Louis R. Avallone

Category: Healthcare

  • For Example: The Benefits of Caring

    For Example: The Benefits of Caring

    By Louis Avallone
    –
    “You should be more interested in doing the Lord’s work than in always criticizing those who are trying to help the less fortunate,” begins an email I received from a reader, in response to a recent column. “Who do you think really cares more for our fellow citizens?” continues the reader, “Senator Landrieu or the Governor?” And there it was. Staring me down, like the truth, in this namby-pamby, I’m-OKyou’re-OK, wishy-washy, pacifist-like society that we have become. Apparently, I don’t “care” enough about the less fortunate, as if that’s all that is needed in order to help. “Caring” may start us down the road to helping others, but we should hardly remain there. After all, we all know the road to you-know-where is well paved with good intentions.

    So does it really matter who “cares” the most about the less fortunate. If those who “care” the most really aren’t helping at all? Consider this is the 50th year of Lyndon Johnson’s unconditional war on poverty. Yet after $15 trillion dollars in spending, the poverty rate today is virtually the same as it was in 1964. We are now spending close to $1 trillion per year on government assistance, yet 46 million Americans still live below the poverty line. Is there any question that intentions simply aren’t enough?

    Or what about how much the Obama administration cared about making sure that you could keep your healthcare plan, if you liked it? But now, four million Americans (so far) have now lost their healthcare plan. Again, intentions simply aren’t enough.

    The Congressional Budget Office just reported that because of the Affordable Care Act, almost two million people would quit their jobs by 2017, figuring they can end up ahead by taking government benefits instead. Again, intentions, especially unintended ones, simply aren’t enough.

    Or how about the intentions of Obama’s $800 billion stimulus package to save our economy? Well, five years later and despite the good intentions, our labor market remains in horrible condition, the economy grew at less than 2 percent last year, and it is estimated that the stimulus package destroyed roughly one million private sector jobs – all while the workforce participation rate today is at a 36-year low.

    Do you care enough about people earning a “living wage,” rather than a “minimum” wage? Well, I hope you care as much about finding at least 500,000 Americans each a job also, because that’s how many jobs will be lost by hiking the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour by 2016 – and that’s according to the Congressional Budget Office. Again, intentions simply aren’t enough.

    Yet, intentions are powerful beginnings. They are the starting point for every dream. They provide a spark to ignite a purpose, launch a plan, and to direct the mind. But if intentions are all that are needed to be successful, or to stop smoking or to lose weight, then maybe achieving those goals are in fact easier done than said.

    One only needs to look around to see what decades of politicians’ good intentions have done to our nation, and our communities. As explained by economist Thomas Sowell, “If there is any lesson in the history of ideas, it is that good intentions tell you nothing about the actual consequences.”

    So while the reader who wrote to me valued “caring” or one’s intentions as the litmus test of whether to support a government program or policy, history abundantly proves that “caring” alone is inadequate to achieve genuine assistance, or a leg up, for those truly in need.

     

    The correct answer, I think, to the reader who wrote to me, is that all of our elected leaders, whether Landrieu or Jindal or the President of the United States, should be held accountable, not by how much they care, but by how much good they do in terms of meeting their original intentions. After all, in the words of Pablo Picasso, “What one does is what counts. Not what one had the intention of doing.”

  • Crawfish, Dead Plants and Mary: The Season of Health Care

    Crawfish, Dead Plants and Mary: The Season of Health Care

    By Louis Avallone
    –
    I’m not sure if you have heard, but crawfish is so scarce this year that they are double in price, compared to this time last year. After all, crawfish farmers in southern Louisiana have had to endure twice the number of freezes this year, four wintry precipitation events, and one of the coldest months ever in January. During cold weather, crawfish tend to stay at the bottom of their ponds or streams, under dead plants, rather than swimming out and about, and eating and growing.

    Well, crawfish are not the only ones having a difficult time this year. 32,864 Louisianans have signed up for Obamacare, while nearly three times as many Louisianans – 92,739 – have received cancellation notices, not to mention the expected loss of over 35,000 jobs in Louisiana this year due to Obamacare’s implementation. Health care premiums for healthy Louisiana women are expected to increase by an average of 266 percent this year, making it harder for women to make their own health care choices. And to add insult to injury, health care costs continue to rise for everyone. Now comes news that Louisiana insurers, including the largest – Blue Cross – is not insuring all pre-existing conditions, even though that is a central tenet of the Obamacare law.

    Meanwhile, Mary Landrieu is hoping that her record – like Louisiana crawfish during cold weather – will remain out of sight, and covered up by dead plants at the bottoms of Louisiana’s many ponds and streams. After all, it was Landrieu who went to the floor of the U.S. Senate in 2009 in support of Obamacare and claimed that, “I am voting for this bill because it achieves the goals I laid out at the beginning of this debate: It drives down costs and expands affordable health care choices for millions of families and small businesses in Louisiana …” But in reality, nothing could be farther from the truth.

    Out of the allegedly tens of millions of uninsured Americans that were supposedly dying in the streets, according to the Democrats in 2009, because there was no government subsidized health care, only a fraction of Americans (six million) have actually “signed up” for health insurance through the government’s website. It is estimated that just as many Americans have also had their policies canceled.

    Nonetheless, the White House is celebrating right now, despite the fact that they have no idea how many of those who “signed up” were already insured, or how many are simply replacing coverage because their previous insurer cancelled their policy due to Obamacare. And we don’t really know what “signed up” really means either. HHS officials say they have no idea how many folks who “signed up” have actually paid their premiums, thereby activating coverage. Really, they don’t know this? It is estimated, though, that as much as 20 percent of folks “signed up” have not paid any premiums at all, which means they will soon have their policies canceled, as well.

    Furthermore, for those six million already “signed up,” we don’t know how many were just comparison shopping online, and only added a plan to their virtual shopping cart to see what the cost would be. As crazy as it sounds, we know that the White House has counted folks as having “signed up” if they just made it to the last screen of the online purchase process. That’s like giving me credit for going to exercise at the gym just because I showed up and took a look around.

    But that’s typical liberal thinking: Focus on the intentions, don’t worry about the facts.

    Unfortunately, the facts speak more loudly here. It was Landrieu who told Louisianans in 2009 that if you liked your plan you could keep your plan. It was Landrieu who said she wouldn’t support a health care bill that had a small business mandate, even going as far as saying, on the floor of the Senate, that “the bill also has no employer mandate.”

    It was Landrieu who incredulously claimed, just this past December, that this “law is working well” and that anyone who said otherwise is part of the “intentional” misinformation campaign. But Louisianans see the handwriting on the wall. They understand the Congressional Budget Office has forecasted that the same number of Americans will be uninsured in 2016 with Obamacare as would have been uninsured without Obamacare, and that the Democrats in Washington have taken Landrieu, and all of Louisiana, for a joy ride through a little town called, “Ridiculous,” just outside of “Insanity City,” on their way to “Doesn’t Make Sense.”

    This leaves little doubt why Democrat party registration has dropped to 46 percent in Louisiana, which is a new low, and that Landrieu is the only Democrat left in statewide office. It’s why President Obama lost Louisiana by 18 percentage points in the 2012 election, and why it is even more incredulous Landrieu still voted 97 percent of the time with Obama last year.

    So as this election year progresses, and as more and more Louisianans learn the facts, let’s make sure that the crawfish won’t be the only ones getting out and about, and growing. If we don’t, we’ll all soon be paying double for a lot more than just crawfish.

  • Policy Disasters: Politicians Don’t Have to Follow the Path of “Learned Helplessness”

    Policy Disasters: Politicians Don’t Have to Follow the Path of “Learned Helplessness”

    By Louis Avallone
    –
    It’s called “learned helplessness.”

    It’s a state where you have given up hope and effort that your actions will affect your outcomes, even when later you’re in a position where control of the outcome is completely within your reach. It’s why women stay in abusive relationships, or why the poor feel that no matter how hard they work, or how much education they get, they will never escape their present lot in life. And it must be why so many folks don’t even bother to vote, or take part in our political process, because they’re discouraged that nothing gets done or will change anyway.

    It’s a problem in politics because the important issues facing our nation are so vast, and the solutions seem so monumental. For many, the mountain is simply too big to climb, or the hole dug is too deep to get out of, so why bother?

    But it doesn’t have to be this way. Today, our nation is buried under a mountain of debt, 5 million Americans have had their health insurance policies cancelled as a result this administration’s policies, the gap between the rich and poor has widened to a point not seen since the Great Depression, respect for our nation is dwindling as world leaders seemingly taunt the United States and unemployment is so rampant that there are three unemployed people for every job opening in our country today.

    With all of that said, it’s clear that too many Americans suffer from “learned helplessness” when it comes to electing the same politicians, election cycle after election cycle, even when real change, and the choice to send someone else to Washington or Baton Rouge, is plainly within their reach.

    For these folks, they say, “Why bother?” I say, “Hogwash.”

    You don’t have to be expert in all of the important issues of our day to escape “learned helplessness,” or to believe that what you do can make a difference. You only need to look at example after example of liberal policies that have caved in on themselves, and litter the scrap yards of life.

    The British tried appeasing Hitler in the 1930s, because they were convinced war was immoral, and that we must have “peace in our time.” That approach didn’t work out, of course. Hitler became stronger, and millions more died through appeasement, than would have otherwise. And what are we doing in the Middle East today? Appeasement.

    Or what about the administration’s proposal to raise the minimum wage? If you already know that unskilled minorities, aged 16 to 19 years old, are already experiencing a 37.8 percent unemployment rate, and you raise the minimum wage, how do you help these folks when they would be the first workers to be let go after the minimum wage is raised?

    Or how about this example? Liberals are always talking about unfettered, free access to contraceptives, and how abstinence is simply old-fashioned, foolhardy thinking. Yet, in example after example, the well-intentioned liberal thinking falls short, time after time. In New York City, for example, schools distribute thousands of the “morning after pill,” as well as prescriptions for birth-control pills, intrauterine devices, hormonedelivering injections, etc. to help to prevent pregnancies.

    However, and despite liberal intentions, one of every 10 abortions occurs in New York. More abortions are performed on minors, more late term abortions, and more repeat abortions, are performed in New York City than anywhere else in the country. If this is one of the most important issues for women in history, how can this debauchery be good for the very women these liberals are intending to help?

    We could talk about how, because of the Affordable Care Act now, and the rising insurance costs to employers, the most qualified candidate for a job may never get the job because the most attractive candidate may be the one already covered by their parent’s or spouse’s health insurance policy, saving the employer the cost of the premium altogether. Ridiculous.

    And we could talk about how fulltime employment, under the Affordable Care Act, is now defined as working 30 hours per work. At 30 working hours per week, you can see that we’re fast becoming a nation of under-achievers.

    We could also talk about how, in 1999, liberals prodded the Fannie Mae Corporation to ease the credit requirements, and encouraged them to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit was generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. And it didn’t take long for the housing market to collapse just a few short years later, of course.

    Here’s the bottom line: As a nation, we must re-learn that success is within our control, and that we can affect the outcome, but can’t keep doing what we’ve doing, or we’ll simply keep getting what we’ve been getting. Escaping “learned helplessness” is understanding that it is not the blowing of the wind that determines our destination; it’s the setting of the sail.

     

    And that starts by electing folks that “get” that idea and who see the promise, and are likewise willing to pay the price.

  • Our Changes: A New Strategy for The White House

    Our Changes: A New Strategy for The White House

    By Louis Avallone
    –
    It may have been the least watched State of the Union address since President Clinton’s, back in 2000, but for those listening to President Obama last month, it may have been the most important State of the Union address of his presidency, especially for the almost 66 percent of Americans who feel that our country is heading down the wrong path.

    Here’s what I mean: The 2012 Presidential election was won using a strategy of distraction, diversion and division, and there may not be a more convenient and illustrative representation of the Democrat Party’s intentions to repeat this strategy for the 2014 elections, than listening to last month’s State of the Union address.

    And while we all know the outcome of their winning strategy for the White House in 2012, we likewise can predict ours, unless we make changes – and make them now. And here’s how we can start:

    First, conservatives must not allow themselves to be distracted from focusing on the core values upon which this country was founded. This will not be easy because we’re all naturally inclined to react with a laundry list of counterpoints, trying to convince less enlightened and liberal friends and family that they are simply off their rockers, when it comes to politics.

    Democrats already understand the futility in doing this. They’ve learned the Pareto principle and know that 80 percent of their success comes from communicating with 20 percent of their constituency. They don’t waste their time and resources on attempting to convince conservatives that their liberal leaning policies are the bees knees.

    Resisting the liberals’ attempts to distract Americans, and divert our attention from what’s most important, however, is not an easy task.

    It takes willpower to maintain self-control when the President knows that 5 million Americans have had their health insurance policies cancelled as a result of his own administration’s policies, and yet he still takes credit, in stump speech after stump speech, for “fixing” the very health care system that he has made worse, not better.

    It takes willpower to calmly listen to his administration’s concern for growing the middle class, when the rich-poor gap, during his administration, has expanded to a disparity not seen since the Great Depression, especially when you consider that Democrats have controlled the Senate since his inauguration.

    It takes willpower to remain focused on what’s really happening to our nation, when he speaks of Al-Quaida being “on the run,” even as his administration’s National Intelligence director said last month that the threat is not “any less” from the terror network than it was a decade ago.

    We could go on and on, from immigration to unemployment, but it all takes willpower to remain focused on what’s most important for our country, and not be distracted by the politics of those more concerned with themselves. When our willpower is depleted, so is our focus, and the politics of distraction rule the day. A good example is how lots of conservative-minded Americans felt following the 2012 Presidential election – they were just plain worn out.

    Democrats remember this, and from listening to last month’s State of the Union address, they are calling up the same play for the 2014 elections.

    But even if conservatives are focused (and rested), our message must be clear. Nearly two-thirds of Republicans feel that the Party must do a better job of communicating their “why,” or their passion, or their values.

    Maybe conservatives, as former Congressman Arthur Davis put it, are “better at talking to each other,” than talking to people who are still not yet sure what they believe in. And maybe that’s because conservatives are not winning any hearts and minds when they are so frantically “counter-punching” every political distraction and diversion thrown by the Democrats, whether during a State of the Union or on the stump, or through the multitude of writers and reporters who seemingly amplify the confusion.

     

    As Republicans in this election year, we need to do just one thing, better than anyone else, to be successful in 2014: Simply talk relentlessly about the American values upon which our nation was founded, and refrain from the kindergarten-like, “I know you are, but what am I” dialogue with Democrats. And we can apply the Pareto principle, as well, focusing our energies in the areas where we can make the most difference. We must remain rested and ready, This is easier said than done, especially when you cross that line and start shouting at the television, awakening the neighbors, and wondering why other folks don’t seem to get it. Simply put, we have to stop reacting, and start acting on what’s most important to us. After all, if every Democrat distraction is important, then how can anything be important at all?

  • Truth Be Told: ‘Honesty is Hardly Ever Heard’

    Truth Be Told: ‘Honesty is Hardly Ever Heard’

    By Louis Avallone
    –
    Americans average about 11 lies per week. There are major ones, and minor ones, of course. Maybe it’s an excuse on why you were late, or didn’t complete a task. Maybe it’s when a friend asks your opinion on a matter, and you wanted to be polite, more than you wanted to tell the truth.

    Well, it turns out this may be impacting your health. Linda Stroh, a professor emeritus of organizational behavior at Loyola University in Chicago, said, “When you find that you don’t lie, you have less stress, and being very conflicted adds an inordinate amount of stress to your life.”

    In fact, a recent study indicated that as individuals tell more lies, their physical and mental health declines. Conversely, as the number of lies decrease, their health improves.

    Might this also be true for our nation’s health, as well? After all, are we lying to one another, instead of having an honest discussion about our national debt, the crippling costs of entitlement programs and the failures of our immigration system? We need to speak truthfully about why our schools are failing and why our healthcare costs are spiraling out of control, and about the deterioration of the family and the whitewashing of religion from our national consciousness? Don’t we just need to put it out on the table, and talk openly? We do.

    But instead, we find ourselves almost always conflicted, as we are reading, watching and listening ad naseum to elected officials and news reporting that often are anything but truthful.

    What honest person believes Hillary Clinton’s or President Obama’s explanation about Benghazi? Who really believes the administration’s claim that it’s a positive sign that the unemployment rate went down .03 percent last month, when there are 92 million people who have dropped out of the labor force altogether, and are not looking for work at all?

    Who doesn’t feel they were bamboozled for months and months and months when Obama promised, “If you like your healthcare plan, you can keep it.” And now four million Americans (so far) have now lost their healthcare plan, and it seems that the administration knew this would happen all along. Remember Nancy Pelosi’s pitch, “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.” Goodness.

    But this administration started out straight enough, right? The President promised in 2009, for example, that “My administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in government.”

    Who, in their right mind, believes this has happened? Maybe it’s because, as some say, we can’t handle the truth. After all, our nation is on the verge of bankruptcy, and yet still so many folks seem oblivious and continue supporting policies and candidates that increase government spending, and they do this, year and after year.

    But some may say telling the truth is not all that it is cracked up to be, either. Remember Walter Mondale’s 1984 pledge to raise taxes? He said, “Let’s tell the truth … Mr. Reagan will raise taxes, and so will I. He won’t tell you. I just did.” He lost in a landslide, of course, but you could also name many other reasons for that outcome, as well.

    The bottom line is that honesty still means something in this world, and it’s not just an “American” thing, it’s a “human being” thing. And we remember it, or the lack of it, long after the details of its subject matter are long forgotten. Lyndon Johnson lied about Vietnam. Richard Nixon lied about Watergate. Bill Clinton lied about Monica Lewinsky.

    Thinking back, it may be no coincidence that Billy Joel’s song, “Honesty” was nominated for “Song of the Year” at the Grammy Awards in 1980, right in the middle of that year’s presidential campaign. As the song goes, “Honesty is hardly ever heard. And mostly what I need from you. But if you look for truthfulness, you might just as well be blind.” Winston Churchill, although likely not a big Billy Joel fan, said it another way: “The truth is heavy, therefore few care to carry it.”

    No, in the end, it’s not that the American people cannot handle the truth; it’s that they shouldn’t be expected to manage their lives in the absence of it.

  • Unspoken Reason: Effects of ‘Deindividuation’ in our Nation

    Unspoken Reason: Effects of ‘Deindividuation’ in our Nation

    By Louis Avallone
    –
    You know how you’ve felt whenever another driver has cut you off in traffic, or has made hand gestures (which were completely unnecessary), as they sped away from you anonymously, disapprovingly honking and shaking their head the entire time about your driving?

    Maybe you even expressed yourself back to that individual by vigorously honking back at them, and letting the other driver know you completely disapprove of their aggressive behavior.

    But a quick question: If either of you were introduced to one another and shared a Coke, or a cup of coffee, at Strawn’s, you’d hardly express yourself as aggressively as you would if you were seated anonymously behind the windshield of your vehicle in heavy traffic. But why is that? It’s because when we blend into a crowd, instead of meeting with someone face-to-face, we have a decreased sense of personal accountability.

    Psychologists call it “deindividuation,” and it is a psychological theory developed to explain how people, when they are doing something anonymously, become more capable of acts that rational individuals would not normally do. It’s the unspoken reason that criminals will often disguise themselves with masks, and why it’s so easy for folks to engage in harsh criticism of others online. Anonymity makes it easier to disconnect you, from you.

    But this is not just a psychological theory that is merely academic. With the roll-out of Obamacare this month, the practice of this theory is actually on full display in our nation’s capitol.

    You see, every time that President Obama goes on television, gives an interview, and steps behind his teleprompter, and then blames Obamacare failures on the Republicans, or the defective website, he disconnects himself from the failures of very legislation that bears his name, and he blends into the “crowd.” He points to everyone else, and anyone who will listen, and says, “It’s not my fault, it’s theirs.”

    And while 57 percent of Americans oppose Obamacare and want it scrapped, and less than half of all Americans even view President Obama as honest or trustworthy, or as a strong leader, and even though experts predict 129 million Americans will lose their current health insurance, the President’s response has been, as the psychological theory predicts, to disguise himself as a bystander, and thereby avoid the responsibility for dismantling private healthcare in our country.

    The more he blames, the more he blends, and the more anonymous (not synonymous) he becomes with the healthcare debacle facing every American, instead of being held accountable for what he has done.

    As he told the Wall Street Journal, “(o)ne of the problems we’ve had is one side of Capitol Hill is invested in failure.” In the Rose Garden, he complained about the “reckless demands by some in the Republican Party to deny affordable health insurance to millions of hardworking Americans.” He has blamed the insurers for the millions of canceled policies, then blamed software developers for the website failure, and now blames the critics of Obamacare for creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.

    I call it all baloney. While blaming others may make him feel more confident about the dismal implementation of Obamacare or even make him feel superior to others, it’s simply not helpful.

    The bungled roll-out of Obamacare, and the failed promise that if you liked your insurance, you could keep your insurance, is further evidence that the nine most terrifying words in the English language are, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”

    And despite the disguises, or masks worn by the politicians in Washington these days, the effects of deindividuation in our nation can be overcome with a simple, plain oldfashioned choice; a choice to champion personal accountability wherever, and whenever, we see it.

    So the next time someone honks at you, or otherwise expresses themselves through sign language to you in traffic, look at it as another opportunity to illustrate why Washington’s lack of accountability simply doesn’t work for us. Sure, opportunity usually knocks, but in this case, it honks too.

  • Taking Action

    Taking Action

    By Louis Avallone
    –
    So, there we were, at a local restaurant being seated. The music was loud and lively, the wait staff was busy, and every table filled the room with conversations of every kind. And as we unwrapped our silverware and paper napkins, we made a curious discovery: There was a person’s name, handwritten in ink, on the backside of the paper napkin band. “Why is there someone’s name written here, Dad?,” came the response from the 7-year old son seated at the table. Well, it didn’t take me long to understand, and after confirming with the waitress, we soon all knew.

    “You see,” she said, “Every night, the wait staff wraps the silverware and napkins together for the following day, and we place our name on the backside of the paper napkin band so that if a set of utensils was incomplete, or not clean, we’d know exactly who was responsible.”

    Of course, this got me thinking about the increased accountability for those who did their job well at that restaurant, and the better results that obviously must have followed, from such a simple, inexpensive idea to measure results, and take the personal responsibility for them.

    After all, whether you are managing a business, or a family, you can’t manage what you don’t measure. It’s the reason that baseball players know their batting average, and why advertisers measure the number of people who respond to an ad. It’s why golfers keep track of their scores, and why students want to know their test results. If they didn’t measure their performance, how would they know if they improved?

    As much as that makes sense to you and me, there are far too many folks in Washington that simply don’t get the principle of accountability. You see, there are trillions of tax dollars raised and spent by Congress each year, and almost no accountability for their results, or the value received by the taxpayers.

    And to add insult to injury, Congress hasn’t passed a budget since 2009, even though the Budget Act says it must do so by April 15 every year. Literally tens of billions of dollars go unaccounted for every year, disappearing down bureaucratic black holes.

    And there are lots of examples of this unaccountability. From the estimated $72 billion in improper payments made each year, to the $25 billion annually spent just maintaining unused or vacant federal properties, to the health care fraud that is estimated to cost taxpayers more than $60 billion annually, our federal government is the model of unaccountability, and the undesirable results that necessarily, and predictably, follow.

    There is perhaps no corporation that comes close to the scope of fraud, waste, and lack of accountability than our federal government, and yet most folks stand idly by and vote for bigger and bigger government each election cycle. A government that spent over $593,000 to study where in a chimpanzee’s brain they get the idea to throw feces and that spent $200 million to fund a reality television show in India to advertise U.S. cotton.

    So, here’s what I was thinking: Would the bigger government folks in Washington sign a “napkin band” of their own, just like in the restaurant? Would these bureaucrats in Washington be willing to be accountable to families living paycheck to paycheck, and explain why they allowed the 2% payroll tax cut to expire at the end of 2012? Would they sign the back of the “napkin band” that raises your federal and state taxes to finance Medicare and Medicaid, when fraud and waste is the real source of the problem?
    You see, as a people, if we are to govern own affairs, either directly or through representative government, we must be informed about what our government is doing, and measuring the results.

    The reason is simple: If we don’t hold our elected officials accountable, then elections and the will of the people have no meaning. That’s why that simple “napkin band”, with a person’s name scribbled in ink on the backside, serves as a simple reminder that what works best, works simply.

    So, what if we all wrote our name on the back of our ‘napkin band’ in life?” Lots of folks, like you, already do. It’s the doctor that writes your prescription, or the bank officer that approves your loan. It’s the teacher who signs your report card, or the air conditioner repairman who comes to your home. Isn’t way past time for our federal government to do the same?

    Now, are you ready to order?

  • Multitasking

    Multitasking

    By Louis Avallone
    –
    It’s ironic, isn’t it? The Democrats in Washington, on any day of the week, want to convince you that bigger government is better government. They want you to believe that it can provide better schools for our children, even though only 69 percent of U.S. teens now graduate from high school (despite $2 trillion in federal spending since 1965). They want you to believe that government can create jobs, even though nearly 30%, or over 30 million Americans are unemployed (or underemployed) – and that’s after more than a trillion dollars in stimulus spending. In fact, at the current rate of job growth, it won’t be until 2022 before we return to the almost full employment rate that we had back in 2007.

    And these Democrats are the same folks that believe that bigger government (along with good intentions) can help the poor move from poverty to prosperity, even though there are more people on food stamps today than ever before in our country’s history, and that’s after $1 trillion in annual welfare spending (which is 250% more than it was just 20 years ago).

    Yes, these are the same folks that feel government-run healthcare, which makes up almost 20% of our gross domestic product (or $2.5 trillion in spending), can be administered efficiently, and effectively, by the same federal government that already makes $72 billion in improper payments every year to our healthcare providers.

    And yes, that’s the same federal government that cancelled White House tours for students, released thousands of illegal aliens from prisons, and cut back on the number of air traffic controllers, just to make a point during the sequester earlier this year.

    But even though liberals have an unshakable confidence in bigger government, liberals suddenly start acting like our federal government can’t walk and chew gum at the same time whenever there’s scandal or impropriety. They deflect the importance of issues by claiming that the federal government can’t be troubled with the issue du-jour, as if their all-knowing, all-solving federal government can’t focus on more than one issue at one time.

    You can tell when liberals feel threatened with scandal or impropriety because they suddenly start saying that they need to be “doing the job that the American people sent them to do”, or that they’re “going back to work for the American people” now.

    Remember, during the Monica Lewinsky investigation? President Clinton couldn’t be troubled with such ridiculousness, since the allegations being made were “false” and he said he needed to “go back to work for the American people”.

    And then there’s White House advisor David Plouffe who said Republicans in Congress should focus more on “doing the job they were sent to do”, instead of focusing on the IRS scandal, the seizure of the Associated Press phone records by the Justice Department, and the foreign policy failure in Benghazi.

    You see how this works?

    And when Obama’s $500 billion “American Jobs Act” was in danger of not passing in Congress, and was being debated by Republicans, what do you think a Democrat Congressman pulled out of his talking points? You guessed it: He urged his colleagues in Congress to stop debating and to finish “the job the American people sent us here to do.”

    And what about when Republicans were questioning last month the confirmation of Thomas Perez as our next Secretary of Labor? Yep, a Democrat U.S. Senator pulled out the predictable, “Let’s just do the job the American people sent us here to do.”

    So, instead of confronting the objection, or the underlying issue, these folks in Washington are only interested in their next election, instead of the next generation. They don’t get it, and they will use any means necessary to distract attention away from failed policies and broken promises. And while the Roman empire kept its citizens distracted during its decline with bread and circuses, Congress is aided by Americans who are kept far too occupied by Royal weddings, American Idol, Justin Bieber, Dancing with the Stars, and Lady Gaga.

    Our message to liberals in Congress is simple, though: You can’t have it both ways. A government that is big enough to be all things to all people can multi-task, if you really want to do the job that the American people sent you to do.

    You can investigate the failure of the Obama administration’s foreign policy in Benghazi, while at the same time addressing the fact that the U.S. will no longer be the largest economy in the world by 2016.

    Congress can appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the IRS scandal, while at the same time deal with the fact that the average American family is struggling with the rising costs for food and healthcare costs. You can investigate the Justice Department’s seizure of the Associated Press phone records, and at the same time figure out how to reduce our nearly $16 trillion in federal debt.

    It’s still true, in the words of Ronald Reagan, “Government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem.” However, that “problem” can still walk and chew gum at the same time. But continuing to walk all over the American people with tired and trite distractions, should simply no longer be an option.

  • Tell Me Lies

    Tell Me Lies

    By Louis Avallone
    –
    Will Rogers once said, “If you ever injected truth into politics, you have no politics.” Unfortunately, he may be right. Of course, lies also have a devastating effect on others. Some psychologists explain that most folks lie because they believe they won’t be accepted by others – if they tell the truth about who they are. But do politicians lie because the public doesn’t want to hear the truth? Rome’s greatest orator, Marcus Cicero received this campaign advice from his brother in 64 B.C: “Candidates should say whatever the crowd of the day wants to hear.”

    But what about when a politician tells the truth, but the voters are inattentive, or hear only what they want to hear?

    Of course, it’s easier to focus on the “mistruths” of any politician. In Obama’s case: He repeatedly pledged to put the healthcare negotiations on C-SPAN (but didn’t). He promised to reduce the budget deficit by 50% by the end of his first term in office (it’s growing instead). He promised there would be no earmarks in his $787 billion stimulus bill (but there were). During the 2008 campaign, he claimed he didn’t know Jeremiah Wright was radical (even though he attended church services with Wright for 20 years).
    He promised he would have the most transparent administration (although he appointed 44 different “czars” to serve him, outside the glare of public scrutiny and Congressional approval). Then he promised that the “Recovery Act” would save or create jobs (yet unemployment has continued to rise to record levels). He said Obamacare would pay for itself (but Obamacare actually robs funding from Medicare in order to “pay for itself”, starting with $500 billion in 2013 and rising to $716 billion by 2022).
    He said the health care bill wouldn’t increase the deficit by one dime (yet it will actually add at least $340 billion to the national deficit over the next 10 years). He promised in 2009 that, “I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits — either now or in the future” (but deficit spending during this administration has risen to over $5.1 trillion).

    So…what does all of this mean to the American people, like you and me? Well, in the words of Lenin, the former premier of the Soviet Union, “A lie told often enough becomes the truth”. This is why it’s important for folks like you and me, in a free society, to make sure that those lies stop.

    Our work is cutout for us because some folks in Washington definitely have this lying principle down pat, and they have a head start on us. But what happens when the lie isn’t so much in the words of the politician, but in the lies we tell ourselves about the politician?

    Consider Obama, for instance. Here are some examples where he just leveled with the American people, told it like it was and opened up:
    Remember in 2008, when Obama told Joe ‘The Plumber’ that, “I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody”? Or how about when Obama said, right before his inauguration in 2009, “Everybody is going to have to give. Everybody is going to have to have some skin in the game.” Or in 2010 when he said, “I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money” (even though poll after poll of likely voters believe the top earners should pay less taxes, not more). Or how about when he told us, “If you like your doctor or health care plan, you can keep it” (which is true, even though the government’s own estimates indicate that 14 million Americans will lose their current coverage as a result of Obamacare and 17% of all doctors with a private practice said they could close within a year if their financial condition doesn’t improve). Still, it’s the truth from Obama – we can keep our doctor or health plan (if they are still in business, that is).

    And of course, just last week, explaining his business acumen in aiding General Motors, Obama explained that the federal government wasn’t through in the private sector, saying, “Now I want to do the same thing with manufacturing jobs, not just in the auto industry, but in every industry” (even though General Motors still owes the taxpayers $42 billion).

    Then last month Obama said, “If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that” (instead crediting government and luck for any success of business owners). He recently pitched himself to supporters by asking, “Do we go forward towards a new vision of an America in which prosperity is shared?” (even though history is littered with failed nations wherever such socialism, or collectivism, has been practiced).

    The point of recalling these candid truths is that Obama has leveled with us, for all intents and purposes, in what he believes: redistribution of wealth through higher taxes, a single payer system where the federal government controls your healthcare, and more centralized control of the economy, through managing other industries now, such as banking and energy.

    And even though many folks, in 2008, might not have ever expected this type of “hope” or that kind of “change, the voters will only have themselves to blame this time, in 2012, for any “buyer’s remorse” of a second term for Obama. By then, the only lies left behind will be the ones that voters have told themselves.

  • Obamacare

    Obamacare

    By Louis Avallone
    –
    It would be easy to write about the Supreme Court’s historic, unprecedented decision to extend federal power last month by sanctioning “Obamacare,” or socialized medicine, for 300 million Americans, or the Court’s determination that funding this law represents a “tax” on American citizens, and not a “penalty.” We could talk about the semantics in choosing one of those words over another, and how the Court held this law constitutional only because Congress could have identified its enforcement as a “tax” (and not a “penalty”).

    We could also discuss how Justice Roberts supposedly betrayed conservatives, and the Constitution, all in one fail swoop. We could discuss how others feel, instead, that Justice Roberts’ vote was actually helpful to conservatives, and constitutional liberties, because “Obamacare” can now be repealed by 51 (instead of 60) votes in the U.S. Senate, having now been declared strictly a “tax.”

    We could also debate here whether the Court’s decision actually strengthens individual liberties because the only “penalty” from failing to purchase “Obamacare” insurance is a tax, instead of house arrest or property forfeiture or jail time.

    And you might also express relief that the Court did not uphold the law under the Commerce Clause, because that would have given Congress almost unlimited police power to mandate and regulate all sorts of behavior, for whatever Congress might deem a public benefit (and that could be unending, of course).

    And maybe we would discuss the argument that the Court’s decision actually improves states’ rights, by declaring it unconstitutional, and a violation of the Tenth Amendment, for the federal government to withdraw Medicaid funding, or any other federal funding, for states that opt out of “Obamacare”.

    Yes, we could talk about all of these propositions regarding the Supreme Court’s decision on “Obamacare” and participate in the handwringing and worry of its consequences, but with the sound of firecrackers still ringing in our ears from celebrating our nation’s independence on July 4th, I think it’s far more important, and productive, if history is to be our guide, to simply recognize that this law will not endure.

    You see, the “Obamacare” law simply won’t succeed over time; but not because it is not well intentioned. Nor simply because Republicans in the Senate may get the 51 votes needed to repeal the law. It won’t succeed simply because good intentions are not enough and it violates one of the most important truths of life.

    Let me explain. Yes, there are undeniable truths of life. Some are pretty basic, here are a few: Every problem you have is your responsibility, regardless of who caused it. Nobody has it all figured out. People embellish everything. Those who complain the most, accomplish the least. Putting something off makes it more difficult.

    This all leads me to share with you one of the most important truths of life: There is “no free lunch” or in this case, “no free healthcare.” Nobel-prize winning economist Milton Friedman is famous for his “no free lunch” saying, and it refers to the reality that if any goods or services seem “free,” this is only because you are paying for it some other way. Or, more likely, while it may be “free” for some, there necessarily must be others that are paying the way. For example, over the next 10 years, under “Obamacare,” the American people will pay almost $1 trillion in new taxes for their “free healthcare.”

    A “free lunch” (or “free healthcare”) or expanding the federal government is all well- intentioned, no doubt, but it isn’t what it seems. Just like our nation will spend $953 billion on welfare programs this year, yet we still have record levels of poverty. Deficit spending during the Obama administration has been nearly $5.17 trillion, in part to “save” jobs, but the long-term unemployment rate is at its highest level since 1948.

    Then there’s the Social Security program that began in 1935. Legislators back then did not plan for it to be insolvent in 2037 or to start paying out more in benefits than it collects in taxes by 2016, but those are the facts, despite the intentions at the beginning. Nor did the Medicare program, started in 1965, include a plan for it to be insolvent by 2017. But it will be.

    The same lessons will apply to “Obamacare.” The law simply won’t succeed, but not because it is not well intentioned, or because access to healthcare isn’t part and parcel of the principle that every life is sacred. It won’t succeed because there’s no exceptions to the undeniable truth that there is “no free lunch,” and the majority of Americans see that now, more than ever in recent times. In the words of Ronald Reagan, “It is not my intention to do away with government. It is rather to make it work — work with us, not over us; stand by our side, not ride on our back.” Well-intentioned legislation then, simply, is not, nor has it ever been, nor will it ever be, enough. And that’s why “Obamacare,” as a tax or penalty, simply won’t endure, regardless of what the Supreme Court calls it.