HR2454

HR 2454

Below is my latest letter to my congressman regarding HR 2454, the Cap and trade bill.

Dear Congressman Scott;

I am emailing you on what I suspect to be a futile attempt to dissuade you from voting for HR 2454. This “Cap and Trade” bill will raise the cost of, among other things, electricity and gas for every American. President Obama estimated the cost of this legislation to be over 850 billion dollars, which is, no doubt, a very conservative estimate and would realistically amount to a fraction of the actual cost.

You and your fellow politicians have spent the past year huffing and puffing to pass the bailout and the stimulus bills in order to “take strain off of the tax payers”. In fact, you have spent over a trillion (1,000,000,000,000,000) of our tax dollars over the past year with your arrogant theory that you have the power to “jump start” the economy. Great job. My home state of Michigan currently has a 14% unemployment rate. A trillion dollars and an unemployment rate of 14%. Our money hard at work.

Sarcasm aside, seeing as you have usurped so much of our money, why not use some of it to provide tax breaks and incentives to companies who curb their carbon footprints enough to fall under the arbitrary “cap” amount. Instead of taking our money, why not give some back?

The government has created a commodity and is now taxing those who chose not to buy it. These costs will be passed onto consumers, similar to when gas prices rose and costs of goods increased. Do you believe the average American to be ignorant enough to not notice a difference? I would like to believe your claims that the taxes and charges for this "cap and trade" commodity will be used to make energy consumption more efficient. However, if social security tells us anything it’s that funds collected for one specific tax can be used on any form of government spending through inter-governmental loans. Yes, the public knows about these.
So, again, I will ask you not to burden your constituents with higher costs and the layoffs that would certainly come from burdening businesses with higher taxes. Please remember, you work for us, not for Washington. Please oppose HR 2454.

Email your rep. Make your voice known.

Health Care Breakdown

Heath Care Breakdown

An explanation of what President Obama’s heath care reform

plan proposes and what it would mean for health care as we know it.

President Obama’s health care overhaul plan intends to provide a public health care option as an alternative to private care. The goal is to offer a more affordable health care plan for the currently un or under- insured. This new plan would theoretically create competition by offering lower prices for coverage thereby driving down the cost of private insurance plans. What this proposal fails to recognize is that there already IS competition in the health care system between the numerous existing companies.

The reason insurance prices are high is because health care costs are high. As long as health care costs remain high insurance companies cannot drop prices without reducing coverage, otherwise they fail to be profitable and are forced to go under. This same problem would exist with any proposed government plan. The government cannot create a more affordable insurance plan that offers equal coverage without dropping prices below cost or making bargains with health care professionals to drop their costs. If the new public plan did successfully negotiate lower costs with doctors, the health care system would have to make up that money by raising costs for private insurance as well as the uninsured.

As this cycle continues, more and more people would sway towards the less expensive public plan and private companies would begin to fail. Once these companies failed, the health care system would no longer have anyone to make up for its reduced cost for public health care, and therefore would have to raise prices back up for public care plans leaving us with the same problem we started with... only now we’d have a government run plan with little or no competition in the private sector.

This is a best case scenario assuming that the government initially implements a successful financial backing for their plan. The likely alternative would be that upon accepting more high risk patients at lower rates, the plan would immediately begin losing money leading to either a failure or a bailout.

Instead of working on reducing insurance costs, we must focus on reducing heath care costs and let free market competition do its job in the insurance industry.

Drawing the Line

Drawing the Line

Squint really hard and look towards the horizon behind you. Nope, a little to the right. There, see it? That’s where our government’s rights should have stopped. It’s barely visible now, but they aren’t looking back. Oh my, no, they are forging bravely ahead into the land of government control. And today’s example of our ever evaporating rights is the sure-to-pass bill that will empower the FDA to regulate the tobacco industry.

While many applaud this step towards further restricting cigarette companies’ rights, few lift the curtain to see the implications behind this action. In essence this bill gives the federal government the right to decide what is good for us as individuals. Not that they haven’t already been treading down this path with the drug laws and the patriot act, but this bill takes it one step further. Forget personal rights. The government is now in the business of protecting you from yourself.

With the approval of this bill, our congressmen have openly declared that they have the right to restrict anything that poses a substantial risk to one’s self, regardless of its level of impact on others; they have opened the flood gates to begin wrapping their tentacles around every facet of our lives. For example, Chipotle’s Chicken Burrito has 1,179 calories and 47 grams of fat. Frequent consumption of this is arguably more dangerous to our heath than a couple of cigarettes every now and then. Macaroni Grill’s Spaghetti and meatballs with meat sauce more than doubles that risk with a whopping 2,430 calories and 128 grams of fat… and note that neither of these dishes are served with a label clearly explaining the health risks involved with their consumption. What is to stop the government from restricting the production of those high calorie foods? It is no is no longer our right to be unhealthy. We might as well make chairs uncomfortable and add a high buzzing sound to the TV to encourage people to go outside and exercise. This Bill gives the government a blank check to sign away our individual rights on the basis of our so called protection.

At least our government is standing up to the tobacco lobbyists’ for once right? Wrrrooong. The only one’s this legislation WILL benefit is the tobacco industry. These new government regulations are sure stop or at least decrease the amount of money in law suit settlements the tobacco industry pays out each year which will more than make up for any loss in business due to advertisement and flavor restrictions. The tobacco industry knows damn well that it doesn’t need advertizing or flavoring to sell cigarettes. I don’t see crack addicts complaining about the lack of cherry flavoring in their crack and I can’t remember the last time I saw a magazine ad for meth but none of them seem to have any trouble drumming up business.

We are already spending billions of dollars each and every year in our futile battle against drugs. With the largest deficit the US has ever seen and the two wars we are currently funding, don’t you think we could find a better use of our time and money than cigarette restrictions?

HR 1207

HR 1207

Below is my letter to Bobby Scott, my local rep. Join me in writing demeaning emails to your congressmen...

"Mr. Scott, on a previous occasion I emailed you requesting that you co-sponsor HR 1207 to Audit the currently unrestrained and undisclosed spending of the Federal Reserve. You and your fellow congressmen continually bombard us with the idea of "tightening our belts," telling the financially struggling Americans that you are doing everything you can to help us. Yet, somehow, you haven't found time to sponsor a bill that would expose the actions of the company responsible for printing, managing and distributing trillions of tax payer dollars. It is a disturbing day when a so called servant of the people resists supporting a Bill to disclose the spending and printing of the American people’s money. Remember, that is OUR money. So I ask you again, with waning confidence, please do not betray the American citizens that you have sworn to represent.
Please co-sponsor HR 1207, and show the American people that you really are a voice for us. "

Click this link to see if your rep has co-sponsored yet. http://www.campaignforliberty.com/campaigns/1207cosponsors.php