblowers expected to expose efforts by the then-Hillary Clinton-led Department of State to deliberately mislead the public about the reasons behind the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2012.

Evidence has come to light that points to a well-coordinated attack carried out by al Qaeda loyalists in Libya, the disapproval of a military response to the attacks by the Obama Administration and a public relations effort that ignored facts in an attempt to convince the American public that Islamic anger over a little-known YouTube video caused the attack. It also appears the State Department sought to intimidate witnesses into silence or forbid them to talk to congressional investigators in what may be a coordinated cover-up effort.

I hope that partisan politics will not get in the way of finding out the truth behind that tragic chain of events that lead to the death of a U.S. ambassador, a civil employee and two brave former SEALS, who willfully disobeyed orders in a brave and honorable effort to defend our interests in Benghazi, Libya.

IPAB's Non-Existence Is A Problem Too

2013-05-06T15:35:47Z

Over at the Washington Post, Sarah Kliff notes that the Independent Payment Advisory Board is out of the woods for now:

“IPAB would only come into effect when Medicare’s per-enrollee spending grew faster than the average of overall price growth…a few days ago, acting chief actuary Paul Spitalnic made his determination: Medicare cost growth would not be high enough to call the IPAB into action….And that’s the reason that, at least in its first year, the Independent Payment Advisory Board won’t be doing much at all. And it’s possible this could persist for a few years, as the the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services projects relatively low growth in per-enrollee spending for the next few years.”

Well, that’s part of the reason. The other part is that there is no IPAB because President Obama has failed to nominate anyone yet. Interestingly, Kliff doesn’t mention that.

Nor does this completely end the non-existent IPAB’s responsibilities for now. On January 15, 2014, it is supposed to release an advisory report to Congress on Medicare. Chances are that deadline will be missed too.

According to my count, there are about 128 working days left in the Senate calendar for this year. Probably enough time to hold hearings and confirmation votes on IPAB nominees, but the window is closing. And, so far, there is no indication that President Obama is about to make the nominations.

If not this year, will he make the nominees in 2014? Risk a major public relations fiasco during an election year? Yeah, right.

That means the soonest he’d make the nominees is 2015. Which means that the non-existent IPAB will miss at least four deadlines: The actuary’s analysis from last Tuesday which IPAB has already missed. The next actuarial analysis on April 30, 2014. And the two advisory opinions on Medicare, one on January 15, 2014 and the other on January 15, 2015.

As IPAB misses more and more of those deadlines, it will become obvious to all but the most dedicated ObamaCare partisans: IPAB is unworkable.

Image: iStockPhoto

Project 21 Members Echo Justice Thomas Comments on Elitist Expectations for Blacks

2013-05-06T14:53:22Z

During a recent interview with C-Span, U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas took the Washington establishment and the media to task for their intense love of President Obama and virtually everything he does while — at the same time — exhibiting mostly disdain for black conservatives and their opinions.

Asked if he ever expected to see a black person elected to the American presidency during his lifetime, Thomas replied that what he “always knew is that it would have to be a black president who was approved by the elites and the media.”

Thomas added that “any black person who says something that is not the prescribed things that they expect from a black person will be picked apart.”

And Clarence Thomas, of all people, should know. For his own conservative beliefs, he went through a brutal Senate confirmation battle related to his nomination to the Court in 1991. And he’s endured vicious treatment at the hands of liberals ever since.

Black conservatives with the Project 21 black leadership network echo Justice Thomas on his views of the D.C. elite, the media and their supporters and can relate to the demands on black conservatives to the liberal line.

For example, Project 21 member Darryn “Dutch” Martin, a former member of the diplomatic corps who now lives in D.C., said:

One need only compare the horrible way that Justice Thomas is treated by the mainstream media over his entire career to the media’s “walk-on-water” treatment of President Obama during his entire tenure in office. One can see a glaring difference. Justice Thomas has probably been called every nasty name in the book over his entire tenure on the High Court — many times by the mainstream media. Yet Chris Matthews apparently still hasn’t gotten over that “thrill up his leg” he got when Barack Obama was first running for the White House in 2008.

Project 21 member Lisa Fritsch, an author and radio host who lives in Austin, Texas, also sees the need for blacks to toe a political line as an even broader demand of the elite. Lisa believes that all blacks are expected to behave in the same manner of groupthink, from the highest to the lowest levels of black America. She said:

It is more than what the media expects. It is what they have demanded of blacks: that we group think and hate conservatives.

This feeling of a need on the part of the liberal establishment for a legion of like-minded blacks is echoed by Project 21 member Jimmie L. Hollis, a veteran of the U.S. Air Force and tea party activist in southern New Jersey. Citing pressures in the black community to conform to liberal political ideology, Jimmie said:

I agree with Justice Thomas. As long as blacks toe the politically correct line and stay within the liberal guidelines of speech and actions, they will win the approval and the smiles of the liberal elites.

Project 21 EXCLUSIVE: Interview with Township Official Called the N-Word by Colleague

2013-05-05T19:31:03Z

Controversy still rages in Buena Vista Township, Michigan, where the white town clerk is under fire for calling a black town supervisor the n-word in a conversation with the interim town manager. In an exclusive set of interviews made for the Project 21 black leadership network, targeted Buena Vista Township supervisor Dwayne Parker and interim township manager Dexter Mitchell talk with Project 21 member Stacy Swimp about how they are coping with the situation, how they think it can end and whether or not they can still work with offending Buena Vista Township clerk Gloria Platko.

In a January phone call between Platko and Mitchell that was taped by Mitchell (an action that is legal in Michigan), Platko expressed her utter contempt for Parker. Platko sought to dismiss Mitchell’s suggestion that she and Parker “sit down” and try to work out their problems.

That’s when Platko was recorded saying: “You know what I think of Mr. Parker right now, and I know you’re not going to like this, but he is just an arrogant nigger. And I’m sorry to say it that way, but that’s the way I feel.”

Mitchell made the contents of the call public at a township board meeting on April 22. Platko insists her problems with Parker are “not a race thing.” She said she’s “entirely sorry to this entire community,” but she also said “I will defend any black person in this township except Dwayne Parker. He’s a lowlife.”

At a April 30 special public meeting that addressed Platko’s comments, five of the six voting members of the township board voted in favor of a symbolic resolution calling upon Platko to resign from the clerk’s position. Platko was the sole voting member not in attendance. Parker voted for Platko’s resignation.

Groups such as the Saginaw chapter of the NAACP and the Michigan Democratic Party also want Platko to resign. Platko, Mitchell and Parker are all reportedly affiliated with the Democratic Party.

In the exclusive Project 21 interview, interim township manager Dexter Mitchell tells Project 21’s Swimp he recorded the phone call with Platko as a “defense mechanism” to show he was truly working for a peaceful resolution and not playing “gotcha” against Platko – a charge that Platko subsequently made against Mitchell.

Speaking on the veracity of Platko’s statement and the damage it caused, Mitchell said:

I immediately told her that the action that she did was wrong… My boss just told me that I’m just going to say something that I know you’re not going to like, and now my boss is telling me I don’t care if you don’t like it – I’m gonna say it anyway… If you know I’m not gonna like it, why do you say it?

Mitchell says he has spoken with his pastor about how to deal with the prospect of forgiving Platko and continuing to work with her. He hopes, as a result of his making Platko’s comments public and allowing people to discuss the issue, the township “gets to the root of its problems and starts to build itself.”

Despite voting in favor of Platko’s resignation, Parker – in his interview with Project 21’s Swimp – said:

[T]he business of the township and government is first and foremost in my life… So, therefore, as long as she’s on the board, I will continue to work with her.

With Parker’s hailing from the South, he told Swimp that he recognizes the use of the n-word as “brutal and dangerous now” just like it was in the past. Regarding Platko’s use of the n-word in particular and in her position of power, Parker added:

In this society,… these words are not tolerable – particularly when you are an elected governmental official. It’s just not appropriate behavior, and for an individual of senior age should know better.

Platko is 69. Parker is 52.

Asked for a reason behind Platko’s animosity toward him, Parker said “I really don’t know.” He nonetheless wants to focus on governing, saying, “I was taught to forgive.”

Environmental Activist Scare Debunked

2013-05-03T22:36:04Z

In a piece for the Huffington Post, Dr. Henry I. Miller and I take on the Environmental Working Group for scaring the public about the safety of fruits and vegetables. We also take on the scare-hungry media for reporting on the junk-science as if it had any merit.

We write,

“Many of the ‘healthiest foods’ we eat may not be as healthy as we think” was the lede of a recent Channel 11news story out of Pittsburgh. It was based on the Environmental Working Group’s just released 2013 “Dirty Dozen” report on pesticide residues on produce, which is trotted out every year by the NGO. These misleading pseudo-analyses frighten consumers and actually discourage them from buying healthy fruits and vegetables.

The news story continues, “Pesticides are meant to kill pests, but the residue isn’t meant to be eaten, and it could be harmful to your health.” Actually, the only truth in that statement is that “pesticides are meant to kill pests.” The rest of it is false, according to the United States Department of Agriculture, which unambiguously states that “U.S. food does not pose a safety concern based upon pesticide residues.”

EWG argues that they don’t actually tell people not to eat the “Dirty Dozen,” just that it is better to buy the organic versions if you can. Why? Presumably, because there’s some sort of danger from the “dirty” ones.

So did EWG put out a public statement distancing itself from the Channel 11 story? Of course not. And as we report,

such news stories are the very reason EWG releases the report each year — to generate coverage that inhibits people from eating produce that isn’t organic. Unless of course, the produce is on the relatively new list, “The Clean Fifteen,” which contain the lowest level of pesticides, according to EWG.

Is the report based on sound science? Not exactly.

EWG tries to make their “Shopper’s Guide” appear legitimate by relying on samples taken and tested by the USDA and FDA. According to an article in The Huffington Post, “The EWG looked at six measures of pesticide contamination, gave each measurement a score from one to 100 and compiled the results.

But what was their methodology, if you could call it that? “In government tests analyzed by the Environmental Working Group, detectable pesticide residues were found on 67 percent of food samples after they had been washed or peeled. We found striking differences between the number of pesticides and amount of residues detected on Dirty Dozen Plus™ and Clean Fifteen™ foods.” (Yes, they’ve trademarked the names.)

In essence their approach is (in our words), “Some produce had more residue and some had less. We put the ones with most on a list and called them ‘dirty’ and the ones with least and made a different list and called them ‘clean.’”

This type of gimmick should result in an “F” in a 4th grade science fair, not adoring coverage in major media.

Federal agencies agree that pesticide residues, even from those topping the dirty dozen list, are not in the least harmful at the levels they occur. If you think the government agencies are in cahoots with “big agriculture” and you shouldn’t believe them, consider that even the first lady in her “Let’s Move” campaign advocates consumption of more fruits and vegetables, and hasn’t insisted they be organic.

Read the full column, and feel free to weigh in on Huffington Post comments section.

The Shameful and Painful Spotted Owl Saga: Shooting Stripes To Save Spots

2013-05-03T17:20:59Z

This post is temporarily offline.

Is ObamaCare 'Government-Run' Health Care? Of Course Not...

2013-05-03T15:08:12Z

In one of my recent blog posts I claimed that the problem with a “government run health-care system is that the people who are in most need of health care, the sick, seldom have the political clout necessary to change health care policy that adversely impacts them.” One of the commenters on our Facebook page replied, “ObamaCare is not government-run health care.”

Of coures, such sentiment is hardly limited to Facebook. See this blog post, for instance.

So let’s examines this notion by looking at what ObamaCare actually does. For starters, under ObamaCare, the government is telling you that you must buy health insurance or pay a fine. It is also telling you what kind of health insurance you must buy. And, at least is some places like Washington, DC, it is telling you where you must buy it.

If you are an insurer, the government tells what kind of insurance you can sell and that you must sell insurance to all comers. It also tells you that you cannot vary premiums for health status, how much you can vary premiums by age and what kind of medical-loss-ratio you must have. In short, it is telling you how to price your product.

If you are a business with 50-or-more full-time employee, the government tells you that you must provide insurance for your employees. And, it must be “adequate” insurance. If you do not provide insurance or the government deems it inadequate, it then tells you that you must pay a fine.

So, under ObamaCare does the government “run” health care? Of course not. It just tells us what to do.

Photo: iStockPhoto

Project 21's Green Talks Jobs, Economy and New Unemployment Numbers

2013-05-03T14:49:32Z

Today saw the release of April’s unemployment numbers. It’s still not nearly as good as President Obama promised Americans in return for giving him the keys to the White House.

The official, seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate — the one that all the media reports on — went down slightly to 7.5 percent. According to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, the rate “changed little” and only around 165,000 jobs were created during April. To make matters worse, the U-6 rate that includes the underemployed and despondent who have given up looking for work actually increased to a seasonally-adjusted rate of 13.9 percent.

And President Obama’s most loyal constituency had only a mild decrease in their specific rate as black unemployment fell from 13.3 percent to 13.2 percent. The unemployment rate for Hispanics is an above-average nine percent. And unemployment for teenagers leapt from 33.8 percent to 40.5 percent.

As he does every month upon the release of the new unemployment data, Derryck Green — a member of the National Center’s Project 21 black leadership network — gives his perspective on the state of the economy. Despite the slight improvement, Derryck notes this month that the overall health of the economy and the outlook of the American people does not bode well for a better future:

As unemployment numbers continue to drop only slightly, it appears President Obama will be relying on an extremely misleading indicator to claim the economy is getting stronger.

Since the unemployment numbers haven’t always told the true story of what’s happened to the U.S. economy, we must do a diligent survey of other, broader indicators if we want to accurately gauge the President’s stewardship of an American economy that is — when defined by gross domestic product (GDP) growth — the worst economy in 83 years.

Regarding GDP growth, it was reported that the economy grew at just 2.5 percent [http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/economy-grew-at-25-percent-in-1st-quarter-lower-than-forecast/2013/04/26/9a4e99dc-ae72-11e2-8bf6-e70cb6ae066e_story.html?wpmk=MK0000200] during the first quarter, much slower than expected. One cause being attributed to this slow growth is a reduction in military and defense spending over the past two quarters. According to the Congressional Budget Office, defense spending cuts overall over the course of the Obama Administration and those contained in the much-hyped sequestration may inhibit GDP growth for the next several years.

As it pertains to the jobless and underworked, we know that the actual unemployment rate is just below 14 percent. When unemployment is viewed on a state-by-state basis, there are only six states that have a U-6 unemployment rate that covers the underemployed, those discouraged and the jobless that is below ten percent.

Additionally, USA Today revealed last week that roughly 93 percent of American households lost wealth during President Obama’s first term. Further, the Urban Institute collected data that reveals that, under Obama, Hispanic families have lost 44 percent of their wealth; black families lost 31 percent while white families lost 11 percent.

Families losing wealth doesn’t do much to support the notion of an economic recovery.

With the economy in a sustained rut, more people are finding themselves in poverty and enrolling themselves in the federal food stamp program (now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP). Looking at two separate sources, it shows precisely how and why. There’s no doubt that the recession and so-called recovery have hit many families much harder than others and as such, SNAP continues to provide sustenance for those truly in need.

But SNAP is being abused by folks who may not need its assistance. According to The Washington Post, SNAP recruiters in Florida have monthly quotas to hit so as to ensure $6 billion dollars of federal money continues to pour into the state’s economy.

Furthermore — and what should concern folks even more — is that, according to Judicial Watch, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is working in conjunction with the Mexican Embassy to “widely broaden the SNAP program in the Mexican immigrant community, with no effort to restrict aid to, identify or apprehend illegal immigrants who may be on the food stamp rolls.” The actual government flyer passed around the immigrant community reads, in bold-face type and underlined: “You need not divulge information regarding your immigration status in seeking this benefit for your children.”

Americans’ tax dollars at work.

What’s President Obama’s response to the ongoing economic stagnation? One seems to be more golf. The President has reportedly devoted more time to the golf course than he has to the economy. Twice as much, actually.

Another of the President’s responses was an attempt to push gun control and comprehensive immigration reform at a time when only four percent of Americans considered gun control or immigration a top issue. The most important issue to those polled was the economy at 24 percent.

Yet another response is to continue the Fed’s $85 billion-per-month purchasing of mortgage-backed securities.

Considering these and other economic realities, a course correction cannot be foreseen as happening anytime soon, especially with the train wreck tax effects of ObamaCare approaching. With major corporations already laying off some employees and reducing the hours of others, there is real concern about the lack of domestic economic viability on the horizon.

If this is as good as it gets, President Obama seems to want Americans to think, concern and doubt about a much-needed economic recovery is justified.

top photo credit: iStockPhoto

ObamaCare's Medicaid Expansion--Reality Intercedes

2013-05-02T19:52:08Z

Over at the Cato Institute, Michael Cannon writes that a new study in the New England Journal of Medicine, “throws a huge ‘STOP’ sign in front of ObamaCare’s Medicaid expansion.” Aaron Carroll and Austin Frakt disagree, saying that the study “didn’t show that Medicaid harms people, or that the ACA is a failure, or that anything supporters of Medicaid have said is a lie.” So who’s correct?

First to recap, here’s Phil Klein’s great description of it:

In 2008, Oregon expanded its Medicaid program, but because the state could not cover everybody, lawmakers opened up a lottery that randomly drew 30,000 names from a waiting list of almost 90,000 and allowed them to apply for the program. This created a unique opportunity for health researchers, ultimately allowing them to compare the health outcomes of 6,387 low-income adults who were able to enroll in the program with 5,842 who were not selected.

The NEJM study found no improvement in the Medicaid population relative to the control population on measures of blood pressure, hypertension, cholesterol or glycated hemoglobin (a symptom of diabetes.) It did find higher diagnoses of diabetes, improvement in depression, a drop in catastrophic costs, and mixed evidence on the use of preventive care.

Carroll and Frakt cite some of the latter as reason to continue the Medicaid expansion under ObamaCare (at least, that seems to be their implication.) Let’s look at some of their arguments:

Improvements in mental health are still improvements in health outcomes. The rate of positive screens for depression dropped from 30% to 21% in the Medicaid group. The rate of medication use for depression went from 16.8% to 22.3%. It wasn’t statistically significant (though it was close, p=0.07).

But this finding raises more questions than answers. What caused the drop in depression among those on Medicaid? It doesn’t appear to be medication use, as that was not quite significant. Do people simply become less depressed when they get health coverage? And, if so, how serious is the depression to begin with? Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. Surely, though, there are better ways to help their depression than putting them on a program as expensive and inefficient as Medicaid.

Next,

Preventive care matters. We’ve been cautious about the ability of prevention to save money. But some preventive care improves outcomes. More people on Medicaid got colonoscopies, cholesterol screenings, and prostate cancer screens (whether or not you support them). The percent of women over 50 who got mammograms doubled from 28.9% to 58.6%. Results once again weren’t always “statistically significant”, so people can claim “Medicaid failed”. But colonscopies in people over 50 went from 10.4% to 14.6% (p=0.33). Failure?

Sorry, but 0.33 is not statistically significant—that is, not any different than the control group. The standard is .05, and Carroll and Frakt know that. So, yes, that is a failure. Medicaid also failed to achieve significant improvements in fecal occult-blood tests in people over 50 or flu shots in people over 50. It did achieve a significant increase in cholesterol screening, pap smears, mammograms in women over 50 and PSA tests in men over 50. As noted about, results for preventive care were mixed.

But if cholesterol screening did increase under Medicaid, why was there no improvement in lowering cholesterol levels? In part because their was no improvement in use of cholesterol lowering drugs. Why not? Probably because that requires follow-up from physicians to remind people to take their drugs regularly. And Medicaid’s reimbursements rates are seldom enough to even cover the cost of a doctors visit and testing, let along follow up.

Next,

Financial hardship matters. Here Medicaid shined. It hugely reduced out of pocket spending, catastrophic expenditures, medical debt, and the need to borrow money or skip payments.

Medicaid reduced the number of people in the worst shape—catastrophic expenses—by almost 4.5 percentage points. But only 5.5% of the control group were in that category to begin with. As Michael Cannon notes, “If Medicaid partisans are still determined to do something…they could design smaller, lower-cost, more targeted efforts to reduce depression and financial strain among the poor.”

One other point that Frakt and Carroll do not bring up. Regarding the improvements in diabetes diagnosis and use of diabetes medication—how does one square those results with the fact that glycated hemoglobin levels failed to improve among those with Medicaid? For starters, medication usage among diabetics only improve about 5.4 percentage points. Perhaps a much bigger improvement in medication use is needed before hemoglobin levels improve. Next, diabetics often need a lot of education on their condition, coordination of care, and reminders to take their medication. As I noted above Medicaid’s reimbursement rates don’t even pay enough to cover the cost of the doctors visit.

Frakt and Carroll seem to be engaging in a bit of bad faith when they say, “If they’re arguing that insurance coverage shouldn’t be accessible to poor Americans in any form, we don’t agree.” It was wise of them to put the “if” at the beginning of the sentence, because who is arguing that? Certainly not Cannon or Phil Klein or anyone else I can think of—and not me either. Perhaps they could point to someone who is actually saying that.

Finally, Frakt and Carroll say, “If they are arguing that Medicaid needs to be reformed in some way, we’re open to that.” Good that they’re open to that, but are we likely to get reform if states go ahead with Medicaid expansion and get dependent on the federal dollars, or if they don’t? Once its expanded, the interest groups that depend on those dollars fight tooth and nail against reform. That’s what has made it so difficult to turn the program into block grants in recent years.

Image: iStock Photo

Project 21 Members Discuss National Day of Prayer

2013-05-02T12:15:15Z

Today, as on every first Thursday of May, the National Day of Prayer is being observed.

Originally suggested by the Continental Congress is 1775, the modern National Day of Prayer was enacted in 1952.

As described on the web site of the National Day of Prayer Task Force, a privately-funded organization that promotes the Day, the purpose of the Day is meant for an appeal to “people of all faiths to pray for the nation.” According to the Task Force, past observances have brought together over two million people annually at events in 30,000 government buildings, schools, churches, businesses and private homes across America.

Members of the Project 21 black leadership network are proud to be among those millions celebrating this year’s National Day of Prayer. And they see this year as more meaningful than most due to the hardships our nation has recently endured.

Demetrius Minor, a college and career coordinator who is also an evangelist and motivational speaker and who is currently preparing for further religious studies at ministerial training center, said:

These events are certainly a synopsis of our religious culture. It serves as a reminder of how important these traditions are in Christendom and the need to commemorate them.

But prayer cannot simply be condensed into a single day. It is not something that can be dusted off a shelf once and year and expected to perform at its highest magnitude. Prayer must be a lifestyle.

I am not desensitized by the traditional events surrounding the National Day of Prayer. The spiritual unity that is witnessed during this day is beneficial and definitely needed. This lone event, however, does not account for a personal relationship with God and an active prayer life.

Prayer can change and alter any situation. When God sees an adamant desire by one to communicate with him, he feels compelled to intervene on our behalf. It is the power that makes an alcoholic feel an eradication for his desire of drunkenness. It is the power of prayer that can take a wounded heart of a depressed soul and set it free. The power of prayer faces no limits or boundaries. It is not bound by natural obstacles or setbacks.

We will never learn to grow in our faith and relationship with God by simply waiting for a National Day of Prayer event to speak with him. Prayer must certainly be a lifestyle. It should be something we yearn to do. Prayer must be a lifestyle.

Council Nedd II, the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Missionary Church and chairman of In God We Trust pro-faith in government organization, said:

As we go in to this National Day of Prayer, the events of the last few weeks are most likely in the forefront of most of our minds. The tragedy and tumult of recent times is undoubtedly helping people reconnect with religion.

So why does a national tragedy have to occur in order for the nation — as individuals — to find a value in prayer? Do people ever stop and think that more faith and more prayer and more reliance on God might prevent some of these catastrophic events from happening?

Derryck Green, who is currently pursuing a doctorate in theology and ministry in southern California, said:

Today, as Americans participate in the National Day of Prayer, we should be mindful that our prayers — regardless of our religious tradition — reflect our thankfulness for the blessings that God has bestowed upon our nation.

At the same time, all is not well in our nation. As such, and as I Timothy 2:2 counsels, our prayers and intercessions should be made for all people. This includes those in authority — no matter what their political affiliations are — so that we may live in peace. Let us humbly pray for our nation, our military and civic and religious leaders that God may grant them mercy, much needed courage, very much needed wisdom and guidance.

Let us also pray to God and ask that he forgive of our sins individually as well as corporately as a nation. We should ask God to remove the many manifestations of impurity that finds its way into our lives, and hinder us from personifying the righteousness and justice that he desires. Americans should also fervently pray that God restores our land from the infirmities that afflict our nation.
It is my hope, as noted in Jeremiah 29:12-13, that we earnestly and sincerely seek God in prayer — not only that he may hear us, but also that we may find him.

May God continue bless and restore our lives and our nation as we humble ourselves before him today.

top photo credit: iStockPhoto

Project 21's Nedd: Sharpton No Longer Seems Wedded to Religion Beliefs

2013-05-01T20:58:30Z

Earlier this week, Jason Collins — a mediocre player in the NBA — likely garnered himself at least one more year of play and a spot in the NBA’s Hall of Fame by announcing that he is homosexual.

Reverend Al Sharpton, never one miss an opportunity to toe the extremely liberal line, took to the pages of the Huffington Post web site to declare Collins a “role model” as well as salute “the courage and candor of Mr. Collins” and his “incredible contribution to this country both on and off the basketball court.”

All that because Collins told Sports Illustrated he likes guys.

But Sharpton didn’t stop with platitudes for Collins. He used the announcement to go completely off the rails and against his religious background by using the Collins coming out party as a means of criticizing the institution of marriage.

In his commentary, Sharpton wrote:

Many of my fellow members of the Church think that marriage is sacred between a man and a woman according to the Bible, but if that’s the basis, then why do we allow secular judges to conduct marriage when we don’t know what the judge’s personal beliefs are, if any?… The answer is, we really don’t believe that ourselves and we live in a nation where we do have separation of Church and state. Therefore, why should anyone get to decide which partners are afforded legal rights and which partners are not?

Council Nedd II, the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Missionary Church and a member of the Project 21 black leadership network, faults Sharpton’s understanding of the religious underpinnings of marriage:

For Al Sharpton to say that marriage isn’t sacred tells me that he has completed his transition from ordained minister in the church of God to become a full-blown media personality.

Any first-year student at a local Bible college will not dispute the sanctity of holy matrimony. Even a religious novice should have enough acumen to make a distinction between a civil joining of two people and two people making vows to God before their friends and relatives.

Sharpton asks why churches don’t conduct divorces? The church did conduct divorces for about the first 1,700 years of Christian history. In England, one still cannot remarry in a church without a proper decree of nulity from the church. This is why they have so many civil partnerships in England. In the Philippines, one cannot divorce without the specific permission of the Roman Catholic Church.

There is this book Al Sharpton might have heard about called the Bible. In this book, Christ says render unto Caesar that which is Caesars. The state, for its own reason, has usurped and placed its authority above that of the church.

How can Al Sharpton side with Caesar over scripture regarding the sacrament of marriage?

Health Care Odds & Ends

2013-05-01T16:57:38Z

Some interesting pieces on health care policy, in no particular order:

1. “Obamacare’s backers and critics increasingly seem to agree that the president’s health law is in for a rocky start,” writes Peter Suderman at Reason. He reviews Ezra Klein and Jonathan Cohn’s admissions about this, and concludes: “Does this sound like something that has the potential to be a ‘huge train wreck’? I’ll leave that to others to decide. But at the very least, it sounds as if the Obamacare implementation process is in for a derailment or two.” What I found interesting about Klein and Cohn’s analysis is the omission of the effect ObamaCare regulations is having on jobs, something NCPPR has chronicled here and here and here and here and here.

2. One person who did look at the effect ObamaCare would have on jobs—and also insurance rates, loss of insurance, and other problems—is Dan Kessler of the Hoover Institution. He concludes: “In total, it appears that there will be 30 million to 40 million people damaged in some fashion by the Affordable Care Act—more than one in 10 Americans. When that reality becomes clearer, the law is going to start losing its friends in the media, who are inclined to support the president and his initiatives.” Not so sure about that second sentence, but the first is more than enough to make politicians nervous.

3. Speaking of ObamaCare and jobs, a new survey of small businesses by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce finds that 72% agree that “the recent healthcare law makes it harder for my business to hire more employees” (51% strongly agree, 21% somewhat agree.) Additionally, “Support for the law is very low among small businesses surveyed (21%), and almost eight-out-of-ten (77%) of small businesses surveyed support its repeal.”

While we’re at it, it’s a good time to mention this slightly oldie-but-goodie, the Federal Reserve’s Beige Book from March. It noted that “Employers in several Districts cited the unknown effects of the Affordable Care Act as reasons for planned layoffs and reluctance to hire more staff.” And under Consumer Spending and Tourism it stated, “Many District contacts commented on the expired payroll tax holiday and the Affordable Care Act as having restrained sales growth.”

4. “Almost All Americans Lack Health Insurance.” That was the provocative title of a piece at the Huffington Post by Dr. Beth Haynes. She states “very few Americans have health insurance… because what people call health insurance really isn’t insurance at all.” She continues: “So what is it we have that we call health insurance but isn’t? We have the prepayment of medical expenses. We expect our “insurance” to cover predictable, relatively inexpensive events like health maintenance checks, minor illnesses and injuries — and to pay for them with minimal out of pocket spending. Under Obamacare, these expectations will be mandated by law.” Read it all.

5. Back in November, the Wall Street Journal ran a story with the headline “Health-Care Law Spurs a Shift to Part-Time Workers.” Oh well, Wall Street Journal, typical anti-ObamaCare story that newspaper would run, right? Well, things must have been getting a bit more worrisome when the New York Times ran a story a few weeks ago with the headline, “Part Time Work Become Full-Time Wait for Better Job,” that also mentioned the impact of ObamaCare. Now comes a story from Monday with the headline, “As Health Law Changes Loom, A Shift To Part-Time Workers.” Things must be getting pretty bad out there, because that story comes from National Proletariat Public Radio.

Image: iStock Photo

ObamaCare: Where's The Lefty Outrage? Part V

2013-04-30T15:46:24Z

The evidence keeps piling up that ObamaCare is going to have some very unpleasant effects for employees and employers. And the left stays silent.

To wit:

-Adjunct professors at Virginia’s community colleges are going to see their weekly hours cut from 45 to 29 or less to come under the ObamaCare definition of a full-time employee being 30 hours a week or more (employers have to provide insurance to full-time employees or pay a fine.) It will hit about one-quarter of the 9,100 adjuncts in the Virginia system. Ann Hubbard is one who will see the credit hours she teaches cut from 45 to 27. In response she has set up a Facebook page where “adjuncts and their allies can find out how to write to [Chancellor] DuBois, [Governor] McDonnell or even President Barack Obama appealing for an exemption that would allow them to teach full loads without forcing the state to add them to its health plan.”

-Tim Wulf, who owns a chain of Jimmy John’s sandwich shops in Northern Nevada, has “realized his staff of more than 100 put him right in the bull’s-eye for the ObamaCare mandate.” The article continues:

So Mr. Wulf says he began cutting workers 18 months ago — and not because business was bad. He sold one of his three stores, retrained workers to handle more duties and invested in labor-saving technologies. Automated online ordering, for example, replaced the equivalent of two full-time workers. (Where are they working now, do you suppose?) Given the number of part-timers working at any sandwich shop, Mr. Wulf managed to reduce his workforce to 42 full-time equivalent workers.

-You’ve probably heard of some big employers wondering whether it will be cheaper to drop their insurance and put their employees in the exchanges. Well, guess who’s considering that now? It would be the government of Washington State:

In a quest to save money, political leaders in Washington state are exploring a proposal that would shift some government workers out of their current health plans and onto the insurance exchange developed under President Barack Obama’s health care law.

Lawmakers believe the change, which could affect thousands of part-time state employees and education workers, would save the state $120 million over the next two years. It would consequently push more health care costs onto the federal government because many of the low-income workers would likely qualify for federal subsidies.

Well, what do you expect from a state with a heartless, right-wing, Republican Governor like Jay Inslee…oh wait.

-Finally, Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus recently said, “Government regulations such as Obamacare are destroying small business.”

Funny thing, there are no calls from the left for a boycott of Home Depot. That’s sure different than the treatment Darden Restaurants received. In fact, not a peep from Salon, Daily KOS, MSNBC, Mother Jones, the Huffington Post and the other usual suspect about Marcus’ remarks, let alone a call for a boycott. In fact, none of those sites mention the Virginia adjunct professors, Jimmy John’s or Washington State.

The strategy seems to be see nothing bad about ObamaCare, hear nothing bad, speak nothing bad. At this point, that may be the only strategy they have left.

Photo: iStock Photo

Why Is IPAB M.I.A.?

2013-04-29T17:31:37Z

The Independent Payment Advisory Board, also known affectionately as the death panel, may be in its early death throes. From my article at the American Spectator:

If a government actuary conducts an analysis but the committee that is supposed to receive that analysis doesn’t exist, does the analysis make a sound?

The Chief Actuary of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services may soon be asking himself that question. Under Obamacare he is required to determine by this Tuesday, April 30, whether the projected growth rate in Medicare for 2015 will exceed the targeted Medicare growth rate. If the projected growth rate exceeds the target, then Obamacare’s Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) is supposed to develop a proposal to bring Medicare’s expenditures back in line with the target.

The only problem is that IPAB doesn’t yet exist.

That probably won’t be the only deadline IPAB will miss.

Read it all here.

Project 21’s Minor Reflects on the Legacy of George W. Bush

2013-04-25T19:16:52Z

Project 21 member Demetrius Minor saw history in the making as an intern in the George W. Bush Administration. With today’s dedication of the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas, Texas, Demetrius shares these words about the Bush presidency:

I want to congratulate President George W. Bush and his wife, Laura, on the dedication of his presidential library and museum.

I had the distinct privilege to serve as a White House intern during the Bush Administration in 2006. It was an honor to serve a leader who had bravery, courage and principles. He was strong and gracious, and his impeccable character was a reflection of his staff and personnel.

George W. Bush’s love for America was a beacon of hope and strength during some of her most challenging and difficult days. Today is a solemn reminder that our nation owes a debt of thanks for the firm leadership that was displayed by our 43rd president.

Jeff Stier, Pfizer CEO Criticize "Academic Detailing" in Health Care

2013-04-25T17:52:08Z

Jeff Stier, director of the National Center for Public Policy Research’s Risk Analysis Division, asks Pfizer CEO Ian Read about his company’s position on “academic detailing.” Academic detailing empowers academics selected by the government to guide how medical care and prescription drugs are delivered to patients, Jeff points out the program currently lacks transparency and creates a conflict of interest because the government seeks both quality care while demanding the cheapest costs. Jeff further points out the system as it is currently set up could endanger patients because a standardized program might put patients prone to certain medical side effects at risk if only certain drugs are mandated under the new regulatory regime.

Pfizer CEO Ian Read replied that the beliefs of the National Center and Pfizer “100-percent coincide” and government efforts to run health care could result in an unfortunate “waste of money.” Read also noted, regarding the issue of transparency, that the government’s representatives will not be bound by the same rules and standards that the medical industry is bound to, which could also cause problems.

This exchange took place at the Pfizer annual meeting of shareholders on 4/25/13.

Johnson and Johnson CEO Says Medical Device Tax Should Be "Reconsidered"

2013-04-25T17:45:34Z

Justin Danhof of the National Center’s Free Enterprise Project questions Johnson and Johnson chairman and CEO Alex Gorsky about the company’s decision to drop its support of the American Legislation Exchange Council and to comment a National Center proposal to end the ObamaCare medical device tax and offset it by also ending wind power subsidies. This exchange took place at the company’s 4/25/13 annual meeting of shareholders.

In response to Justin’s question, Gorsky said he made the decision to drop support of ALEC — an organization Johnson and Johnson worked with on business issues before ALEC was targeted by organized leftist groups as racist for its support of voter ID legislation — because ALEC was “no longer consistent” with Johnson and Johnson’s much-heralded credo.

On the medical device tax, Gorsky said that Johnson and Johnson was “working with other trade organizations” to improve ObamaCare, and about the tax that there are “definitely components of it that should be reconsidered” because the tax may stifle innovation and affect employment.

Government Health Care: What You Get Will Depend On Your Political Clout, Part II

2013-04-25T16:57:35Z

As noted yesterday, the problem with the government run health-care system is that the people who are in most need of health care, the sick, seldom have the political clout necessary to change health care policy that adversely impacts them.

Two reasons for this are: 1. The very sick are relatively few in number, which means they amount to a very limited number of voters, too limited to have much impact on elections; and 2. They are too sick to engage in the type of political activities such as organizing, protesting, etc., necessary to bring about change in health care policy.

Yesterday I examined cases where sick people or their caretakers had some understanding that government policy—specifically, Medicare policy—was negatively impacting their care but lacked the numbers or were too ill to impact the political system.

Today let’s look at the two other reasons why the sick lack political clout: 3. They may be completely unaware of how government health care policy has affected their plight, in which case they will not feel the need to vote or organize to change health care policy; and 4. They’re dead, in which case they definitely won’t be organizing and, unless they are laid to rest in Chicago, they won’t be voting.

Consider the Medicare cuts that Congress made to hospitals as part of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. While many of these cuts were scaled back after 2000, the cuts made from 1997 to 2000 had relatively long-lasting effects, according to a paper by Vivian Y. Wu and Yu-Chu Shen. They found that hopsitals in urban areas that endured larger cuts had worse mortality rates from 2001-2005 for heart attack patients relative to hopsitals that faced smaller cuts.

Now, the patients who died from heart attacks related to the Medicare cuts won’t be around to do anything about it, obviously. The relatives and friends of the deceased could try to take action against Congress—say, lobby against Medicare cuts done this way—but what are the chances that they will ever know that Medicare’s policy had a hand in their loved one’s death? They were almost surely unaware that their loved one was treated at a hopsital that endured a large Medicare cut. And chances are slim they will ever read Wu and Shen’s paper.

And even if they did become aware of it, whom could they hold accountable now? Many of the politicians who were in Congress that voted for the Balanced Budget Act in 1997 are now gone from office.

In short, government-run health care works against the sick because it makes it very difficult for the sick to hold policymakers accountable. My advice to you if ObamaCare is never repealed: Don’t get sick.

Image: iStock Photo

Congress Creates Privileged Class Under ObamaCare

2013-04-25T15:19:27Z

A Politico story that has apparently jumped the gun claims Congress is trying to exempt itself from ObamaCare. Ezra Klein dispels that, but then goes on to miss something, well, kind of important:

…the federal government is the largest employer in the country. So Grassley’s amendment means that the largest employer in the country is required to put some of its employees — the ones working for Congress — on the exchanges. But the exchanges don’t have any procedures for handling premium contributions for large employers.

That’s where the problem comes in. This was an offhand amendment that was supposed to be rejected. It’s not clear that the federal government has the authority to pay for congressional staffers on the exchanges, the way it pays for them now in the federal benefits program. That could lead to a lot of staffers quitting Congress because they can’t afford to shoulder 100 percent of their premiums….

But no one is discussing “exempting” congressional staffers from Obamacare. They’re discussing creating some method through which the federal government can keep making its current contribution to the health insurance of congressional staffers.

While Congress may not be exempting itself from ObamaCare, Klein misses the fact that Congress is creating a special privilege for its staffers. No other employer can make a contribution to his employees’ insurance should hisemployees purchase it on the exchange in 2014. (Small business were supposed to be able to do this via the SHOP program, but that has been postponed until at least 2015). The soonest a big business would be able to make a contribution to an employee’s insurance would be 2017.

Unless, of course, you are staffer working on Capitol Hill. In that case you will be getting what no other purchaser in the exchange will be getting in 2014, an employer contribution—assuming Congress has its way.

There’s a term for that: It’s “Privileged Class.”

Photo: iStock Photo

Government Health Care: What You Get Will Depend On Your Political Clout

2013-04-24T16:43:06Z

One of the biggest drawbacks of any government-run health care system is that the health care you get is more likely to be determined by political clout than medical need. That’s a problem because the the sickest people are the ones who are most in need and most likely to lack political clout.

The reasons they lack such clout are:

1. The very sick are relatively few in number, which means they amount to a very limited number of voters, too limited to have much impact on elections.

2. They are too sick to engage in the type of political activities such as organizing, protesting, etc., necessary to bring about change in health care policy.

3. They may be completely unaware of how government health care policy has affected their plight, in which case they will not feel a need to vote or organize to change health care policy.

4. They’re dead, in which case they definitely won’t be organizing and, unless they are laid to rest in Chicago, they won’t be voting.

For today, let’s look at an example involving one and two, saving three and four for tomorrow.

Until recently, Medicare would only pay for physical, occupational or speech therapy if the therapy satisfied the “improvement standard.” The improvement standard required that the patient must be showing improvement while undergoing therapy. If he wasn’t, therapy would be discontinued.

At one time, the improvement standard may have made sense. Most patients who received therapy underwent it for an injury, say, to a knee or hand. The rationale for the therapy was that it was might succeed in improving the function of the injured body part, possibly restoring it to its pre-injury state.

But medical professionals often find that over time a treatment intended for a particular illness has multiple uses. Therapy is no exception.

In the last 20 years or so studies have found many uses for therapy. According to a review of the medical literature, no therapy treatment has yet proven effective in stopping multiple sclerosis (MS), but some treatments have proven useful in treating the symptoms. For example, a recent article examining primary-progressive MS found that therapy and other rehabilitative treatments can slow its progression by minimizing problems that result from decreased mobility or by compensating for a loss of function. A “meta-analysis” of the effect of occupational therapy on MS patients found that it was generally effective in improving muscle strength, range of motion, walking, and daily tasks like bathing and dressing. Another study of MS patients found that extensive therapy did little to improve patients’ impairment but did help them maintain their activity level.

Other studies have shown that therapy benefits patients suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease. Alzheimer’s patients in a walking program showed improvement in activities of daily living and a slower decline in mental activities. Another article showed improvements in balance and a slowing of cognitive decline using physiotherapy, occupational therapy and physical education. Various types of speech therapy also improve health outcomes for dementia patients.

The results of such studies offer hope, but many of the benefits listed above do not necessarily satisfy the improvement standard. Improving muscle strength or the ability to carry out daily activities might qualify. But things like “slowing the progression,” “treating the symptoms,” and “slowing cognitive decline,” probably would not.

Case in point was Clay Bell, a Detroit-area man who suffered from primary-progressive MS, the worst form of the disease. Being disabled, he was covered by Medicare. By the time I interviewed him, he was paralyzed from the neck down. About a year prior, he still had some limited mobility in his arms and legs, thanks to physical and occupational therapy. However, therapy was not going to improve his condition. It would only slow the decline, so Medicare cut it off. After he was cut off, his decline came very quickly.

Patients with primary progressive MS are some of the most likely to run afoul of the improvement standard. Estimates vary, but somewhere between 250,000 and 400,000 Americans suffer from MS. Primary-progressive accounts for 10 to 15 percent of those, or 25,000 to 60,000. Even if their physical limitations didn’t present serious obstacles to political organization, their numbers at most average to about 137 per congressional district and 1,200 per state—hardly enough to have much impact on House or Senate elections.

There are far more Alzheimer’s patients, an estimated 5.4 million in the U.S. Exactly how many of them run afoul of the improvement standard is not known, but if it was even one-fifth, they might have the numbers to influence Congress. But, of course, Alzheimer’s patients also suffer from mental impairment. People who suffer from confusion, memory loss, and problems with attention and language difficulties, sadly, aren’t going to be a political force to be reckoned with.

Fortunately, the “improvement standard” was recently overturned. The Center for Medicare Advocacy filed a class action lawsuit against it, arguing that the standard was not based on any actual legislation or regulation. Apparently the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services realized that it did not have a case. CMS settled, and now qualifying for therapy will be based “on whether the beneficiary needs skilled care.”

Unfortunately that came too late for Clay Bell, who passed away in May 2012. How many other people with MS or dementia saw their health decline or died prematurely because of the improvement standard? That’s something that may never be known. What will be the next treatment that could help a group of Medicare beneficiaries that Medicare won’t pay for because the group lacks sufficient political clout? We don’t know, but given the way Medicare functions it is inevitable.

Photo: iStock Photo

The Internet Sales Tax Is About Helping Local Businesses The Way Bernie Madoff Was About Helping His Investors

2013-04-23T15:55:02Z

A bill with the Orwellian name “Marketplace Fairness Act” that imposes a sales tax on internet retailers looks like it is going to be passed by the Senate.

As it wends its way through Congress, you’ll hear plenty of rhetoric like this: The bill “will level the playing field for local small business retailers that are in competition every day with large out-of-state online companies,” said President Obama.

I believe that, don’t you? Undoubtedly, the money collected will go to help local business lower their costs so they can better compete with online retailers. You’ll see state and local government use the revenue from the internet tax to cut sales taxes and maybe even property taxes for local businesses.

The logical flaw in that argument, though, seems to be that state and local governments could do those things now without internet sales tax revenue. So, why don’t they? Well, that would mean those governments would get less revenue. And governments are not about anything if they’re not about getting more revenue.

And that, of course, is the purpose of the internet sale tax. As Sen Dick. Durbin (D-Ill) said, “What it means is a lot of money for states and localities.” Kudos to Durbin for his honesty.

You can bet that the money will be spent on state and local politicians’ interests that help them get reelected, especially the salary, pensions and health care costs of government workers. Local retailers will be lucky to see a dime of it. Instead, they are being used in a scam to squeeze more money out of the taxpayers. For more on this, here’s what I wrote about the internet sales tax at Investor’s Business Daily a few months back:

This is nothing short of a racket. To see this, one just has to examine how the tax is going to be collected. If, say, a person in Texas purchases an item online from a company in Rhode Island, the company has to compute the sales tax for Texas, apply it to the item, charge it to the customer as part of the price, and then remit the tax to the state of Texas. And the company in Rhode Island has to do this for every state.

That means retailers have to keep track of many different sales tax jurisdictions, a once near-Herculean task. But a website supporting the “Marketplace Fairness Act” actually makes a reasonable point. Because of computer technology, this is “no longer an insurmountable technical, administrative, or financial burden.” Well, it’s no longer an insurmountable burden. The cost the businesses have to pay for such technology is still a cost and, hence, a burden.

But here’s why it is a racket. If making the process simple is really the goal, then why not simply apply the sales tax where the online retailer is located? The company in Rhode Island would simply add the state’s 7% sales tax to all of its items, and the consumer would pay that every time he purchased something online from the company.

That’s the way it works now every time we take a trip to another state and make purchases there. When I go to Maryland, I pay the 6% Maryland sales tax on anything I buy there. The taxes go into the coffers of the state of Maryland. The businesses I buy from do not remit the sales taxes to Virginia, my state of residence.

Doing it that way would be much simpler and less costly than companies having to buy software that enables them to apply the sales tax in multiple states. Of course, that might force states to compete for the business of online retailers. Big online retailers would be inclined to locate in states like Delaware which has no sales tax. Or they would be inclined to locate in states with low sales taxes and regulations that were far more business friendly. Regardless, states would have to compete for online businesses, and governments generally like competition the way a vampire likes garlic.

So, the federal and state governments want to do it in a more convoluted way which, as governments will do, they call “simple.” Most importantly, doing it this way ensures that every state gets a cut of the boodle.

And once most state governments get their hands on this money, let the spending begin!

One of the funniest moments to come out of this entire boondoggle occurred when ex-Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour took the the pages of NRO to promote it. Now flacking for the Retail Industry Leaders Association, Barbour claimed, “The Marketplace Fairness Act is something all conservatives should be proud to support.”

Sending more money to near-bankrupt states like California, New York and Illinois is something conservatives should be proud to support? What was Mr. Barbour sprinkling on his breakfast cereal?

Bernie Madoff scammed many people out of millions of dollars. Congress is about to scam us out of billions. The difference? Madoff didn’t dress up his scam as a matter of “fairness” and helping “local business.”

Photo: iStock Photo