Elena LaVictoire's Library tagged areyousorryyet? →  View Popular

Health care reform should not be used as an opportunity to use federal
funds to pay for elective abortions. Health reform should be an
opportunity to protect human life - not end it.

Unfortunately, Speaker Pelosi’s 2,032-page government
takeover of health care does just that.  On line 17, p. 110, section 222 under “Abortions for which Public Funding is
Allowed” the Health and Human Services Secretary is given the authority to
determine when abortion is allowed under the government-run plan. 
The Speaker’s plan also requires that at least one insurance plan offered
in the Exchange covers abortions.

What is even more alarming is that a monthly abortion premium will be
charged of all enrollees in the government-run plan.  It’s right
there on line 16, page 96, section 213, under “Insurance Rating Rules.”  The
premium will be paid into a U.S. Treasury account - and these federal
funds will be used to pay for the abortion services.

Section 213 describes the process in which the Health Benefits
Commissioner is to assess the monthly premiums that will be used to pay
for elective abortions under the government-run plan.  The
Commissioner must charge at a minimum $1 per enrollee per month.

While White House spokesman Robert Gibbs today refrained from telling reporters whether President Obama in his speech Wednesday night will set a deadline for passing health care reform, sources tell ABC News that in his private meeting with Democratic congressional leaders this afternoon the key word was urgency.

The president told House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., that it is important for them to pass health care reform bills soon, the sources said.

Both leaders told the president that despite the difficult rough and tumble of the legislative process in the last few weeks, they are optimistic that both the House and Senate can pass health care reform legislation.

WASHINGTON – The federal government faces exploding deficits and mounting debt over the next decade, White House officials predicted Tuesday in a fiscal assessment far bleaker than what the Obama administration had estimated just a few months ago.

Figures released by the White House budget office foresee a cumulative $9 trillion deficit from 2010-2019, $2 trillion more than the administration estimated in May. Moreover, the figures show the public debt doubling by 2019 and reaching three-quarters the size of the entire national economy.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - For the first time, more than
34 million Americans received food stamps, which help poor
people buy groceries, government figures said on Thursday, a
sign of the longest and one of the deepest recessions since the
Great Depression

Enrollment surged by 2 percent to reach a record 34.4
million people, or one in nine Americans, in May, the latest
month for which figures are available.

"Let's just lay everything on the table," Grassley said. "A Democrat congressman last week told me after a conversation with the president that the president had trouble in the House of Representatives, and it wasn't going to pass if there weren't some changes made ... and the president says, 'You're going to destroy my presidency.' "

The White House did not respond to requests for comment.

I have talked face to face with the godless communist leaders. It may surprise you to learn that I was host to Mr. Kruschev for a half day when he visited the United States, not that I'm proud of it. I opposed his coming then, and I still feel it was a mistake to welcome this atheistic murderer as a state visitor. But, according to President Eisenhower, Kruschev had expressed a desire to learn something of American Agriculture - and after seeing Russian agriculture I can understand why. As we talked face to face, he indicated that my grandchildren would live under communism. After assuring him that I expected to do all in my power to assure that his and all other grandchildren will live under freedom he arrogantly declared in substance:

" 'You Americans are so gullible. No, you won't accept communism outright, but we'll keep feeding you small doses of socialism until you'll finally wake up and find you already have communism. We won't have to fight you. We'll so weaken your economy until you'll fall like overripe fruit into our hands.'

"And they're ahead of schedule in their devilish scheme."

-Ezra Taft Benson

- The prospects for job creation are equally distressing. The likelihood is that when economic activity picks up, employers will first choose to increase hours for existing workers and bring part-time workers back to full time. Many unemployed workers looking for jobs once the recovery begins will discover that jobs as good as the ones they lost are almost impossible to find because many layoffs have been permanent. Instead of shrinking operations, companies have shut down whole business units or made sweeping structural changes in the way they conduct business. General Motors and Chrysler, closed hundreds of dealerships and reduced brands. Citigroup and Bank of America cut tens of thousands of positions and exited many parts of the world of finance.

Job losses may last well into 2010 to hit an unemployment peak close to 11%. That unemployment rate may be sustained for an extended period.

For the second straight week, 48% of all voters say that the President is doing a good or excellent job handling the economy. Thirty-three percent (33%) say he is doing a poor job in that arena (Premium Members can see data and trends).

Forty-eight percent (48%) also say the President is doing a good or excellent job on national security issues. That’s down four points from a week ago and the first time his numbers have dipped below 50% on the national security front.

The Obama administration has no shame, and is willing to
abandon reason altogether to achieve its short-term political
goals. Ronald Reagan ran up big deficits in part because he
believed that his tax cuts would produce economic growth, and
ultimately pay for themselves. He may well have been excessively
optimistic about the merits of tax cuts, but at least he had a
story.

Obama has no story. Nobody believes that his unprecedented
expansion of the welfare state will lead to enough economic
growth. Nobody believes that it will pay for itself. Everyone
understands that higher spending today begets higher spending
tomorrow. That means that his economic strategy simply doesn’t
add up.