Let’s fight…
The overnight news of Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s resignation sets up a global battle over who will succeed him in the IMF’s glass-and-steel headquarters in Washington. But, of course, that’s not the only fight in town.
The bipartisan group of budget negotiators now known as the Gang-of-Six-Minus-One is expected to meet today to try to salvage hopes of a budget compromise after a shouting match over Medicare sent Republican Senator Tom Coburn to the exit door.
Medicare is the third-rail political issue that recently had Republicans showing signs of retreating from House Budget Chief Paul Ryan’s Republican reform plan. Critics call it a blueprint for privatizing the federal government’s healthcare program for the elderly.
But all politics is local. And the national Medicare litmus test is likely to take place far from Washington.
A proxy war over Medicare-as-2012-campaign-issue is shaping up around next week’s special congressional election in one of New York’s most conservative districts, where the Ryan plan has given Democrats the chance for an upset. Conservative groups are pouring tons of money into the contest and veteran Capitol Hill staffers are expected to parachute in soon to help get out the vote.
The Medicare issue is the same albatross that started hanging out with Newt Gingrich this week, after the Republican White House candidate trashed the Ryan reform plan as right wing “social engineering.” The former House speaker apologized amid a storm of criticism from fellow conservatives. He’s since had “help” from potential presidential rival Sarah Palin, who in a TV appearance urged him not to back down in the face of … lamestream media criticism? hmmm … but who otherwise made sure she underscored his offending language.
Palin, who has been in and out of the spotlight in recent months, says she’s still considering a White House run. That could make for a nice rumble between her and Michele Bachmann, that other woman in Republican circles who rivals Palin as an outspoken darling of the Tea Party movement.
Senator Coburn’s waste line — $11.5 billion in 2010 spending
Republican Senator Tom Coburn has released his “Wastebook 2010″ report, a list of government spending that adds up to over $11.5 billion which he considers wasteful.
It includes burping cows, Vidalia onions, a 2,500-year-old mummy, and finding love on the Internet.
“Even those lucky enough to have jobs have had to tighten their belts. Yet, Congress continues to find new and extravagant ways to waste tax dollars,” Coburn said in a statement.
Report highlights include:
– “The National Science Foundation provided more than to $200,000 to study of why political candidates make vague statements.”
– “This year, taxpayers forked over $60,000 for the ‘first-of-its kind’ promotion of the Vidalia onion in conjunction with the movie, Shrek Forever After. ”
– A $700,000 federal grant for researchers to examine greenhouse gas emission from organic dairies caused by cow burps, among other things.
So, how much did Coburn’s report cost to print? “Zero,” his spokesman John Hart tells us. “We didn’t make a single printed copy. There’s something called the Internet.”
…urm, yeah. Because we all know that the ONLY cost associated with an 80+ page document is the cost to print it. Are we to believe that this document wrote itself? Or did someone wrote it gratis. Maybe we should toss the National Science Foundation some more money so they can figure out why politicians (or their spokesmen, in this case) make demonstrably untrue statements.
Senator Coburn cites Thomson Reuters at healthcare summit
Republican Senator Tom Coburn is obviously a big fan of Thomson Reuters. He cited Thomson Reuters reports throughout his presentation at the White House healthcare summit.
Coburn, an Oklahoma physician who opposes the sweeping Democratic healthcare overhaul, said lawmakers should focus first on reducing hundreds of billions of dollars of wasteful spending in the U.S. healthcare system. He cited recent studies by Thomson Reuters showing wasteful spending and how patients are postponing medical care due to cost.
They can be found here, here and here.
Coburn often cited these reports during Senate debate on healthcare reform. He wants to bring down costs by tackling waste, fraud and abuse, and limiting medical malpractice lawsuits. And like most doctors, he wants us to live healthy lifestyles and avoid junk food. He also wants to change some popular government programs that he said are contributing to unhealthy eating habits.
“We actually create more diabetes through the food stamp program and the school lunch program than probably any other thing,” Coburn said.
Click here for more political news from Reuters.
Photo credit: REUTERS/Jason Reed (U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius does an arm-bump greeting to avoid catching U.S. Senator Tom Coburn’s cold at U.S. healthcare summit, February 25, 2010.)
The big insurance companies and private health care providers have done a good job of putting Coburn in there pocket.
These compannies are throughing all kinds of Big Money at spreading mis-information and protecting their turf and Coburns cited reports actually make a better case for Obama than for private health care. It just shows how you can twist facts any way you want.
Republican to seniors: “You’re going to die sooner” with healthcare reform
Republican Senator Tom Coburn doesn’t mince words. He was crystal clear about what he thinks of healthcare reform being debated in the Senate, saying to seniors: “I have a message for you: You’re going to die sooner.”
Senators are debating an amendment by Republican Senator John McCain that would send the bill back to the Senate Finance Committee with instructions to strike the Medicare cuts from the bill. Democrats defended the legislation saying the proposed spending cuts would not reduce seniors’ health benefits.
“I’d like to once and for all lay to rest this false claim that the pending bill is going to ‘hurt seniors’ and it is going to hurt providers and it’s going to be this long parade of horribles that the other side likes to mention,” Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus said.
“It is totally, patently untrue, the claims that they are making,” he argued.
The bill calls for more than $400 billion in spending cuts for Medicare over 10 years. A big chunk of the money comes from reducing subsidies for Medicare Advantage, which provides health services for the elderly through private insurers.
Baucus argued that Medicare spending would continue to grow, but at a slightly slower pace. The bill also seeks to achieve Medicare savings by rewarding quality of care instead of the quantity of services and treatments.
The Senate debate is expected to last for at least three weeks and Republicans, who solidly oppose the Democratic-written bill, plan a number of amendments focused on the Medicare spending cuts.
Most of the seniors I know are more worried about how the young will stay healthy and work. They are are disturbed by the staggering number of young people who don’t have health care. How does one sustain an economy capable of providing for the elderly when the working population is sick and unhealthy? More and more of people are becoming disabled at earlier ages. Some are even dying. While the causes are many, access to quality health care will keep people healthy, able to work longer and lead more productive lives. We have money for war, why not for keeping the American people healthy?
Republican senators call for ending era of ‘permanent politicians’
Don’t expect the U.S. Congress — packed with old men and women who have been in office for decades — to embrace a proposal to term limit themselves.
Republican senators Jim DeMint, Tom Coburn, Kay Bailey Hutchison and Sam Brownback offered such a measure on Tuesday, saying it would be good to get fresh blood on Capitol Hill.
“Americans know real change in Washington will never happen until we end the era of permanent politicians,” DeMint said.
“Over the last 20 years, Washington politicians have been re-elected about 90 percent of the time because the system is heavily tilted in favor of incumbents.”
Coburn says the best way to ensure a government of the people “is to replace the career politicians in Washington with citizen legislators who care more about the next generation than their next election.”
The four Republican senators proposed a constitutional amendment that would limit members of the House of Representatives to three, two-year terms — and members of the Senate to two, six-year terms. Easier said than done.
Previous efforts, dating back to the birth of the nation, have come up short and this one will likely fail as well.
Mufaso,
Brilliant, one sentence and you’re right on the money.
Robert Smith,
Our gov’t is very similar to Iran’s. Our country isn’t really democratic, it’s mostly run by corporate elites who are born into their position mostly and by the federal reserve which is elected by no one. In Iran they have elections but their country is mostly run by the shah and his inner circle.
Term limits would be a nice start in trying to find a way to limit the power of gov’t. I think this is just posturing though, these particular politicians know this has zero chance of passing so they make it sound like it’s what they really want.
I put my trust in a man who voluntarily returns a large chunk of his pay to the US treasury every year, and does so everytime without anyone needing to ask him, Dr. Ron Paul.
Senator Harkin defends earmark to research pig odor
Some might think it would be hard to defend spending $1.8 million on researching how to deal with the odor from pig manure, but Senator Tom Harkin found it pretty easy to do.
Harkin, an Iowa Democrat, succeeded in getting the funds included in the $410 billion omnibus spending bill that is pending in the Senate, drawing protests from some like Senator John McCain that it is wasteful spending of taxpayer dollars.
“I’m sure that David Letterman will probably be talking about it and Jay Leno will be talking about it, we’ve got $1.8 million to study why pigs smell,” Harkin said on the Senate floor after an amendment was introduced aimed at killing the funding.
“People constantly complain, with good reason, about big farms, factory farms and their environmental impacts so it makes good sense to fund research that addresses how people can live in our small towns and communities and livestock producers can do the same and co-exist,” he said.
Harkin argued that the money was to replace funds that had been zeroed out for the Agricultural Research Service in then-President George W. Bush’s budget last year. Conveniently, the ARS happens to work out of Iowa.
He noted that some 20 million hogs live in his state, one-fourth of the U.S. total, and while farmers have been encouraged to use the manure as fertilizer, that can present problems such as fouling streams and waterways and sending odors far afield.
“It is critical to our state’s economy but as the demand has grown for pork and as we produce more pork, you can understand that the management problems of what to do with the waste has become very serious, not only for the odor problems but the waste itself,” he said, adding that the research would examine the food swine eat and the management of what is done with the waste.
Let’s put it this way. It’s a drop in the bucket in comparison to our spending to be sure, but as a nation, we’re spending 2x ($3.69 trillion) as much as we are taking in ($2.15 trillion in taxes). The question is if you spent more than you made every year, would you charge your share of the cost of finding out why pigs smell on a credit card? Would you expect everyone to?
If it’s truly a problem, and you’d be willing to spend your own money on it, wouldn’t some company come up with a product that they could sell you?
Or, (not to impute motives) are you willing to spend other people’s money and not your own? Would you go to other parts of the country and convince other hard working families to take food out of their children’s mouths to figure this out?
If not, maybe it’s not that important.
Let’s fight… let’s not.