Maggie's Farm

November 9 marks the 20^th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, put up by the communist rulers in 1961 to stem the drain from behind the Iron Curtain of those to whom freedom meant everything.  There was widespread shock throughout the West at the end of the Cold War, which seemed endless, costly and perhaps unwinnable, and the fall of the existential threat of communism and its terrible toll on mankind, which to some seemed impervious or even eventually triumphant.

Roger Kimball, editor of The New Criterion, writes about “Tyranny Set In Stone: Why We Must Not Forget The Lessons Of Berlin.”

As we look around the world today, a melancholy spectacle greets our gaze. The Soviet Union is no more, but a minatory if diminished Russia has taken its place. A possibly nuclear Iran. A confirmed nuclear North Korea and Pakistan. Preposterous anti-American strongmen like Hugo Chávez in Venezuela. An increasingly rampant threat of Islamofascism. The enemies of freedom and the West are more numerous than ever. It is here that the two deepest lessons of the Berlin Wall lie. First, that tyranny frankly confronted can be defeated. But, second, that the victory of freedom is never final: it must always be renewed not only through our willingness to acknowledge and struggle against evil, but also through a forthright proclamation of our own founding principles. It is this last requirement of freedom that seems most difficult for Western intellectuals. To quote Kolakowski once more, there is “one Great Cause that has persisted more or less intact throughout the past decades in the Leftist mentality: the loathing of democratic countries. Allegiances changed, but if there was something enduring in Leftist politics, it was this: in any conflict between a tyrannical and democratic country, the tyrants were right and democracy wrong.” One would have thought that the admonitory tale of the Berlin Wall would provide an incontrovertible disabusement. Alas, it is a lesson we have yet to absorb.

President Obama is too disinterested, and occupied accomplishing nothing, to attend the 20th anniversary celebration in Berlin.

P.S.: Here's another rumination on 1989 and another fall.

It's not a real commercial, but still...

The Congressional Budget Office’s initial analysis of the Republican alternative to Obama/PelosiCare is striking.  Lowered federal deficit, lowered premiums, more freedom of choice, less government intrusion into medicine and peoples’ personal lives, support for health care and savings innovations (including cutting the huge costs of “defensive medicine” by having tort reform – which the tort lawyer funded Democrats conveniently left out), and increased and easier coverage for those with pre-existing conditions.

This op-ed and the CBO Director’s transmittal letter briefly sums it up; the full CBO analysis is here. According to the CBO, less of those called uninsured, although in actuality only about a quarter are citizens truly needy, would be covered than under  ObamaCare.  Many of those actually needy would be covered, and others already insured would better afford keeping their coverage. This is at a savings of $1+ trillion, and our freedoms, and the ability of our world-leading health care innovations to not be stifled.

Sounds like a real choice, right? Throw out the baby with the dirty water, a la ObamaCare, or provide a proper cleansing.  Not with this heavily Democrat Congress.  But, wait and work for 2010 to correct that.

The Associated Press screwed the pooch*, in multiple ways, in its reporting of the release by the JFK Presidential Library of previously classified recordings of President Kennedy's meetings in 1963 with advisors about Vietnam.  The discussions involve the unauthorized cable from the State Department lending support to a coup against South Vietnam’s President Diem.

1. The JFK Presidential Library, administered by the National Archives, expressly admonishes in its press release:  “Members of the media are cautioned against making historical conclusions based on the sound clips and transcript alone.”

The AP’s report, instead, leads with, “Newly released White House tapes from the Vietnam War era portray President John F. Kennedy wrestling over the fate of South Vietnam's strongman in a situation that appears to mirror President Barack Obama's quandary today in dealing with Afghanistan's shaky government.” The AP’s headline: “Tapes show Kennedy was conflicted over Saigon coup”  My local newspaper one-upped the AP by changing the headline to “Like Obama with Afghanistan, Kennedy had issues with an ally.” (Sorry, the website for the San Diego Union-Tribune is still down, but once up you can find the link there.)

2. The AP report concludes with a sheer ignorance by its reporter, Barry Schweid: “The battlefield situation gradually worsened for South Vietnam and the United States, and the conflict drew to a close under President Richard M. Nixon. All U.S. ground troops were gone by March 1973, and the United States evacuated Saigon in April 1975.”

In fact, the battlefield situation, after the governing and combat chaos spawned by the US backed 1963 coup against Diem, stabilized and, indeed, markedly improved after the almost total decimation of the Viet Cong during and after Tet ’68, then under President Nixon’s turning command over to General Abrams (see here) whose direction reduced the North Vietnamese forces to barely subsisting across the borders in sanctuaries, then with US logistics and airpower backing it up the South Vietnamese Army roundly defeating the North Vietnamese invasion of 1972.  It was the post-Watergate abandonment of US pledges to supply airpower and arms to South Vietnam, perpetrated by the liberal majority that got control of the US Congress, that led to the downfall of South Vietnam to the massive invasion from North Vietnam in 1975.

3. In between, the AP doesn’t bother to mention that JFK’s Ambassador to Vietnam, Frederick Nolting, in the recordings released says, “my view is that there is no one that I know of who can – who has a reasonably good prospect of holding this fragmented, divided country together except Diem.”  Many careful scholars of Vietnam have documented that Diem was falsely portrayed by some influentials in the media and within the US government’s advisors. The coup unleashed years of governmental instability and weakness within Vietnam, requiring heavier US commitment of troops to hold and reverse the unleashed downslide in South Vietnam’s defenses. (See, for example, here.)

4. President Kennedy, in the period in these tapes, is not in favor of the coup unleashed by his State Department.  In effect, though, he at least ultimately acquiesced.

In no substantive way does the situation in Vietnam during the 1960’s parallel that in Afghanistan today, except in the muddled thinking within our White House and Congress, poor MSM reporting, and the American people’s declining confidence in and tolerance for unsuccessful half-way measures.

* http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/screw_the_pooch [edit] Verb

1. to screw up; to fail in dramatic and ignominious fashion

After my morning prayers, and thanks for Republican victories in yesterday’s elections that may help stop the ObamaCare obomination in its tracks, I picked up my morning newspaper and on page 3 read the article, “Move to put spiritual care in health bill.”  (Sorry, my local newspaper’s website is down for overhaul, but here’s the complete wire service dispatch.)

This is exactly one of the absurdities that argues against ObamaCare or most further government takeover of healthcare.  Special interests intrude their mandates, and costs, on us all, even with little justification outside their mustered political power.

One of the battles in Congress is over a provision of the House ObamaCare bill that would require insurers to pay for prayer treatments as for other medical treatments.  It was proposed by a Republican congressman, whose district includes Principia College, a Christian Scientist school.

There’s some evidence that a patient’s morale affects their recovery.  There’s some evidence that prayer can improve a patient’s morale.  There’s, also, much more evidence  that prayer will not cure most ailments and, indeed, there are sufficient studies that substituting prayer for proven scientific medicine can prolong or worsen serious ailments that otherwise could be alleviated or cured.

I, personally, like the saner holistic approach to medicine, to add proper diet, exercise, some vitamins, and yoga to one’s health regimen.  And, I pray.  But, to require that medical insurance cover these is insane, and costly, crowding out the core scientific medicine that is essential. Many who are uninsured are, thus, priced out of coverage due to the costs of mandates for usually lesser effective treatments, like chiropractry or acupuncture or massage, being added into insurance. Further, adding in very expensive in vitro fertilization, as desirable as it may be for those infertile to enjoy having children, is similarly counterproductive to our main concerns about improving health care.  If they want children, pay for it, or accept your fate.  There is not a legal nor moral obligation for taxpayers or others who buy insurance to buy children for them.

This argument in Congress over whether to include insurance coverage for prayer is an absurd but indicative example of what we can expect when special interest government runs health care.

Addendum: The above are just a few more examples of some of the points that The B made in his Insurance Freedom post this week. It is, indeed, insane. Furthermore, I never heard of paying for prayer. Prayer is one of the few things that remains free and untaxed.

Addendum: Christian Science practioners do charge.  Other "clergy" may and will, as well, if they can get paid by insurance.

BTW, see my comment below about which "mandate" I'd like to have in my insurance!

Why the heck should anyone care about how health insurance agents will fare under ObamaCare?

Under the House bill, for example, the Small Business Administration will help businesses and individuals figure out how to obtain affordable coverage.  (The bill provision is titled, “Assistance for Small Employers.”)  Health insurance agents are not precluded from providing advice.  But, the SBA will be allowed to bypass agents.

A health insurance agent is required to complete initial and regular formal training courses in the subject (including ethics), pass initial and periodic tests, and are screened by their state and by insurance companies for criminal or personal conduct (including declaring bankruptcy) that may negatively affect their reliability to be licensed to provide agent services.  In addition, through professional associations, through insurer education programs, through self-study, and through competitive pressures, health agents stay current on the latest laws and offerings from various insurers.  Furthermore, almost all health insurance agents are independent businesses or work for independent agencies, not beholden to the insurers but to their customers.  Importantly, individuals, small and larger businesses have priorities more important and pressing than becoming experts in health insurance or its interactions with other laws or aspects of their primary concerns, and heavily depend upon qualified, trusted health insurance agents.  Lastly, many health insurance agents have extensive credentials and experience.  For example, I attained earned, tested, rigorous certifications – Chartered Financial Consultant (ChFC), Registered Employee Benefits Concultant (REBC), Registered Health Underwriter (RHU), Chartered Life Underwriter (CLU) – that, along with other experiences outside health insurance (I was a senior financial and business operations exec for Fortune 100 and small companies for 15-years before becoming a health insurance agent) and years of experience as a health insurance agent (I’ve been at it for two-decades). This delivers wide-ranging values to my clients and of the interactions of their health insurance with their broader business, regulatory and financial affairs.

Does anyone expect the staff hired or created by the SBA to have this independence, experience or training?  If so, get real!

Surely, there are some health insurance agents who are lesser or incompetent, or who are crooked, or who steer some business toward favored insurers for added volume bonuses.  However, the less competent exist in a highly competitive market, where they lose business to the more energetic and competent in delivering value to clients.  The crooked or shady are winnowed out similarly plus by stiff regulations and prosecutions.

This is just another aspect of the losses that individuals and businesses will suffer under ObamaCare.

A leading expert and opponent of Obamacare, Grace-Marie Turner, writes in the New York Post:

The 1,990-page bill the House leadership unveiled Thursday would impose a dizzying barrage of new regulations on employers, and force them to either provide government-specified health insurance or pay a penalty of up to 8 percent of their payroll.

Even firms that now provide health benefits get slammed -- since that coverage may not meet the government's definition of "acceptable." …

The head of the National Federation of Independent Business, Dan Danner, said the reform bill's huge cost "will ultimately come out of small business owners' pockets and prohibit them from growing, investing in their business and hiring new employees." …

The pain continues: The bill would also subject businesses and employees to a bigger, hidden tax -- a shifting of costs from public to private payers.

The legislation would expand Medicaid -- the joint federal/state program designed to insure low-income Americans -- to cover another 15 million people. But Medicaid payments to doctors and hospitals are well below market rates -- and often below their costs of providing care.

A study by the independent actuarial firm Milliman Inc. concluded that families with employer-based health insurance already pay $1,788 a year in hidden taxes to compensate for underpayments by government programs. That figure will plainly grow under the House bill.

For a final blow, the bill imposes surcharges on high-income individuals that will certainly hit many small business owners -- who pay business taxes through their personal-income tax forms.

Also, read The Worst Bill Ever.

For disclosure, I’m nearing retirement, and have shrunk my successful business.  I am not going to directly suffer as a health insurance agent or small businessman, although I will as a taxpayer and as someone who cares about quality health care for myself and others if ObamaCare passes.

It was reported earlier today, here and here, that the machine-picked liberal Republican candidate whose poor polling -– and lack of support from Republicans -- led to her withdrawal from the race threw her support to the Democrat instead of to the Republican who challenged her – Doug Hoffman.  Hoffman is polling neck-and-neck with the Democrat for this upstate New York Congressional seat.  The outcome of this race will send an important signal to Washington waverers about what should be their upcoming congressional votes affecting the course of our country.

Congressman Darrel Issa just sent out an interesting and telling email about how important Obama sees this election:

Astonishingly, the Republican nominee in the special election has dropped out, and endorsed the Democrat! Just hours before she endorsed the Democrat, she received calls from Barack Obama's chief of staff Rahm Emanuel. She also received calls from the Chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Senator Chuck Schumer. Was Scozzafava promised something in return for her endorsement of the Democrat? Time will tell.

Issa says,

Volunteers continue to pour into upstate New York, but we are short of funds to pay for their transportation, lodging and meals. This race has turned into an all out battle between the White House and the conservative base of the Republican Party. Apparently all tactics are on the table.

Issa asks that urgent contributions be made via his own Political Action Committee to help elect conservative Republican Doug Hoffman, send the White House and Congressional Democrats the message that we’ve had enough of their ruinous tax-and-spend-and control our lives, send Republican hacks in Washington the message that truer Republican principles and support are required, and not let Obama and Emanuel run the Republican Party.

Instead of sending your contributions via Issa, send them directly to Doug Hoffman’s campaign.  The link is here to donate and to learn more about Hoffman.

We already know that Obama-style politics is payola politics, trying to buy off votes and power with our taxes and earnings. Say ENOUGH!

When I left New York City in 1968, after graduating college, I like many of my fellow graduates from working and lower middle-class families sought our opportunities elsewhere, and most metropolitan elsewheres were better than NYC.  The job market was still strong in NYC, but opportunities for advancement better elsewhere, the costs of living and taxes lower, the public services better, public safety higher.

Today, the New York City disease has spread more widely around the country.  Most major metropolitan areas, the hub of most states, have seen their infrastructure serving the upward mobility and the financial and personal security of their upward-striving or holding-on working and middle class deteriorate over the past 40-years.

Still, there’s striking differences among the states, and the results show.

William Voegeli writes in today’s Los Angeles Times, "The Golden State isn't worth it."  Voegli compares California to Texas, “Our high-benefit/high-tax model no longer works, especially compared with low-tax states like Texas.”  Voegeli says, “These alternatives, of course, define the basic argument between liberals and conservatives over what it means to get the size and scope of government right….[T]he superior public goods that supposedly justify the high taxes just aren't being delivered.”

It’s not ideologues who are moving.  For example, I recently ran into a couple I was friendly with in San Diego during the ‘90’s, he a French doctor-scientist and she a Dutch-Indonesian.  They compared San Diego favorably in all respects (except cuisine) to living in Europe, and were happy to be here.  Then they moved to a better job in Silicon Valley, where despite higher income they could afford a house half the size and they felt surrounded by selfishly aggressive strivers.  Then they moved to Austin, Texas, where they could afford a much larger house for their family, in an excellent neighborhood with top schools, the cultural life is vibrant, and the daily courtesies among residents are welcoming and provide good role models for their children.  These products of Europe are a reality test of America.

Voegeli continues: “Overall, the Census Bureau's latest data show that state and local government expenditures for all purposes in 2005-06 were 46.8% higher in California than in Texas: $10,070 per person compared with $6,858.”  Between 2000 and 2007, “16 of the 17 states with the lowest tax levels had positive "net internal migration," in the Census Bureau's language, while 14 of the 17 states with the highest taxes had negative net internal migration.”

Why?

The high-benefit/high-tax model can work only if things are demonstrably not equal -- if the public goods purchased by the high taxes far surpass the quality, quantity and impact of those available to people who live in states with low taxes.

Today's public benefits fail that test, as urban scholar Joel Kotkin of NewGeography.com and Chapman University told the Los Angeles Times in March: "Twenty years ago, you could go to Texas, where they had very low taxes, and you would see the difference between there and California. Today, you go to Texas, the roads are no worse, the public schools are not great but are better than or equal to ours, and their universities are good. The bargain between California's government and the middle class is constantly being renegotiated to the disadvantage of the middle class.

How?

None of this happens by accident. California's interlocking directorate of government employee unions, issue activists, careerists and campaign contributors has become increasingly aggressive and adept at using rhetoric extolling public benefits for all to deliver targeted advantages to itself. As a result, the political reality of the high-benefit/high-tax model is that its public goods are, increasingly, neither public nor good. Instead, the beneficiaries are the providers of the public services, and certain favored or connected constituencies, rather than the general population.

What to expect?

The recession will eventually end, and California's finances will get better. Given its powerful systemic bias against efficient and effective public services, however, the question is whether the state will ever get well. California's public sector has pinned its hopes for avoiding fundamental reform on increased federal aid to replace dollars the state's fed-up taxpayers refuse to surrender. In other words, residents in the other 49 states -- the new 49ers? -- would enjoy the privilege of paying California's taxes. Their one consolation will be not having to endure its lousy public services.

If, on the other hand, America's taxpayers (and China's bond buyers) succumb to bailout fatigue, California may reach the point at which, after every alternative has been exhausted, it is forced to try governing itself competently.

It’s not just California, or New York City, but throughout much of America today that we’re seeing the hollowing out of the infrastructure and services and opportunities that built America’s uniqueness and success compared to the rest of the world.  And, big-government advocates are clamoring for yet higher taxes. The New York Times reports today that “Faced with anxiety in financial markets about the huge federal deficit and the potential for it to become an electoral liability for Democrats” the White House and congressional Democrats are seeking some way to reduce the huge federal deficits they have created, and that more taxes are their prescription.

Government  workers and their unions are prime beneficiaries of our heavy taxes. Most of even the made-up stats recently released about jobs saved or created by the federal appropriation of the near $1-trillion “stimulus” show relatively few and most of those among government workers.  The $1-trillion, likely to be much more, cost of the wholesale upheaval of 1/6^th of the US economy in health care – which really only serves about the 25% of those who truly need it who don’t have insurance at the expense of the 85% of Americans who do have coverage -- will fall heavily upon the working and middle class.  The $trillions of indirect and direct taxes of the “cap-and-trade” illusory environmental bill will also add $thousands each year to each American's costs of living, to the economic benefit of profiteering fat cats and their politicos who garner contributions.

At root this may be an ideological battle, as Voegeli says.  But, it is really a practical battle between those who aspire and work for a better life and those relatively few who would squander its underpinnings for their own greedy benefits.  The real populist revolt is already shaking Washington and state capitals, and much more is to come.