I received the following email today from Citizens Against Government Waste; all emphasis is added:

The HillaryCare proponents in Congress are making good on their campaign promise!

Under the guise of helping children without health insurance, the advocates of a government-run, universal healthcare system for all Americans are pushing for a massive expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) - increasing the cost of this program to you, me, and all taxpayers

If they succeed, this would be a giant first step toward making their vision of a socialist, Canadian-style healthcare system a reality in this country.

The House and Senate will consider legislation on SCHIP as early as next week, and it’s urgent that you tell your Senators and Representative to oppose the expansion of SCHIP and the tax increases that would be required to pay for it.

SCHIP was originally designed to help low-income families who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid gain access to health insurance for their children. The proposals being pushed by the HillaryCare advocates would increase the SCHIP income eligibility level from the current 200 percent of the federal poverty line (approx. $40,000 in annual income for a family of four) to 300 or even 400 percent of the federal poverty line (approx. $61,950 and $82,600 in annual income, respectively); might allow states to expand coverage even further to other individuals; and might even increase existing benefits to a practically unlimited benefits package.

These proposals could triple spending on SCHIP, from $25 billion to as much as $75 billion over five years, and make more than 71 percent of American children - including many who already have private insurance - covered under either SCHIP or Medicaid.

To pay for this big-government healthcare expansion, its advocates have proposed increasing the federal cigarette excise tax by as much as 156 percent and raising taxes elsewhere. Trust me, this will be just the first of many tax increases to come as SCHIP, like virtually every other entitlement program before it, ends up costing more than expected and sucking up increasing amounts of your tax dollars!

[A]fter the failure of HillaryCare in the 1990’s, the universal healthcare proponents have wised up. They know they can’t impose a government takeover of America’s healthcare system - and the massive tax increases needed to pay for it - all at once without provoking a resounding public outcry. Instead, they’ve adopted an incremental approach, where they will slowly expand existing government healthcare programs until they crowd out private insurance.

The backers of this plan think they can get all Americans dependent on the government for our healthcare before we know what hit us!

Please tell your Senators and Representative to oppose legislation that would expand SCHIP and increase the federal cigarette excise tax, or any other taxes, to pay for it.

Sincerely,

Thomas A. Schatz
President

Socialized medicine, by focusing solely on the patients - who, of course, should be the PRIMARY focus - makes no allowance for research and development. R&D is VERY expensive and is currently funded by the profits made by privately owned medical facilities. The U.S. has been the world leader in medical research because our capitalist system makes this very expensive R&D profitable which, besides being good for the patients, is good for the economy.

Socialized medicine strangles R&D. Countries with socialized medicine just ride on the coattails of the U.S. If we also socialize medicine on whose coattails will we ride?

Economic crisis notwithstanding, the U.S. is a wealthy enough country to provide medical care for its people - ALL of its people. The best way to ensure that the poor and uninsured get care is to provide, not a medical system funded and controlled by a government with limited resources, but an insurance program that allows them to get care in the privately owned system.

Don’t miss this very important point - truly socialized medicine does not allow competition by private businesses. They sign up for the government program or they shut their doors. Socialized medicine equalizes healthcare, not by raising the standard of care overall, but by lowering it overall, to the lowest common denominator. It takes away the basic right to choose from whom we get our health care. It will be from the government program or not at all.

Is that really the direction we want to take? Do we want to leave our children a country with third rate medical care and crushing entitlement spending?

I don’t.

When we demand separation of church and state, it seems like a good thing inasmuch as YOU don’t want ME telling YOU how to worship That-Which-Created-Us, and I’m none too keen on having YOU tell ME how it should be done, or NOT done…

And yet I can’t help observing these last 4 decades of Godless drift, and viewing with some shock and revulsion the latest presidential elections atop the previous two years of corrupt malfeasance in Congress…

And so I am led to ask whether the removal of formal, rational acknowledgment of Our Creator, and the consequent removal of formal, rational methods and character traits normally associated with conscious, rational and compassionate humans might have something to do with today’s informal, irrational election of an ‘Ice-Cream’ candidate whose only real convictions have come from the study of and at the feet of dedicated Marxist, anti-American racists and terrorists…

There seems to be an irrational component therein, something which is working AGAINST the goodness, rational intent and practical outcomes of the One Whose birth is celebrated in this season.

The rational, emotional choice to follow and exemplify the teachings of The Christ, knowable in Jesus of Nazareth, led millions out of the darkness of ignorance and hatred, into the light of love and knowledge.

Is it possible that, by turning away from the regular investigation of the truth and practical application of the Spirit of Holiness (Wholeness, Righteousness) Americans have turned toward their own ignorance, willful blindness and disgruntled self-pity?

As we’re giving gifts to That Which Created Us, (by giving gifts to the That-Which-Created-Us that is knowable and lovable in the creatures around us) let us pause to reflect for a moment or two on the Goodness of Godness.

Have a safe, grateful Christmas everyone!

Smiley

…it does:

Being a good Samaritan in California just got a little riskier.

The California Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a young woman who pulled a co-worker from a crashed vehicle isn’t immune from civil liability because the care she rendered wasn’t medical.

The divided high court appeared to signal that rescue efforts are the responsibility of trained professionals. It was also thought to be the first ruling by the court that someone who intervened in an accident in good faith could be sued.

Lisa Torti of Northridge allegedly worsened the injuries suffered by Alexandra Van Horn by yanking her “like a rag doll” from the wrecked car on Topanga Canyon Boulevard.

Torti now faces possible liability for injuries suffered by Van Horn, a fellow department store cosmetician who was rendered a paraplegic in the accident that ended a night of Halloween revelry in 2004.

In 1980, the Legislature enacted the Health and Safety Code, which provides that “no person who in good faith, and not for compensation, renders emergency care at the scene of an emergency shall be liable for any civil damages resulting from any act or omission.”

Although that passage does not use the word “medical” in describing the protected emergency care, it was included in the section of the code that deals with emergency medical services. By placing it there, lawmakers intended to shield “only those persons who in good faith render emergency medical care at the scene of a medical emergency,” Justice Carlos R. Moreno wrote for the majority.

The high court cited no previous cases involving good Samaritan actions deemed unprotected by the state code, suggesting the challenge of Torti’s rescue effort was the first to narrow the scope of the law.

The three dissenting justices argued, however, that the aim of the legislation was clearly “to encourage persons not to pass by those in need of emergency help, but to show compassion and render the necessary aid.”

Justice Marvin R. Baxter said the ruling was “illogical” because it recognizes legal immunity for nonprofessionals administering medical care while denying it for potentially life-saving actions like saving a person from drowning or carrying an injured hiker to safety.

“One who dives into swirling waters to retrieve a drowning swimmer can be sued for incidental injury he or she causes while bringing the victim to shore, but is immune for harm he or she produces while thereafter trying to revive the victim,” Baxter wrote for the dissenters. “Here, the result is that defendant Torti has no immunity for her bravery in pulling her injured friend from a crashed vehicle, even if she reasonably believed it might be about to explode.” [emphasis added]

Not only do I agree with the opinion of the dissenting justices, but I see here another example of a badly written law. It is the responsibility of the Legislature to ensure that the laws it passes are clear and unambiguous. Where this law is concerned, it was just another failure on their part.

As I said before, San Francisco’s refusal to enforce federal immigration laws has taught the next generation that law breaking is just another form of political protest:

A band of demonstrators, many wearing black masks, stormed a bustling San Francisco mall Saturday evening, upending garbage cans and foliage and damaging crystal merchandise at one kiosk.

An estimated 50 to 75 people were involved in the disruption at Westfield San Francisco Centre, police said…

…Some protesters threw food, police said. Others tried to toss a large planter onto the food court below.

According to mall management, the protesters were part of a “Solidarity with Greek Uprising” demonstration, which began in the Mission District earlier in the afternoon. An international day of action was called on Saturday to protest the death of a young man in Greece in early December. [emphasis added]

SF failed to learn a most basic lesson - when those in authority break the law “for the greater good” they open the door for those who just “break the law.”

Tax the rich and they’ll leave?

In 2004, [California] voters narrowly approved Proposition 63, the Mental Health Services Act, which imposed an additional 1 percent tax on personal income above $1 million.

The funds generated from this “millionaire’s tax” were intended to expand county mental health programs. Taxpayer and business groups opposed the measure for a couple of obvious reasons. First, California is already a high-tax, high-spending state that didn’t need any more revenue. Second, as we predicted, Proposition 63 would exacerbate California’s income tax volatility.

Although the final vote for Proposition 63 was tallied more than four years ago, evidence suggests that California’s most wealthy have continued to vote on this measure - with their feet.

A recent survey from TNS Research, an international business research firm, found the California counties of Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego had the first, fourth and sixth highest number of millionaires in the country. However, even as the national population of millionaire households grew by 5.9 percent in 2007, Los Angeles County lost about 7,000 of these households. Orange and San Diego Counties lost millionaire households as well.

Milton Friedman’s maxim that few things are as mobile as rich people and capital, is proven starkly by data showing the wealthy are leaving California in record numbers.

And if they don’t leave, this happens:

Our own history shows that the very wealthy benefit from leftist policies of high tax rates, “targeted” taxation and industrial policy.

The ugly truth is that the really wealthy can manipulate the political system to their own ends better than ordinary people. They can lobby for specific tax breaks that only they can take advantage of. They can get government trade protection for their companies. They can get bailouts. If all else fails, the truly wealthy can simply relocate their wealth into whatever area the government policies du jour make the most profitable.

In the extremes, they can simple sit on their wealth and wait for the political winds to change.

The history of Europe since WWII has shown that it really pays to be a big company in a socialist country. Socialists like stasis. Socialist politicians like to guarantee jobs. They like predictable tax revenue. To this end they select a handful of major companies and in return for heavy regulation, protect them internal and external competition. The largest companies in Europe are much larger compared to the size of their national economies than are the largest companies in America. The largest companies in Europe also keep their top positions while a great deal of turnover by comparison occurs in American companies.

America saw the same thing happen between 1945-1980. At the zenith of the Left’s influence in America the tax code grew so riddled with loopholes and shelters that the wealthiest paid little taxes. For three years in the 1970s, Malcomb Forbs, then the world’s richest man, paid zero income tax. After the Reagan tax reforms, such a thing would be unthinkable today.

The Democrats want to put us on a road back to the 1970s when the rich got off scot free, corporations grew fat and lazy behind trade barriers and high taxes, and inflation and deteriorating government services slammed the middle class. It will happen again. The perverse outcomes are guaranteed by the incentive structure built into our political system.

Why do we have to go through all that again?

By VIJAY JOSHI

Thailand’s leader attended a Buddhist ritual Monday, seemingly indifferent to a deepening political crisis that has paralyzed his government, shut down two main airports and stranded 300,000 foreigners in the country.

The crisis is draining millions of dollars from the country’s economy even as Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat appears powerless to remove radical anti-government protesters who have occupied the airports for the past week. He has refused to send in police to evict them for fear of bloodshed, instead making weak pleas for the protesters to go home.

The protesters have vowed to stay until Somchai steps down but he has refused.

By Doug Cameron

Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

Pilgrim’s Pride Corp. (PPC) said Monday that it had lined up $450 million in new funding after the largest U.S. chicken producer by revenue filed for bankruptcy protection.

The Texas-based company had fought to avoid a voluntary filing after being exposed to the combination of weakening consumer demand and poultry prices, which left it unable to pass on soaring feed costs in the first half of the year. Its board opted for a filing at a meeting Sunday.

While feed costs have eased, analysts remain concerned about capacity discipline in the sector, despite company pledges to cut production. Shares in rival poultry producers including Tyson Foods Inc. (TSN), Sanderson Farms Inc. ( SAFM) and Smithfield Foods Inc. (SFD) fell in the wake of the filing, reflecting concern that the domestic market would remain oversupplied.