Join the NED. It has the most democratic structure ever invented for reaching consensus on the web. http://www.ustaxreform.us/n...
http://www.ustaxreform.us/nfed1.htm
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1109/29262.html
House leaders have won the backing of the nation’s Catholic bishops for health reform, a critical last-minute boost that could give the bill enough momentum – and enough votes – for passage as early as Saturday.
As they awaited President Barack Obama's visit before noon, House Democrats held out hopes they could rally the 218 votes to pass a sweeping $1.2 trillion health reform bill, even if it took until late Saturday night.
But they clearly weren't there yet. During the day's first round of votes to corral support for the bill, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer made a rare appearance in the Speaker's Lobby, just off the House floor, to look for colleagues. He told a group of reporters, "I'm always gun-shy...At this moment, I'm counting."
Abortion flared up as a last-minute obstacle to passage, as anti-abortion members pressed for – and won – a vote on an amendment barring insurance companies that participate in the exchange from covering abortions.
That prompted the letter of support from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Bishops To House: Keep Abortion Funding Out Of Health Care Reform, Make Health Care Available To Vulnerable
Washington—The U.S. bishops sent an urgent message to the U.S. House of Representatives November 6, as House members steeped themselves in debate over procedures related to abortion and the health care reform bill. Moments before meeting to discuss proposed amendments to the bill, the bishops called for “a fair process” that would permit discussion of “an amendment to keep in place current federal law on abortion funding and conscience protections.” Some in the House seek a “closed rule,” a procedure banning amendments from the bill. The letter was signed by Bishop William Murphy of Rockville Centre, New York, Chairman of the bishops’ Domestic Justice Committee, Cardinal Justin Rigali, chair of the Committee on pro-life Activities; and Bishop John Wester of Salt Lake City, chair of the Committee on Migration. The letter follows.
Dear Representative:
On behalf of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), we write to strongly urge you to vote for essential changes and a fair process in the House of Representatives to ensure that needed health care reform legislation truly protects the life, dignity, health and consciences of all. Unfortunately, the legislation moving to the House floor falls fundamentally short of this essential goal. We urge members of the House to:
The Catholic Bishops of the United States have long supported adequate and affordable health care for all. We believe universal coverage should be truly universal, not denying health care to those in need because of their condition, age, where they come from or when they arrive here.
Protecting Human Life and Conscience We are concerned because the current legislation before the House of Representatives fails to keep in place the longstanding federal policy against the use of federal funds for elective abortion or for plans that include elective abortion – a policy upheld by the Hyde Amendment, Children’s Health Insurance Program, Federal Employee Health Benefits Program and other federal health initiatives. Without such protection we will have to oppose the current legislation until this fundamental flaw is remedied.
For this reason, we ask you to vote for an amendment that will keep in place the longstanding and widely supported federal policy against government funding for elective abortions or for plans which include elective abortions. To accomplish this we also urge you to support efforts to guarantee that the House will have a clear and fair opportunity to vote on this essential matter. Please vote against a “closed rule” if necessary so the amendment can be considered. Currently, H.R. 3962 allows the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services to mandate that any “public option” will include unlimited abortions. The Congressional Research Service has confirmed that all money paid out by this plan for medical procedures will be federal outlays. Federal subsidies will also be used to pay the overall costs of establishing and maintaining private health plans that cover elective abortions. Millions of purchasers will be forced to use their premium dollars for abortion coverage they do not want, through a new mandatory fee. The creation of this “abortion surcharge,” a mandatory payment requiring pro-life purchasers of many plans to pay directly and explicitly for abortion coverage, is unprecedented in federal law. Such a proposal runs counter to the principles of the longstanding “Hyde amendment.” Affirming the Hyde Amendment continues the government’s long standing policy without affecting coverage of abortion in non-subsidized health plans, and without barring anyone from purchasing a supplemental abortion policy that is funded solely by the private funds of those who choose it.
Thus far, H.R. 3962 does not meet President Obama’s commitment of barring use of federal dollars for abortion and maintaining current conscience laws. While Section 259 of the bill maintains essential nondiscrimination protections for providers who decline involvement in abortion, the legislation also requires each region of the insurance exchange to include at least one health plan with unlimited abortion, contrary to the policy of all other federal health programs; and conscience protection on issues beyond abortion have yet to be included in this bill.
Immigrants in Health Care CoverageWe support the inclusion of all immigrants, regardless of status, in the health-care exchange. Regardless of status, immigrants living in our country need to have access to health care just as any other human being. Finding ways to provide them with health care is preferable to compelling them to have access only to emergency room care which is an unfair burden on hospitals in urban and other high immigrant areas of our country. We also support the removal on the five-year ban on legal immigrants accessing federal health benefit programs, such as Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and Medicare. Legal immigrants, who work and pay taxes, should have access to such programs, if needed. Removing the ban would help ensure that legal immigrants, who were widely praised in past immigration debates for their many contributions and for playing by the rules, will still have access to health-care.
Accessible and Affordable Health CareBecause we support and advocate in favor of affordable and accessible health care for all, especially the poor and marginalized, we want legislation that expands Medicaid eligibility for adults living at 150 percent or lower of the federal poverty level. This will help lower-income families purchase insurance coverage through the Health Insurance Exchange. Provisions in Title I (Immediate Reforms) should be helpful in providing relief to the uninsured and underinsured. The House legislation provides reforms that will strengthen families and protect low-income and vulnerable people by eliminating denial of coverage based on pre-existing conditions including pregnancy; eliminating life time caps; offering long-term disability services; and extending dependant coverage to uninsured young adults.
These are not marginal issues or special interest concerns. They are at the heart of the health care debate. Our concerns outlined in this letter reflects our longstanding commitment to health care and our centuries old experience as providers of health care to all, especially the poor and the vulnerable. In that spirit we reiterate our Catholic tradition that teaches that health care is a basic human right, essential to protecting human life and dignity.
For many months, our Bishops’ conference has been working with members of Congress, the Administration and others to fashion health care reform legislation that truly protects the life, dignity, health and consciences of all. Our message has been clear and consistent throughout. We urge the House of Representatives to permit a vote and to adopt essential changes so that, as long time advocates of health care for all, we are not compelled to oppose this flawed legislation. We hope and pray that the Congress and the country will come together around genuine reform.
http://www.usccb.org/comm/archives/2009/09-228.shtml
Under the first amendment, Fox has the right to criticize the President. Under the first amendment, the White House has the right to criticize Fox.
George W. Bush's first press secretary was Ari Fleischer, who called reporters whose stories the White House did not like. Reportedly he threatened some with loss of access to White House sources in the future. If you are a White House reporter and cannot get access, you could very well lose your job. In my opinion, Fleischer's threats crossed the line. Can anyone truly say that the actions of the Obama White House have crossed a line?
Comment on Frontline TV show "The Warning" 10-20-09
Brooksley Born understands that a "market" does not automatically create control over fraud or other vulnerabilities to loss that may accompany "doing business" or human commercial interaction. She understands that a "market" is no better at organizing "trade" than the "economy" is -- wherein the market is protected from crime and human error. Alan Greenspan and "capitalism" did not attempt to provide, as a necessary support for trade, a "reversible money pump", designed to meet Keynesian concerns for aggregate demand and supply--neither of which may be allowed to run dry if trade, itself, is logically welcome at the time and place people appear to desire it. All Americans are aware that money to support demand in an economy may less or more than sustained operations (that produce needs and purchase production) require. They are dimly aware that a money pump must be ready that can pump money in or suck money out of the pockets of persons who "go to" market as a part of their system of essential supply of need. Were we to be blessed with Brooksley Born in place as an honest competent regulator, would we also be blessed with an honest competent engineer to design and operate the pumps without which an economy may fail the nation and world that surround it -- as it serves them. If you have never encountered a reversible money pump (of Keynesian design with respect to full employment, consumption, and managed money), it may be time you did. There is a Google site where it is under construction. I hope you will look for and find it.
Copy of Homepage, Google Site, Reversible Money Pump
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As 2009 comes to a close America and the rest of the world remains far from content with the prospect for change hoped for after the Democrats were elected. Rapid recovery, full employment, sound banks, affordable housing (and sufficient income to buy it ) were among the things we dreamt were coming—because we'd saved the day with ample money voted (and otherwise created) going into circulation. It never happened. If we were worried after eight Republican years, millions of us are worried still or worried more. We are out of work, out of money, out of luck, angry at the leaders who made promises in 2008 and excuses ever since. Everyone with a government job must know we need a money pump. Business of the kind that made the Clinton team concerned we'd pay off the national debt is nowhere in sight. If America is to be saved from a steep decline in wealth and useful power it will have to be with an ocean of money—once in sight—that our leaders in charge have turned to debt and dust. Fear has gripped our leaders. They have voted for and otherwise created trillions of American dollars—but not the mind or will to pump them where their needed now and—then pump trillions more until their work is done. Why? Because they have a pump and they don't know if it will work in reverse—to suck all dollars back that may make the ones in use worth less than will be required to produce the real things needed to be sold to support American money. Now that presents a puzzle and problem no brain on earth can solve. Really? I do not believe it. There must be talking brains that can prove the statement's false. And there must be listening brains that will know the talk is straight. There must be. Or my name ain't John Gelles. And my ideas must suck. When you read this site you are invited to join a network. Create a site of your own. Link it to this site. Invite john.gelles@gmail.com to join your site. I will join your site if we fit under the same umbrella. The network will then grow until the pump is built. All members of the network are equal in their right to link or not to link to any or all member sites. By the time we have a score of members the network will develop an effective new structure that may link to a single central hub where all connecting links reside and members will not have to carry more than one link to it.
SMALL BUSINESS SUPPORT CENTERS UNDER CONTRACT TO FEDERAL AND STATE GOVERNMENTS
Dear Ed Schultz, You are the best on Talk TV. OK. Your demand that Obama-nomics reach small business is correct. Let's say that QE (quantitative easing to increase liquidity and hold down DS,) and DS (deficit spending to finance national priorities--defense, infrastructure, education, health, prosperity, etc.) can find the trillions we are short on account of inadequate demand and non-performing assets. etc., -- THOSE TRILLIONS will be easy to give to banks and big business BUT far harder to get into investments in existing and planned small businesses. One answers is SMALL BUSINESS SUPPORT CENTERS (SBSC's). SBSC's would be opened by licensed CPA's, partnered with licensed members of the bar with with business law expertise, under contract with federal and/or state governments. The contracts would require the SBSC's to prove by statistics how they undertook to help small business borrow money, comply with all laws and regulations, employ people, serve customers, and remain in business honestly. Some of the helped businesses would fail -- but not all. The SBSC's would all succeed under their contracts because governments would pay them for doing what they promised. This would be something like a WPA but aimed at fostering small business to get capital to work in a decentralized national interest to end deflation and grow output that cannot be defined ahead of time. With capital from QE and DS pouring into big business for major infrastructure, hospitals, schools, defense, energy, etc., this added capital for small business would guarantee full employment quickly. Read some of my stuff linked at the bottom of my homepage http://www.ustaxreform.us John Gelles -- your true fan.
Cost of Care initially requires QE and DS to invest in providers
The Plan, Big Ideas for America by Rahm Emanuel and Bruce Reed was published in 2006. Both authors worked in the Clinton White House and now Rahm Emanuel is Barack's chief of staff in the current White House. The book is worth reading if only for the insights in the Clinton era and Emanuel's thinking now. Emmanuel contends that we should not fight the Republicans on their terms, trying to outshout each other. Instead, Democrats should offer solutions to our problems that the voters will support. He offers his thoughts on a wide range of subjects including: universal service, college access, retirement savings, health care, fiscal responsibility, corporate welfare, tax reform, green energy and the war on terror. Well worth reading.
He even quotes from one of my favorite Presidents, Teddy Roosevelt who included the following in a 1910 speech to Civil War vets in Kansas: "At every stage, and under all circumstances, the essence of the struggle is to equalize opportunity, destroy privilege, and give life and citizenship of every individual the highest possible value.... We work in a spirit of broad and far-reaching nationalism when we work for what concerns people as a whole. We are all Americans. Our common interests are as broad as the continent."
