Sunday, March 21, 2010

Health Care Deform Bill Passes House

What a hard-working Congress we have. Sunday night, no less. It must be triple-overtime with extra donuts.

As always, Drudge Report has a caustic headline. The link goes to an article by AP about the so-called historic vote on health care "reform" which is really an insurance "reform" which is not really a reform but what the heck that's what this administration and its supporters want to call it but in reality it is a huge burden on Americans who will be taxed to death (literally, maybe) to feed the new federal and state bureaucracy with a threat of penalty and jail time and IRS breathing down their neck. (OK let me take a breath.)

Medicare benefits will be reduced (new taxes and benefit reduction are the two sources of "money" to pay for this monstrosity of a reform). People with investment income will be forced to pay Medicare tax on their passive income. Private businesses, big and small, will have hardly any incentive to hire a new employee in the US.

Oh I get it. This is not the health care bill. It is another job bill, albeit a huge (almost $1 trillion) one, except the jobs it will create will be located outside the US, just as the cash for clunkers program boosted foreign auto sales and the so-called stimulus package stimulated employment in China. Domestic job creation resulting from this bill will likely be confined to government jobs, and private sector jobs that deal with the government. What a productive economy we will have.

By the way, the above-linked AP article says "Obama's young presidency received a badly needed boost as a deeply divided Congress passed legislation touching the lives of nearly every American." Why does the writer of the article think it is a boost? Much of the country is still in severe economic recession, and the tone-deaf Congress and the administration pass a legislation that will force people and private businesses to cough up more hard-earned money for the government, the money that could be deployed for more productive use.

Maybe we should start printing our own fiat money, backed by absolutely nothing, just like the Federal Reserve does. And pay to the federal and state governments with that fiat money

The U.S. stock market futures are negative, as you would expect. We'll see if some mysterious buyer(s) appear early in the morning tomorrow. They (Obama and his Plunge Protection Team) had better be propping up the stock market, for it is about the only cheerful thing that has been happening ever since March last year.

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