Short-term pain trumps long-term gain.

This is what the Obama administration failed to understand last year. When people are out of a job and can’t provide for their family, they need immediate solutions to ease the pain. They don’t care that much about what’s coming down the road. President Obama, after bailing out the bankers, devoted his efforts to solving the health care problem, which will be a big problem in the future, but not now. He needs to concentrate on the economy so that people can get back to work before he tackles health care reform.

I believe

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said on December 27 that "the system worked" after Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to ignite a bomb aboard a Northwest Airlines airplane on Christmas Day. She latter had to clarify that statement. She continues to affirm that the people who live and work in New York City will be protected when terrorist Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, goes on trial sometime in 2010.

New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly assures all that his department is up to the job of protecting New York City during the trial of Mr. Mohammed, after a van with tinted windows and no license plate was recently left on a street near Time Square unattended for at least two days.

I believe them when they say they can protect us. I believe them because I’m an idiot, but you shouldn’t.

Happy New Year,

More Health Care Stuff

There is an interesting AP article by Arelis Hernandez (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_service_dogs/print). Titled “After 8-year delay, VA program hopes to help vets”. It describes an eight-year attempt to match service dogs with disabled veterans. To begin the program the VA first conducted a six-year feasibility study which resulted in inconclusive findings. So far, the program has matched two veterans with service dogs. In 2001, when the program started, there were many organizations that trained dogs to do service work; the VA could have used them, but chose not to.
As I see it, President Obama is asking 85% of the U. S. population to give up a portion of their health care benefits so that the other 15% can have health insurance. If the VA system I have described above is representative of what future U. S. health care will be like, I don’t think that many people will be happy with it.

Health Care Under President Obama

A thirty-something walking down the street sees a watch for $500.00 in a shop window. The storekeeper sees him looking at the watch. The thirty-something thinks; that watch is too expensive and starts to walk away. The storekeeper then picks up the watch, runs out of the shop, grabs the thirty-something by the neck, forces him to take the watch and to fork over $500.00. The thirty-something then calls the cops and has the storekeeper arrested.

The next day the same thirty-something is walking down the same street when he bumps into President Obama. President Obama tries to sell him on his new health care package. The thirty-something declines saying that, for him, it is just too expensive. President Obama then calls the IRS and has him pay anyway. No cops were called, but they should have been.

Health Care

The reason there is are so many overstated arguments about health care today is because of the dearth of good information coming out of Washington. Further, it seems to me that what little information there is, about this complicated and many faceted subject changes from day to day depending on what the political winds dictate. How does one have a coherent conversation under these circumstances?

Professor Gates is a Tax Cheat

Henry Louis Gates is the founder of The Inkwell Foundation, which provides $500 grants to scholars to conduct research in African-American studies. The foundation received $205,400 in direct public support in 2007, and provided $27,000 in grants. However $17,000 of the grant money went to the organization’s treasurer, a secretary, a board chairwoman and Gate’s fiancée. By reporting what is really compensation as grant money, Gates and the recipients were able to avoid paying federal, state and local income taxes, social security and Medicare taxes and workman’s (work-person’s) compensation premiums.
I wonder if Professor Gates and Treasury Secretary Geithner use the same tax preparation services?

Remembering Mountain Lakes