If you receive this and you hate it and you don’t want to ever read it no matter what...that is fine; email me back and you will be deleted from my list (which is almost at the maximum anyway).

I attempt to post a new issue each Sunday by 2 or 3 pm central standard time (I sometimes fail at this attempt).

I try to include factual material only, along with my opinions (it should be clear which is which). I make an attempt to include as much of this week’s news as I possibly can. The first set of columns are intentionally designed for a quick read.

I do not accept any advertising nor do I charge for this publication. I write this principally to blow off steam in a nation where its people seemed have collectively lost their minds.

More townhall meetings; Obama has a surprisingly supportive meeting in New Hampshire, whereas, every other townhall meeting is somewhat contentious.

Obama holds another townhall meeting in red state Montana, which a generally pro-Obama crowd (as has been observed, one speaker says that he is a member of the NRA and believes in the constitution, and barely a handful of people clap, which is hardly indicative of a representative group of people from this region).

There are townhall meetings held all over the United States, many of them becoming quite contentious. Since last week, I do not recall union thugs being brought in to police any more townhalls (which was very similar to the Rolling Stones hiring Hell’s Angels to police Altamont).

This week, people flooded members of Congress on Thursday with so many e-mails that they overloaded the House's primary Web site.

It also appears as though people who have never requested email from the White House or from President Obama are beginning to receive political letters in their email boxes (I am not one of them...yet).

Although I do not know this to be a fact yet, I suspect that both www.rushlimbaugh.com and www.foxnews.com have faced a denial of service attack for a portion of today (Sunday). Both sites have a very sluggish response.

“Right now . . . if a family care physician works with his or her patient to help them lose weight, modify diet, monitors whether they're taking their medications in a timely fashion, they might get reimbursed a pittance. But if that same diabetic ends up getting their foot amputated, that's 30,000, 40, 50,000 dollars immediately the surgeon is reimbursed. Well, why not make sure that we're also reimbursing the care that prevents the amputation. Right? That will save us money,” said President Obama.

“I don’t like being lied to and I don’t like being lied about,” a woman at a townhall meeting.

Katy Abram, individual at a townhall meeting: "I don't believe this is just about health care. It's not about TARP. It's not about left and right. This is about the systematic dismantling of this country. I'm only 35 years-old. I've never been interested in politics. You have awakened the sleeping giant."

Nancy Pelosi, at a townhall meeting: “So I thank all of you who have spoken out for your courage, your point of view. All of it. Your advocacy is very American and very important...there is nothing more articulate and more eloquent to a member of Congress than the voice of his or her own constituents...I understand your anger....FDR was a disrupter and I am a fan of disrupters.” January 17, 2006 (some of the disrupters there were code pink types).

Claire McCaskill at a townhall meeting: “Beg your pardon . you don't trust me? I don't know what else I can do."

Dan Rather's has called for President Obama to convene "a nonpartisan, blue-ribbon commission to assess the state of the news as an institution and an industry and to make recommendations for improving and stabilizing both." The government closely involved with the dissemination of the news—that sounds like exactly what we need.

From a 1996 paper written by Dr. Ezekiel Immanuel, currently a health advisor to President Obama and brother of Rahm Immanuel: “This civic republican or deliberative democratic conception of the good provides both procedural and substantive insights for developing a just allocation of health care resources. Procedurally, it suggests the need for public forums to deliberate about which health services should be considered basic and should be socially guaranteed. Substantively, it suggests services that promote the continuation of the polity-those that ensure healthy future generations, ensure development of practical reasoning skills, and ensure full and active participation by citizens in public deliberations-are to be socially guaranteed as basic. Conversely, services provided to individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens are not basic and should not be guaranteed. An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia. A less obvious example is guaranteeing neuropsychological services to ensure children with learning disabilities can read and learn to reason.”

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius just said, “What's important is choice and competition. The public option itself "is not the essential element.”

Pennsylvanian Governor Ed Rendell became a little frustrated with trying to get his congress to pass a budget. In frustration, and recalling a scene from Goldfinger, Ed said, “He just filled the room with poison gas and knocked them all off...You might have thought after watching those two (conference committee) days that that would have been a good idea."

Earlier last year, Dr. Ezekiel Immanuel wrote, “Vague promises of savings from cutting waste, enhancing prevention and wellness, installing electronic medical records and improving quality are merely `lipstick' cost control, more for show and public relations than for true change.” (Health Affairs Feb. 27, 2008).

“Savings,” he writes, “will require changing how doctors think about their patients: Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath too seriously, as an imperative to do everything for the patient regardless of the cost or effects on others.” (Journal of the American Medical Association, June 18, 2008).

Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon: “If we fail to act [with regards to global warming, climate change will intensify droughts, floods and other natural disasters. Water shortages will affect hundreds of millions of people. Malnutrition will engulf large parts of the developing world. Tensions will worsen. Social unrest - even violence - could follow. The damage to national economies will be enormous. The human suffering will be incalculable. We have the power to change course. But we must do it now. As we move toward Copenhagen in December, we must "Seal a Deal" on climate change that secures our common future. I'm glad that the Chairman of the forum and many other speakers have used my campaign slogan "Seal the Deal" in Copenhagen. I won't charge them loyalty. Please use this "Seal the Deal" as widely as possible, as much as you can. We must seal the deal in Copenhagen for the future of humanity. We have just four months. Four months to secure the future of our planet.”

Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow: “Climate change is very real. Global warming creates volatility. I feel it when I'm flying. The storms are more volatile. We are paying the price in more hurricanes and tornadoes.” So Senator Stabenow justifies cap and trade's massive tax increase on Michigan industry. Michigan just experienced its coldest July ever.

This is an Obama quote from awhile ago, which I missed: “Don’t let people fool you with this notion that somehow, the reason for our deficit has to do with...the Recovery Act...it is a tiny fraction of our long-term deficit projections”

Sonja Schmidt: “Many years ago, things were very different: God was allowed in school...students were taught American history...as opposed to 2009 when the only interest in finding out about our forefathers is on the Maury Povich show.”

Right now, people are so concerned about the deficit spending of this administration, that few people are concerned about what is happening in North Korea and in Iran.

This is fantastic; Hannity and Frank Luntz hold a townhall meeting (everyone gets a chance to speak). If you watch nothing else, watch this:

Particularly for those in California who do not know about the plight of the farmers there. Why don’t you know about this? Why is your news hiding this from you?

Although this was a speech/statement made awhile ago by Representative Michelle Bachman, it is quite good; I had not seen it before (1.5 million hits):

One of my favorite people: Daniel Hannan, from England, speaking about the health care system in England (and giving a little history about their health care system, which you may not be aware of):

Nancy Pelosi, a fan of disrupters at townhall meetings...unless, of course, they disagree with her:

Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, from Texas, takes a cell phone call, while taking a question at a townhall meeting. For those who do not know Congresswoman Jackson, if you watch the video, you will recognize her, because anytime there is a tv camera, Lee is there. So you have seen her before (this is a CNN report).

Steve Crowder interviews the right-wing hate mobs in Denton, Texas (Crowder offers the news with a smile):

Steve Crowder drives out to see where our stimulus money is being spent; however, he does not spend too much time with stimulus spending:

Neil Cavuto interviews Richard Simmons. This is from about a month ago, but I found this interview to be quite entertaining (I laughed out loud several times), but real issues are being discussed as well (what role should the government play in our lives):

1) I listen to a lot of different conservative speakers on the radio; I watch several different programs on FoxNews, and I go to several different right-wing sites. I have not heard or seen a single person or website tell me how to disrupt a townhall meeting or encourage me to disrupt a townhall meeting. This does not mean that those voices are not out there somewhere, but those voices are hard to find.

2) The thrust of the conservative movement with respect to health care legislation is to get out the facts of the several bills which Congress is considering. When the White House is simply giving out talking points again and again and again and again, they have to be countered with reason. It would be absolutely stupid for conservatives to suggest the best way to deal with WH talking points is to go to the meetings simply to disrupt them. That makes no sense. The yelling is a matter of frustration more than anything else. It is certainly not well-thought out political strategy from on high.

3) Since conservatives have all of the facts and the good arguments on their side (as they do with most issues), there is no need to demagogue or to demonize or to just yell a lot in order to break up townhall meetings.

4) Look at your paycheck and imagine what it will be like to see $200–$500/month less there; then tell me if you support Obama-care. Oh, and you still get to pay for your own insurance on top of that.

5) A point made by dozens of people: if Bush had ever asked you to send him fishy emails, the press would have had a field day. We would have never heard the end of it.

6) Speaking of fishy emails, by law, the government cannot delete any of the emails which it receives or any of the headers which may be found in these emails. It is reasonable to suppose that these emails can be subpoenaed using the freedom of information act.

7) Why isn’t universal health care a state or a county initiative? So far, states which have attempted this end up with a mess.

8) If Obama-care is so good, why do they have to hire people to sell it? Where are their grassroots people out there trying to get it passed without having to be paid?

9) SE Cupp spoke of the power of Palin the other day. Palin writes a few paragraphs about “death panels” in her Facebook blog, and, a week later, it is mentioned in a speech by Obama and removed from the Senate health care legislation.

10) I just found out that someone challenged the showing of Al Gore’s film on global warming in British schools and the courts decided that it was political and not scientific, and that there were many major errors in this film. But, I never heard about this on the news.

11) If Big Pharmaceutical and Big Health Care Insurance is ginning up opposition to Obama--care, where are photos of their buses and of their pre-manufactured signs? We have clear evidence that supporters for Obama care are (1) funded, (2) bussed and (3) carry pre-manufactured signs which support Obama-care.

12) Quite obviously, nowhere in any of the bills will you ever find the words “death panel” or “rationed care.” Those will never occur in any state or federal plan at any time. However, that does not mean that the implementation of Obama-care will not ultimately end up with such things (as we find in any place where such medical care occurs).

There are 200 regulators for FNMA and FHLMC, yet none of them were able to stop the housing loan crisis, which is the reason we have a recession. If there were no problems with FNMA or FHLMC, there would have been no economic crisis.

$1.84 trillion deficit predicted for 2009, which is 4x President Bush’s largest deficit.

36% Fixing the economy is the top priority for the federal government right now.

42% of voters think the Obama administration has a clear plan for fixing the economy

26% of voters believe that passage of the Congressional health care plan will lead to a better quality of health care.

31% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President.

Obama at a townhall meeting, answering every question the same way: “If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep it. We are going to bend the cost curve down...not up. That is our plan.” And then he adds, “And that death panel thing? #1, it did not exist, at all, period, end of sentence. And #2, it was written by a Republican who wants to kill your grandmother.”

Splice together shots of a Nancy Pelosi character talking about “astroturf” and “Nazi symbols” along with actual footage of the people who are attending these health care townhalls. The Nancy Pelosi character can point out the ones who are Nazis and who are lobbyists and astroturfers.

Clair McCaskill, Arlen Spector and others, held townhall meetings and allowed many of their constituents to have their say. However, let me caveat the Spector meeting by adding that, SEIU and ACORN people were bussed in to at least one of his meetings. Senator Cardin is holding open townhall meetings; and Congressman Cohen said that those attending his townhall meetings were Americans.

Senator Reed, among others, stood up against the gulf-stream jet purchase by Congress.

[New Regular Feature: More than any president that I recall, President Obama tends to use language very carefully, to, in my opinion, obfuscate what he is doing rather than to clarify. This seems to part and parcel of the Obama campaign and now of the Obama presidency. This has become a mainstay of the Democratic party as well. Another aspect of this is offering up a slogan or an attack upon some villain rather than to make a clear statement or to give a clear answer.]

“Bending the cost curve” is how Obama is going to solve the health care cost problem.

You have said over and over again, if you like your present health care insurance that you can keep it. What if your employer chooses to stop paying for your insurance and pay the fine instead?

Which states have set up a universal health care system that you would emulate? Which countries have a better health care system than the United States? Which should we emulate?

Your townhall meetings are nothing like the townhall meetings the Congressmen are facing. How come?

You have talked about saving money in Medicare in order to fund your health care bill; why not show us that you are able to save money in Medicare first?

Which pharmaceutical companies and health care insurance companies have you personally met with? What has been their involvement in health care legislation?

We have clear evidence that those who support Obama-care legislation are paid and bussed to townhall events with pre-manufactured signs. Do you have any clear evidence that any health care insurer or pharmaceutical company is directly funding any of the townhall opposition to your health care reform or providing any logistical support whatsoever?

If $500 billion is going to be removed from Medicare in order to help pay for Obama-care, how can that not negatively impact senior health care?

[I have begun to submit these questions to Major Garrett and Jake Tapping, the only two newsmen who ask Obama real questions]

If you think that Obama-care means that, if you like your present health care plan or current doctor that you will be able to keep him.

Here is an easy one: Obama will promise that, under his health care approach, if you like your present doctor or your present health care plan, you can keep it. So far, he has only said this 7,924 times. He will continue to say it, as will his top aides.

I am finally ready to make a prediction on the health care bill. The Obama administration must pass something, so they will attempt to pass a bill without the public option. Far-left congressmen will be brought on board with promises to insert a public option elsewhere (hidden within a completely unrelated 1000-page bill) or to expand medicare or medicaid. I do not see this scaled-down bill as including tort reform or allowing people to buy insurance across state lines, two things which would lower health insurance premiums. This will be touted as a great Obama victory in the press (if it passes), as if Obama has been resurrected from te dead (that’s hyperbole, by the way). It will cost a lot of money, it will introduce many new federal agencies, and it will, at best, insure an additional 10 million people. However, it is hard to figure if he can put together any bill which will pass at this point.

Since Medicare was established in 1965, access to care has enabled older Americans to avoid becoming disabled and to travel and live independently instead of languishing in nursing homes. But legislation now being rushed through Congress-H.R. 3200 and the Senate Health Committee Bill-will reduce access to care, pressure the elderly to end their lives prematurely, and doom baby boomers to painful later years.

The Congressional majority wants to pay for its $1 trillion to $1.6 trillion health bills with new taxes and a $500 billion cut to Medicare. This cut will come just as baby boomers turn 65 and increase Medicare enrollment by 30%. Less money and more patients will necessitate rationing. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that only 1% of Medicare cuts will come from eliminating fraud, waste and abuse.

The assault against seniors began with the stimulus package in February. Slipped into the bill was substantial funding for comparative effectiveness research, which is generally code for limiting care based on the patient's age. Economists are familiar with the formula, where the cost of a treatment is divided by the number of years (called QALYs, or quality-adjusted life years) that the patient is likely to benefit. In Britain, the formula leads to denying treatments for older patients who have fewer years to benefit from care than younger patients.

When comparative effectiveness research appeared in the stimulus bill, Rep. Charles Boustany Jr., (R., La.) a heart surgeon, warned that it would lead to "denying seniors and the disabled lifesaving care." He and Sen. Jon Kyl (R., Ariz.) proposed amendments to no avail that would have barred the federal government from using the research to eliminate treatments for the elderly or deny care based on age.

In a letter this week to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, White House budget chief Peter Orszag urged Congress to delegate its authority over Medicare to a newly created body within the executive branch. This measure is designed to circumvent the democratic process and avoid accountability to the public for cuts in benefits.

Driving these cuts is the misconception that preventative care can eliminate sickness. As President Obama said in a speech to the American Medical Association: "We have to avoid illness and disease in the first place." That would make sense if most diseases were preventable. But the two most prevalent diseases of aging-cancer and heart disease-are largely caused by genetics and their occurrence increases with age. Your risk of being diagnosed with cancer doubles from age 50 to 60, according to the National Cancer Institute.

The House bill shifts resources from specialty medicine to primary care based on the misconception that Americans overuse specialist care and drive up costs in the process (pp. 660-686). In fact, heart-disease patients treated by generalists instead of specialists are often misdiagnosed and treated incorrectly. They are readmitted to the hospital more frequently, and die sooner.

"Study after study shows that cardiologists adhere to guidelines better than primary care doctors," according to Jeffrey Moses, a heart specialist at New York Presbyterian Hospital. Adds Jeffrey Borer, chairman of medicine at SUNY Downstate Medical Center: "Seldom do generalists have the knowledge to identify the symptoms of aortic valve disease, even though more than 10% of people over 75 have it. After valve surgery, patients who were too short of breath to walk can resume a normal life into their 80s or 90s."

While the House bill being pushed by the president reduces access to such cures and specialists, it ensures that seniors are counseled on end-of-life options, including refusing nutrition where state law allows it (pp. 425-446). In Oregon, some cancer patients are being denied care by the state that could extend their lives and instead are afforded the benefit of physician-assisted suicide instead.

The harshest misconception underlying the legislation is that living longer burdens society. Medicare data prove this is untrue. A patient who dies at 67 spends three times as much on health care at the end of life as a patient who lives to 90, according to Dr. Herbert Pardes, CEO of New York Presbyterian Medical Center.

What is costly is when seniors become disabled. In a 2007 Health Affairs article, researchers reported that surgeries to unclog arteries and replace worn out hips and knees have had a major impact on steadily reducing disability rates. And nondisabled seniors use only one-seventh as much health care as disabled seniors. As a result, the annual increase in per capita health spending on the elderly is less than for the rest of the population.

Nevertheless, Medicare is running out of money. The problem is the number of seniors compared with the smaller number of workers supporting the system with payroll taxes. To remedy the problem, the Congressional Budget Office has suggested inching up the eligibility age one month per year until it reaches age 70 in 2043, or asking wealthy seniors to pay more.

These are reasonable solutions-reducing access to treatments and counseling seniors about cutting life short are not. Medicare has made living to a ripe old age a good value. ObamaCare will undo that.

-Ms. McCaughey is chairman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths and a former lieutenant governor of New York state.

President Barack Obama plans to raise the top two income tax rates from their current 33 and 35 percent levels to 36 and 39.6 percent, respectively. This would undo the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for Americans earning more than $250,000 ($200,000 for singles) and return the top rates to the levels of 1993 to 2000 during the Clinton Administration.

In addition to these tax hikes, the House of Representatives' Ways and Means Committee, led by Chairman Charlie Rangel (D-NY), favors another tax to fund the government takeover of the health care system. The "Rangel plan" would levy a 1 percent surtax for married couples earning between $350,000 and $500,000 a year, a 1.5 percent surtax on couple incomes between $500,000 and $1,000,000, and a 5.4 percent surtax for couples earning more than $1,000,000. For singles, the surtax would kick in for earners making more than $280,000 a year, $400,000, and $800,000, respectively. It would be phased in beginning in 2011 and could rise higher in future years if Congress decides it needs more revenue to fund its government-run health care system.[1] Contrary to arguments made by proponents of these tax hikes, tax increases in the early1990s did not lift the economy to the highs experienced later in the decade.

President Obama's and Chairman Rangel's tax hikes would increase the progressivity of the already highly progressive tax code. High-income earners pay substantially higher tax rates than do lower-income earners. If passed, this increased progressivity will damage economic growth by lowering the incentives to work, save, and invest. This will stifle job creation, further slowing the growth of already stagnant wages.[2]

Those who support this tax increase point to several arguments to boost their case. But when these arguments are scrutinized, it is clear they do not hold up. Tax hikes on the rich will not balance the budget or close deficits. High earners already have a vast majority of the federal income tax burden, and the proposed tax hikes will badly damage the economy at a time when it cannot absorb any new negative shocks.

The President should scrap his plan to hike the top two income tax rates and Chairman Rangel his plan to pile additional tax hikes on high earners. Instead, they should propose to immediately cut spending, including reforming entitlement programs, and extending the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for all taxpayers. Additionally, they should propose further cutting tax rates to help the ailing economy.

Truth: Increasing the progressivity of the income tax code by raising the top two rates will not close the deficit. In fact, it will lead to more revenue volatility, which will lead to larger future deficits.

A progressive income tax system collects increasing amounts of revenue during periods of economic growth and decreasing revenue during downturns.[3] It does so mostly because of the volatility of high earners' incomes. During periods of economic growth, their incomes rise sharply and they pay increasingly higher taxes. But because much of high earners' income stems from volatile sources, such as capital gains, dividends, business income, and bonuses, their incomes fall just as sharply during economic downturns as they rose during good economic times and they have less income to be taxed.

Unless Congress suddenly develops spending restraint, increasing the progressivity of the tax code will only amplify the volatility of revenue fluctuations and increase future deficits. When revenue increases, mostly from high earners, during periods of economic growth, spending would increase because Congress cannot resist spending additional money. But, as history shows, when economic growth slows and revenues fall, Congress does not cut back on its spending largesse. Larger deficits would occur because the gap between spending and revenue would grow compared to previous recessionary periods.

Even if Congress ignores the long-term implications of more volatility and decides to close the deficits by raising taxes instead of borrowing as it is doing currently, it still cannot do it just by taxing more of high earners' income. Congress would have to decide to raise top rates to levels most Americans would consider confiscatory. In 2006, the latest year of available data, there was $2.2 trillion of taxable income for taxpayers earning more than $200,000.[4] Assuming the amount of income at that level is similar this year, Congress would need to tax 80 percent of that income in order to close the projected $1.8 trillion deficit. Tax rates at such levels would significantly decrease economic activity and taxpayers would likely avoid or evade paying them so the revenue gains would likely never materialize.[5]

The top 20 percent of all income earners pay a substantial majority of all federal taxes. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), in 2006, the latest year of available data, the top 20 percent of income earners paid almost 70 percent of all federal taxes.[6] This share was 4 percent higher than in 2000, before the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts.

When only looking at income taxes, the share of the top 20 percent increases even further. In 2006, the top 20 percent paid 86.3 percent of all income taxes. This was an increase of 6 percent from 2000.[7]

Truth: The bottom 50 percent of income earners pay almost no income taxes and the poor and middle-income earners benefit greatly from the tax code.

This widely propagated myth has found its way to the White House Web site's tax page: "For too long, the U.S. tax code has benefited the wealthy and well-connected at the expense of the vast majority of Americans."[8]

As shown in myth number 2, the top 20 percent pay almost 70 percent of all federal taxes and over 86 percent of all income taxes. It is hard to see how the rich benefit from a tax code they pay almost exclusively.

The bottom 40 percent of all income earners benefit greatly from the income tax code. In fact, they actually pay negative income tax rates because refundable credits, such as the Child Tax Credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), wipe out their tax liability and pay out more money to them than they ever paid in.[9]

Because of refundable credits, a family of four in the bottom 20 percent of income earners paid an effective income tax rate of -6.6 percent in 2006. As a result, such a family received $1,300 through the tax code. A family of four in the second-lowest 20 percent of income earners paid an effective tax rate of -0.8 percent and received $408 of income through the tax code.[10]

The stimulus bill created a new refundable credit and expanded three others. This will further reduce the income tax burden of low-income earners, to the extent they can pay less, and increase the income they receive through the tax code.

The income tax burden of low-income earners has trended down for years. In 2006, the bottom 50 percent of all income tax filers paid only 2.99 percent of all income taxes. This was down 57 percent from 1980 levels, when the bottom 50 percent paid 7 percent.[11]

Altogether, historical trends and the recent tax policies in the stimulus likely mean that when the data for recent years is released, the bottom 50 percent of all taxpayers will have paid no income taxes whatsoever.

Truth: Just because someone can afford to pay higher taxes does not mean he should be forced to do so.

The faulty principle of "ability to pay" holds that those who earn more should pay proportionally more taxes because they can afford to do so. Such thinking can be a slippery slope because, technically, virtually anyone can afford to pay more taxes. The ability-to-pay principle has no grounding in economics, as it relies on a completely subjective judgment of fairness.

The tax code should collect revenue in the least economically damaging way possible. Raising rates on the rich damages economic growth because it reduces the incentives to work, save, invest, and accept economic risk--the ingredients necessary for economic growth.

Raising taxes on the rich hurts workers at all income levels--especially low- and middle-income earners. The rich are the most likely to invest. Their investment allows new businesses to get off the ground or existing businesses to expand. This creates new jobs and raises wages for Americans at all income levels. Taxing more of their income transfers money to Congress that they could otherwise have invested. This means the economy forgoes new jobs and higher wages that the investment would have created for less effective government spending.

There is a tax code that can collect more from the high earners than from the lower earners without being a barrier to economic growth: Under a flat tax, a taxpayer who earns 100 percent more than another taxpayer pays 100 percent more taxes, but faces no disincentive to earn more since he will pay the same rate on every additional dollar earned.[12]

Myth 5: Higher tax rates in the 1990s did not hurt economic growth, so it is all right to raise them to those levels again.

Truth: High tax rates in the 1990s were a contributing factor to the 2001 recession and returning to those rates will damage the already severely weakened economy.

The economy boomed during the 1990s for a number of reasons. One key factor was an advance in information technology. Computers, cell phones, the Internet, and other technological advances made businesses more efficient. This increased profits and wages and created numerous new jobs.

The 1997 tax cut that lowered tax rates on dividends and capital gains from 28 to 20 percent was also a major factor helping fuel the economic growth of this period. It strengthened the already strong gains from the technology boom. The impressive growth of the S&P 500 index after its passage is testimony to that fact. In the year before the tax cut, the S&P 500 index increased by 22 percent. In the following year, it increased by more than 40 percent.

The economic benefits of the technological advances and lower taxes on investment were strong enough to overcome the negative impact of the higher income tax rates and the economy exhibited impressive growth--initially. Even though the economy overcame high income tax rates temporarily, it was not strong enough to resist their negative pull forever:

A contributing factor to the 2001 recession was the oppressively high levels of federal tax extracted from the economy. In the 40 years prior to 2000, federal tax receipts averaged about 18.2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). In 1998 and 1999, the tax share stood at 20.0 percent, and in 2000, it shot up to tie the previous record of 20.9 percent set in 1944.[13]

Taxes were high because the top income tax rates were 39.6 percent and 36 percent--the same rates President Obama and Congress now target.

The economy is in a much more precarious position now than it was in the 1990s. In June 2009 alone the economy lost 467,000 jobs.[14] With no new innovations like those that created economic growth in the 1990s on the horizon to jump-start growth today, the economy simply cannot afford tax policies that will destroy more jobs and make it more difficult for the economy to recover.

The 2001 and 2003 tax cuts generated strong economic growth. The 2003 cuts, however, were more effective at creating economic growth because Congress designed them expressly for that purpose. They worked better because they increased the incentives to generate new income by accelerating the phase-in of the 2001 reduction in marginal income tax rates, and by reducing rates on capital gains and dividends, lowering the cost of capital which is critical for economic recovery and growth.

Lower income tax rates generally promote growth, but since the 2001 cuts were phased in over several years, they did not kick in quickly enough to change the behavior of workers, businesses, and investors to help boost the ailing economy, so growth remained sluggish. The 2001 cuts also increased the Child Tax Credit from $500 to $1,000 a child. Although a large tax cut from a revenue perspective, the increase in the Child Tax Credit did nothing to increase growth-promoting incentives. Recognizing that the slow phase-in of rate reductions was not generating economic growth, Congress accelerated the rate reductions to increase the incentives to work, save, and invest during the 2003 cuts.

The 2003 tax cuts also lowered rates on capital gains and dividends, generating strong growth by decreasing the cost of capital, which caused investment to increase.[15] More investment meant that more money was available for start-up capital for new businesses and for existing businesses to expand operations and add new jobs. The rate cuts on capital gains and dividends also unlocked capital trapped in investments that paid lower returns than otherwise could have been earned if the tax did not exist. This generated economic growth by allowing capital to flow freely to its most efficient use.

The increased incentives to save and invest, coupled with an acceleration of the cuts on marginal income tax rates, were a major reason economic growth picked up steam almost immediately after the 2003 tax cuts:

The passage of [the 2003 tax cuts] started a different story. In the first quarter of that year, real GDP grew at a pedestrian 1.2 percent. In the second quarter, during which [the 2003 cuts were] signed into law, economic growth jumped to 3.5 percent, the fastest growth since the previous decade. In the third quarter, the rate of growth jumped again to an astounding 7.5 percent.[16]

Unfortunately, President Obama and Congress plan to increase the income tax rates and taxes on capital gains and dividends. This would reverse the beneficial effects of the 2001 and 2003 cuts and further slow economic growth during this severe recession.[17]

Myth 7: Raising the top two income tax rates will not negatively impact small businesses because only 2 percent of them pay rates at that level.

Truth: Raising the top two income tax rates will negatively impact almost three-fourths of all economic activity created by small businesses.

Small businesses are a vital component of the economy. They create jobs for millions of Americans and are a major factor driving economic growth.

Evaluating tax policy on the number of small businesses that pay the top two rates is not the proper way to determine the impact of raising those rates. What is important is how much small-business income is subject to the top two rates. This measures the extent to which the top two rates affect the economic activity that small businesses create.

Using this more accurate metric, it is clear that the top two rates have an enormous impact on small businesses. According to the Treasury Department, 72 percent of small business income is subject to those rates.[18]

The amount of small business income subject to the top two rates is high in relation to the number of businesses that pay the rates because these businesses are the most successful. As a result they employ the most people and generate the most economic activity.

Raising rates on these successful businesses would damage the economy at any time, but doing so now will only cost more people their jobs. Highly successful small businesses faced with higher tax rates will cut back on plans to expand, hire fewer workers, and lower wages for current workers at a time when the economy desperately needs them to expand and create more jobs.

Higher rates also discourage would-be entrepreneurs from entering the market.[19] This will negatively affect long-term economic growth because businesses that otherwise would have been created and added jobs to the economy will never get off the starting blocks.

The many arguments used by proponents of higher taxes ignore basic economic facts and distort the positive benefits of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts.

The truth is that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts were a major factor behind robust economic growth between 2003 and 2007. Undoing those tax cuts now for any taxpayers would inflict unnecessary damage to a struggling economy and needlessly cost many more Americans their jobs.

Adding additional higher surtaxes on high earners to fund a government takeover of the health care system would only do more damage to the economy and lead to more lost jobs and lower economic growth.

Instead of imposing these economy-injuring tax hikes, Congress should close budget deficits and spur economic growth by:

* Immediately cutting spending, including reforming the Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid entitlement programs, in order to get long-term budget deficits under control;[20]

Raising taxes on the rich will hurt the economy at a time when the U.S. can least afford further damage.

Curtis S. Dubay is a Senior Analyst in Tax Policy in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

[1]See Lori Montgomery, "Democrats Agree on Tax Hike to Fund Health Care," The Washington Post, July 11, 2009, at http://www.washingtonpost.com/

wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/11/AR2009071100482.html (July 15, 2009), and Ryan J. Donmoyer and James Rowley, "Health-Care Bill Would Tax High-Income Americans, Rangel Says," Bloomberg.com, July 11, 2009, at http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a7s..ps0_Uc4 (July 15, 2009).

[2]Curtis S. Dubay, "Income Tax Will Become More Progressive Under Obama Tax Plan," Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 2280, June 1, 2009, at http://www.heritage.org/Research/Taxes/bg2280.cfm.

[3]Congressional Budget Office, "Sources of the Growth and Decline in Individual Income Tax Revenues Since 1994," May 2008, at http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/90xx/doc9076/05-02-TaxRevenues.pdf (July 30, 2009).

[4]Internal Revenue Service, "Table 1.1--Selected Income and Tax Items, by Size and Accumulated Size of Adjusted Gross Income, Tax Year 2006," athttp://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/06in11si.xls , (July 15, 2009).

[5]Congressional Budget Office, "The Long-Term Economic Effects of Some Alternative Budget Policies," Letter to the Honorable Paul Ryan, May 19, 2008, pp. 8-9, at http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/92xx/doc9216/Letter-to

[6]Congressional Budget Office, "Data on the Distribution of Federal Taxes and Household Income," April 2009, at http://www.cbo.gov/publications/

[7]Curtis S. Dubay, "The Rich Pay More Taxes: Top 20 Percent Pay Record Share of Income Taxes," Heritage Foundation WebMemo No. 2420, May 4, 2009, at http://www.heritage.org/Research/Taxes/wm2420.cfm.

[9]Curtis S. Dubay, "Obama's Stimulus Has 'Spread the Wealth Around': Are Tax Hikes Next?" Heritage Foundation WebMemo No. 2354, March 23, 2009, at http://www.heritage.org/Research/Economy/wm2354.cfm.

[11]Gerald Prante, "Summary of Latest Federal Individual Income Tax Data," Tax Foundation Fiscal Fact No. 135, July 18, 2008, at http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html (July 15, 2009).

[12]Daniel J. Mitchell, "A Brief Guide to the Flat Tax," Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 1866, July 7, 2005, at http://www.heritage.org/Research/

[13]J. D. Foster, "The Tax Relief Program Worked: Make the Tax Cuts Permanent," Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 2145, June 18, 2008, at http://www.heritage.org/Research/Taxes/bg2145.cfm.

[14]Press release, "The Employment Situation: June 2009," U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics, July 2, 2009, p. 1, at http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf (July 29, 2009).

[15]N. Gregory Mankiw and Matthew Weinzierl, "Dynamic Scoring: A Back-of-the-Envelope Guide," NBER Working Paper No. 11000, December 2004, pp. 15-16, at http://www.nber.org/tmp/8655-w11000.pdf (July 20, 2009). (Later published in Journal of Public Economics (September 2006).)

[17]Curtis S. Dubay, "The Economic Impact of the Proposed Capital Gains Tax Increase," Heritage Foundation WebMemo No. 2418, April 29, 2009, at http://www.heritage.org/Research/Taxes/wm2418.cfm, and Curtis S. Dubay, "Obama's Dividend and Capital Gains Tax Hike Would Hurt Seniors," Heritage Foundation WebMemo No. 2433, May 11, 2009, at http://www.heritage.org/Research/Taxes/wm2433.cfm.

[18]U.S. Department of Treasury, "Treasury Conference on Business Taxation and Global Competitiveness," July 23, 2007, p. 15, at http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/reports/07230%20r.pdf (July 15, 2009).

[19]William M. Gentry and R. Glenn Hubbard, "'Success Taxes,' Entrepreneurial Entry, and Innovation," National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper No. 10551, June 2004, at

[20]Brian M. Riedl and Alison Acosta Fraser, "How to Reform Entitlement Spending: A Memo to President-elect Obama," Heritage Foundation Special Report No. 43, January 13, 2009, at http://www.heritage.org/Research/

[21]J.D. Foster, "Economic Recovery: How Best to End the Recession," Heritage Foundation WebMemo No. 2191, January 7, 2009, at http://www.heritage.org/Research/Economy/wm2191.cfm.

Yesterday President Obama responded to my statement that Democratic health care proposals would lead to rationed care; that the sick, the elderly, and the disabled would suffer the most under such rationing; and that under such a system these “unproductive” members of society could face the prospect of government bureaucrats determining whether they deserve health care.

“Let me just be specific about some things that I’ve been hearing lately that we just need to dispose of here. The rumor that’s been circulating a lot lately is this idea that somehow the House of Representatives voted for death panels that will basically pull the plug on grandma because we’ve decided that we don’t, it’s too expensive to let her live anymore....It turns out that I guess this arose out of a provision in one of the House bills that allowed Medicare to reimburse people for consultations about end-of-life care, setting up living wills, the availability of hospice, etc. So the intention of the members of Congress was to give people more information so that they could handle issues of end-of-life care when they’re ready on their own terms. It wasn’t forcing anybody to do anything.” [1]

The provision that President Obama refers to is Section 1233 of HR 3200, entitled “Advance Care Planning Consultation.” [2] With all due respect, it’s misleading for the President to describe this section as an entirely voluntary provision that simply increases the information offered to Medicare recipients. The issue is the context in which that information is provided and the coercive effect these consultations will have in that context.

Section 1233 authorizes advanced care planning consultations for senior citizens on Medicare every five years, and more often “if there is a significant change in the health condition of the individual ... or upon admission to a skilled nursing facility, a long-term care facility... or a hospice program." [3] During those consultations, practitioners must explain “the continuum of end-of-life services and supports available, including palliative care and hospice,” and the government benefits available to pay for such services. [4]

Now put this in context. These consultations are authorized whenever a Medicare recipient’s health changes significantly or when they enter a nursing home, and they are part of a bill whose stated purpose is “to reduce the growth in health care spending.” [5] Is it any wonder that senior citizens might view such consultations as attempts to convince them to help reduce health care costs by accepting minimal end-of-life care? As Charles Lane notes in the Washington Post, Section 1233 “addresses compassionate goals in disconcerting proximity to fiscal ones.... If it’s all about obviating suffering, emotional or physical, what’s it doing in a measure to “bend the curve” on health-care costs?” [6]

Though not mandatory, as some on the right have claimed, the consultations envisioned in Section 1233 aren’t quite “purely voluntary,” as Rep. Sander M. Levin (D-Mich.) asserts. To me, “purely voluntary” means “not unless the patient requests one.” Section 1233, however, lets doctors initiate the chat and gives them an incentive -- money -- to do so. Indeed, that’s an incentive to insist.

Patients may refuse without penalty, but many will bow to white-coated authority. Once they’re in the meeting, the bill does permit “formulation” of a plug-pulling order right then and there. So when Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) denies that Section 1233 would “place senior citizens in situations where they feel pressured to sign end-of-life directives that they would not otherwise sign,” I don’t think he’s being realistic. [7]

Even columnist Eugene Robinson, a self-described “true believer” who “will almost certainly support” “whatever reform package finally emerges”, agrees that “If the government says it has to control health-care costs and then offers to pay doctors to give advice about hospice care, citizens are not delusional to conclude that the goal is to reduce end-of-life spending.” [8]

So are these usually friendly pundits wrong? Is this all just a “rumor” to be “disposed of”, as President Obama says? Not according to Democratic New York State Senator Ruben Diaz, Chairman of the New York State Senate Aging Committee, who writes:

Section 1233 of House Resolution 3200 puts our senior citizens on a slippery slope and may diminish respect for the inherent dignity of each of their lives.... It is egregious to consider that any senior citizen ... should be placed in a situation where he or she would feel pressured to save the government money by dying a little sooner than he or she otherwise would, be required to be counseled about the supposed benefits of killing oneself, or be encouraged to sign any end of life directives that they would not otherwise sign. [9]

Of course, it’s not just this one provision that presents a problem. My original comments concerned statements made by Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, a health policy advisor to President Obama and the brother of the President’s chief of staff. Dr. Emanuel has written that some medical services should not be guaranteed to those “who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens....An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia.” [10] Dr. Emanuel has also advocated basing medical decisions on a system which “produces a priority curve on which individuals aged between roughly 15 and 40 years get the most chance, whereas the youngest and oldest people get chances that are attenuated.” [11]

President Obama can try to gloss over the effects of government authorized end-of-life consultations, but the views of one of his top health care advisors are clear enough. It’s all just more evidence that the Democratic legislative proposals will lead to health care rationing, and more evidence that the top-down plans of government bureaucrats will never result in real health care reform.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/08/president-obama-addresses-sarah-palin-death-panels-wild-representations.html.

http://edlabor.house.gov/documents/111/pdf/publications/AAHCA-BillText-071409.pdf

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/07/AR2009080703043.html].

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/10/AR2009081002455.html].

http://www.nysenate.gov/press-release/letter-congressman-henry-waxman-re-section-1233-hr-3200.

http://www.ncpa.org/pdfs/Where_Civic_Republicanism_and_Deliberative_Democracy_Meet.pdf

http://www.scribd.com/doc/18280675/Principles-for-Allocation-of-Scarce-Medical-Interventions.

Let me add to this: if this was essentially a harmless provision providing various options to older people, why is there not simply a provision to given them several pamphlets or DVD’s describing their options? Why is there an actual hired panel here?

Secondly, the Senate stripped this out of their bill. Why? If it was a harmless panel of people who just wanted to chat with each elderly person, why strip it out of the bill?

Now back in 1927 an American socialist, Norman Thomas, six times candidate for president on the Socialist Party ticket, said the American people would never vote for socialism. But he said under the name of liberalism the American people would adopt every fragment of the socialist program. There are many ways in which our government has invaded the free precincts of private citizens, method of earning a living; our government is in business to the extent of owning more than 19,000 businesses covering 47 different lines of activity. This amounts to 1/5th of the total industrial capacity of the United States.

But at the moment I would like to talk about another one because this threat is with us, and at the moment, more imminent.

One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine. It's very easy to disguise a medical program as a humanitarian project, most people are a little reluctant to oppose anything that suggests medical care for people who possibly can't afford it. Now, the American people, if you put it to them about socialized medicine and gave them a chance to choose, would unhesitatingly vote against it. We have an example of this. Under the Truman administration it was proposed that we have a compulsory health insurance program for all people in the United States, and, of course, the American people unhesitatingly rejected this.

So with the American people on record as not wanting socialized medicine, Congressman Ferrand introduced the Ferrand bill. This was the idea that all people of social security age, should be brought under a program of compulsory health insurance. This would not only be our senior citizens, this would be the dependents and those that are disabled, this would be young people if they are dependents of someone eligible for social security.

Now Congressman Ferrand, brought the program out on that idea out , on just for that particular group of people. But Congressman Ferrand was subscribing to this foot-in-the door philosophy, because he said, "If we can only break through and get our foot inside the door, then we can extend the program after that. Walter Ruth said, "It's no secret that the United Automobile Workers is officially on record of backing a program of national health insurance. And by national health insurance, he meant socialized medicine for every American.

Now let us see what the socialist themselves have to say about it. They say once the Ferrand bill is passed this nation will be provided with a mechanism for socialized medicine capable of indefinite expansion in every direction until it includes the entire population. Now we can't say we haven't been warned.

Now Congressman Ferrand is no longer a Congressman of the United States government. He has been replaced, not in the particular assignment, but in his backing of such a bill by Congressman King of California. It is presented in the idea of a great emergency that millions of our senior citizens are unable to provide needed medical care. But this ignores that fact that 127 million of our citizens, in just 10 years, have come under the protection of some form of privately owned medical or hospital insurance.

Now the advocates of this bill when you try to oppose it challenge you on an emotional basis and say, "What would you do? Throw these poor people out to die with no medical attention?"

That's ridiculous and of course no one is advocating it. As a matter of fact, in the last session of Congress a bill was adopted known as the Kerr/Mill bill. Now without even allowing this bill to be tried to see if it works, they have introduced this King bill, which is really the Ferrand bill.

What is the Kerr/Mills bill? It is the frank recognition of the medical need or problem of the senior citizens I have mentioned and it has provided from the federal government, money to the states and the local communities that can be used at the discretion of the states to help those people who need it.

Now what reason could the other people have for backing a bill which says we insist on compulsory health insurance for senior citizens on a basis of age alone regardless if they are worth millions of dollars, whether they have an income, whether they are protected by their own insurance, whether they have savings.

I think we can be excused for believing that as ex-congressman Ferrand said, this was simply an excuse to bring about what they wanted all the time; socialized medicine.

James Madison in 1788 speaking to the Virginia convention said, "Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations."

They want to attach this bill to social security and they say here is a great insurance program; now instituted, now working.

Let's take a look at social security itself. Again, very few of us disagree with the original premise that there should be some form of savings that would keep destitution from following unemployment by reason of death, disability or old age. And to this end, social security was adopted, but it was never intended to supplant private savings, private insurance, pension programs of unions and industries.

Now in our country under our free enterprise system we have seen medicine reach the greatest heights that it has in any country in the world. Today, the relationship between patient and doctor in this country is something to be envied any place. The privacy, the care that is given to a person, the right to chose a doctor, the right to go from one doctor to another.

But let's also look from the other side. The freedom the doctor uses. A doctor would be reluctant to say this. Well, like you, I am only a patient, so I can say it in his behalf. A doctor begins to lose his freedom, it's like telling a lie. One leads to another. First you decide the doctor can have so many patients. They are equally divided among the various doctors by the government, but then the doctors are equally divided geographically, so a doctor decides he wants to practice in one town and the government has to say to him he can't live in that town, they already have enough doctors. You have to go some place else. And from here it is only a short step to dictating where he will go.

This is a freedom I wonder if any of us has a right to take from any human being. I know how I'd feel if you my fellow citizens, that to be an actor I had to be a government employee and work in a national theatre. Take it into your own occupation or that of your husband. All of us can see what happens once you establish the precedent that the government can determine a man's working place and his working methods, determine his employment. From here it is a short step to all the rest of socialism, to determining his pay and pretty soon your son won't decide when he's in school where he will go or what he will do for a living. He will wait for the government to tell him where he will go to work and what he will do.

In this country of ours, took place the greatest revolution that has ever taken place in the world's history; the only true revolution. Every other revolution just exchanged one set of rulers for another. But here, for the first time in all the thousands of years of man's relations to man, a little group of men, the founding fathers, for the first time, established the idea that you and I had within ourselves, the God given right and ability, to determine our own destiny. This freedom is built into our government with safeguards. We talk democracy today, and strangely, we let democracy begin to assume the aspect of majority rules all that is needed. The "majority rule" is a fine aspect of democracy provided there are guarantees written in to our government concerning the rights of the individual and of the minority.

What can we do about this? Well, you and I can do a great deal. We can write to our congressmen and our senators. We can say right now that we want no further encroachment on these individual liberties and freedoms. And at the moment, the key issue is, we do not want socialized medicine.

In Washington today, 40 thousand letters, less than 100 per congressman are evidence of a trend in public thinking. Representative Hallock of Indiana has said, "When the American people wants something from Congress, regardless of its political complexion, if they make their wants known, Congress does what the people want. So write, and if this man writes back to you and tells you that he too is for free enterprise, that we

have these great services and so forth, that must be performed by government, don't let him get away with it. Show that you have not been convinced. Write a letter right back and tell him that you believe government economy and fiscal responsibility, that you know governments don't tax to get the moneys the need; governments will always find a need for the money they get and that you demand the continuation of our free enterprise system. You and I can do this. The only way we can do it is by writing to our congressmen even we believe that he is on our side to begin with. Write to strengthen his hand. Give him the ability to stand before his colleagues in Congress and say that he has heard from his constituents and this is what they want. Write those letters now and call your friends and them to write. If you don't, this program I promise you, will pass just as surely as the sun will come up tomorrow and behind it will come other government programs that will invade every area of freedom as we have known it in this country until one day as Normal Thomas said we will wake to find that we have socialism, and if you don't do this and I don't do this, one of these days we are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children, what it once was like in America when men were free.

The pile of economic data indicating that the worst of the recession is over just keeps growing. In the past few weeks, the government has reported that businesses last month shed the smallest number of jobs in nearly a year. The savings rate, after rising rapidly, held steady at levels not seen in at least five years. And from April to June, productivity surged to a six-year high.

But the same data also explain why any recovery isn't going to feel like one anytime soon for millions of Americans. Its existence will be confirmed by statistics, but, over at least the next year, the benefits are unlikely to materialize in the form of higher wages or tax receipts or more jobs.

"It's going to be a recovery only a statistician can love," Wells Fargo senior economist Mark Vitner said.

The Labor Department reported Tuesday that business productivity jumped in the second quarter to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.3 percent, far higher than the annual average of 2.6 percent from 2000 to 2008.

Higher productivity helps raise living standards in the long run and is good for corporate profits because it allows companies to produce more without paying higher labor costs. But the boost in productivity was largely due to businesses slashing hours faster than output. Labor costs per unit fell, but so did the buying power of workers, further constraining already weak consumer spending, which accounts for 70 percent of the economy.

Increased productivity, combined with other factors, could also bode poorly for employment because as long as businesses can do more with fewer people, they can delay hiring. Adding to that potential delay is the fact that employers have slashed hours to an unprecedented degree to survive the recession. The average time spent working each week is at a record low, and just under 9 million people are working part time for economic reasons.

"Before you see hiring, firms have an awful lot of latitude to increase hours," said Richard Moody, chief economist for Forward Capital, an investment research firm.

As a result, many economists said, a jump in productivity increases the odds that the recession will be followed by a "jobless recovery," similar to what followed the 2001 recession. That downturn had similar productivity gains.

Once it was officially over, it took 55 months before a greater share of Americans had jobs than when the recession ended, compared with 29 months after the 1990-91 recession and just seven months after the 1981-82 recession, according to an analysis of government data by University of California economist Brad DeLong.

Another piece of encouraging news -- the July jobs report -- showed the unemployment rate edging down to 9.4 percent from 9.5 percent as the pace of layoffs slowed. But the rate also fell largely because more than 400,000 people dropped out of the labor force and therefore were not counted as unemployed.

Another disturbing development was that the number of people out of work for 27 weeks or longer reached a record 5 million, accounting for a third of the unemployed. That suggests to some economists that those job losses were caused by structural changes in the economy and that many of those people won't be called back to work once the economy picks up. The longer people are out of work, the harder it becomes for them to find jobs and the more likely they are to exhaust savings or lose their homes to foreclosure.

"Economists are using one concept of recession that is at total variance of how a normal human being thinks of it. A normal human being thinks of a recession as: You fell into a hole, and as long as you're in a hole, you're in a recession," said Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute. "Economists think of [a recession's end] as . . . when the economy stops shrinking."

Job loss or simply the prospect of it has motivated Americans to save more after years of spending beyond their means, a development hailed by civic leaders, personal finance gurus and some economists as vital to more sustainable economic growth in the long term. But in the short term, it is bad for the economy because it is yet another constraint on consumer spending. Weak spending is one of the major reasons economists cite in their forecasts for a sluggish recovery.

With fewer people and businesses willing to buy things, it will take longer for the economy to work off all the excess capacity that was built up during boom times.

Think of thousands of idled factories, acres of empty strip malls and ports packed with unsold automobiles, not to mention millions of workers who lost jobs as business scaled back production to keep up with falling demand.

"We have excess capacity and high unemployment across the board," Mishel said. "What we need is customers."

I'm a home grown American citizen, 53, registered Democrat all my life. Before the last presidential election I registered as a Republican because I no longer felt the Democratic Party represents my views or works to pursue issues important to me. Now I no longer feel the Republican Party represents my views or works to pursue issues important to me. The fact is I no longer feel any political party or representative in Washington represents my views or works to pursue the issues important to me. There must be someone. Please tell me who you are. Please stand up and tell me that you are there and that you're willing to fight for our Constitution as it was written. Please stand up now. You might ask yourself what my views and issues are that I would horribly feel so disenfranchised by both major political parties. What kind of nut job am I? Will you please tell me?

One, illegal immigration. I want you to stop coddling illegal immigrants and secure our borders. Close the underground tunnels. Stop the violence and the trafficking in drugs and people. No amnesty, not again. Been there, done that, no resolution. P.S., I'm not a racist. This isn't to be confused with legal immigration.

Two, the TARP bill, I want it repealed and I want no further funding supplied to it. We told you no, but you did it anyway. I want the remaining unfunded 95% repealed. Freeze, repeal.

Three: Czars, I want the circumvention of our checks and balances stopped immediately. Fire the czars. No more czars. Government officials answer to the process, not to the president. Stop trampling on our Constitution and honor it.

Four, cap and trade. The debate on global warming is not over. There is more to say.

Five, universal healthcare. I will not be rushed into another expensive decision. Don't you dare try to pass this in the middle of the night and then go on break. Slow down!

Six, growing government control. I want states rights and sovereignty fully restored. I want less government in my life, not more. Shrink it down. Mind your own business. You have enough to take care of with your real obligations. Why don't you start there.

Seven, ACORN. I do not want ACORN and its affiliates in charge of our 2010 census. I want them investigated. I also do not want mandatory escrow fees contributed to them every time on every real estate deal that closes. Stop the funding to ACORN and its affiliates pending impartial audits and investigations. I do not trust them with taking the census over with our taxpayer money. I don't trust them with our taxpayer money. Face up to the allegations against them and get it resolved before taxpayers get any more involved with them. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, hello. Stop protecting your political buddies. You work for us, the people. Investigate.

Eight, redistribution of wealth. No, no, no. I work for my money. It is mine. I have always worked for people with more money than I have because they gave me jobs. That is the only redistribution of wealth that I will support. I never got a job from a poor person. Why do you want me to hate my employers? Why - what do you have against shareholders making a profit?

Nine, charitable contributions. Although I never got a job from a poor person, I have helped many in need. Charity belongs in our local communities, where we know our needs best and can use our local talent and our local resources. Butt out, please. We want to do it ourselves.

Ten, corporate bailouts. Knock it off. Sink or swim like the rest of us. If there are hard times ahead, we'll be better off just getting into it and letting the strong survive. Quick and painful. Have you ever ripped off a Band-Aid? We will pull together. Great things happen in America under great hardship. Give us the chance to innovate. We cannot disappoint you more than you have disappointed us.

Eleven, transparency and accountability. How about it? No, really, how about it? Let's have it. Let's say we give the buzzwords a rest and have some straight honest talk. Please try - please stop manipulating and trying to appease me with clever wording. I am not the idiot you obviously take me for. Stop sneaking around and meeting in back rooms making deals with your friends. It will only be a prelude to your criminal investigation. Stop hiding things from me..

Take a breath. Listen to the people. Let's just slow down and get some input from some nonpoliticians on the subject. Stop making everything an emergency. Stop speed reading our bills into law. I am not an activist. I am not a community organizer. Nor am I a terrorist, a militant or a violent person. I am a parent and a grandparent. I work. I'm busy. I'm busy. I am busy, and I am tired. I thought we elected competent people to take care of the business s of government so that we could work, raise our families, pay our bills, have a little recreation, complain about taxes, endure our hardships, pursue our personal goals, cut our lawn, wash our cars on the weekends and be responsible contributing members of society and teach our children to be the same all while living in the home of the free and land of the brave.

I entrusted you with upholding the Constitution. I believed in the checks and balances to keep from getting far off course. What happened?

You are very far off course.Do you really think I find humor in the hiring of a speed reader to unintelligently ramble all through a bill that you signed into law without knowing what it contained? I do not. It is a mockery of the responsibility I have entrusted to you. It is a slap in the face. I am not laughing at your arrogance. Why is it that I feel as if you would not trust me to make a single decision about my own life and how I would live it but you should expect that I should trust you with the debt that you have laid on all of us and our children. We did not want the TARP bill We said no. We would repeal it if we could. I am sure that we still cannot. There is such urgency and recklessness in all of the recent spending.

From my perspective, it seems that all of you have gone insane. I also know that I am far from alone in these feelings. Do you honestly feel that your current pursuits have merit to patriotic Americans? We want it to stop. We want to put the brakes on everything that is being rushed by us and forced upon us. We want our voice back. You have forced us to put our lives on hold to straighten out the mess that you are making. We will have to give up our vacations, our time spent with our children, any relaxation time we may have had and money we cannot afford to spend on you to bring our concerns to Washington Our president often knows all the right buzzword is unsustainable. Well, no kidding. How many tens of thousands of dollars did the focus group cost to come up with that word? We don't want your overpriced words. S! top treating us like we're morons.

We want all of you to stop focusing on your re-election and do the job we want done, not the job you want done or the job your party wants done. You work for us and at this rate I guarantee you not for long because we are coming. We will be heard and we will be represented. You think we're so busy with our lives that we will never come for you? We are the formerly silent majority, all of us who quietly work , pay taxes, obey the law, vote, save money, keep our noses to the grindstone and we are now looking up at you You have awakened us, the patriotic spirit so strong and so powerful that it had been sleeping too long. You have pushed us too far. Our numbers are great. They may surprise you. For every one of us who will be there, there will be hundreds more that could not come. Unlike you, we have their trust. We will represent them honestly, rest assured. They will be at the polls on voting day to usher you out of office. We have cancelled vacations. We will use our last few dollars saved. We will find the representation among us and a grassroots campaign will flourish. We didn't ask for this fight. But the gloves are coming off. We do not come in violence, but we are angry. You will represent us or you will be replaced with someone who will. There are candidates among us when he will rise like a Phoenix from the ashes that you have made of our constitution.

Democrat, Republican, independent, libertarian. Understand this. We don't care. Political parties are meaningless to us. Patriotic Americans are willing to do right by us and our Constitution and that is all that matters to us now.

We are going to fire all of you who abuse power and seek more.. It is not your power. It is ours and we want it back. We entrusted you with it and you abused it. You are dishonorable. You are dishonest. As Americans we are ashamed of you. You have brought shame to us. If you are not representing the wants and needs of your constituency loudly and consistently, in spite of the objections of your party, you will be fired Did you hear? We no longer care about your political parties. You need to be loyal to us, not to them. Because we will get you fired and they will not save you. If you do or can represent me, my issues,my views.

Please stand up. Make your identity known. You need to make some noise about it. Speak up. I need to know who you are. If you do not speak up, you will be herded out with the rest of the sheep and we will replace the whole damn congress if need be one by one. We are coming. Are we coming for you? Who do you represent? What do you represent? Listen. Because we are coming. We the people are coming.

It's nice to pass laws that don't affect you. Congress will vote shortly on a proposed healthcare bill, which does not affect their personal health coverage.

Below, in alphabetical order, are five of ten questions to ask your Congressmen about the bill:

1. Abortion.- The United States is now at a 1.6% replacement rate of its population. Adding Latinos raises it to 2.11% replacement, the bare minimum to survive as a society. We have become the new endangered species. Pro-choice groups NARAL and Planned Parenthood are demanding that the healthcare reform bill cover abortion, paid for by the TAXPAYER. Question to ask your Congressmen: Will you oppose a healthcare reform bill that uses my tax dollars to pay for abortions which undermine our American society?

2. Care (Rationing).- Seniors will be affected by the 500 billion in Medicare and Medicaid projected cuts with diminished healthcare. Question for your Congressmen: How can government promise to do more with less? Will you oppose any healthcare reform bill that in any way limits my access to healthcare or medicines recommended by my doctor?

3. Cost.- Obama's budget represents 11 trillion in debt in five years and 17 trillion in 10 years according to politifact.com. Specifics for paying for the program are outlined as: $544 billion from a new income tax surcharge on single people making $280,000 a year and households making $350,000 and above; $37 billion in other tax adjustments. About $500 billion in cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. About $200 billion from penalties paid by individuals (2.5% of income) and employers (8% of payroll) who don't obtain coverage. [Note: These penalties are not in existence now, why should the American public impose a penalty upon themselves?] Questions to ask your Congressmen: How will the $500 billion in Medicare cuts affect the elderly? Shouldn't we be reducing the budget instead of inflating it?

4. Euthanasia.- In a recent New York Post column, Betsy McCaughey, (pronounced McCoy) a former lieutenant governor of New York and health care expert, wrote: "One troubling provision of the House bill compels seniors to submit to a counseling session every five years (and more often if they become sick or go into a nursing home) about alternatives for end-of-life care (House bill, p. 425-430). The sessions cover highly sensitive matters such as whether to receive antibiotics and 'the use of artificially administered nutrition and hydration.' This mandate invites abuse, and seniors could easily be pushed to refuse care." Question for your Congressmen: Will you oppose any healthcare reform bill that in any way promotes euthanasia.

5. Loss of freedom.-All Americans will be eventually forced into a government-approved plan. After a five-year grace period, every new insurance policy will have to comply with government mandates, and any policy changes - "altering co-pays, deductibles, or even switching coverage for this or that drug" - invalidates your previous coverage and forces you to choose a government "qualified" plan. In addition, the House plan mandates coverage for every individual. If you are self-employed or choose not buy insurance for whatever reason, the bill imposes a "healthcare tax" of 2.5% of your income. Question for your Congressmen: Why do you believe bureaucrats can make better decisions than me about what kind of health insurance I should have? And will you guarantee that any healthcare reform bill passed by Congress will always allow me to choose my own doctor?

6. More burdens on small business.- Small businesses with payrolls over $400,000 who do not participate in the healthcare program will have an 8% tax imposed at a time when they are struggling. Currently, businesses pay a 15% payroll tax. Adding this penalty will either raise the cost of the product in order to keep a profit margin or encourage business owners to lay-off employees to stay under the $400,000 ledge. The Mason Contractors Association of America express a number of concerns regarding the proposed bill. Question to ask your Congressmen: Why are you imposing additional mandates and taxes on small businesses, which create the overwhelming majority of new jobs, in the middle of a severe recession?

7. People are being ignored.- The July 23, 2009 Rasmussen Report identifies by 50% to 23% margin, voters expect that passage of the congressional health care reform bill will cause the quality of care to go down. The Report also says, "While voters like the general concept of health care reform, they see cost, not universal coverage, as the biggest health care concern. Also, 78% believe that health care reform is likely to lead to middle class tax hikes. Figuring out how to pay for the trillion dollar-plus plan has presented a significant challenge for congressional Democrats working on the legislation." On Monday, July 27, a FOX news poll revealed 60% disapproved of Congress. Question to ask your Congressmen: Why are you disregarding the American people?

8. Pre-existing conditions.-This mandate, if required of existing insurance companies, interferes with free enterprise. Insurance is paid "in the event of." Removing that stipulation, i.e. in the case of home insurance for fire [a person may not insure their home until after the home was burned down] or theft insurance [again, a person may not insure their property until after it's stolen]. Many people would wait until after a major illness and then apply for health care. Question to ask your Congressmen: Is it fair to allow people to wait until there's a need and wouldn't this drive up the cost since they would not pay into the system until after they have major medical bills?

9. Quality care.- The July 26 Washington Post criticized President Obama for not "leveling about the consequences of change." According to the Post, "The Congressional Budget Office estimates that new technology accounts for about half the increase in health-care costs over the past several decades. This, for the most part, is a good thing. Adjusted for inflation, health-care spending per person is six times what it was 40 years ago. But no one today would settle for 1960s-style medicine." Question for your Congressmen: Why do you want to force more government involvement in healthcare when government-run healthcare exhibits decline in quality of care?

10. Racial preferences.- Race should not be a qualifier for medical help. On page 909 of the House bill, grants to medical schools will be awarded "to entities that have a demonstrated record of the following...training individuals who are from underrepresented minority groups or disadvantaged backgrounds." (Source: Investors Business Daily, July 27, 2009). Dispensation of medical care may depend on someone's life or death and affirmative action should be left out. Question to ask your Congressmen: Shouldn't awards be given to those most competent, regardless of minority group or background? They may well be from these groups, but competency should not be penalized.

Last Thursday was a huge victory for FOX News. "The Factor" at 8:00 p.m. beat CNN by 380 percent, MSNBC by 247 percent and Headline News by 299 percent. Total "Factor" audience for 8 and 11 was 5.4 million folks, more viewers than the "CBS Evening News" averaged last month.

Beck, Smith, Greta, and "The Factor" all won their time slots easily. In fact, last Thursday, those programs beat all four competitors combined.

So why is this happening? Well, a major reason is the health care debate. While the other network news broadcasts downplay the dissent and promote the government takeover of the health care industry, FOX News highlights the intense debate. When we cover the town hall meetings, we don't describe the protesters as loons. We don't denigrate people who disagree with President Obama. That's the big difference between FOX News and all the others.

Now, some liberals will say we intentionally glorify the protesters. That doesn't happen here. We've said there's no doubt some of the dissent is organized by people who dislike President Obama. That's a fact, and we've reported it.

"The Factor" also gives voice to both sides, something you will never get on NBC News. So, fair-minded Americans know our reporting is honest, while much of the other TV news media is simply in the tank for the president.

Now you'd think that liberal Americans would flock to hear their side propped up, but that's clearly not happening. For libs, conservatives and independents alike, there's really no choice. They have to watch us if they want to know what's going on. And they are in record numbers.

"Talking Points" is not gloating, just reporting. But the massive viewership to FOX News is a watershed moment in media history. There is no question anymore that FOX News is now the most powerful voice in the news media, despite unrelenting attacks from almost all other press organizations.

The American people are not stupid. They know the health care deal is extremely important. They know the country is running up debt that could destroy the U.S. dollar. They know the president has not been able to explain why the health care plan is good for the country.

Most of the other media ignore those things. We do not. FOX News is designed to be provocative, truthful and look out for the regular folks. That's why our ratings are so dominant.

Let me add, if you are watching the news every night, and you aren’t getting much of this information, it is because you are watching something other than FoxNews.

During one of Sen. Arlen Specter's (D-PA) early health care townhalls in Lebanon, Pennsylvania; mother of two Katy Abram told the audience: "I don't believe this is just about health care. It's not about TARP. It's not about left and right. This is about the systematic dismantling of this country. I'm only 35 years-old. I've never been interested in politics. You have awakened the sleeping giant." Abrams is dead on. Our federal government has, unfortunately, long been drifting away from the limited government principles first envisioned by our founders. But over the past eleven months, that drift has turned into an all out sprint towards an undemocratic, technocratic, leviathan state . a type of government that our Constitution was specifically designed to prevent.

As Abram points out, both political parties have been complicit in the rapid deterioration of our founding principles. It was after all President Bush who pushed for and signed the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 which created the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). When the Bush administration submitted their legislation to Congress we warned: "From a constitutional standpoint, the current versions of the legislation are different in scope, and especially in kind, from almost any federal legislation that has come before." Specifically we identified: (1) Congress's enumerated power-or lack thereof-to intervene with private markets in the manner contemplated, (2) the lack of meaningful standards to guide the extremely broad grant of discretion to the Treasury secretary (the "legislative delegation" problem), (3) limitations on judicial review over the exercise of that almost limitless discretion, and (4) related separation of powers concerns.

The only thing that truly surprised us after the legislation's passage was just how quickly our worst fears were realized. The TARP plan, as sold to Congress, was never even implemented and, instead, it quickly devolved into a political slush fund. Because of the broad delegations of authority in the bill, the American people were left with no real avenue to check the federal government's unprecedented interference in the U.S. economy. When Members of Congress voted for the bill in October 2008, could any of them honestly say they thought they had just voted to bailout General Motors and Chrysler?

The proposed health care legislation is just as bad, if not worse, than TARP. Sec. 142 of H.R. 3200 grants the new Orwellian-titled "Health Choices Commissioner" broad lawmaking authority, including the power to: set standards for every Americans health insurance plan, determine which of your current insurance plans do or do not meet that standard, and then punish plans that do not meet that standard. Even worse is what is not yet in the bill, but is desperately wanted by the Obama administration. A super-empowered Medicare Payment Advisory Commission that is specifically designed to "save money in an apolitical, technocratic way." The entire purpose of this part of Obamacare would be to take medical decisions away from patients and vest it in a panel of experts specifically designed to be completely unaccountable to the American people. Is this what the Framers of the Constitution had in mind?

When the Constitution was being ratified, James Madison, writing as Publius, sought to allay fears that the new national government would turn into a Leviathan. In the 45th Federalist Paper he emphasized that adoption of the Constitution would create a government of enumerated, and therefore strictly limited, powers. Madison said: "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. [and] will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce.." Federal tax collectors, Madison assured everyone, "will be principally on the seacoast, and not very numerous." Exactly six months after publication of this essay, New York became the 11th state to ratify the Constitution. Is turning over one-sixth of our nation's economy over to Obama's super-MedPAC panel in any way consistent with this vision?

* The contentious health care debate is forcing many Democrats to rethink an August tradition: town-hall-style meetings.

* House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) compared townhall protesters to the "snarling dogs" used against the civil rights movement of the 1960s and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) called Obamacare protesters "evil mongers."

* The American College of Surgeons released another statement condemning President Barack Obama "statements that are incorrect or not based in fact" adding: "We assume that the President made these mistakes unintentionally, but we would urge him to have his facts correct before making another inflammatory and incorrect statement about surgeons and surgical care."

* With 3,300 lobbyists working on health care reform, there are six lobbyists for each of the 535 members of the House and Senate.

* According to a still mostly secret White House deal with the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, PhRMA promised to promote healthcare reform in a multimillion-dollar ad campaign in return for a White House promise capping PhRMA's costs under the overhaul legislation at $80 billion.

I went to the Cardin meeting last night. Our country is in troubled waters. Please try to write, or e-mail, or attend one of these meetings to see for yourself.

First - By e-mail Cardin sent everyone an e-mail for you to sign up so that he could see how many would be attending. They did not reserve a seat for you, they were just taking numbers. The doors were to open at 6:00 - the meeting was to start at 7:00.

Second - By the time we arrived, 6:00, people were not being let in. They apparently opened the doors at 3:30 or 4:00. Cardin did have reserved seating - his people for the healthcare plan.

Third - Everyone was peaceful outside. ACORN was there with MEGAPHONES. THEY started shouting healthcare for everyone. Opposing people started to shout back - whose going to pay for it. In other words, they riled the crowd. ACORN people had red shirts and anyone who was a part of them wore little sticky badges. The sticky badge people placed themselves among those who were protesting healthcare change as it stands now. Thank God we outnumbered them - maybe 4 to 1. You could tell these people were being paid - you would have to hear them. There were two who came by us (we carried protest signs). They could not answer the questions we were there to ask Cardin. They kept saying that what is posted on the e-mails concerning the plan was false. I asked the fellow where he was getting his information - he said on the internet - DUH!

Fourth - When we made it to the top of the Art Center where the meeting was taking place, they had paid young men and old men, rope us off, literally push us back with the poles. If we had been a MOB, they would have been no match for us. We were all peaceful and complied with them. We asked if we could send in questions since Mr. Cardin was not coming out to speak with us. (They had megaphones available!) Since he was not going to speak with us, they let us fill out questionaire cards. They said there would be a response to them.

What scares me the most is the young people who were with ACORN. They are being PAID to start disturbances and to intimidate the others. Also, when I spoke with a young man of 19 years of age, in college, paying for his own way (so he says) he really believes that less taxes will be taken out of his pay BECAUSE HE WON'T HAVE TO PAY SOCIAL SECURITY OR MEDICARE TAXES!

BEWARE, this administration is being used to usher in bad times for us and our children and grandchildren in the future. Please, if nothing else, sign and send in those e-mail petitions.

You are the thirteenth President under whom I have lived and unlike any of the others, you truly scare me.

You scare me because I do not know how you paid for your expensive Ivy League education and your upscale lifestyle and housing with no visible signs of support.

You scare me because you did not spend the formative years of youth growing up in America and culturally you are not an American.

You scare me because you have never had military experience, thus don't understand it at its core.

You scare me because for over half your life you have aligned yourself with radical extremists who hate America and you refuse to publicly denounce these radicals who wish to see America fail.

You scare me because you are a cheerleader for the 'blame America' crowd and deliver this message abroad.

You scare me because you want to change America to a European style country where the government sector dominates instead of the private sector.

You scare me because you want to replace our health care system with a government controlled one.

You scare me because you prefer 'wind mills' to responsibly capitalizing on our own vast oil, coal and shale reserves.

You scare me because you want to kill the American capitalist goose that lays the golden egg which provides the highest standard of living in the world.

You scare me because you have begun to use 'extortion' tactics against certain banks and corporations.

You scare me because your own political party shrinks from challenging you on your wild and irresponsible spending proposals.

You scare me because you will not openly listen to or even consider opposing points of view from intelligent people.

You scare me because you falsely believe that you are both omnipotent and omniscient.

You scare me because you demonize and want to silence the Limbaughs, Hannitys, O'Relllys and Becks who offer opposing, conservative points of view.

Finally, you scare me because if you serve a second term I will probably not feel safe in writing a similar letter in 8 years.

[Lou Pritchett is one of corporate America's true living legends- an acclaimed author, dynamic teacher and one of the world's highest rated speakers. Successful corporate executives everywhere recognize him as the foremost leader in change management. Lou changed the way America does business by creating an audacious concept that came to be known as "partnering." Pritchett rose from soap salesman to Vice-President, Sales and Customer Development for Procter and Gamble and over the course of 36 years, made corporate history.]

People on the left and the right have gotten mad at Bill O’Reilly for this article, and it is a sensible article:

Obama writes and pro-Obama-care article for the NY Times (I suspect this was printed without requiring him to make any changes in it):

Press ignored some of the incendiary rhetoric directed toward George W. Bush, but it is a major focus now that it is directed toward Barack Obama (although the language is a lot more muted toward President Obama).

Someone who read the House health care bill and make comments about a number of pages (the comments are brief, but if you want some specifics, here it is):

Here is the website; where organizations very likely are funded by the government in order to hire people to work to pass legislation:

Social working and Obama supporter shows up to a Sheila Jackson-Lee townhall, claims that she is a doctor, and voices her support for Obama-care. The Houston Chronicle does not mention that she is not really a doctor.

That cute little 11 year-old Julia Hall, who asked President Obama about the signs saying all of those mean things? It just turns out that her mother is an early supporter of Obama, a donor, and one who has actually met Michelle Obama and the girls. What a coincidence that her daughter got called upon for her question.

I am embarrassed; I missed this—the Stimulus Bill contained Pre-Obama-care legislation, and it is pretty significant:

64 year-old Barbara Wagner given suicide pills from Oregon’s health plan rather than the drugs her doctor suggested. Although this story first sounds like it is a private health care plan which is the problem, read further and find out her life was ultimately in the hands of the state-run Oregon health plan (which information is not told to us until around the 12^th or 13^th paragraph of this story). They were willing to send her the much cheaper suicide drugs, however.

Ann McElhinney (recently converted from liberalism) speaking at heritage.org (there are 3 parts to this):

RUSH: Now, what I have here is very long. I cannot read the entire thing. But there are summaries that I can read. This is a piece entitled, "What the Health Care Bill Actually Says," and it was put together by John David Lewis. It is from the website Classical Ideals. John David Lewis is a professor of classics at Duke University, and here is how he introduces his analysis: "What does the bill, HR 3200, short-titled 'America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009,' actually say about major health care issues? I here pose a few questions in no particular order, citing relevant passages and offering a brief evaluation after each set of passages.

"This bill is 1017 pages long. It is knee-deep in legalese and references to other federal regulations and laws. I have only touched pieces of the bill here. For instance, I have not considered the establishment of (1) 'Health Choices Commissioner' (Section 141); (2) a 'Health Insurance Exchange,' (Section 201), basically a government run insurance scheme to coordinate all insurance activity; (3) a Public Health Insurance Option (Section 221); and similar provisions. This is the evaluation of someone who is neither a physician nor a legal professional. I am citizen, concerned about this bill's effects on my freedom as an American. I would rather have used my time in other ways -- but this is too important to ignore. We may answer one question up front: How will the government ... pay for all this?

"Higher taxes, more borrowing, printing money, cutting payments, or rationing services -- there are no other options. We will all pay for this, enrolled in the government 'option' or not." So, when we talk about how we're going to pay for it, "How will the government ... pay for all this?" it's all of the following: "Higher taxes, more borrowing, printing money, cutting payments, or rationing services -- there are no other options" to pay for it. "We will all pay for this, enrolled in the government 'option' or not." The first question that he wanted to discover here is: "Will the plan ration medical care?" Then he cites the relevant passages from the bill and then evaluates the passages in real language, not the legalese that he found. This section, rationing medical care:

"1. This section amends the Social Security Act. 2. The government has the power to determine what constitutes an 'applicable [medical] condition.' 3. The government has the power to determine who is allowed readmission into a hospital. 4. This determination will be made by statistics: when enough people have been discharged for the same condition, an individual may be readmitted." In other words, there's nothing personal about this. That's why Obama's answer to the woman with the 100-year-old mother, "Are you gonna take into account the spunk and spirit, the will to live?" was, "I don't think we can do that." It's going to be statistic based. "5. This is government rationing, pure, simple, and straight up."

There is no other way to analyze this section of the bill. "6. There can be no judicial review of decisions made here. The Secretary is above the courts." All this language is in this piece. The language from the bill is from the piece. I'm not just going to read that to you. I'm reading his evaluation, stripping away the legalese, what it all means. "7. The plan also allows the government to prohibit hospitals from expanding without federal permission: page 317-318." The next question that the classics professor at Duke researched is: "Will the plan punish Americans who try to opt out?" and then he gives the relevant portions from the bill as it's written followed by his evaluation. Number one... Remember the question here is: "Will the plan punish Americans who try to opt out? ... 1. This section amends the Internal Revenue Code.

"2. Anyone caught without acceptable coverage and not in the government plan will pay a special tax." Now, this we know. We've seen this ourselves. "3. The IRS will be a major enforcement mechanism for the plan," as written in this bill. The IRS will be a major enforcer. The next section that he analyzed: "What constitutes 'acceptable' coverage?" Because, in the previous passage the bill said: "Anyone caught without acceptable coverage and not in the government plan will pay a special tax" So, what is "'acceptable' coverage"? Here are the relevant passages, sentences from the bill. "Evaluation of the passages. 1. The bill defines 'acceptable coverage' and leaves no room for choice in this regard. 2. By setting a minimum 70% actuarial value of benefits, the bill makes health plans in which individuals pay for routine services, but carry insurance only for catastrophic events, (such as Health Savings Accounts) illegal."

Let me read that again: "1. The bill defines 'acceptable coverage' and leaves no room for choice in this regard. 2. By setting a minimum 70% actuarial value of benefits, the bill makes health plans in which individuals pay for routine services" out of their own pockets, "but carry insurance only for catastrophic events ... illegal." That is one of the solutions to the problem we have now. Pay for what you want -- a standard checkup, a standard visit to the doctor -- and catastrophic insurance for when that could break your bank. Doing that will be illegal in the House bill. In other words, paying for your own routine day-to-day services but only having insurance for catastrophic events will be illegal. The next section that our classics professor, an average citizen, was curious about: ""Will the PLAN destroy private health insurance? Here is what it requires, for businesses with payrolls greater than $400,000 per year. (The bill uses 'contribution' to refer to mandatory payments to the government plan.)

"Pages 149-150, SEC. 313, EMPLOYER CONTRIBUTIONS IN LIEU OF COVERAGE," and then the relevant passages from the bill. Here is the evaluation of those passages. Again, what we're talking about here is: "Will the PLAN destroy private health insurance?" "1. The bill does not prohibit a person from buying private insurance. 2. Small businesses -- with say 8-10 employees -- will either have to provide insurance to federal standards, or pay an 8% payroll tax. Business costs for health care are higher than this, especially considering administrative costs. Any competitive business that tries to stay with a private plan will face a payroll disadvantage against competitors who go with the government 'option.'" Now, let me explain this. Small businesses, say eight-to-ten employees, will either have to provide insurance up "to federal standards." If they don't, they will pay an additional 8% payroll tax.

"Business costs for health care are higher than [what will be charged], especially considering administrative costs. Any competitive business that tries to stay with a private plan will face a payroll disadvantage against competitors who go with the government 'option.'" If they go to the government option, they're fine. If you don't and you stay private, you're going to pay a penalty. The penalty will make it ridiculous and stupid business-wise to stay with your private plan. Therefore, you will -- your small business will -- be forced out of private insurance onto the government option. "3. The pressure for business owners to terminate the private plans will be enormous," the financial pressure, the business pressure. "4. With employers ending plans, millions of Americans will lose their private coverage, and fewer companies will offer it."

Now, none of this is anything new. Everybody showing up at these town halls knows this. This is nothing that has already been learned when discussing it. That's why when Obama is saying, "If you like your plan you can keep it, it's not true, because the meat and potatoes of the bill is going to make it impossible." If your private plan is from an employer, your employer is going to find it very difficult to hold onto private insurance and remain competitive with businesses that opt out and go in the government option. When Barney Frank or Obama himself says, "We can't do this immediately. It's going to take 10 to 15 years," this is what they're talking about: Eventually forcing small businesses and others out of private insurance because they won't be able to remain competitive with competitors who go the public option.

"5. The Commissioner (meaning, always, the bureaucrats) will determine whether a particular network of physicians, hospitals and insurance is acceptable" even if you do stay private. "6. With private insurance starved, many people enrolled in the government 'option' will have no place else to go" if they don't like it. So all this talk from Obama about adding to competition is the exact opposite, which is what everybody who's read this understands and which is why they know he's lying to them when he says, "If you like your plan you can keep it." Another way to look at that, "If you like your plan, you can keep it," is: What if everybody decided to do that, but he says the health care plan, the system we have now is unsustainable. It's horrible.

Yet if you like your plan you can keep it? How do those two go together? The next question that our classics professor at Duke wanted to figure out by reading the bill: "Does the plan TAX successful Americans more THAN OTHERS? Here is what the bill says, pages 197-198, SEC. 441. SURCHARGE ON HIGH INCOME INDIVIDUALS 'SEC. 59C. SURCHARGE ON HIGH INCOME INDIVIDUALS," and then it has the legalese. Here's the evaluation of what it says: "1. This bill amends the Internal Revenue Code. 2. Tax surcharges are levied on those with the highest incomes. 3. The plan manipulates the tax code to redistribute their wealth. 4. Successful business owners will bear the highest cost of this plan." Successful small business owners, will bear the highest cost of this plan.

"Does THE PLAN ALLOW THE GOVERNMENT TO set FEES FOR SERVICES? What it says, page 124, Sec. 223, PAYMENT RATES FOR ITEMS AND SERVICES," and then the legalese of the bill. The analysis or the evaluation: "1. The government's authority to set payments is basically unlimited. 2. The official" commissioner, bureaucrats "will decide what constitutes 'excessive,' 'deficient,' and 'efficient' payments and services. Will THE PLAN increase the power of government officials to SCRUTINIZE our private affairs? What it says, pages 195-196, SEC. 431. DISCLOSURES TO CARRY OUT HEALTH INSURANCE EXCHANGE SUBSIDIES," then the legalese in the bill.

The evaluation: "1. This section amends the Internal Revenue Code 2. The bill opens up income tax return information to federal officials. 3. Any stated 'limits' to such information are circumvented by item (v), which allows federal officials to decide what information is needed. 4. Employers are required to report whatever information the government says it needs to enforce the plan," meaning your medical records, your employment records, how you're living your life, what kind of risk that's posing to the health care system. Next: "Does the plan automatically enroll Americans in the GOVERNMENT plan? What it says, page 102, Section 205, Outreach and enrollment of Exchange-eligible individuals and employers in Exchange-participating health benefits plan," then the legalese. Here's the evaluation: "1. Do nothing and you are in" the government plan. "2. Employers are responsible for automatically enrolling people who still work. Does THE PLAN exempt federal OFFICIALS from COURT REVIEW?

"What it says, page 124, Section 223, PAYMENT RATES FOR ITEMS AND SERVICES," then the legalese and the evaluation. "1. Sec. 1123 amends the Social Security Act, to allow the Secretary to identify areas of the country that underutilize the government's plan 'based on per capita spending.' 2. Parts of the plan are set above the review of the courts." So the question, "Does THE PLAN exempt federal officials from court review?" and parts of the plan do. This is Mr. Lewis again. His name is John David Lewis, professor of classics at Duke University. He's a common, average citizen. He's not a lawyer, not a doctor. What this goes to show is, just about anybody can figure out what's in this bill if they just take the time to read it. And a lot of people have, and the people showing up at these town hall meetings saying "no," already know what this bill says and the elements to it, or of it, that I just shared with you.

RUSH: Christine in Haverhill, Massachusetts, I'm glad you waited. You're up first today. Hello.

CALLER: Okay, I was there yesterday in Portsmouth and got there about seven a.m. and we were shocked to see at least six chartered buses with people coming off from Organizing for America. They all had their manufactured signs.

RUSH: Organizing for America is Obama's group with their own WhiteHouse.gov website that is organizing all the union people to show up and cause trouble here or to counter the genuine opposition at these town halls.

CALLER: Yep. Me and my fellow patriots were worried about our cars getting towed from the parking lot. But anyway, opposing sides were on opposite sides of the street and it made for some spirited heckling back and forth. But we had some brilliant people with bullhorns on our side. Of course they had bullhorns, too, but the unions didn't provide rugged, quality ones. (giggles)

RUSH: The subject has been raised here: Was this event stapled in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, yesterday? And more and more people are convinced that it was. And Obama even addressed the possibility that it was. I've got people telling me, "Oh, he admitted it was staged." I've got the sound bite. I don't hear him admitting it that it was staged. We know that little girl was staged. We know she's the daughter of a huge Obama contributor and supporter.

RUSH: Here's that sound bite. I want to preface that sound bite. Frankly, the sound bite kind of leaves me confused. I don't think we ought to jump at straws here and say, "Hey, Obama's admitting the thing was staged!" We all know it was, but to run around and say, "He's admitting it," is a bit of a stretch. But here's -- my reaction is watching the town hall yesterday in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and that little 13-year-old girl, young girl got up and asked this question, reading the question from a little notepad. I said, "This is like everything else about this: This is not legitimate," and this, just to refresh your memory, was my analysis and observation.

RUSH ARCHIVE: A little girl, early teenage, stood up. Obama said, "When do you go back to school?" She said, "September 3rd." You know what her question was? When I was walking in, I saw all of these signs opposing health care reform -- mean signs, mean signs opposing health care reform. Why are people against something that will make their lives better, or some such thing as that. And then how can we know what's true? Now, I'm sorry, folks, 13-year-old, 14, 15, I don't care. Nothing about that computes. I've seen these mean signs? Why are people so opposed to something to help them. How do we know what is true?

RUSH: And now we've learned that her mom is practically an Obama groupie. She gave money, 636 bucks to Obama, which is nowhere near the limit, but there are pictures of her in inaugural events, the mom and so forth, and Obama sitting next to the kid. So here's yesterday in Portsmouth. This is Obama, and he said this about audience members. And the reason people think that he's admitting that there were plants and staged events is because he's answering a charge during the town hall itself that had not been leveled yet. You know, when you defend yourself against a charge that hasn't been made, people think, "Oh, there must be something to it. Here's what he said."

OBAMA: Somebody here who, uhh, has a concern about health care that has not been raised or is skeptical and suspicious and wants to make sure that -- because I don't want people thinking I -- I -- I just have a bunch of plants in here.

RUSH: So he's running around asking for people to disagree with him. It's amazing he couldn't find anybody with tough questions! He found these robots and says, "I don't want people thinking I got a bunch of plants in here." Well, that's what ignited everybody's curiosity about, "Oh, he brought up the idea of plants: 'I just don't want anybody to think that I got plants in here.'" This in the same town hall where he said, "Hey, you know, UPS, FedEx, they doing all right. The Post Office sucks." Yeah. (laughing) You want to tell us about a government agency that can't stay afloat, selling government-run health care? Axelrod's back there going, "Damn it to hell! Why didn't we bring the prompter?" I love this, folks. Absolutely, absolutely love it.

RUSH: Dr. Poole from Sikeston, Missouri, which is 30 down miles down the road from where I grew up in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. Doctor, welcome to the program. Nice to have you here.

CALLER: Like you said, I'm a doctor, board certified in OB-GYN, born and raised here in Sikeston and have practiced here since 1983.

CALLER: They're friends of ours. And I went to the town hall meeting at Poplar Bluff, and I just want to say that you would be proud of how the people acted.

RUSH: You know something? I'm glad you said that, Doctor, because I mentioned yesterday that I'm proud of the American people showing up at the Specter town hall and wherever they're happening. I bet I would have been proud. Was McCaskill there in Poplar Bluff?

CALLER: And two words to describe the crowd, which was mostly against the health care reform bill would be "passionate" and "frustrated." Many of us came there prepared to talk about the proposed bill, the one that they tried to hammer through before the August recess. I even took the whole bill with me and I've read the whole bill, and those things that you spoke about a few minutes ago are all in there. We were not allowed to raise our hand to ask a question or shout out, even though obviously people did shout out anyway. They drew questions from a basket, but one of the questions that she was asked was about House Bill 3200, those things that you were just talking about, and her response when they asked if she had read these was not a yes or no. It was first, "Those things are not in there. They're all distortions, misrepresentations and lies."

RUSH: Wait a minute, Doctor. Doctor, let me stop you here just a second. You're saying a woman got up and asked Senator McCaskill with a copy of the bill, read some of the things, "Have you read this?" and McCaskill said, "Those are not in the bill"?

CALLER: Exactly. She said there were five bills at the present time, and she held up her laptop and said, "This is the bill that just came out of Senate committee, and I have read all of this, and I can promise you that none of those things are in it --

CALLER: -- and that none of those things are in the bills that have been proposed so far.

RUSH: Now, one thing, though. She's got an out here. That woman held up the House bill. That's the only bill anybody can possibly print out. Claire McCaskill is not in the House. She's in the Senate. So she can say, "That's not in the bill," because she's a senator. There are four bills in the Senate, five total, with one in the House. And the one she held up is the Senate bill and she can tell us all day long that what's in the House bill isn't in the Senate bill because we don't know. We haven't seen it yet.

CALLER: That's exactly right and one of the next questioners got up and asked, or said, "We came here prepared to talk to you about the bill that was almost pushed through before the August recess, and now you're telling us about one that none of us have read, and none of us can talk to you about. So how can we have a discussion?" And she said, "Well, I can only tell you that this is the one that I've read, and it has none of those things in it." And, by the way, at Arlen Specter's thing yesterday when he was asked about a Senate bill, he said there was none, that there was not a Senate bill.

RUSH: There are four committees that are working on putting together a bill. That's where they've been having trouble in one of the committees with three Republicans coming up with "bipartisan consensus," and they just were unable to get one bill out of those four committees done before the August recess. The House was able to but they weren't able to force the vote. But let's take McCaskill at her word here. She may be talking about one bill that she's read. She may not know what's in the other bill that's in the Senate but it doesn't matter, Doctor, because once the Senate gets its bill -- and I'm going to tell you. I have seen excerpts of what's in the Kennedy version of the bill, and it's as bad as what's in the House bill.

RUSH: But once this happens, then whatever the final product in the Senate is, they go to a conference with the people in the House, and the people in the House -- that's Pelosi and Waxman -- are not just going to sit there and let the Senate tear their bill up. So Senator McCaskill took the easy way out in refusing to address her constituencies' concerns about the only bill they've read yesterday and tell them, "No, no, no. That's not in the bill." She ducked it. She ducked the issue then.

CALLER: Exactly. And the frustration comes from that, that we can't seem to be able to read what they keep talking about, and when the president came on yesterday and kept saying "My plan" and "my proposal" has this in it.

CALLER: And for doctors in particular it's frustrating, we hear him say things like yesterday -- and he's done this before. He said his proposal will make insurance companies pay for mammograms and col-onoscopies -- not co-linoscopies -- and that will help us find breast cancer and prostate cancer early. And you would think with all his advisors -- some of whom are doctors, and putting Rahm Emanuel's brother -- somebody would tell him that colonoscopies don't find prostate cancer. That's not what it's for. It's frustrating.

RUSH: You dare to challenge our Dear Leader on the most listened to media program today of its kind. And you've identified yourself by name. You, sir, are very brave.

CALLER: But it's frustrating when we're told that those of us -- whoever "us" is -- who made the mess, need to stop talking and get out of the way where he can clean it up. I know he's not a doctor, but he is the president, and he has lots of advisors and if he's going to stand up and tell us that he is going to fix health care he at least needs to have his facts together, and he just does not seem to do that.

RUSH: It isn't about facts, Doctor, if I may be so bold. With the left, facts are simply things used by losers. Words are the tools.

CALLER: Well, we have a class site for my high school class and there are conservatives and liberals both on it, and after I read the bill I sent an e-mail to everybody saying that I had read House Bill 3200. And I pointed out these things that you just pointed out. And one of my very good friends, who is a liberal, sent back and said, I had "the conservative version of the bill."

RUSH: I don't know. That's what's frustrating, when you're up against other intelligent people who just close the world off to themselves.

RUSH: For whatever reason. Well, I don't blame you for being frustrated. I'm glad for the report on Senator McCaskill. That sounds like a strategy to avoid anything and yet be able to say she was being totally honest in her answers.

CALLER: And like you said before, it's changed from what it was originally planned to be -- a way to help get health care to everyone -- to a direct attack on the insurance companies and making the insurance companies the enemies of all.

RUSH: Doctor, it's never been about health care for all. If they wanted health care for all they could take some of the stimulus money and done it. It's not about health insurance. The Washington Post even ran the numbers, Doctor, in a chart, last week. Even after ten years... If the House bill is signed into law as is, after ten years, still 17 million Americans will still be uninsured!

RUSH: And the Senate bill, 36 million uninsured after ten years. If they're passed in their current form. This is not about insuring anybody. It's not about anything of the sort. This is not about health care. This is strictly about remaking the fundamental building block structure of this country.

RUSH: Here's Lee in Covington, Louisiana. Hi, Lee, welcome to the program, I'm glad you waited.

CALLER: Rush, there are simply not words in the English language for me to describe how truly honored in 58-year-old honorably discharged, Vietnam era, cancer-surviving veteran is to speak with you other than by saying that I thank God every day of my life for what you do and what you do for this country I love so much. God bless you.

CALLER: Bottom of my heart. I meant it, Rush. We're fired up down here on the bayou and your listeners deserve to have some good news. I'm going to get to that as quickly as possible, and let me close with a message for the Speaker of the House, if you would be so kind.

RUSH: Do I need to put my hand on the bleep button here for the message to Nancy Pelosi?

CALLER: Have it handy, Rush, but no. Okay, within the past 24 hours, I was one of hundreds who were turned away from Senator David Vitter's town hall meeting on health care yesterday. Although disappointed, when I got home heard on the news that it was interrupted only by standing ovations, none of the least of which -- or the greatest of which I should say, excuse me -- was when he stated to his overcapacity crowd that he will only vote for a health care bill when from the president to the House to the Senate members that it will be the health care for them and their family. It blew the roof off the place. Today, Congressman Joseph Cao, who defeated 16-year congressman known as "Mr. Cold Cash" William Jefferson -- who unlike his constituents in the House read every page of the bill -- his prediction in cost, bottom of the barrel, $225 billion, up to $2.2 trillion.

RUSH: No, that's in deficit. There's no way this plan is going to cost $225 billion. That's not even going to cover the interest on the amount we have to borrow to pay for this stupid plan. But Lee here is right, David Vitter, Republican senator from Louisiana, and Mr. Cao -- who did replace Congressman William Jefferson (Democrat-Louisiana). I don't think the New York Times has yet identified Congressman Cold Cash as a Democrat. (laughing) I don't think they have. But there were standing ovations at Vitter's town hall because he did say that this is not going to happen. The only health care bill that we're going to support here is one that would be identical to one that we have or so forth. The thing to keep in mind in here is that the government does not run the federal employee health care bill. They pay for it, you and I pay for it but they don't run it. There is no... There's nothing like in the House bill that members of Congress have to go through now. There's no "exchanges" and there's no bureaucracies, and there's no end of life counseling. None of it. They don't have to do any of that. Everything in their health care plan is administered in the private sector.

RUSH: This is actually kind of interesting to me. Now, I haven't been able to follow the whole thing because I, of course, have been doing broadcast excellence while Obama's out there desperately trying to save his flawed plan at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, but I did have a chance to listen to what he's saying in his town hall now and there's nothing new in it from what I heard. It's the same old thing. "Well, you will not lose your coverage! If you like your plan, you will not lose it." I'm sorry, folks. You will lose it! Eventually you will lose it. And many of you almost instantly after this thing becomes law. The whole point of the "public option" is to entice private sector businesses and insurance companies to drop insurance coverage because how do you compete with an entity that never has to show a profit?

And the federal government never has to show a profit. But this is devious because this man cannot dare tell you the truth. The truth is he wants a single-payer system. He doesn't want you with private insurance. We've got him on tape saying it many times since 2003. He then said, "There won't be any long lines. You will not have to wait in any lines." Now, where the hell did that come from? But there's nothing inspiring here. He's saying, "Well, it's very scary what people are saying about our plan here, but what's even more scary is not doing anything." Nobody is talking about not doing anything. What people are talking about is saving one-sixth of the US private sector economy as a private sector economy. What people are talking about is saving their liberty. They're talking about saving their freedom.

There are alternative health care plans out there, many of them. The Republicans in both the House and the Senate have put them forth. They just don't have the power to get it passed. Nobody is paying any attention to them. So this is the typical straw dog argument. I'll tell you, the president... He's unhinged. He's unraveling here. He's responding to charges no one has made. They are on defense. The New York Times said it today in a story by Jim Rutenberg. They are defensive about this. They've lost control of the debate, and you can tell it in the little amount of time I had to listen. But it's clear that the people who oppose the bill, who have read it, have hit some home runs here. Because I knew for a fact he'd claim, "If you like your coverage, you're going to be able to keep it." Page 16: You won't.

RUSH: This town hall meeting the president is conducting is unbelievable. I don't think he knows what he's talking about. He just said that his health care plan -- which he has never shown us! We have never seen the Obama health proposal. His plan is going to, get this, be pretty much just like what Congress has. You're going to be able to go to an exchange where there are going to be all these plans and you'll be able to pick the one you want in addition to a public option. A government plan is going to be thrown in the mix, and we're doing that to keep the insurance companies honest. Now, my friends, of all the plans that have been proposed that we have seen, I am here to tell you that no such plan exists.

He has described what members of Congress and the Senate, a lot of federal employees have. They do have a smorgasbord of plans and they get to pick whatever one they want but there's not one of them that's run by the government. They're all run by the private sector. They're paid for by you and me but they're not run by the government. And they're not going to be able to choose the public option, these members of Congress and certain federal officials. They're not going to choose it. Then he went to a question. A little girl, early teenage, stood up. Obama said, "When do you go back to school?" She said, "September 3rd." You know what her question was? When I was walking in, I saw all of these signs opposing health care reform -- mean signs, mean signs opposing health care reform.

Why are people against something that will make their lives better, or some such thing as that. And then how can we know what's true? Now, I'm sorry, folks, 13-year-old, 14, 15, I don't care. Nothing about that computes. I've seen these mean signs? Why are people so opposed to something to help them. How do we know what is true? I almost wish I was carrying this live. I almost wish I had JIPed this. This is very unimpressive. Same plan as Congress? What the hell is he talking about? Nobody's proposing... For crying out loud, when Congress -- there is no section 1233 for Congress where they have to get counseled near the end of life.

RUSH: I don't know. This is hard. The president has just said, "I'm not promoting a single-payer plan." (sigh) I'm very uncomfortable. Let me look at my stack here to see what we have. Cookie, if we don't have it in the roster, get me 03 and 07. If we do, tell me where they are real quick because I've got a lot of paper here in the sound bite roster. We'll get it. "Do you still believe in universal coverage?" was the question from audience member. He said, "I don't believe... I'm not promoting a single-payer plan." (sigh) But he is. He just is. This makes me really uncomfortable. I don't like thinking these kinds of things about the president of the United States, and I certainly don't like saying them. (sigh) I just don't like saying it. It's not helpful, but it's true. Matt in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, hi, welcome to the EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: If I could take a few seconds to thank you personally for something you're probably not aware of?

CALLER: I used to be a sales guy and I've always wanted to follow my dream to do something else, and it turns out I used to schedule my sales calls around your show and your commercial breaks and things like that and then after hearing you say, "More fun than a human being should be allowed to have so many times," talking about the struggles, I finally abandoned it. I'm pursuing my dream. I'm pretty successful at it and I gotta give you credit for it.

RUSH: No. Well, give yourself credit. Too many people are afraid to give themselves credit for what they're good at because they think it's bragging or it's somehow not polite. But don't be afraid to give yourself credit for what you've done.

CALLER: Well, it's not... It's true, and I realize all the time that there are so many people probably better than I am at what I do, but they just never got to the starting line. I've gotten there -- and just because I showed up, I'm already ahead of most of them.

RUSH: No, they never got to the starting line or they never tried to get to the starting line. You did. You did. There's no reason to have any guilt about this.

CALLER: No, it's not guilt. It's just I did it and now no one can take it away from me and I love it and you're part of the reason.

CALLER: You got it, buddy. Okay, here's my point. Do you remember when Obama spoke to the AMA meeting and one of the first things he did out of the box as far as controlling costs and things is he shot down tort reform? He said, "It's too important! You gotta keep people accountable," blah, blah, blah. What's interesting -- and we all know why he did that. It's because the support from the trial lawyers and things like that. What happens when he eventually gets what he wants and Barney Frank and those folks and they get to single payer. The trial lawyer can't sue anybody. They can't sue the government. Do the trial lawyers understand that by supporting this guy they are ultimately throwing away their meal ticket?

RUSH: See, I used to think that, too. I used to think, "Wait a minute! Once the private insurers are out of there, they're not going to be able to sue anybody." You're not thinking here. This whole thing is a sop to the trial lawyers and the public sector union bosses.

CALLER: True. True. But once it gets to the point of costs, when costs become crazy high and they see these continual lawsuits under the John Edwardses of the world continue to get three hundred-million-dollar settlements, they're going to say, "Wait a minute. We just got to X that off the balance sheet. You can't do this anymore. That's it." Do you agree?

CALLER: The government-run option people. The people who are in charge of the government-run health care plan are going to say, "We can't afford this potential liability."

RUSH: No, they're not going to be suing the government. You can't sue the government.

CALLER: Right. That's my point. The trial lawyers will have no more medical malpractice.

CALLER: Okay. Well, do you think it will always be that way? Because then once they're not on the government payroll, then they'll have options, and the last thing the government wants is them to have options.

RUSH: One thing I know is if the Democrat Party ever takes away the option of the plaintiff's bar to behave as they have been, that's the end of all money and support for the Democrat Party from the plaintiff's bar. And since money is the mother's milk of politics, that ain't going to happen. That's no more likely than Obama telling this guy Stern that runs the SEIU, "Screw you, buddy! I don't need you anymore." It ain't going to happen.

CALLER: I just thought it was possibly the Law of Unintended Consequences with the trial lawyers being shortsighted to support this.

RUSH: I understand your thinking about unintended consequences, but the unintended consequences of this are the bankruptcy of the country, the end of the goose that lays the golden egg. There isn't going to be the money for any of this. The unintended consequences are going to be the absolute revolts when families are told, "Sorry, your kid or your grandmother, we don't have the money. Here's the pain pill."

RUSH: Well, there's gotta be something else to replace it. Once you take something out of the private sector, it doesn't exist there anymore. So you just can't say, "Okay, government-run health care is over." What do people do then? I mean, there's gotta be a doctor's office or something. It would be tough. This is crucial. This is very important.

RUSH: The president of the United States is stumbling and foundering badly. He's now explaining he's going to pay for all of this by limiting the deductions that people like him, who make more than $250,000 a year, are able to take. This is right out of the campaign. This isn't even elegant. This is desperation we're seeing.

RUSH: I am-flat-out stunned at what I have been able to listen to of the Obama town hall meeting

in New Hampshire. I have... (drumming fingers) I'm literally stunned at the pathetic nature of this. It is responsive. Obama is responsive to nothing in the current debate about this. He reminds me of the way he was in the campaign when Hillary got close. Remember during Operation Chaos toward the end of the Democrat primaries when Hillary was getting close? This is not presidential today. This is a campaign appearance that has no relationship to any reality on the ground now vis-a-vis where our health care debate is. "Well, I think we can pay for health care with the Bush tax cuts. Get rid of Bush tax cuts and pay the health care that way! I think we can pay for health care by, uh, we, uh, umm, umm just eliminate tax deductions for people like me who make over $230,000 and, uh, uh, there are a lot of cost savings of Medicare."

We're not going to cut Medicare, I thought. None of this relates. I just watched a woman ask a question that took five minutes! It seemed like it. It was three minutes to ask the question. I'll tell you what's missing, if you see any sound bites of this (or if you happen to be watching it now and listening to me do the play-by-play), what you're watching here as a salesman sell a product that doesn't exist! We need to see the page numbers on the bill that supports every claim that he is making today. What he doesn't understand is, more and more people don't trust him or the Democrats to do this, and he's not responding to that. He's just citing the same old campaign rhetoric. We need to see the numbers of the pages, Mr. President!

When you say X, Y, and Z is going to happen, you need to show us. Show us the plan. Where does it say that? He's out there selling Barack Obama, not health care. He's out there saying: Trust me. But after the stimulus bill, see, there's a new reality. "Trust me" doesn't work anymore. Almost three million people have lost their jobs since he took action to create jobs. Just in the past six months he's demonized doctors. He can't say "trust me" now. He's demonizing insurance industry. He can't say "trust me." He's destroyed the federal budget, created this massive deficit. He can't say "trust me." He can't get away with "trust me," and that's what he's doing. It's so out of touch, it's unbelievable. He's failed to deliver on jobs. He can't say "trust me."

And when he says in the past he wants a single-payer system and today he says, "I don't want a single-payer system." He can't then say "trust me." This is like somebody selling you a car they don't have, selling you a car you can't test-drive, selling you a car you can't even see. It's like buying a company with no contract. You're just relying on the seller's promises, and the seller's promises address none of the concerns that have been raised by people who have seen the company. So here, let me illustrate. This is Obama this afternoon, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and an audience member. "Mr. President, you've been quoted over the years when you were a senator that you were essentially a supporter of a universal plan. I'm beginning to see that you've changed that." Now, this... (laughing) None of this is real. None of these questions are real. "I'm beginning to see you're changing on that. Do you honestly believe that? Do you still support a universal plan, or are you open to the private industry still being maintained?"

OBAMA TODAY: I have not said that I was a single-payer supporter because frankly we historically have had a employer-based system in this country, that private insurers.

RUSH: Stop the tape! "I have not said I was a single-payer supporter..." Here, 2007, a little over two years ago, March 2007, Service Employees International Union Health Care Forum.

OBAMA 2007: My commitment is to make sure that we've got universal health care for all Americans by the end of my first term as president. I would hope that we can set up a system that allows those who can go through their employer to access a federal system or a state pool of some sort, but I don't think we're going to be able to eliminate employer coverage immediately. There's going to be potentially some transition process. I can envision a decade out or 15 years out or 20 years out.

OBAMA TODAY: I have not said that I was a single-payer supporter because frankly we historically have had a employer-based system in this country with private insurers.

RUSH: Stop the tape. "I have not said I was a single-payer supporter." Here's 2003, AFL-CIO conference campaigning for the US Senate.

OBAMA 2003: I happen to be a proponent of single-payer, universal health care plan.

OBAMA 2003: I see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, is spending 14% -- 14% of its gross national product on health care -- cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody. And that's what Jim's talking about when he says, "Everybody in, nobody out," a single payer health care plan, universal health care plan. That's what I'd like to see but, as all of you know --

RUSH: Stop the tape. There it is: "I happen to be a proponent of single-payer, universal health care plan. ... [A] single-payer, universal health care plan. That's what I'd like to see." Today, President Obama...

OBAMA TODAY: I have not said that I was a single-payer supporter because frankly we historically have had a employer-based system in this country with private insurers.

RUSH: Stop the tape. Mr. President, you can't do this and have people trust you. The power of your cult-like appeal is gone. You can't destroy jobs after telling people you're going to create and restore jobs and then say, "Trust me." You can't say you've never said you were a single-payer supporter when we have sound bites of you advocating it, promising it to your most fervent supporters and then say "trust me." You have lost the trust. (interruption) Oh, I'm stoking the flames? I'm stoking the flames? (interruption) There I go again stoking the flames? There I go again? I'm stoking the flames here? (interruption) What, I'm supposed to just shut up and forget what I heard in 2007 and 2003? Now, this next bite, I have a comment but after you hear it.

OBAMA TODAY: I do hope that we will talk with each other and not over each other. Where we disagree, let's disagree over things that are real, not these wild misrepresentations that bear no resemblance to anything that's actually been proposed.

OBAMA TODAY: 'Cause the way politics works sometimes is that people who want to keep things the way they are will try to scare the heck outta folks and they'll create bogeyman out there that just aren't real.

RUSH: Now, one again, these are not "wild misrepresentations." People are showing up, Mr. President, with the House bill, and they're reading from it and they're asking their representatives and senators about it. "[T]alk with each other but not over each other. Where we disagree, let's disagree over what's real..." I've never seen this man be so disconnected from reality. He has failed and his people have failed to understand. This is not the Barack Obama of the campaign that's going to lower the sea levels and raise the mountains and freeze the snow and the glaciers and whatever else. It's a whole different reality not even being acknowledged. Now, here again, this next bite. This is Obama on his plan. But he doesn't have a plan. He needs to be out there with every claim he's making saying, "Here it is, Page XXX, whatever it is of my plan. This is what it says." He can't do that because he can't have a plan yet. He says...

OBAMA TODAY: All we want to do is set up a set of options so that if you don't have health insurance or you're underinsured, you can have the same deal that members of Congress have, which is they can look at a menu of options -- we're calling it an exchange, but it's basically just a menu of different health care plans -- and you'll be able to select the one that suits your family best. And I do think that having a public option as part of that will keep the insurance companies honest because if they've got a public plan out there that they've gotta compete against, as long as it's not being subsidized by taxpayers --

OBAMA TODAY: -- then that will give you some acceptance of what sort of a good bargain for basic health care would be.

RUSH: This is unreal! This is, frankly, absurd. It's beyond pathetic. "All we want to do is set up a set of options so that if you don't have health insurance you can have the same deal members of Congress get"? That's what's new. That is the new. He's saying that we're all going to get the same options Congress gets -- and, folks, there is no plan anywhere that says that any time, ever. But to keep the insurance companies honest we're going to put a public option in there? I just... (stammering) I'm not often speechless. This is amateurish. This is... Well, of course I'll give the public option "not subsidized by taxpayers," not subsidized by taxpayers. Of course none of... This is incoherent. "I want to set up a series of options so that if you don't have health insurance you can have the same deal that members of Congress have"? Do I dare go any further with this? Yeah. A child stands up and asks a question. Ah, this is the little 13-year-old. Never mind. Folks, we already talked about it. I can't... I don't know. This is... I feel like I'm dealing with somebody running for high school class president here, except he's not. This is dangerous.

RUSH: I tell you, it's time to bring back the teleprompter. It's time to bring back the teleprompter or the Son of Teleprompter since the First Teleprompter crashed and died, maybe committed suicide. But even on PMSNBC the first two guests just trashed this. "Ah, the questions weren't hard enough. They were too easy! He was rambling. It went on and on and on." Here, I'm going to play these two sound bites. I decided that I would play 'em during the break. It's the 13-year-old little girl. I'm guessing her age. She's a little girl. She stands up and says this.

LITTLE GIRL: As I was walking in, I saw a lot of signs outside saying mean things about reforming health care. How do kids know what is true, and why do people want a new system that helps more of us?

OBAMA: Well, uh, uh... The, uhhhh... I've seen some of those signs. Let me just be specific about some things that I've been hearing lately that, eh, we just need to dispose of here. The rumor that's been circulating a lot lately is this idea that somehow the House of Representatives voted for death panels that will, uhhh, basically pull the plug on grandma because we decided that we don't... It's too expensive to let her live anymore. I guess this arose out of a provision in one of the House bills that allowed Medicare to reimburse people for consultations about end-of-life care, setting up living wills, the availability of hospice, et cetera. Somehow it's gotten spun into this idea of death panels. I am not in favor of that.

RUSH: Mike, find me the ABC quote about the pain pill, grandmother, 105 and so forth. I've got these sheets of paper all over and I can't tell which is which here. But let me tell you something, folks. This little girl stands up and says, "As I was walking in, I saw a lot of signs outside saying mean things about reforming health care. How do kids know what is true, and why do people not want a new system that helps more of us?" and he starts telling people that he's not going to kill grandma. (Good. Stand by. It's coming up soon.) Now, if Obama takes that question and says that he is not going to kill grandma, then he's in trouble and he knows he's in trouble. If he has to say, "We don't have to worry about death panels..." He was also asked about the snitch website and he admitted there's a snitch website and he said we don't have to worry about it!

It's not that you've been misled about what the site is. "We have a snitch website..." (laughing) Well, he didn't say "snitch." We have our snitch website but we don't even need to worry about it! Ah, this talk about death panels. "I'm not in favor of that"? What a concrete reassuring denial: I'm not in favor of death panels. Well, Mr. President, there are enough people that are, if this answer doesn't quite persuade them because you can't get by on "trust me" anymore. Let's go back, June 24th, ABC. You just heard his answer here. "I've heard some of these death panels, pull the plug on grandma. We decide it's too expensive let her live anymore. I guess this arose out of a provision in one of the House bills that allowed Medicare to reimburse people in consultation, end-of-life care." He's finally gotten up to speed on this. He doesn't have a bill. He's reading the House bill. But woman stands up: "Are you going to take into account my mother's will to live?"

OBAMA: I don't think that we can make judgments based on people's spirit. Uh, that would be, uh, a pretty subjective decision to be making. I think we have to have rules that, uh, say that we are gonna provide good quality care for all people. End-of-life care is one of the most difficult sets of decisions that we're going to have to make. But understand that those decisions are already being made in one way or another. If they're not being made under Medicare and Medicaid, they're being made by private insurers. At least we can let doctors know -- and your mom know -- that you know what? Maybe this isn't going to help. Maybe you're better off, uh, not having the surgery but taking, uhhh, the painkiller.

RUSH: But we're not going to have death panels. He's not in favor of death panels. Will somebody tell me...? Mr. President, you're using the word "we" here. "We" give her the pain pill. "We" make end-of-life decisions and "we" give them the pain pill. Maybe "we" don't mess with the surgery. But he's not in favor. Look, folks, I'm telling you. I cannot emphasize it enough. This little girl didn't even ask about death panels! This little girl didn't ask about anything. She asked about "mean signs" and she didn't define what they were. When you, as president of the United States, have to tell a country that you are not in favor of death panels and that you are not going to pull the switch on grandma, you have lost control of this. "No, don't worry about that! Those are all lies. I'm not going to pull the plug on grandma!"

To me, this is profound. This is United States of America. The president of the United States had to tell the people in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, that he's not going to pull the plug on grandma! That that's even something this government would contemplate and that people have a fear about that they would have to ask about... This little girl didn't even ask about it. Now, this was at the end of his opening comments. Cut 40. This happened about half an hour ago. This is 1:50 p.m. Eastern time. It was about ten minutes before this town hall meeting ended. Listen. I want to set this up. This is only six seconds so you have to listen fast. This is a man who is on a tear to convince every one of us that only the federal government can do health care fair and right and good and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Only the federal government! The only entity that can handle the depression, the recession -- the only entity that can get jobs booming again -- is the federal government. And he actually said this 35 minutes ago.

OBAMA: If you think about it, UPS and FedEx are doing just fine. It's the Post Office that's always havin' problems.

RUSH: Now, I'm going to have to get the transcript. I just told Cookie, "Find that phrase." She did a keyword search and found it. I don't know what the context of this is. "If you think about it, UPS and FedEx are doing just fine. It's the Post Office that's always having problems." Now, that line alone by itself and out of context does not jibe with trying to say the government's the only entity that can do anything, when you stop and think if. So I will find the context of this in hopes of having it make sense. Now, the statement alone does make sense, just by itself: "UPS and FedEx are doing just fine. It's the Post Office that's always having problems." That's true. There's no question he told the truth about that, but it doesn't advance his cause of having the government run health care. Maybe he was saying insurance companies are not doing well, HMOs are not doing well. I don't want to guess. I don't want to surmise.

RUSH: All right, I have the context now on Obama and this UPS-FedEx comment. He was saying that the public option -- the government option in health care, -- will not put private insurance out of business, that they can compete with the government. And that's when he said...

OBAMA: If you think about it, UPS and FedEx are doing just fine. It's the Post Office that's always havin' problems.

RUSH: Now, wait a second. This is supposed to dazzle us with his brilliance and intelligence. The Post Office is a losing proposition. It is running a deficit the other day there was a story they might have to close 100 Post Offices. Maybe it was more than that, but at least a hundred Post Offices around the country. "UPS and FedEx are doing just fine." Yeah, but I haven't heard you talking about squeezing UPS or FedEx profits. I haven't heard you start demonizing UPS or FedEx. Let's make this analogy worthwhile. If you wanted government-run overnight delivery, you'd be out there demonizing UPS and FedEx. He's not going to do it because UPS is a big union organization and so forth. So what do we have to look forward to here, with this analogy? "Hey, the private sector can compete. Why, UPS, FedEx, think about it! They're doing just fine. The Post Office sucks." So the government-run health care option is going to suck, and private options are going to make it a money loser? All the while it's going to be deficit neutral! Specter said that today, going to be deficit neutral. It's not going to cost us any new money. They're at the point now where they're literally grabbing globs of excrement, throwing it up against the wall, and hoping some of it sticks. That's what this has become. That's how much they have lost control of this. All right, who's been waiting the longest? It's White Lake, Michigan. Steve, hello. Welcome to the EIB Network, sir. Great to have you here.

CALLER: No, I didn't tell the screener this, but my daughter is 13 years old, and that is the base of my call because, you know, our kids are so smart. They see clearly what needs to be said, and the other night my 13-year-old had asked me. She said, "Will, I get the same lifesaving treatment as mom did when she was just 28 years old?" You know, just floored me, I just had to take a pause and a deep breath.

RUSH: All right, where did your 13-year-old daughter even hear enough information to ask you this question? Where did she hear this?

CALLER: Well, watching Fox News. She gets up every morning. She's used to doing that before she goes to school, so she still does it now, and she just watches the media. What's concerning to her is what they're talking about, you know, the Obama health care plan -- which really I think, you know, it should be known as the, "No Child Left Behind Us." There's always a double meaning behind everything Obama says. At first you think, "Well, yeah, No Child Left Behind Us. That's great," but then sit back and look and think, "Well, gosh, there is going to be a lot of kids who have genetic issues that they don't fit specifics. You have to be specific in a government program to say it is worthy for us to do treatment," and my life would have been one of those statistics. At 28, she would have passed away if she did not get the treatment. It was a doctor's decision based on the information he saw to say, "Let's get a colonoscopy done."

RUSH: So your fear is that when the government is in charge of this, that procedure would not have been approved?

RUSH: Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Why? I want to hear from you. Why "absolutely" it wouldn't have been approved?

CALLER: Because her brother who was under 40 years old at the time, worked at the Pentagon, under a government health plan, and we had to submit all the documentation of my wife's procedure showing that they were precancerous polyps when you're not supposed to have a colonoscopy until you're age 50 by all recommendations and standards right now. Well, you know, the statistics were not working in his favor. He's under 40 years old. So, with the government plan he was under, all the doctors were saying, "That's just impossible. We don't believe you. That's ridiculous. She couldn't have precancerous polyps."

CALLER: Absolutely. This was a real story. This is not one of these false misrepresentations out there. That's why we feel so... I get so miffed and feel just so disrespected.

CALLER: Yeah. I am miffed at the actual accusations out there. The left is saying that we are using misrepresentation. We know.

RUSH: Let me tell you what's happened here. There's a reason for this, and it's not all that complicated. I refer to this frequently. Back when I started this program in 1988, these people -- the Democrat Party, for the most part, and most of the mainstream media -- had a monopoly on not only what was reported, but what was not reported. They controlled the news cycle. The New York Times determined most of the stories that would be covered in the evening news on ABC, CBS, and NBC, that night. The New York Times was the bible, and they had this monopoly where they controlled it. They've lost that monopoly now. In 1988, CNN was the only cable network out there, along with three networks, the newspapers and magazines. And now look. They have lost control of it. And because they had so many years of control without being challenged on what they believed, they have never had to toughen up.

They have never had to actually figure out a way to persuade people because they never had to. They controlled it. But now they're not trusted. They're not universally trusted. There will never, ever be another Walter Cronkite. There just won't be. There are too many places you can go now and see that's what's happening to these guys in the State-Run Media. They're floundering away in there, too, because they're still doing it the same old way. They're just saying, "You got a Democrat in the White House? Okay, we repeat. We don't report." But they're not succeeding in shaping public opinion as they used to be able to, and that's just got 'em bugged to no end. So Obama... Obama wouldn't know tough press coverage. I don't know if Obama could handle one week of the kind of press coverage I get, for example. He's never had that.

And I think his discombobulation today and his whole administration... This was childlike amateur today, this health care town hall. It was responsive to nothing current in the debate. It was as though there's not six months of an Obama administration with real things that have happened. It was as though we're still in the promise stage and we believe every promise and we believe because of the power of that personality that whatever is promised is going to happen. But there's six, seven months of reality now. We know it ain't true. There is reason to doubt. And today, he's out there assuring us that he's not going to pull the plug on grandma. One more. What did I do with it? I got things pouring in here so fast. Let's see. I'm looking for cut 44, and I know I got cut 44. Ah, the snitch site. I wanted you to hear this. This is a question. "I'm a skeptic. Thank you Mr. President, for coming. I'm one of the people that turned myself in on the White House web page the other day for being a skeptic of this bill."

OBAMA: This is another example of how, uhhh, the -- the media ends up just completely distorting what's taken place. What we've said is that if somebody has... If you get an e-mail from somebody that says, for example, "Obamacare is creating a death panel," forward us the e-mail and we will answer the question that's raised in the e-mail. Suddenly, on some of these news outlets, this is being portrayed as, "Obama is collecting an enemies list!"

OBAMA: Now, come on, guys. I... You know, here I am trying to be responsive to questions that are being raised out there!

RUSH: There's a way to do it. At a town hall like this you address those questions and you show us page by page where the people making these claims are wrong. But if you send a note to the White House, to the government, the government website, that has to be archived. They have to know who you are. So... Well, he admits the snitch website exists; it's just not a snitch website.

RUSH: Now, about this snitch website, Obama says here: "If you get an e-mail from somebody that says, for example, 'Obamacare is creating a death panel," forward us the e-mail and we will answer the question that's raised in the e-mail." Why forward the e-mail? So if you get an e-mail from me that says "Obama wants to create death panels," you are being instructed to forward my e-mail to the snitch website. You could just as easily say, "I received an e-mail that said that there were going to be death panels." They want the e-mail! They want the forwarded e-mail. By the way, the Post Office is now mulling closing 700 offices, Post Office stores around the country that might close. Now it's 700.

RUSH: Now, I have a question for Steny Hoyer and for Dick Durbin and any other Democrat. You people really think these town hall health care protests are being coordinated by the insurance companies and the drug companies, then I have an idea for you. Why didn't you come back from recess and hold hearings into this? You can subpoena citizens. You can subpoena executives. You can subpoena lobbyists from these companies to come up. Some of these people have spoken up and some of these people have gotten beaten up. A black conservative got beat up in Mehlville, Missouri, outside St. Louis at a Russ Carnahan event -- and none of this violence started happening until Obama dispatched his union thugs.

One thing we don't need is any hearings to understand that Obama is dispatching his own community organizer thugs -- AFL-CIO, SEIU people -- to intimidate citizens at these town hall meetings. So if you think the insurance companies are behind all these citizen protests, then do the show trials. Do the hearings. Subpoena the witnesses. Put up or shut up. Hit back twice as hard against Americans like you've been told to by the White House. Now, let's go through some recent developments here. First from TheHill.com. "House Democratic leaders have set up a healthcare 'war room' to help their rank-and-file members navigate a tumultuous August in which they find themselves on the defensive on their signature issue." Let me tell you what happened in Missouri. There's a congressman there named Ike Skelton.

And he has canceled, he's not going to have any town hall meetings which is probably going to be the modus operandi for most of the Democrats in the House and the Senate as they go back. But you know where I found out about this? I found out about this in a letter to the editor of a local Missouri paper! The journalists at the paper didn't think it was a big enough story on its own that Skelton wasn't going to have any town meetings. But they did publish a small, little letter to the editor from somebody who had called Skelton's office to find out where there was going to be one. Skelton's office said, "Uh, there's not going to be any." So why do you need a war room? Why do you need a war room? Why do you have to have plans here to "help their rank-and-file members navigate a tumultuous August" if you're going to not have the meetings in the first place?

"The effort is being run out of Majority Leader Steny Hoyer's (D-Md.) office, but is being manned around the clock by a rotation of leadership and key committee staff members, according to leadership aides. Although the war room, or 'healthcare hotline,' is primarily designed to give members the ability to get immediate health policy answers and updates from leadership offices..." Do you understand what this is? These guys still haven't read it! Most of them still haven't read it. When they're out there, they are to call the war room for on-the-spot help, getting answers to questions that might be asked of them. "[T]op Democrats are also planning to use it to help their colleagues respond effectively to political and press attacks, if necessary." Press attacks?

What press attacks? Are they serious? Press attacks. Okay. So we got a war room set up in the House of Representatives. Now, there's this: The White House has set a new website called Reality Check. "Dear Friend, Anyone that's watched the news in the past few days knows that health insurance reform is a hot topic..." By the way, have you noticed how in just the past couple weeks it's become health "insurance" reform? I'll explain why in just a second. "[A]nd that rumors and scare tactics have only increased as more people engage with the issue. Given a lot of the outrageous claims floating around, it's time to make sure everyone knows the facts about the security and stability you get with health insurance reform.

"That's why we've launched a new online resource -- WhiteHouse.gov/RealityCheck -- to help you separate fact from fiction and share the truth about health insurance reform. Here's a few of the reality check videos you can find on the site," and then they put the link. They've even got a logo here. This one looks like a license plate. Health Insurance Reform Reality Check. "But don't be misled. We know the status quo is unsustainable. If we do nothing, millions more Americans will be denied insurance because of pre-existing conditions, or see their coverage suddenly dropped if they become seriously ill." This is the second website. The first website is a snitch website, and now they've got this Reality Check website -- and there's a third thing that's going on and this is about congressional visits.

It's astroturfing. It consists of two things: Obama sending out marching orders about having citizens visit congressmen. There are two parts to this. The first e-mail asks people to sign up to visit their congressman on another website and the second part of it is a flier you get when you sign up. It's a PDF file, but you get a flier when you sign up which gives instructions on how to behave and what to say when you go visit your congressman. This is Obama attempting to enlist his own supporters, Democrat supporters, to go and calm these members of Congress, one-on-one and tell them how much they're loved and how much they're appreciated and how much health care reform is supported to counter the mobs and the Nazis that are showing up at the public town hall meetings. This website is "Organizing for America" with the Obama logo and everything.

"Dear friend... "All throughout August, our members of Congress are back in town. Insurance companies and partisan attack groups are stirring up fear with false rumors about the President's plan, and it's extremely important that folks like you speak up now. So we've cooked up an easy, powerful way for you to make a big impression: Office Visits for Health Reform. All this week, [Organizing for America] members like you will be stopping by local congressional offices to show our support for insurance reform." They don't even bother to put "health" in that sentence. "You can have a quick conversation with the local staff, tell your personal story, or even just drop off a customized flyer and say that reform matters to you. ...

"As you've probably seen in the news, special interest attack groups are stirring up partisan mobs with lies about health reform, and it's getting ugly. Across the country, members of Congress who support reform are being shouted down, physically assaulted, hung in effigy, and receiving death threats." Has anybody seen a member of Congress physically assaulted? Has anybody seen a member of Congress "hung in effigy"? Now, how many times was George W. Bush hung in effigy? You want to talk about death threats? We got books and a movie on the assassination of George W. Bush, and where was the outrage? And these gutless wonders members of Congress are running around talking about death threats?

"We can't let extremists hijack this debate, or confuse Congress about where the people stand. Office Visits for Health Reform are our chance to show that the vast majority of American voters know that the cost of inaction is too high to bear," blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The second part, if you do as instructed, and proceed to their website to schedule an office visit for health reform, after you sign up, then they send a little PDF file: Office Visits for Health Reform Guide. "Before your visit, call ahead, print out the attached flier and write out why this matters to you and take it with you to your office visit with your congressman." This is Organizing for America. This is a virtual Astroturf script for visiting your congressman, sent out to all the leftist supports of Obama. And then, you know, what to do during your visit.

For example: "Introduce yourself to your congressman. Office resources vary so you may be speaking to the office director, caseworker, or simply the person at the front desk. Make sure that whoever greets you knows that you're a constituent, you're there to express your support..." They are having to send out multiple e-mails, war rooms, websites to instruct their brain-dead zombies on how to go out and show support for this abomination! It's the Night of the Living Dead, in the daytime! Obama zombies marching around with little instructions and pamphlets and manuals to their congressional offices with instructions on how about the nice? And then after the visit, "Share the details of your visit. It's really important for our campaign to hear how these conversations go and how the staff responded. Tell us how it went. Go to MyBarackObama.com office feedback."

A fourth website! You got the Organizing for America website, you got the health care now whatever. And why is all this happening? Rasmussen Reports: "When it comes to health care decisions, 51% of the nation's voters fear the federal government more than private insurance companies." Come on, American people! Get there faster, get there faster. "Fifty-one percent of the nation's voters fear the federal government more than they fear private insurance companies," so now we know why Nancy and the gang are out there demonizing and villainizing the insurance companies. "The latest Rasmussen Reports national phone survey finds that 41% hold the opposite view and fear the insurance companies more." So wherever you look in this debate, Obama and the Democrats are on the negative side, and they're having to lie and rally and intimidate people into supporting.

The people who oppose this are fully informed, up to speed, showing up on their own volition. They're certainly not having to go to four websites to find out where to go, what to say when you get there, and what to tell people after you leave. And in the meantime, the White House and his staff put out this notion that it is us stirring up mobs -- when formal marching orders are coming from three different White House websites, and the House Democrats have their own war room to help deal with it. (interruption) I don't know. I don't know that David Brooks knows any of this. I don't care whether David Brooks knows any of this. He's just the token conservative at the New York Times.

RUSH: This is from the Raleigh News and Observer. The headline: "Woman Sues to Get Men to Play Her -- "Nancy Griffin prefers to play tennis against men. And she often beats them in a men's league sponsored by the city of Raleigh. Some men don't like playing Griffin. Three years ago, league members voted to rescind a rule that penalized them for refusing to compete against her or anyone else. The change has kept her from taking on some of the league's top players. Men have invoked both their wives and God to avoid matches against her. Now, Griffin has made her problems on the court a matter for a court. She is suing the city, alleging discrimination. She wants the penalty rule reinstated and the city to pay her $10,000 or more for emotional distress. ... [T]he 41-year-old substitute teacher says her fitness and unorthodox, self-taught technique make her a formidable opponent."

What? I'm not answering that, Snerdley. You're not going to trap me. Snerdley just asked me in the IFB, "What does she look like?" We all know that women's looks have nothing to do with anything. That's such a Neanderthal question. You ask this with a reporter here doing a story on me? Whose side are you on? Besides, it's too tough to tell here. It's a picture from the knees up on the court. That's not the point, what she looks like. Men don't want to play her and she's suing the city! For $10,000! Nancy Griffith says, "'I'm a follower of Jesus Christ; and I love everyone on here. I just want the program run fairly for everyone.' Griffin said the dispute has taken a toll, and she's experienced depression. But the fall season begins Aug. 24." This kind of reminds me back in the days of the early feminazis, back in the late eighties and the early nineties when Gloria Allred and...

Well, Gloria Allred was never a feminazi, but some of the early feminazis trying to take over men's clubs because they claim they were being deprived of the opportunity to do business. The pressure was brought to bear that some of these men at big city men's clubs were forced to take women in. That's not the way to provide for cohesive getting along. I remember when the women got in there was one club, I think it was in San Francisco. It's a true story. One club in San Francisco, the men had their own exercise room and their own gym and their own sauna, and the women, of course, didn't because women weren't admitted in there. So then the feminazis got in there started demanding their own exercise room and sauna and so forth, and the men had to do it. It became a matter of law. So at this particular club, the men set up the exercise room and the first piece of equipment in it was a vacuum cleaner. Ha, ha! It was. Ha, ha, ha! I laughed, of course. I did laugh on the air. I'm laughing about it even now. Because remember Gloria Allred on TV was just livid about all this.

Remember the great success of the Cash for Clunkers provision of the Stimulus? Free money is quite a deal, but this is a program which cannot last forever (expect Cash for Clunkers to have caused an automotive bubble, the very thing Obama has said he plans to avoid).

The White House is making deals with Big Pharmaceutical on this health care bill:

Representative Dingle compares townhall protestors to KKK back in the day (video):

Congresswoman Pelosi says these townhall malcontents are astroturf and carrying swastikas:

Since there are some links you may want to go back to from time-to-time, I am going to begin a list of them here. This will be a list to which I will add links each week.

This is an outstanding website which tells the truth about Obama-care and about what the mainstream media is hiding from you:

Politico.com is a fairly neutral site (or, at the very worst, just a little left of center). They have very good informative videos at:

On Obama (if you have not visited this site, you need to check it out). He is selling a DVD on this site as well called Media Malpractice; I have not viewed it yet, except pieces which I have seen played on tv and on the internet. It looks pretty good to me.

Conservative Review
Issue #88	Kukis Digests and Opines on this Week’s News and Views	August 16, 2009