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After bemoaning the fact for more than a week that too much of the money in the package was invested in programs such as highways, which spend too slowly to create jobs in a timely manner, conservatives first offered a substitute amendment that eliminated such funds and then almost immediately following the defeat of that substitute offered a second one that dramatically increased funding in the bill for both highways and civil construction in the Army Corps of Engineers.
Quote:
...Conservatives first argued passionately about how tax cuts had far more economic impact and created far more jobs than government spending, then they reversed field—doubling the proposed spending in the bill for highways and more than quintupling funding for the Corps. Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Jerry Lewis explained,
This motion funds high-priority, immediate job-producing activities like highway construction and the Army Corps of Engineers water projects. These are absolutely ‘‘shovel-ready’’ infrastructure investments that will put Americans back to work now.
Despite the blatant inconsistency between these two proposals the overwhelming majority of the 170 House members who voted for the first one also voted for the second.
I think this is actually a great time to be a conservative. A fiscal conservative, at least.
One reason that it's a great time to be a fiscal conservative (or liberal) is that there is a CLEAR AS DAY distinction between those of us who prefer less Government and those who prefer more Government. This distinction was less clear during the Bush Admin, as the GOP was on the big Government bandwagon as well. I think this is a great time for people to stand firmly on either side of the fiscal wagon. If this stimulus passes and is a success (assuming it passes in its current form, which is more of a welfare bill than a stimulus), it gives evidence that Big Government can benefit the economy. If the stimulus passes and fails (both of which will happen, IMO), it gives evidence that Government spending is not the way to pump up the economy.
I think Government should do its best to cut spending even during this difficult time. Their budget is so bloated, it wouldn't be hard to trim the fat.
Its been an ineresting and entertaining time to watch the conservatives. They've held the key levers of power in our government for most of the last 8 years and spent like drunken sailors growing the government more than anyone in decades while running up a $10 trillion deficit.
Now, suddenly they wake up and decide they are all about fiscal responsibility and wonder why the American people are not listening to the 1980s era sound bites. It would be downright hilarous were the results not so tragic.
Our country is strongest when we have two serious parties presenting competing ideas for the good of the country. Sadly, one party has lost its way and still has not accepted responsibility for the results of their policy ideas, let alone realized how increasingly marginalized they are becoming. I've got to wonder if their best bet is to start all over as the resurected Whig party.
The conservatives are much like a stopped watch. They stopped sometime in 1956 and the country has moved on without them. They try to catch up but just cannot do so. Some of them have finally got around to accepting things like Social Security, civil rights for the Negros and Women's Sufferage but they didn't for about 40 years. So you really cannot expect them to get used to the idea that the country is moving from center right to center left and things like government programs and the Gawd forsaken national healthcare that the EU and Canada have enjoyed for the past 45 years are going to be accepted by them. Maybe by 2050 but not before.
Maybe you should read this and see how great Universal health care isn't.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I once believed in the lofty goal of "universal health care". Who wouldn't support that goal? Doesn't everyone have a "right" to health care?
It was easy to agree with a meaningless campaign promise such as "Affordable Health Care for All". It takes effort to research the topic and understand economic reasoning and history.
Once I questioned the sound bites, I realized that government intervention in the market (e.g., Medicare, FDA regulations, physician licensing, insurance regulations) is the reason for artificially high health care prices.
So-called Universal Healthcare amplifies all problems:
1) Reduces patient incentives to find the best possible prices for the best possible services/products available.
Patients in the U.S. who receive "free" (taxpayer-funded) health care have no incentive to conserve their health care dollars. Care is "free" so they visit the doctor's office several times a month or request "free" prescriptions for over-the-counter medication such as Tylenol.
2) Reduces physician incentives to provide competitive care and reduces drug companies' incentives to provide new drugs and treatments.
With no incentive to provide quality care, physicians and nurses leave the government-monopolized area for better opportunities in a freer country. Shortages result. Drug companies are hindered by price controls and regulations and soon cease research and development of new medication. In the U.S., start-up drug companies cannot afford to run the FDA gauntlet, so the market is dominated by a few established corporations.
3) Steals from your wallet to pay for my health care.
Yes, you do have a right to health care, just as you have a right to food, shelter and property. However, you have no "right" to force others to provide these things for you - All "free" medical care is subsidized through taxes stolen from other people.
4) The quality of "free" health care will deteriorate and the average citizen will get sicker.
As the poor and middle-class wait in agony for simple procedures, those with resources can travel to other countries for treatment.
5) Destroys your privacy.
Suddenly your problems are mine and mine are yours. If you eat unhealthy foods or drive a motorcycle without a helmet, I have a direct interest in your business - you are going to see a provider on my tax dollars. Your neighbors might support government bans on smoking, "unsafe" sex or other "risky" behaviors to reduce costs. Politicians will use the federal bureaucracy to force you and your family to comply with programs such as the "New Freedom Commission on Mental Health".
6) Destroys your liberty.
When you blindly support a system that bestows power on politicians and bureaucrats, they will receive their orders from those with the most money - and this will not be you, your friends or your family. The power of government will be used against you as you are forced to use medicines or accept treatments from well-connected health care companies.
A quick search shows that pharmaceutical companies donated $152,437,727 to political campaigns since 1990. Who do you think has the ear of those elected politicians?
Conversely, if government power is eliminated (e.g., abolish the FDA - whose restrictions benefit the most powerful companies by eliminating most competition), those same companies would have to use their funds and resources to sell their drugs to the most people in the least expensive, most reliable and safest way. They would need to outperform their competitors to get your money - otherwise they lose business.
Most links below direct you to newspaper articles from different established sources and different countries, including the New York Times, the BBC, the Daily Mail, ABC or CNN. These articles show widespread problems such as physician shortages or increased waiting times that are inevitable when businesses are monopolized by the government.
Other links below direct you to articles from free-market institutes and groups. The authors use facts and logic to explain the superiority of the free-market process when compared to government bureaucracies. You can dismiss these links as "libertarian propaganda" or you can read the reports and question your own emotionally-based opinion, as I did. Please see Harry Browne's excellent Compassion of the mind and ask yourself if you are hurting others with your socialism.
Great Britain
[Top]
Great Britain's National Health Service (NHS) was created on July 5, 1948. As with all government programs, bureaucrats underestimated initial cost projections. First-year operating costs of NHS were 52 million pounds higher than original estimates1 as Britons saturated the so-called free system.
Many decades of shortages, misery and suffering followed until 1989, when some market-based health care competition was reintroduced to the British citizens2.
Unfortunately for those requiring care, a mostly socialist health care system still has problems. The articles and commentaries in this section identify some disasters caused by government intervention in the British health care system.
Only five out of 51 hospital trusts pass hygiene test, say inspectors
- Sarah Boseley, November 24, 2008 [Guardian Unlimited]
Heart patients dying due to poor hospital care, says report
- Sarah Boseley, June 8, 2008 [Guardian Unlimited]
NHS dentistry loses almost a million patients after new dentists' contract
- David Rose, June 6, 2008 [The Times]
Private healthcare managers could be sent to turn round failing NHS hospitals
- Philip Webster, Political Editor, and David Rose, June 4, 2008 [The Times]
Cancer patients ‘betrayed’ by NHS
- Sarah-Kate Templeton, June 1, 2008 [The Times]
NHS scandal: dying cancer victim was forced to pay
- Sarah-Kate Templeton, June 1, 2008 [The Times]
Pensioner, 76, forced to pull out own teeth after 12 NHS dentists refuse to treat her
- Olinka Koster, March 26, 2008 [Daily Mail(UK)]
Dental patients face care lottery
- March 26, 2008 [Metro(UK)]
Lung patients 'condemned to death as NHS withdraws their too expensive drugs'
- Jenny Hope, March 24, 2008 [Daily Mail(UK)]
Women in labour turned away by maternity units
- John Carvel, March 21, 2008 [Guardian Unlimited]
Health inequality has got worse under Labour, says government report
- Andrew Sparrow, March 13, 2008 [Guardian Unlimited]
Angry GPs reluctantly accept plan for weekend and evening surgeries
- John Carvel, March 7, 2008 [Guardian Unlimited]
NHS chiefs tell grandmother, 61, she's 'too old' for £5,000 life-saving heart surgery
- Chris Brooke, February 28, 2008 [Daily Mail(UK)]
Patient 'removed' from waiting list to meet target
- January 31, 2008 [The Scotsman]
One in eight patients waiting over a year for treatment, admits minister
- John Carvel, June 8, 2007 [Guardian Unlimited]
Audit Office asked to investigate record £500m NHS underspend
- John Carvel, May 30, 2007 [Guardian Unlimited]
The drugs the NHS won't give you
- May 11, 2007 [Telegraph UK]
UK lagging behind on cancer drug access, study finds
- May 10, 2007 [Guardian Unlimited]
One in six trusts is still putting patients on mixed-sex wards
- Daniel Martin, May 10, 2007 [Daily Mail(UK)]
Specialist stroke care 'lottery'
- May 9, 2007 [BBC News]
Smokers and the obese banned from UK hospitals
- May 2, 2007 [Healthcare News]
Cancer patients told life-prolonging treatment is too expensive for NHS
- Lyndsay Moss, February 13, 2007 [The Scotsman]
UK health service "harms 10 percent of patients"
- Kate Kelland, July 7, 2006 [Reuters]
5,000 elderly 'killed each year' by lack of care beds
- June 26, 2006 [Telegraph UK]
Dental Socialism in Britain
- Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., May 9, 2006 [LewRockwell.com]
Pay for nurses and surgeons doubles NHS overspend
- Beezy Marsh, Patrick Hennessy and Nina Goswami, April 23, 2006 [Telegraph UK]
The money addicts: it's your cash they are gambling with
- Patience Wheatcroft, April 23, 2006 [Telegraph UK]
NHS chiefs get luxury car deals
- Daniel Foggo and Steven Swinford, April 9, 2006 [The Times]
Secret NHS plan to ration patient care
- Nigel Hawkes, April 7, 2006 [The Times]
British Healthcare To Be Rationed
- April 7, 2006 [United Press International]
British body rejects EPO drugs for cancer patients
- March 17, 2006 [Reuters]
National Health Service - Grappling with Deficits
- March 9, 2006 [Economist.com]
Hundreds wait to register as another dentist quits the NHS
- Martin Williams, September 23, 2005 [The Herald (Scotland)]
Life-saving cancer drugs 'kept from NHS patients by red tape'
- Sam Lister, September 20, 2005 [The Times]
NHS slides into the red despite record increases in health care spending
- September 20, 2005 [Telegraph UK]
Alzheimer's sufferers hit by further delay in NHS approval for vital drugs
- Michael Day, September 18, 2005 [Telegraph UK]
We all pay a price for our 'free' NHS
- John Smith, August 19, 2005 [The Scotsman]
2,000 British doctors out of work
- August 14, 2005 [The Washington Times]
UK health 'unsustainable'
- August 14, 2005 [Finance24]
NHS faces rising bill for negligence claims
- Ben Hall, August 8, 2005 [Financial Times]
British boy to go to India for operation
- August 5, 2005 [United Press International]
NHS failed to stop doctor raping scores of women
- Lois Rogers and Jonathon Carr-Brown, July 31, 2005 [The Times]
Top crimewriter funds drugs for cancer victim refused by NHS
- Martyn Halle, July 8, 2005 [Telegraph UK]
Report says NHS is mired in huge debts
- David Simms, June 25, 2005 [ABC Money (UK)]
U.K. set to restrict smoking
- June 21, 2005 [The Associated Press]
NHS ‘fund bias’ against men may cost 2,500 lives a year
- Sarah-Kate Templeton, June 19, 2005 [The Times]
Doubts on funding NHS 'monuments'
- Nicholas Timmins, June 10, 2005 [Financial Times]
17 million reasons why we must improve hospital meals
- June 7, 2005 [Cambridge Evening News]
Figures show more patients waiting for operations
- June 3, 2005 [Guardian UK]
Scarcity of NHS dental treatment is revealed
- Celia Hall, May 19, 2005 [telegraph.co.uk]
Why NHS Opposes 'Treatment by Demand' for the Dying
- Stephen Howard and Jan Colley, PA, May 18, 2005 [Scotsman]
800 queue for NHS dentists
- May 5, 2005 [telegraph.co.uk]
Hundreds more heroin addicts to be given a fix on the NHS
- Nic Fleming, April 25, 2005 [telegraph.co.uk]
British health service facing nurse exodus
- April 25, 2005 [United Press International]
About 400 patients a year in Scotland succumb to MRSA
- April 25, 2005 [Scotsman]
NHS debts soar to over £1bn
- Karyn Miller, April 24, 2005 [telegraph.co.uk]
British taxpayers foot $26.5 million bill for abortion tourists
- April 18, 2005 [Catholic World News]
U.K. Liberal Democrats Would Raise Taxes to Pay for Health Care
- Reed Landberg, April 14, 2005 [Bloomberg]
Number of NHS Bureaucrats 'Rising Faster Than Health Staff'
- Joe Churcher, March 22, 2005 [Scotsman]
'£500m hole' in hospital budgets
- Celia Hall, March 21, 2005 [telegraph.co.uk]
1,000 Scots desert NHS every week
- Murdo Macleod, March 5, 2005 [Scotsman]
British NHS facing financial crisis
- March 3, 2005 [Washington Times]
NHS drugs regulator to withdraw approval of Alzheimer's treatment
- Nicholas Timmins, March 2, 2005 [FT.com - Financial Times]
NHS waiting list rises
- February 11, 2005 [Guardian UK]
Tumour patients hit by NHS shortages
- Jo Revill, February 6, 2005 [Guardian UK]
NHS financial crises set to outlast winter
- Mike Waites, February 4, 2005 [Yorkshire Post]
NHS 24 'priority' callers wait four hours for advice
- Caroline Wilson, January 14, 2005 [Evening Times (UK)]
'No strategy' on NHS waiting time
- January 14, 2005 [BBC]
Output figures show NHS decline
- John Carvel, October 19, 2004 [Guardian UK]
Heart patients die on waiting lists
- Peter Sharples, October 18, 2004 [Manchester Online]
£25bn overspend feared for NHS computer network
- Karen Attwood, October 12, 2004 [telegraph.co.uk]
Gaps in care cost £7bn, says charity
- John Carvel, October 4, 2004 [Guardian UK]
NHS excluding poor people, UK
- September 15, 2004 [Medical News Today]
Smokers 'should not get NHS care'
- September 6, 2004 [BBC News]
Waiting list row blights Brighton
- John Carvel, September 4, 2004 [Guardian UK]
Patients are denied the last rites under data protection law
- Elizabeth Day, July 25, 2004 [telegraph.co.uk]
Shortage of dentists to double by 2011
- John Carvel, July 24, 2004 [Guardian UK]
Britain's stiff upper lip gives way to a snarl
- Sarah Lyall, July 18, 2004 [The New York Times]
Hospital Overcrowding A Cause of Superbug Infections
- John von Radowitz, July 1, 2004 [Scotsman.com]
Study finds British hospitals are still austere, cold, smelly and poorly maintained
- May 6, 2004 [News-Medical.net]
Hospital bathrooms and showers: a continuing saga of inadequacy
- Andy Monro, MRCP & Graham P Mulley, DM, FRCP, May 2004 [Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine]
Majority back public smoking ban
- March 24, 2004 [BBC]
Discrimination Rampant In British Health Care
- Peter Moore, November 17, 2003 [365gay.com]
PERIPATETICS—To the Medical Socialists of All Parties
- Sheldon Richman, September 2003 [FEE.org]
Creeping Privatization?
Shortages of skilled workers, low morale, long queues for services, crumbling facilities and corrupt practises. - Roland Watson, August 6, 2001 [LewRockwell.com]
The World's Worst HMO
- Stephen D. Moore, November 24, 1999 [Random Thoughts]
Socialized Medicine in Great Britain: Lessons for the Oregon Health Plan
- Professor John Spiers, March 18, 1999 [Cascade Policy Institute]
The Sickbed Which is Socialized British Medicine
- December 23, 1997 [NCPA]
The British Way of Withholding Care
- Harry Schwarz, March 1989 [FEE.org]
If this is a time without precedent why would you expect to see a lot of consistent observable behavior?
This is a time of and for flexibility and adaptation.
Its been an ineresting and entertaining time to watch the conservatives. They've held the key levers of power in our government for most of the last 8 years and spent like drunken sailors growing the government more than anyone in decades while running up a $10 trillion deficit.
Now, suddenly they wake up and decide they are all about fiscal responsibility and wonder why the American people are not listening to the 1980s era sound bites. It would be downright hilarous were the results not so tragic.
Our country is strongest when we have two serious parties presenting competing ideas for the good of the country. Sadly, one party has lost its way and still has not accepted responsibility for the results of their policy ideas, let alone realized how increasingly marginalized they are becoming. I've got to wonder if their best bet is to start all over as the resurected Whig party.
It has actually been 28 years. Reagan quadrupled the national debt. The only time it was under control in the last 28 years was during the Clinton years.
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