Obama's Expensive Health Care Program

An independent analysis of the cost of Barack Obama's health care plan says that it would cost $75 billion in the first year before increasing to $130 billion a year by 2018.  Compare that to the original cost estimates of programs like Medicare or Social Security, or Massachusetts' socialized medicine scheme, and you can see it's going to be much more expensive than they think now.  Also consider that the federal government is already starting the fiscal year with a $237,200,000,000 budget deficit.

 

The media is putting out horror stories about what might happen if we don't bail out the auto industry.  Meanwhile, the ideas floating in DC are turning into a Christmas tree just like the financial sector's bailout was.  They're working on the assumption that they'll all just stop if they don't a bailout, but Chapter 11 could allow them to reorganize and (hopefully) boot the unions so they can compete with the successful American automakers.  Speaking of unions, here's a look at what happens when the labor unions get involved in a project.

 

While Capitol Hill is considering a bailout of another industry, the financial bailout not only isn't being used for its original purpose; it's also open for anybody who wants to get a bailout.  They even have an application for assistance.  By the way, we the taxpayers are already on the hook for $5 trillion.

 

Sarah Palin came out today against more bailouts, while telling the Republican Governors' Association to return to the core conservative principles that made the Republican Party.  This is why she's going to be a rock star for the conservative movement.

 

The Republican National Committee is filing lawsuits challenging some of the provisions of McCain-Feingold.  Notice they waited until after McCain was out of the picture.

 

A poll shows that 59% of those polled said that they are not bothered by Democrats controlling all of DC.  That's not a referendum on their agenda, though; another new poll shows that 53% of Americans favor smaller government.  Too bad they don't have a party to call home anymore.

 

The Democrats plan to spend time investigating the Bush Administration.  That's good.  Let them look into the past instead of pushing their agenda for the future.

 

More on the Dixie Water War:  Governor Perdue says that Florida is using the endangered species act to prop up its commercial fishing industry.

 

The city of Macon paid $420,000 for somebody to tell them what's wrong with the city, and nobody mentioned the obvious problems of cronyism and the fact that city employees are seen primarily as a key voting bloc.