Obama Defines His Philosophy

6 Responses to Obama Defines His Philosophy

1. Eric Simpson says:

   October 26, 2013 at 7:30 pm

   My hotair comment:

   Govt is fundamentally flawed at enterprise building & innovation

   There’s no “fire in the belly”

   The Obamacare web problem is just the tip of the iceberg that is torpedoing itself into the hull of the USA. Obamacare promises massive exploding future expenditures, on a program that is ruinous to health care.

   So even if the website at some point seems to be all patched… nothing is really patched. The iceberg has just been pushed under for a bit.

   The central problem is not individuals or their individual decisions. It’s that govt itself, especially the large and impersonal federal govt, is not set up to succeed in enterprise building or innovation. I’ve heard that you need that “fire in the belly” to be a successful entrepreneur. There’s simply none of that in govt. Beyond the routine going through the motions in pursuit of mediocrity, govt won’t take the management steps needed.

   In business, from every angle, a big problem is attacked with fierce determination. In govt, not so much, or not at all.

   The 2002 cell phone industry analogy

   And innovation, it all but ends. Imagine in 2002 that Gore was president and they thought that to help consumers they would try to keep cell phone prices & plans down. So, hundreds + pages of tough regulations were drafted, like price controls, regulations saying profits could only be 15% beyond material costs, size constraints on phones, loudness requirements for speakers, on and on.

   If this happened in 2002 with cell phones, would we have ever got smart phones? No way. We’d probably still be stuck with clunky flip phones, and I mean clunky, and probably 2G, if that. With spotty coverage and, yes, expensive plans that may have rationed minutes or use.

   This is what Obamacare is going to do to healthcare… stop innovation cold.

   For those that wish for an extended healthier life, or cures to our grave conditions, Obamacare is a most super expensive poison pill that takes a wrecking ball to our dreams. Shame on the Dems to tyrannically foist this horrible and bitterly divisive bill on America.

   Reply
2. Don says:

   October 26, 2013 at 8:28 pm

   Perhaps —

   In order to continue the fine work President Obama has begun, but not completed in a mere eight years, what with the Republicans attempts to prevent his success, I feel compelled to finish that job and so today announce that I will seek the Democrat nomination for President.

   ~ Michelle Obama

   All they’ve got are two worn out jokes, Biden & Hillary in 2016, so why not.

   Reply
3. Eric Simpson says:

   October 26, 2013 at 8:44 pm

   From the LA Times today is the article More legal trouble for Affordable Care Act:

   To receive the credit, the law twice says they must buy insurance “through an exchange established by the state.” But 36 states have decided against opening exchanges for now.

   “This is a problem,” said Timothy Jost, a law professor at Washington and Lee University. “This case could have legs,” although “it was never the intent of Congress to establish federal exchanges that can’t do anything. They were supposed to have exactly the same powers.”

   It would be easy to assert that the authors of the bill intended for states that don’t have their own exchanges to be given subsidies.

   Right? No. Not even close.

   The bill’s authors intended specifically that states that don’t set up exchanges should NOT get subsidies!

   The authors, including the likes of ultra-leftist Henry Waxman from CA, likely had in their minds that though states would be permitted not to have exchanges (probably to pass constitutional tests), but in a highway funds blackmail sort of way they probably intended for these states to be in effect forced to set up their own exchanges by the fact that subsidies wouldn’t be provided for them. But the states, 36 out of 50 (!) apparently, still aren’t participating! That’s the breaks for the authors of this horrendous bill that intended to penalize any states that weren’t cowed by the feds.

   This provision that states that don’t set up exchanges won’t get subsidies isn’t a minor point buried in the minutiae. The language is clear and unquestionable that subsidies are given only to users of “an exchange established by the state.” The point that many states would not be inclined to set up exchanges was highlighted and discussed frequently as the bill evolved. So the language about who is eligible for subsidies would jump out in an obvious way to anybody drafting or considering the bill. That was the intent. To force states to participate.

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   • Mike D says:

     October 27, 2013 at 2:46 am

     I”d prefer that it not get sunk by this court case next year, but that all the clueless voters see what a colossal screw up it is first. Otherwise, the claim for the next 20 years will be, well it would have worked if it hadn’t been stopped by that court case. The next time they control the full Congress and Presidency again they’ll try a completely federal program. The only way for that to not happen is for there never to be complete control again.

     Reply
     • Eric Simpson says:

       October 27, 2013 at 5:12 am

       I see what you’re saying Mike, but one thing is that I don’t think a court victory in this particular case would fully sink it. It would just add to the mess of it. If subsidies couldn’t be provided in those 36 states, the program would limp on without subsidies, people would be all the more upset as their “free” insurance would be even more costly, and Republicans should then win even bigger at the polls, leading to full repeal, This is one court case that we should root for.

       Reply
4. tom0mason says:

   October 27, 2013 at 4:48 am

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozFGLSlo4Ew

   Reply