Radio outline:

1) What are the goals or core principles of the Tea Party?

1. Limited Constitutional federal government.
2. Individual liberties
3. Governmental fiscal responsibility
4. The free market
5. Education and political events and activism related to promoting those items

2) Why did you get into the Tea Party?

1. Really the “Patriot Act” under President Bush put me over the edge. The idea that the government could write its own security letters, which allowed them to perform searches without a warrant, was my last straw. But I didn’t know what I could do about it.  I went to the April 15^th tax day Tea Party just to see what it was about and decided then, that I could something more than I had been. So I emailed Christie and asked to become involved in the Huntsville Tea Party.

3) Why now? Why not during President Bush’s term?

1. I was involved in writing letters and talking to my friends, but it wasn’t until the various bailouts and the first Tea Parties in February 2009 that there was enough critical mass to easily get involved locally.

4) What did Republican’s do that you don’t agree with?

1. Unconstitutional portions of the Patriot Act
2. First Bailout
3. Failure to cite or reference constitution when making new laws
4. They mostly seem to head the same direction as the Democrats, just a little slower down the Big Government, unconstitutional path
5. Almost all of them fail to stand on principles and are willing to compromise almost anything for a vote

5) What can people do to help?

1. Volunteer to help your local Tea Party (fliers, events, phone calls, education)
2. Read the Constitution. Get used to using it when talking about politics.
   1. I suggest reading “The 5000 Year Leap” as background on constitutional principles.
3. Be involved in local education. Help our youth get taught American history and the Constitution so they understand why constitutional government is a good thing.
4. Be involved in local politics. Let your State reps hear from you. Know what they are doing and WHY. Same thing for National politics.
5. Support your State’s efforts to reassert its rights under the 10^th amendment

6) What are you doing now?

1. Upcoming Doctor’s Rally (Million Med March)
2. 2010 elections – We are creating Candidate surveys
3. Welcome Back Rally in January
4. April Tea Party – Near tax day
5. 2^nd Constitution Seminar in the spring
6. Flier and Constitution distribution
7. July 4^th Tea Party
8. 9/12 March on Washington

1) What is freedom

1. Ruler’s law vs. People’s Law
   1. The Pyramid: Local government vs. Federal government
      1. Local government officials know the most about your local needs and situation
      2. Local government is much easier to influence when they aren’t doing well
      3. The federal government knows the least about your situation and needs and are the hardest to influence
      4. This is why the constitution left far more power in the States and in the people
         1. See the 9^th & 10^th amendments
2. Collective Rights vs. Individual Rights
   1. If a right was only collective, then we would not have that right individually.
      1. For example, if the 2^nd amendment only meant that there was a collective right to keep and bear arms, (The right of self-defense), then as individuals we would have no right of self-defense. The collective can only have the rights delegated to it by individuals.
      2. If this way of thinking was applied to another right, say the right of free speech; then only the collective (a town, state, or nation) would have the right of free speech. Again, the collective can only have the rights delegated to it by individuals
3. c. Property rights are essential to liberty
   1. “Life and Liberty are secure only so long as the Right to Property is secure”
   2. The primary purpose of government is to protect property
   3. Without property rights there would be – 1. No incentive to be industrious. 2. Industrious individual would be denied the fruits of his labors. 3. Marauding bands would use force and violence to take from those who were frugal or industrious. 4. Mankind would remain on hand to mouth subsistence level because accumulating anything would invite attack
   4. John Locke – Property is an extension of a persons life, energy and ingenuity
      1. So to destroy or confiscate property is an attack on a persons life
      2. “Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.” Abraham Lincoln
      3. “The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence” John Adams
4. Equal Rights, not Equal things
   1. Right to vote, right to buy, right to sell, right to try, right to fail, etc.
   2. Socialism tries to “share the wealth” also known as taxing the rich to help the poor.
      1. “The problem with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money” – Margaret Thatcher
      2. Progressive taxes (where the rich pay more than the poor)
         1. Causes a substantial portion of citizens to have no stake in what Washington is doing with our money.
         2. This division between those who pay taxes and those who don’t allows politicians to pander to one group or the other instead of doing what is right for the country
         3. The rich have just as much right to enjoy the fruits of their labors (law of the harvest)
         4. The rich hire others. They create jobs. The poor hires no one.

2) Myth of Political Parties making up the Political Spectrum

1. Our current way of dividing the political spectrum where Communism is the far (“left”) & Fascism is the far right (“right”) is a poor way to think of it.
   1. Both are examples of Tyranny; An arbitrary or unrestrained exercise of power
   2. Both are examples of way too much government
2. Platforms of political parties change frequently. An accurate political spectrum cannot be based on that instability or on specific factions that come and go
3. In reality, the political spectrum has 100% Government (Tyranny) on one side and 0% Government (Anarchy) on the other side.
4. The Founders tried to give us maximum liberty while still providing enough government to protect our rights and defend the country.
   1. Their first attempt “The Articles of Confederation” erred on the side of too little government. The Constitution corrected that.

3) Where do rights come from

1. Natural Law
   1. Example: The Law of the Harvest: “Whatsoever you sow, so shall you reap”
      1. Also known as people being able to “enjoy the fruits of their labors”
      2. Using government to take more from the rich to give it to the poor violates this natural law.
      3. Businesses that aren’t successful should fail. When we prevent their failure we violate this law.
      4. Where do our rights come from:
         1. If rights come from the government then the government can also take them away
         2. Unalienable rights are rights that existed before any government. Any government or person that infringes on our Natural rights is breaking natural law and is not acting justly.
         3. Did you have the right to defend yourself before our government was created?
         4. Our rights come from our creator or as the Founders said “The laws of nature and of nature’s God” – Declaration of Independence
         5. The people can only delegate the rights they have:
            1. For example, we have the right to defend ourselves. We have delegated that right to the police and to our federal government
               1. Just because we delegated that right does NOT mean that we lost that right. We still have the right to defend ourselves.
               2. As individuals we do not have the right to take from one neighbor and give the gains to another. Therefore we cannot delegate the right to do so to our government.

4) Rule of Law

1. Stability of Law
   1. If you have ever built something, you know that if you keep taking your measurements from the last piece you cut your error just gets worse and worse. Instead you have got to always measure from a single starting point. Our courts keep making judgments based on case precedent which means that we get farther and farther from the constitution. Instead we should use the constitution as our foundation to judge from.
      1. Lawyers mostly study case law, when they really should study the constitution and the principles behind it.
      2. Stable society must have stable laws in order to flourish. This allows us to make long-term personal and business plans. It provides for maximum liberty within the law.
      3. Law that can be changed by re-interpreting the meaning of their language (like a living constitution), without changing the wording of the law itself, are an unstable foundation for society. The original meaning (the meaning when something became a law) is the only stable legal foundation for our society.
      4. If the constitution needs to be changed, there is an established process to do it. Far better to amend the constitution if needed than to create an unstable foundation for society by reinterpreting its language
      5. I saw an ad for the services of a Lawyer specializing in tax law. Their attention getting tagline was “Hurry! Call now. The Law may change”. No wonder people and companies are so short sighted in their planning. We live in a country where the laws change so frequently that we are never sure what is legal from one year to the next, (tax law, campaign finance law, and even criminal law), and we have so many laws that even companies with lawyers run the risk of breaking a law even with the best of intentions. This puts us in a position where whether or not we are prosecuted with breaking a law is determined by political and personal whim.
2. b. Examples of Unconstitutional government
   1. Article 1 Section 1. “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States…” (legislative power is the power to make laws)
      1. This combined with the 10^th amendment “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the People”
      2. Laws written by government agencies are rarely reviewed and approved by congress therefore they are unconstitutional
      3. The General Welfare Clause:
         1. The constitution only says that the government should promote the general welfare, not provide the general welfare. And it says promote the general welfare of the United States, not take away from one part of the US in order to benefit another part of the US. Doing that does not promote the general welfare of the whole.
         2. The general welfare clause was meant to apply only to the powers granted to congress in the constitution. How do we know this? If it was meant to apply to anything that might be good for some portion of the country it would have granted nearly unlimited power and there would have been no purpose for the rest of the constitution, particularly the 10^th amendment. Besides, the founders told us so.
            1. “Our tenet ever was… that Congress had not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but were restrained to those specifically enumerated…” –Thomas Jefferson to Albert Gallatin, 1817.
            2. “With respect to the words ‘general welfare,’ I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of power connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs not contemplated by its creators.” - James Madison
            3. The Commerce Clause which says that congress has the power to regulate commerce among the States.
               1. Discuss “Wickard v. Filburn” (1942 – during the depression)
                  1. The Supreme Court ruled that Roscoe Filburn, a farmer growing wheat to feed his family and his animals, fell under congress’s power to regulate commerce among the states.
                  2. Since then this court case has been used to justify the federal government regulating everything from minimum wage, to toilet tank size

You can’t buy a toilet with more than a certain amount of water.  You can’t buy a showerhead that sprays too much.  You can’t buy carpet padding thicker than whatever. You can’t purchase individual cable channels, you must buy a package.  Soon you will be forced to buy health insurance that Congress approves of or you will pay a fine.  Nancy Pelosi’s press office released this statement justifying such an act with the Commerce Clause, saying:

“Congress has used this authority to regulate many aspects of American life, from labor relations to education to health care to agricultural production”

And right there is the problem.  They aren’t making uniform standards for trade among the States.  They are “using” this clause to run our lives. Let Congress do their job, the one defined in the Constitution, and leave us alone in ours.  From: http://www.thefoundersalliance.org/issues/issues%20ration.html

5) Why a Republic?

1. Tyranny in Monarchies and Oligarchies trample individual rights and is often bloody
2. Democracy is unstable and easily leads to dictatorship, often called a tyranny of the majority.
3. Republic of elected representatives places valuable checks and balances on the system.  It is peaceful.  The people hold the power of their vote and have control over what happens to their individual rights.  The Founders frequently stressed the importance of an informed populous. 
   1. George Washington: “A primary object should be the education of our youth in the science of government.  In a republic, what species of knowledge can be equally important? And what duty more pressing…than…communicating it to those who are to be the future guardians of the liberties of the country?”

6) True Public Service

1. Statesmen, the type of politicians the founders envisioned, that our country needs (we might call them “citizen lawmakers” today) – We need more of these.
2. The founders, including George Washington, who served did not accept monetary compensation and Franklin explicitly warned against raising salaries
3. Encourage everyone to get involved and stay involved in politics
4. 2010 elections are coming up; let them know we’ll be gathering candidate surveys…

While many presidents have appointed these “czars” or special advisors to the president, courts and the people have looked the other way since they have been granted little to no authority and merely provided advice to the president.

The constitution stipulates how presidential appointees are to be handled and specifies that they must be appointed with the advice and consent of the senate. The only exception is for the appointment of “inferior officers”, for which the power to appoint can be vested solely in the president is congress so chooses.

An advisor to the president (not confirmed by the senate) is considered an “inferior officer” and has NO constitutional authority.  Period.

Now, regardless of who in the government is making the decision to limit the pay of employees in other companies, the 5th amendment protects us from deprivation of our property without due process of law and from our private property being taken for public use without just compensation.

Payment received as compensation or salary for work certainly falls under private property. Nothing in the constitution provides the authority to do what is about to be done. Why are the people not rising up in anger and disgust at the awful form of tyranny? If the receipt of money from the government is claimed to grant power to determine wages, watch out because a whole lot of companies and a whole lot of students get money from the government.

Wake up, protest, tell your friends, learn about the constitution. If the constitution doesn’t limit the government as it is written, then we have unlimited and all powerful government, for without limits determined by the constitution there is no other artifact or document to provide any limit on their power.

2) State’s rights vs. the commerce clause

3) Natural rights

4) Natural duties

5) Local government vs. national

6) Tolerance of private practices vs. societal acceptance and promotion of the practice

7) Tolerance doesn’t equal acceptance of all possible practices

Economics – Government gives us money where does it come from

9) Taxing the rich just doesn’t make economic sense

10) Why limits on immigration make good sense for the country

11) Treaties and the supremacy clause

12) How self-interest and profit can make the world better for all

13) One proper role of government, stable law and the enforcement of contracts

14) How the “common defense” fits in with a desire to avoid war (The friendly porcupine)

15) How hate speech laws can and probably will be used to subvert freedom of religion and freedom of assembly

16) Why Hate crime laws are completely unneeded and actually do society harm

17) That the “general welfare” clause is not unlimited nor can it be,

18) Done: Unconstitutionality of the “Pay Czar” (not being confirmed by the senate) to make any substantive decision (like limiting pay)

19) Done: Unconstitutionality that the federal government can dictate or limit the pay of anyone not in a federal job. (Violation of the 5th amendment – 2 clauses)

20)  That you don’t have to be a lawyer to understand or utilize the constitution

1) I do not believe that the Founding Fathers were omniscient. Nor did they believe that.

2) Because they knew that changes would need to be made, the constitution contains a legal way to change it. (actually there are two ways)

3) Stable society must have stable laws in order to flourish.

4) The Constitution itself declares that it is the supreme law of the land once ratified and consequently any law that is unconstitutional is not legal. Article VI Paragraph 2.

5) Law that can be changed by re-interpreting the meaning of its language (like a living constitution) without change the wording of the law itself is an unstable foundation for society. This is why I am so keen on understanding what the founders and the states who ratified the constitution understood the meaning to be when the constitution came into being. The original meaning being the only stable legal foundation for our society.

6) The constitution is the legal document whereby the states gave up some of their authority to create our country. Many states refused to ratify until they received a guarantee that there would be a bill of rights added. The bill of rights includes the 9th and 10th amendments. The 9th amendment states that just because certain rights were not enumerated in the constitution does not mean that those rights do not exist for the people. For example the right of self-defense or the right of privacy. The 10th amendment explicitly calls out that any powers not specifically delegated to the federal government by the constitution as well as any power not prohibited to the states by the constitution, is retained by the states or the people.

7) Thomas Jefferson said, “Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated.”

8 ) Healthcare is not a power granted to the federal government. Therefore it is retained by the states and the people. This means that the federal government has no authority in regards to healthcare under the constitution.  If the people really wanted that to be a federal power we should add this power as a constitutional amendment, but we have not amended the constitution to grant this power to the federal government.

So, after laying out those thoughts at least you can see my line of thinking and even if you don’t agree, I hope you see that it is at least a logical and rational line of reasoning.

Regarding Medicare and Medicaid; Many people talk about how they have unfunded liabilities in the 10′s of trillions of dollars. I won’t get into the exact numbers, because that all depends on your source, but every source I have seen agrees that it is very large. Politicians do not want to fix them, because it is so politically dangerous, but fundamentally we cannot afford them in their current form and so they must be changed. I believe they are unconstitutional programs for the federal government. But, I also feel that we have a moral obligation to those people who have planned their lives believing that they would have Medicare during their retirement. I believe that we should have a plan to phase them out entirely, but over a long enough time period that people would be able to alter their retirement plans accordingly. This would get rid of these unconstitutional programs, but not abrogate our country’s moral obligation in this regard. Of course, the tax money not needed once these programs are phased out must be released by the federal government so that the states or the people can use it for healthcare or otherwise.

Please don’t misunderstand my take on this. I have no problem with the state or local government deciding that they should use taxes to fund healthcare assistance in some way. I am only saying that it is unconstitutional for the federal government to do this.

The more government power and influence that is closer to the people, the better. Local governments are more aware of what their citizens need and the people are better able to influence their local government if they don’t like what is being done. Besides, the 10th amendment does say that enumerated powers not delegated to the federal government are retained by the states or the people.

-Chad

In addition, those with “gold-plated” plans would now be taxed at 40% of the premium unless you have a high-risk profession like being a fire-fighter. It also mandates that an insurance company may not charge people more than four times more than any other person because of the person’s age.

This idea of mandatory coverage is supported by President Obama who likens it to mandatory auto insurance. In addition, he claimed repeatedly on national TV this past Sunday that these penalties are not a tax.

Let me itemize all the reasons that I DO NOT support this plan:

1) The constitution provides no authority for the federal government to mandate that I purchase anything.

2) The constitution provides no authority for the federal government to provide healthcare or health insurance, nor to control either of these.

3) President Obama promised that he would not raise taxes on people making less than $250,000 and yet here is what he calls a “fee” (he insists that it is not a tax), but the language of Senator Baucus’ bill call the penalty a tax. So by President Obama supporting this measure, he is lying.

4) By penalizing “those who can afford the insurance” the government has once again put itself in the position of determining what I can “afford”, without taking into account that each family is different and each person’s priorities are different. Note: I really don’t want them to try and take this into account, for one it is not their job (the free market does this well, and for two it just increases the complexity of the tax code.)

5) Healthcare deductions were already only allowed when your uncompensated healthcare expenses exceeded 7.5% of your adjusted gross income and you must itemize, which many people do not… which really means that almost no one got the advantage of this deduction anyway. Now Senator Baucus wants to raise this to only allow deductions when your healthcare expenses exceed 10% of your AGI.  Making it even more unlikely that the average person will ever get to claim this kind of deduction.

6) Taxing “gold-plated” plans is dumb in so many ways. Many people like hospital workers don’t get to choose anything but nice insurance plans and yet they certainly don’t make enough to where a 38% tax on the value of something that their employer pays for will be easy to afford. This just makes it more likely that people will opt into a government sponsored insurance plan.

7) Allowing people in high-risk professions to not be taxed on gold-plated plans means that the government now has one more layer of complexity for the tax code, which people will resent and have trouble understanding.

Mandating that insurance companies may not charge people more than 4 times any other person because of their age is….wait for it… guaranteed to raise the cost of everyone’s health insurance. This is simple economics.

9) The more Senator Baucus changes his bill to suit each person whose vote he needs, the more complicated his bill becomes. Hopefully this will also increase the number of people who hate it and let their Senators know how they feel.

10) By the way, you won’t be able to purchase catastrophic, high deductible insurance. The government under this plan will tell that is not “good enough”.

11) As many others have said, it is not a good analogy to compare this to mandated auto insurance. Let me count the ways:

a) Auto insurance mandates are from the State, not the federal government. The state is not prohibited by the constitution from doing this. And State government is easier for people to influence if they don’t like what is being done.

b) Mandated auto insurance is liability insurance, which protects the person who hit, not you. Health insurance protects you.

c) Fines for not carrying mandated auto insurance do not help others buy their auto insurance.

d) I can choose to not drive a car and be just fine thus not needing to buy liability insurance. There is no way to escape the mandatory health insurance.

Finally, anytime the federal government forces me to do anything against my will it just plain makes me mad. I am smart enough to make good choices for me and my family without their “help”. This is just one more loss of freedom.

Of course this would ripple through the economy. The farmers and contractors would have to charge more for their products to offset the extra pay and benefits that they were now giving their workers. This would cause prices to go up for consumers. On the workers side, you would now have more workers in the economy who were paying more taxes and better able to provide for their families, and so on.

Now let’s consider the way things are right now. Those jobs are filled by illegal immigrants. They pay some taxes, but not as much as the first situation we considered. They are not able to provide as well for their families. They use welfare services and ER provided “free” healthcare. Illegal immigranst bring crime and uninsured drivers. But, we consumers have cheaper farm products and cheaper houses and so on.

In one case we pay more for our goods and services as consumers, but we have more self-sustaining families, who feel good because they can better provide for their families.

In the other case we pay more taxes and more social costs to provide welfare, healthcare costs for uninsured, and other similar costs; and we have people living in the shadows of society not able to fully integrate, not able to honorably provide for their own house and so forth, but we get cheaper goods and services.

It seems to me that we as a society pay either way so I guess you have to decide what you want to fund; more taxes and social costs or higher goods and service costs, but with better integrated more self-sustaining members of our country.

The choice is clear to me. Let’s have real immigration reform!

So, part of that is the recognition that if we really forced good e-verify or something like that many illegal immigrants would have to go home, so much so that we may not have enough jobless Americans to fill the jobs. That would force us to have a more comprehensive legal immigration or guest worker program. That is a good thing! You would still get people to be better paid, honarbly able to take care of their own and more productive. Not only is having people to come here while paying them substandard wages only to treat them as barely 2nd class citizens cruel, but it borders on slavery.

The choice is clear to me. Let’s have real immigration reform!

It is certainly possible for people to disagree with someone’s political policies, strategy, direction, etc. without any of the disagreement being caused by racism. Anyone who says otherwise is just being unreasonable.

I strongly resent being labeled racist by the left solely because I don’t agree with someone’s politics. This charge of blanket racism against conservatives is simply a tactic that is difficult to respond to.  It’s pretty tough to have an intelligent, productive conversation after being called a racist.

I am tired of it.

By the way, I have seen no evidence of racism at any Tea Party event.  The whole thing seems as stupid as NBC having a story about the Washington Tea Party on 9-12-09 and claiming a “growing violent crowd” at an event with somewhere between 450,000 and 1.2 million people who were singing the national anthem and hugging and where there were ZERO ARRESTS. Where’s the violence Brian Williams? Where’s the racism America? There certainly is real racism that occurs in the world, but this isn’t it.

I am tired of it.

When I spoke here last winter, this nation was facing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. We were losing an average of 700,000 jobs per month. Credit was frozen. And our financial system was on the verge of collapse.

[Response] – Actually he spoke in February and by then the credit markets were already thawing and our financial system had already collapsed.

…. But thanks to the bold and decisive action we have taken since January, I can stand here with confidence and say that we have pulled this economy back from the brink.

[Response] – Not sure how he can claim much credit since only a small percentage of the stimulus money has been spent.

I am not the first President to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last. It has now been nearly a century since Theodore Roosevelt first called for health care reform. And ever since, nearly every President and Congress, whether Democrat or Republican, has attempted to meet this challenge in some way. A bill for comprehensive health reform was first introduced by John Dingell Sr. in 1943. Sixty-five years later, his son continues to introduce that same bill at the beginning of each session.

[Response] – This makes it sound like we have all been working towards this goal, but havn’t quite been able to do it. Instead I would posit that most of the country has been against socialized, government run healthcare for the last 65 years and we still don’t want it, no matter who submits a bill each year.

…Our collective failure to meet this challenge – year after year, decade after decade – has led us to a breaking point.

[Response] – His language tries to include us all in HIS failure even though most of us don’t want to be included. Not only that, but we have not come to a breaking point. This is an artificial crisis manufactured by politicians and the media to help them take more power.

… Those who do have insurance have never had less security and stability than they do today. More and more Americans worry that if you move, lose your job, or change your job, you’ll lose your health insurance too.

[Response] – Insecurity caused in no small part by the interference of our government in the market. Also, many people have proposed reforms that would address this concern without government run healthcare.

…Then there’s the problem of rising costs. We spend one-and-a-half times more per person on health care than any other country, but we aren’t any healthier for it. This is one of the reasons that insurance premiums have gone up three times faster than wages.

[Response] – First of all we ARE healthier for it. We have the best healthcare system in the world. Secondly, there are many solution to reduce this cost without having government healthcare; like tort reform, tax deductions for personally owned health insurance, portable coverage, and reducing government mandated coverage.

…Finally, our health care system is placing an unsustainable burden on taxpayers. When health care costs grow at the rate they have, it puts greater pressure on programs like Medicare and Medicaid. If we do nothing to slow these skyrocketing costs, we will eventually be spending more on Medicare and Medicaid than every other government program combined. Put simply, our health care problem is our deficit problem. Nothing else even comes close.

[Response] – Seems like a really bad idea to fix a deficit problem by spending lots more money. Let’s reform what we have instead of adding lots more expensive programs.

These are the facts. Nobody disputes them. We know we must reform this system. The question is how.

[Response] – Sure would be nice if you’d listen to the many ideas out there instead of insisting you’ll listen, but denying that anyone has other ideas. Oh, and yes some people do deny your facts!

There are those on the left who believe that the only way to fix the system is through a single-payer system like Canada’s, where we would severely restrict the private insurance market and have the government provide coverage for everyone. On the right, there are those who argue that we should end the employer-based system and leave individuals to buy health insurance on their own.

[Response] – He left out many other, more rational ideas from the “right”. The one he mentions, I haven’t heard anyone bring up, so this is a strawman to scare people. Nothing more.

I have to say that there are arguments to be made for both approaches. But either one would represent a radical shift that would disrupt the health care most people currently have. Since health care represents one-sixth of our economy, I believe it makes more sense to build on what works and fix what doesn’t, rather than try to build an entirely new system from scratch. And that is precisely what those of you in Congress have tried to do over the past several months.

[Response] – Highly disingenuous! He’s railing against two strawman arguments and the plan in congress, HR3200, does not fix what doesn’t work and it “builds on” what we have now so greatly that you might as well have started over from scratch.

During that time, we have seen Washington at its best and its worst.

[Response] – I sure don’t know what we have seen that was “Washington at its best”!

We have seen many in this chamber work tirelessly for the better part of this year to offer thoughtful ideas about how to achieve reform. Of the five committees asked to develop bills, four have completed their work, and the Senate Finance Committee announced today that it will move forward next week. That has never happened before.

[Response] – What has never happened before? Would have been much better if all that tireless work actually listened to the conservative ideas out there!

Our overall efforts have been supported by an unprecedented coalition of doctors and nurses; hospitals, seniors’ groups and even drug companies – many of whom opposed reform in the past.

[Response] – Actually only the AMA as far as doctors go and that certainly doesn’t represent what all doctor’s feel.

And there is agreement in this chamber on about eighty percent of what needs to be done, putting us closer to the goal of reform than we have ever been.

[Response] – Completely made up percentage and I am certain there are many members in that chamber who don’t agree on much if any of his plan.

But what we have also seen in these last months is the same partisan spectacle that only hardens the disdain many Americans have toward their own government. Instead of honest debate, we have seen scare tactics. Some have dug into unyielding ideological camps that offer no hope of compromise. Too many have used this as an opportunity to score short-term political points, even if it robs the country of our opportunity to solve a long-term challenge. And out of this blizzard of charges and counter-charges, confusion has reigned.

[Response] – Most of the scare tactics have come from him and certainly significant ideological stubbornness as well. Demanding that it passed “now”, he and the democrats have stifled debate. Finally, I for one am not confused, neither are the other conservatives I have been following.

…The plan I’m announcing tonight would meet three basic goals:

[Response] – As you read the rest of this, remember that he hasn’t actually written a bill or plan. All we have are his words in this speech and the existing HR3200 bill.

…First, if you are among the hundreds of millions of Americans who already have health insurance through your job, Medicare, Medicaid, or the VA, nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have. Let me repeat this: nothing in our plan requires you to change what you have.

[Response] – Except that having a government plan available will provide a strong disincentive to employers such that they will slowly provide less healthcare insurance.

What this plan will do is to make the insurance you have work better for you. Under this plan, it will be against the law for insurance companies to deny you coverage because of a pre-existing condition. As soon as I sign this bill, it will be against the law for insurance companies to drop your coverage when you get sick or water it down when you need it most. They will no longer be able to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or a lifetime. We will place a limit on how much you can be charged for out-of-pocket expenses, because in the United States of America, no one should go broke because they get sick. And insurance companies will be required to cover, with no extra charge, routine checkups and preventive care, like mammograms and colonoscopies – because there’s no reason we shouldn’t be catching diseases like breast cancer and colon cancer before they get worse. That makes sense, it saves money, and it saves lives.

[Response] –It is economically impossible to simultaneously mandate increased coverage, no caps, required coverage of pre-existing conditions, reduced out of pocket, and THEN state that no increase in cost will occur. In other words this makes no sense.

That’s what Americans who have health insurance can expect from this plan – more security and stability.

Now, if you’re one of the tens of millions of Americans who don’t currently have health insurance, the second part of this plan will finally offer you quality, affordable choices. If you lose your job or change your job, you will be able to get coverage. …. It’s how everyone in this Congress gets affordable insurance. And it’s time to give every American the same opportunity that we’ve given ourselves.

[Response] – And here is where I must say that this IS NOT the federal government’s job. It is unconstitutional.

For those individuals and small businesses who still cannot afford the lower-priced insurance available in the exchange, we will provide tax credits, the size of which will be based on your need. And all insurance companies that want access to this new marketplace will have to abide by the consumer protections I already mentioned. This exchange will take effect in four years, which will give us time to do it right.

[Response] – So why are we rushing to pass this so quickly?

…Now, even if we provide these affordable options, there may be those – particularly the young and healthy – who still want to take the risk and go without coverage. There may still be companies that refuse to do right by their workers. The problem is, such irresponsible behavior costs all the rest of us money. If there are affordable options and people still don’t sign up for health insurance, it means we pay for those people’s expensive emergency room visits. If some businesses don’t provide workers health care, it forces the rest of us to pick up the tab when their workers get sick, and gives those businesses an unfair advantage over their competitors. And unless everybody does their part, many of the insurance reforms we seek – especially requiring insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions – just can’t be achieved.

That’s why under my plan, individuals will be required to carry basic health insurance – just as most states require you to carry auto insurance.

[Response] – Absolutely nothing in the constitution gives you the right to mandate that we buy health insurance. Besides, auto-insurance is required in order to drive, what you are saying would be required because I am a living American. Besides that required auto-insurance is a state government thing and not a federal government thing.

…While there remain some significant details to be ironed out, I believe a broad consensus exists for the aspects of the plan I just outlined:

[Response] – This is a major problem with how our government works now. We pass bills that have significant details to be filled in later by unelected bureaucrats. So no one really knows the consequences of what they are voting into law. We should pass the “Write The Bills” act from DownsizeDC.org. And for the record Mr. President, there is NOT a broad consensus on your plan.

… So tonight I’d like to address some of the key controversies that are still out there.

Some of people’s concerns have grown out of bogus claims spread by those whose only agenda is to kill reform at any cost.

[Response] – We do not want to kill any reform at all cost. We want to kill your reform at all cost.

The best example is the claim, made not just by radio and cable talk show hosts, but prominent politicians, that we plan to set up panels of bureaucrats with the power to kill off senior citizens. Such a charge would be laughable if it weren’t so cynical and irresponsible. It is a lie, plain and simple.

[Response] – It is not a lie. It is however an overly theatrical representation of the fact that any government healthcare plan will require bureaucrats to make rationing decisions, which is actually called out in HR 3200. And you are the one that said that “grandma” may have to be offered pain medicine instead of actual treatment.

There are also those who claim that our reform effort will insure illegal immigrants. This, too, is false – the reforms I’m proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally. And one more misunderstanding I want to clear up – under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, and federal conscience laws will remain in place.

[Response] – Since you have provided no bill or written plan, we can only evaluate HR 3200. Republicans have tried multiple times to add amendments to that bill that would specifically prohibit federal funding for illegal immigrants and for abortion and democrats have repeatedly voted them down. What should we think?

…So let me set the record straight. My guiding principle is, and always has been, that consumers do better when there is choice and competition.

[Response] –Choice and competition are only good when they are provided on a level playing field. Government provided healthcare cannot be on a level playing field with current health insurance. Insurance businesses cannot print money or subsidize their businesses with tax money.

Unfortunately, in 34 states, 75% of the insurance market is controlled by five or fewer companies. In Alabama, almost 90% is controlled by just one company.

[Response] – So use the interstate commerce clause and let us buy health insurance across state lines! FYI: The one company in Alabama is a non-profit.

…Insurance executives don’t do this because they are bad people. They do it because it’s profitable. As one former insurance executive testified before Congress, insurance companies are not only encouraged to find reasons to drop the seriously ill; they are rewarded for it. All of this is in service of meeting what this former executive called “Wall Street’s relentless profit expectations.”

[Response] –This makes it sound as though profit is evil. The problem with that thinking is that profit is what drives businesses to reduce cost and be efficient. If a company is truly providing insurance, but is doing it in a way that is bad or unfriendly to consumers, that opens the door for another company to provide the same service but in a way that is good for its customers.

… But an additional step we can take to keep insurance companies honest is by making a not-for-profit public option available in the insurance exchange.

[Response] – About 50% of all health insurance companies, including that big company in Alabama, are non-profit already.

…Despite all this, the insurance companies and their allies don’t like this idea. They argue that these private companies can’t fairly compete with the government. And they’d be right if taxpayers were subsidizing this public insurance option. But they won’t be. I have insisted that like any private insurance company, the public insurance option would have to be self-sufficient and rely on the premiums it collects.

[Response] – If this were really true it would have to be a non-profit, non-government, company providing insurance, which we already have. In order for it to be different it must be subsidized by the government, which we don’t want and which will cause unfair competition against existing companies.

…It’s worth noting that a strong majority of Americans still favor a public insurance option of the sort I’ve proposed tonight.

[Response] – Not true. At the time of the speech, polls showed that 52% were against government healthcare.

… And I will make sure that no government bureaucrat or insurance company bureaucrat gets between you and the care that you need.

[Response] –This isn’t true now and it certainly won’t be true with more government healthcare. (unless of course you pay cash)

Finally, let me discuss an issue that is a great concern to me, to members of this chamber, and to the public – and that is how we pay for this plan.

Here’s what you need to know. First, I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits – either now or in the future. …

[Response] – Again, economically impossible! You cannot create new programs, mandate increased coverage, etc. and not increase the cost. There is no way there is enough waste in Medicare to pay for all of this and no programs are being cut to pay for it.

…. That is how Medicare was born. And it remains a sacred trust that must be passed down from one generation to the next. That is why not a dollar of the Medicare trust fund will be used to pay for this plan.

[Response] – Actually, the only plan we have in written form is HR 3200 which takes 100’s of billions of dollars from Medicare to help pay for it.

…Reducing the waste and inefficiency in Medicare and Medicaid will pay for most of this plan. Much of the rest would be paid for with revenues from the very same drug and insurance companies that stand to benefit from tens of millions of new customers. This reform will charge insurance companies a fee for their most expensive policies …

[Response] – Companies don’t pay fees. Those fees will be passed on to consumers and will become in effect a tax on only those with the better health insurance plans.

…But know this: I will not waste time with those who have made the calculation that it’s better politics to kill this plan than improve it. I will not stand by while the special interests use the same old tactics to keep things exactly the way they are.

[Response] – The special interests he is talking about are US. The Tea Party people and others protesting government healthcare. We don’t want to improve his plan, we want to kill it or start over with much better reforms.

…You see, our predecessors understood that government could not, and should not, solve every problem.

[Response] – It is too bad you don’t seem to understand this

They understood that there are instances when the gains in security from government action are not worth the added constraints on our freedom.

[Response] – Again, too bad you don’t understand this.

…. Thank you, God Bless You, and may God Bless the United States of America.

1) Glad to hear that he wanted to something about tort reform.

2) His statement that he would be the last president to take up the healthcare issue seemed to me to be at best arogant.

3) His statement that the facts were in and no one disputes them is not only a logical error, but is dismissive of anyone with other ideas.

4) His statement that a public option will increase competition is misleading at best. The government will never be on a level playing field with private business. Also, he makes it sound as though the current situation is due to the free market gone awry, but our current situation is anything but free as the insurance industry is heavily regulated already.

5) The worst of ALL. His idea to force all citizens to purchase at least a basic health insurance policy even young healthy people who would want to choose otherwise. This makes me cringe and want to scream for many reasons. The biggest being that nothing in the constitution gives this authority.

6) Hey Mr. President, Profits are not EVIL. Honest profits are the reward for hard work.

7) It is amazing to me that the federal government has used the interstate commerce clause to justify controlling nearly everything, but not health insurance. Why can’t we allow insurance competition across state lines.

More to come.

First, the book is easy to understand. I recommend it to anyone interested in tax reform. It is not boring like a tax book could be. Second, it has convinced me that the FairTax is a good idea. I just hope to see it come to pass.

Here is the FairTax in a nutshell as I understand it.

1) The FairTax is a collection of ideas, not a specific bill. What bill number currently represents an implementation of the FairTax changes each legislative session. The current bill for 2009 is H.R 25

2) The FairTax is a retail sales tax of approx. 23% on the retail sale of all NEW items. There would be no tax levied on the sale of used items.

3) There is a rebate monthly to all (same amount for everyone) for spending up to the poverty level.

4) The FairTax removes ALL payroll taxes and payroll tax withholding. You would get to keep all the money you earn.

5) You would never file a federal income tax form again.

6) It is revenue neutral. That is, it would raise the same amount of money that the federal government currently raises. However, it would make everyone a participant in paying taxes and would make it very clear how much we were paying. Transparency is good. Any future tax increases from Washington would affect us all and would be very obvious.

7) There would be no taxes on corporations, investing, interest, or capital gains. People would in essence be rewarded for saving and investing.

The FairTax would greatly strengthen our ecomony for a number of reasons, but my favorite is that because the only federal tax is at the time of retail sale, that means that all exported good from the US would arrive in their respective overseas markets with NO tax burden already figured into their cost. This means that our goods would be about 23% cheaper than they are today. Likewise, when foreign goods arrive here, they are taxed at their point of retail sale and so they get the same tax burden as American goods. Our good become cheaper to the world and the world’s good become more expensive.

9) The tax is voluntary. The more of your money you choose to spend above the poverty level, the more it is taxed, but the more you choose to save, invest, or give to charity, the less you are taxed.

10) Many people in our country earn money under the table or illegally. They currently do not pay taxes. However, under the FairTax, they would pay on all retail purchases like everyone else. This broadens the tax base. For example, illegal aliens would be paying federal taxes on all of their purchases, but because they are not here legally, they would not recieve the rebate.

11) The FairTax would remove from our economy the current costs for businesses and individuals of complying with the tax laws. This would save our economy about $400 million per year. That money could then be used for something much more productive.

There are many other great aspects, but I’ll stop here for now. You can find many additional details and answers to frequent criticisms here: www.fairtax.org

In short, I’m sold.