It looks like the British have discovered that government run health care does not work. | Perhaps the only consistent thing about Britain’s socialized health care system is that it is in a perpetual state of flux, |
| But in one of its most surprising moves so far, it has done the opposite, proposing what would be the most radical reorganization of the National Health Service, as the system is called, since its inception in 1948. |
| Practical details of the plan are still sketchy. But its aim is clear: to shift control of England’s $160 billion annual health budget from a centralized bureaucracy to doctors at the local level. |
| The plan would also shrink the bureaucratic apparatus, in keeping with the government’s goal to effect $30 billion in “efficiency savings” in the health budget by 2014 and to reduce administrative costs by 45 percent.Read more at www.nytimes.com |
The Justice Department’s lawsuit against Arizona goes against common sense; the Administration should instead be supporting states such as Arizona in efforts to secure our borders, not tie state leaders’ hands with lawsuits.
By donating half a million dollars to help Arizona’s legal defense, Americans are showing strong support for securing our borders. PHOENIX – Retirees and other residents from all over the country were among those who donated nearly $500,000 to help Arizona defend its immigration enforcement law, with most chipping in $100 or less, according to an analysis of documents obtained Thursday by The Associated Press. |
Website contributions came from all 50 states, plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, including nearly 2,000 from Arizona. Donations ranged from $5 to $2,000, with the vast majority between $10 and $100. |
The AP examined about a quarter of the fund’s total contributions, and found only two that came from businesses. |
| The willingness of thousands of individual Americans to contribute to the Arizona fund illustrates broad concern and frustration over border security and illegal immigration.Read more at news.yahoo.com |
| The sky may not be falling on American public schools, but their roofs are certainly about to collapse. The situation is “an emergency,” according to Chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, Representative George Miller (D-CA), and Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, David Obey (D-WI). Secretary of Education Arne Duncan calls it a “catastrophe.” |
| What calamity has evoked such dire rhetoric? At issue are potential public school teacher layoffs. |
| The immediate action they support is $23 billion in federal aid to states via a “teacher jobs fund.” |
The problem is that the rhetoric is overblown. |
| We should be hashing out how much taxpayer money to spend on education, but those discussions should be had at the state and local level |
This proposed $23 billion comes little more than a year after the federal government gave in the stimulus bill $100 billion to states for education spending. The federal component of education spending has doubled since 2000, to 15 percent. Read more at www.washingtonexaminer.com |
President Obama hailed the financial bill that House-Senate negotiators finally vouchsafed at 5:40 a.m. Friday, and no wonder. The bill represents the triumph of the very regulators and Congressmen who did so much to foment the financial panic, giving them vast new discretion over every corner of American financial markets. |
Chris Dodd and Barney Frank, those Fannie Mae cheerleaders, played the largest role in writing the bill. Congressman Paul Kanjorski even offered a motion to memorialize it as the Dodd-Frank Act. It’s as if Tony Hayward of BP were allowed to write new rules on deep water drilling. |
Oh, and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? They aren’t touched at all, even as they continue to lose billions of taxpayer dollars each quarter. |
| Paychecks from private business shrank to their smallest share of personal income in U.S. history during the first quarter of this year, a USA TODAY analysis of government data finds. |
| At the same time, government-provided benefits — from Social Security, unemployment insurance, food stamps and other programs — rose to a record high during the first three months of 2010. |
| The trend is not sustainable, says University of Michigan economist Donald Grimes. Reason: The federal government depends on private wages to generate income taxes to pay for its ever-more-expensive programs. Government-generated income is taxed at lower rates or not at all, he says. “This is really important,” Grimes says. Read more at www.usatoday.com |
| Facing the uncomfortable reality that the federal government’s 2011 budget shows record levels of red ink, congressional Democrats may resolve the politically thorny situation by simply refusing to pass a budget resolution this election year. |
| With voters in no mood to hear about Washington’s $1.3-trillion deficit, some moderate and conservative Democrats say they would rather sit this one out. They have found common cause with liberal colleagues who don’t want to pass spending cuts, especially while the economy is still struggling. |
| the House has never failed to pass a budget resolution since the Congressional Budget Act was adopted in 1974. |
Not only does the Dodd bill fail to address major problems in our financial regulatory system, it is misguided because it creates a permanent bailout culture.
Under the bill, banks would be identified that “pose a threat to the financial security of the United States if they encounter ‘material financial distress’.
This encourages banks that are “too small to save” to reach “too big to fail” status.
As Democrats close in on their goal of overhauling the nation’s financial regulations, several prominent experts say that the legislation does not even address the right problems, leaving the financial system vulnerable to another major crisis.
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| Some point to specific issues left largely untouched, like the instability of capital markets that provide money for lenders, or the government’s role in the housing market, including the future of the housing finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. |
A diverse group of critics, however, say the legislation focuses on the precipitators of the recent crisis, like abusive mortgage lending, rather than the mechanisms by which the crisis spread. Read more at www.nytimes.com |
| House Republicans on Wednesday demanded an investigation into whether the health care overhaul plan would increase national health spending, following a recent report from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that showed cost increases, at least in the first decade. |
| the president promised Americans that his policies for reform would bend the health care cost curve down |
| Recent analysis from the administration’s own chief actuary, Richard Foster, suggests otherwise |
This should be worrisome to Democrats considering how vocal the American people were in opposition to the President’s health care bill. WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul law is getting a mixed verdict in the first comprehensive look by neutral experts: More Americans will be covered, but costs are also going up. |
But the analysis also found that the law falls short of the president’s twin goal of controlling runaway costs, raising projected spending by about 1 percent over 10 years. That increase could get bigger, since Medicare cuts in the law may be unrealistic and unsustainable, the report warned. |
These are several of the challenges facing President Obama as he kicks off the nuclear security summit. | First and foremost, the president must convince U.S. citizens that the weapons reductions and nuclear policies outlined in the new START Treaty and Nuclear Posture Review will strengthen America’s national security. |
| Second, the president must convince our allies that the United States will continue to provide a robust nuclear umbrella to the more than thirty-five countries that rely upon it today. |
| Third, the president must rally the international community to force crippling sanctions upon countries that covet membership in the nuclear club. |
| Fourth, the president must demand greater transparency from countries that currently possess nuclear weapons. |
| Finally, the president must send the message to potential adversaries that, despite perceptions, the United States will not hesitate to respond with strategic weapons if attacked.Read more at dailycaller.com |
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