Monday, August 3, 2009

Monday musings

OBAMA'S HEALTH CARE REFORM TROUBLES:
They continue, even in the mainstream media:
"Some of President Barack Obama's health care numbers don't seem to add up. And that's complicating his efforts to pass his top domestic priority....Obama claims his health effort will not dig the nation deeper into debt and over time will help reduce deficits. He has vowed to not sign any health bill that raises deficits. But even the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says that none of the health plans pending on Capitol Hill would control long-term spending, and that ones with the elements Obama wants would add around $1 trillion to the deficit over the next 10 years."
And that's from an AP report.
By the way, concerning health care reform, one blogger offered Democrats a good tip today:
"Tip for Dems: If you don't want people to think that subsidized, voluntary end-of-of-life counseling sessions are the camel's nose of an attempt to cut costs by limiting end-of-life care, then don't put them in a bill the overarching, stated purpose of which is to cut health care costs!"
Meanwhile Democrats will, apparently, fight back against their own and President Obama's plummeting poll numbers on health care by trashing the insurance industry.
Be ready.
And maybe a good point with which to respond is to point out the many examples these days of the problems with liberal governance, most of them happening in liberal, pro-Obama "blue" states--as Ross Douthat points out today:
"Consider Texas and California. In the Bush years, liberal polemicists turned the president’s home state — pious, lightly regulated, stingy with public services and mad for sprawl — into a symbol of everything that was barbaric about Republican America. Meanwhile, California, always liberalism’s favorite laboratory, was passing global-warming legislation, pouring billions into stem-cell research, and seemed to be negotiating its way toward universal health care.
But flash forward to the current recession, and suddenly Texas looks like a model citizen. The Lone Star kept growing well after the country had dipped into recession. Its unemployment rate and foreclosure rate are both well below the national average. It’s one of only six states that didn’t run budget deficits in 2009. Meanwhile, California, long a paradise for regulators and public-sector unions, has become a fiscal disaster area. And it isn’t the only dark blue basket case. Eight states had unemployment over 11 percent in June; seven went for Barack Obama last November....in state capital after state capital, the downturn has highlighted the weaknesses of liberal governance — the zeal for unsustainable social spending, the preference for regulation over job creation, the heavy reliance for tax revenue on the volatile incomes of the upper upper class."

Note this, too:
"WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama's treasury secretary on Sunday said he cannot rule out higher taxes to help tame an exploding budget deficit and his chief economic adviser would not dismiss raising them on middle-class Americans as part of a health care overhaul."

BASEBALL DIARY: the Tigers once again play poorly on the road and lose to Cleveland yesterday, 11-1. Again, they lose 2 of 3 (and to a last-place, depleted team, no less). Again, their road woes continue. The Tigers are only 7-18 on the road since June. It's got to change...
Meanwhile, the Cubs suffer a crushing loss--they blow a 2-1 lead in the 9th as closer Kevin Gregg gives up 2 solo HRs in the bottom half of the inning. At least Ryan Dempster pitched well. Can the Cubs rebound tonight against Cincinnati on the road? They'll need to...
But the Texas Rangers continue to hang right in there, as they again win 2 of 3 at home against Seattle--another series win--and win last night, 4-2. Scott Feldman, coming off one of his worst games of the season, had one of his best last night. The Rangers remain only 2 and 1/2 games out in the wild card race.