In today's Wall Street Journal the following Opinion on "Obamacare and the Election" is writtend by its editorial staff. Republicans should heed the advice.
Republicans have made intellectual progress on health care since the 1990s, but it remains outside their political comfort zone and certain (or shall we say uncertain) Members still believe the issue is a loser. Yet ObamaCare has scrambled everything.
For one, the plan's march to the sea is only beginning and the trail of destruction will grow. The last six months have seen 2011 premium increases as high as 9% due to ObamaCare; multibillion-dollar corporate writedowns by Verizon, AT&T, Caterpillar and others; disruption in the insurance markets leading to the erasure of child-only policies and other types of specialty coverage as shown in the McDonald's imbroglio; the Administration beginning to impose price controls on premiums; insurers withdrawing private options from Medicare Advantage; and Democratic protection of a 1099 tax reporting mandate that will slam small businesses.
Republicans should be repeating all of these tangible harms in a litany, while predicting the damage to come. Every wonk in Washington knows this bill creates a new entitlement that will transfer the costs of covering the uninsured to the government but do nothing to control underlying health costs. Democrats will embrace more restrictions on care of the kind we are already seeing in Massachusetts since Mitt Romney's ObamaCare dress rehearsal.
Yesterday the Standard Speaker published this Opinion about the stimulus package, Stimulus money being spent just as advertised. Okay if they think so. Look at this article, Spending stimulus money is key challenge in Pa., that appeared in the Delaware County Daily Times.
According to state officials, recipients of the roughly $29 billion doled out for Pennsylvania stimulus projects were given one simple, five-letter word of instruction: S-P-E-N-D.
"There has been a tremendous focus on spending this money quickly in order to spur the economy quickly," said Mary Rucci, director of citizens' awareness at the Pennsylvania Stimulus Accountability Office in Harrisburg.
"There is a big focus on spending rapidly and I think in many areas it's taken place and it's been a change for state government," she said. "There was a tremendous effort across the board to identify shovel-ready projects and to accelerate processes however possible to get the funds spent."
With more than $10.5 billion spent so far, Rucci said the state looked on track to spend its share of the $787 billion stimulus package by 2014.
They just don't get it. People need jobs and they need them NOW, not in 2014.
So what does the Pennsylvania legislature do about it. Pa. House adjourns for elections, leaving policy items unsettled
HARRISBURG - With the bang of a gavel Wednesday, the state House recessed so members could return to their districts to run for reelection.
But the fate of a number of big-ticket policy items remains up in the air, among them a tax on extraction of natural gas from the Marcellus Shale. Other bills appear destined for legislative burial, including one that would crack down on distracted driving.
Mr. Eachus and Company is worried about re-election and their jobs, not ours. There isn't one word mentioned about job creation. Unbelievable.
JOBS AND HEALTHCARE. If I was running as a Republican I would utter those words over and over and over til the end of the campaign.
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