by Mark Silva
The health-care overhaul which Congress is "on the verge of passing'' will be part of a new decade of economic promise, President Barack Obama maintains.
The Republians are focusing on something else today, the trial of detentention of captives in the war on terror on American soil, with Rep. Pete King, the New York Republican and ranking minority member of the House Homeland Security Committee calling a prison in Illinois where many detainees are to be moved "Gitmo North.''
Acknowledging the newest tally of joblessness -- with more jobs lost last month and unemployment holding at 10 percent -- the president says in his weekly radio and Internet address today that "too many of the folks I've talked with this year, and whose stories I read in letters at night, tell me that they've known their own private recessions since long before economists declared one - and they'll still feel the recession long after economists have declared it over.''
Emerging from the crisis, Obama says, "we will not return to the complacency that helped cause it. Even as we focus on putting America back to work today, we're building a new foundation for our economy to create the good, lasting jobs and shared prosperity of tomorrow.''
This includes fixing a health insurance system "that's crushing families, eating away at workers' take-home pay, and nailing small businesses with double-digit premium increases... The worst practices of the insurance industry will be banned forever. And costs will finally come down for families, businesses, and our government...
"We enter a new decade, now, with new perils - but we're going to meet them,'' the president says today, as Democratic leaders of the House and Senate are starting to negotiate the differences between their two passed plans. "It's also a time of tremendous promise - and we're going to seize it. We will rebuild the American Dream for our middle class and put the American economy on a stronger footing for the future.''
King is address a more immediate concern today, the lapse in intelligence and security that enabled a known threat to board a U.S.-bound airliner on Christmas Day carrying explosives. The White House has concluded that the several signals missed by intelligence authorities beforehand was a failure of proper analysis.
""This is about whether we've learned our lesson,'' King says in his address. "Terrorists still have innocent people in their sights and the will to murder them. They are always working on the next attack, refining their methods, searching the globe for new recruits. In other words, September 11th is not ancient history - it's all too real.
"So, the people in my community certainly get it. American families get it. And now it's time for the administration in Washington to stop sending mixed messages and get it too.''
For King, that means keeping terrorists such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed out of New York, where the Obama administration plans to try the architect of the 9/11 attacks, and keeping prisoners from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, out of a prison in Illinois, where the administration plans to move many detainees as it closes Guantanamo.
"One of the first things we need to do is pass the Keep Terrorists Out of America Act, a common-sense bill Republicans have proposed to prevent terrorists from being brought on to our soil.,'' King maintains. "This bill would help stop the misguided plan to put Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other 9/11 terrorists on trial in downtown Manhattan. It's an enormous, unnecessary risk, as is housing terrorists at the proposed 'Gitmo North' facility near Chicago.''
See the president's address above, the Republican address below, and read them both below the fold, here in the Swamp
Here is the text of the president's address:
"A year ago, when I took office in the midst of the worst recession since the Great Depression, I promised you two things. The first was that there would be better days ahead. And the second was that the road to recovery would be long, and sometimes bumpy.
"That was brought home again yesterday. We learned that in November, our economy saw its first month of job gains in nearly two years - but last month, we lost more than we gained. Now, we know that no single month makes a trend, and job losses for the final quarter of 2009 were one-tenth what they were in the first quarter. But until we see a trend of good, sustainable job creation, we will be relentless in our efforts to put America back to work.
"That task goes even deeper than replacing the seven million jobs that have been lost over the past two years. We need to rebuild our economy in such a way that our families can feel a measure of security again. Too many of the folks I've talked with this year, and whose stories I read in letters at night, tell me that they've known their own private recessions since long before economists declared one - and they'll still feel the recession long after economists have declared it over.
"That's because, for decades, Washington avoided doing what was right in favor of doing what was easy. And the result was an economy where some made out well, but the middle class too often took a beating.
"Over the past decade, the income of the average household actually declined, and we lost as many jobs as we created. Hardworking folks who did everything right suddenly found themselves forced to downscale their dreams because of economic factors beyond their control. We're talking about simple dreams. American dreams. A good job with a good wage. A secure and dignified retirement. Stable health care so you don't go broke just because you get sick. The chance to give our kids a better shot than we got.
"That's why, as we begin to emerge from this crisis, we will not return to the complacency that helped cause it. Even as we focus on putting America back to work today, we're building a new foundation for our economy to create the good, lasting jobs and shared prosperity of tomorrow.
"We're making historic investments in science and in a clean energy economy that will generate and keep the jobs and industries of the future right here in America.
"We're reforming our education system, so that our kids are fully prepared to compete with workers anywhere in the world and win the race for the 21st century.
"We're fixing our broken health insurance system that's crushing families, eating away at workers' take-home pay, and nailing small businesses with double-digit premium increases.
"And that's what I'd like to focus on for a minute. After a long and thorough debate, we are on the verge of passing health insurance reform that will finally offer Americans the security of knowing they'll have quality, affordable health care whether they lose their job, change jobs, move, or get sick. The worst practices of the insurance industry will be banned forever. And costs will finally come down for families, businesses, and our government.
"Now, it'll take a few years to fully implement these reforms in a responsible way. But what every American should know is that once I sign health insurance reform into law, there are dozens of protections and benefits that will take effect this year.
"Uninsured Americans with a pre-existing illness or condition will finally be able to purchase coverage they can afford.
"Children with pre-existing conditions will no longer be refused coverage, and young adults will be able to stay on their parents' policy until they're 26 or 27 years old.
"Small business owners who can't afford to cover their employees will be immediately offered tax credits to purchase coverage.
"Early retirees who receive coverage from their employers will see their coverage protected and their premiums go down.
"Seniors who fall into the coverage gap known as the donut hole will receive discounts of up to 50 percent on their prescriptions as we begin to close that gap altogether.
"And every patient's choice of doctor will be protected, along with access to emergency care.
"Here's what else will happen within the first year. Insurance plans will be required to offer free preventive care to their customers - so that we can start catching preventable illnesses and diseases on the front end. They'll no longer be allowed to impose restrictive annual limits on the amount of coverage you receive or lifetime limits on the amount of benefits you receive. They'll be prohibited from dropping your coverage when you get sick and need it most. And there will be a new, independent appeals process for anyone who feels they were unfairly denied a claim by their insurance company.
"In short, once I sign health insurance reform into law, doctors and patients will have more control over their health care decisions, and insurance company bureaucrats will have less. All told, these changes represent the most sweeping reforms and toughest restrictions on insurance companies that this country has ever known. That's how we'll make 2010 a healthier and more secure year for every American - for those who have health insurance, and those who don't.
"We enter a new decade, now, with new perils - but we're going to meet them. It's also a time of tremendous promise - and we're going to seize it. We will rebuild the American Dream for our middle class and put the American economy on a stronger footing for the future. And this year, I am as hopeful and as confident as ever that we're going to rise to this moment the same way that generations of Americans always have: as one nation, and one people. Thanks for listening.'
Here is the text of the Republican address:
"Hi, I'm Republican Congressman Pete King, I serve as the Ranking Member on the House Homeland Security Committee and I'm also a member of the House Intelligence Committee. I have the privilege to represent New York's Third Congressional District, on Long Island in the suburbs of New York City.
"Two weeks ago, the terrorist plot to bring down Northwest Airlines Flight 253 in the skies over Detroit was thwarted by a combination of luck and vigilance. But as President Obama has rightly said, it should never have even gotten to that point. Last year, this terrorist's father, a widely respected member of his community, went to our embassy in Nigeria and shared his concerns that his son was becoming a radical jihadist. That should have been more than enough to trigger a red flag that would prevent this terrorist from ever setting foot on a plane bound for the U.S. with explosives.
"Both parties recognize the need for answers, so bureaucratic reviews will take place and congressional hearings will be held. And while that's all well and good, this is about much more than whether the no-fly list gets longer or it takes more time to get through the security line at the airport.
"This is about whether we've learned our lesson. Terrorists still have innocent people in their sights and the will to murder them. They are always working on the next attack, refining their methods, searching the globe for new recruits. In other words, September 11th is not ancient history - it's all too real.
"So, the people in my community certainly get it. American families get it. And now it's time for the Administration in Washington to stop sending mixed messages and get it too.
"One of the first things we need to do is pass the Keep Terrorists Out of America Act, a common-sense bill Republicans have proposed to prevent terrorists from being brought on to our soil. This bill would help stop the misguided plan to put Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other 9/11 terrorists on trial in downtown Manhattan. It's an enormous, unnecessary risk, as is housing terrorists at the proposed 'Gitmo North' facility near Chicago.
"There's a good reason why the government has had such a hard time transferring these terrorist detainees to other countries. They are the worst of the worst. No one should want them. That's why we put in place a process by which these terrorists should be held and tried - as enemy combatants, by military commissions.
"The Keep Terrorists Out of America Act will also help to ensure that we're treating terrorism as what it is - a war crime, not a law enforcement issue. We can't gather the intelligence we need to foil future attacks if we are blindly granting terrorists the right to remain silent. But for some reason, we've already done that with the terrorist who tried to bring down Flight 253.
"We are a nation at war, and we should act like it. We need to pull together, remain vigilant, and send a clear signal - both to our friends and our enemies - that this government will stop at nothing to protect our homeland. That's how America sets an example for the world.
"Thank you for listening."
Comments
I would hope that President Obama explains how the States are going to pay for the new mandates that are included in the health care legislation?
I would hope that President Obama demand that the health care negotiations that are on-going be broadcast on C-Span like he promised, 8 times, when he was Candidate Obama.
I would love to hear President Obama explain how he is going to reduce the deficit without raising taxes on anyone making less than $200,000.
But then I doubt I will receive any answers from President Obama because he is turning into just another Washington politician!
Posted by: Pat H | January 9, 2010 10:00 AM
We have inmates in our prison systems that make the terrorists look like incompetent boy-scouts. What is all the fuss about ?? Don't tell me the Republican-Libertarians have gone chicken on us, again !! We have prisoners that could instruct the terrorists from fine-tuning mayhem to serial killings. Why not deal with our problems on our soil, instead of just being another irritant concerning Cuba and far enough away from our nation's eye, where torture and other inhuman acts may be perpetrated against other human beings. Come on, America, stand up to these chickens that think we are not capable of marshaling our strengths against these incompetent terrorists, that hid things in their panties !! Sounds to me like the Republican-Libertarians have theirs in a bunch !!
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, BRING THEM HOME, ALIVE AND WHOLE. NOW.
Posted by: Don Fitzgerald, IL | January 9, 2010 10:52 AM
BO also promised that if the Stimulus bill was passed, unemployment wouldn't go higher than 8%. According to his graph, unemployment s/b on its way down - near 7.7%. He's only off by a couple of million people.
http://michaelscomments.wordpress.com/2009/06/08/correction-to-the-may-unemployment-chart/
The only promise this health care bill will keep is increased deficits and/or taxes. Can anyone name a gov't run social program that meets the customers' needs AND comes in under budget?
Social Security taxes have gone up over 200 fold since it started. The medicare tax rate has quadrupled and the cap on income being taxed has been lifted, which, from an economic stand-point, makes this nothing but a welfare program.
Posted by: Terry | January 9, 2010 12:29 PM
"Keep terrorists out of America act"
Rep. King is a common sense law maker and is following the will of the people.
Unlike president panty waist that does the opposite of what common sense Americans want.
The vast majority of Americans don't want his socialist health care reform package, but his his ideology blinds him and governs against us.
The vast majority of Americans don't want terrorists to have a trial in our country, but he insists and acts like a college professor instead of a real leader that understands we are at war.
The poll numbers prove Americans have had it with panty waist and his far left wing agenda.
Paulo
Posted by: Paulo | January 9, 2010 12:56 PM
In the words of Joe Wilson to Barack Obama: You lie!
Premiums will be going up, Obama. Perhaps even more than they otherwise would have under "your" bill.
People will not have better health care. In other words, they will be paying more, for less.
Posted by: John D | January 9, 2010 1:45 PM
If you vote you should watch this:
January 8, 2010
MOTHER JONES journalists David Corn and Kevin Drum offer a hard look at the obstacles to real reform of the financial industry.
Thanks to taxpayers like you who generously bailed banking from the financial shipwreck it created for itself and for us, by the end of 2009 the industry's compensation pool reached nearly $200 billion. And despite windfall profits, the banks will claim almost $80 billion in tax deductions. And nearly $20 billion of those deductions will go to just three institutions — Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan Chase, and Goldman Sachs.
Ah, yes — Goldman Sachs, that paragon of profit and probity — which bet big on the housing bubble and when it popped — presto! — converted itself from an investment firm into a bank so it could get your bailout money. Now consider this: in 2008, Goldman Sachs paid an effective tax rate of just one percent. I'm not making that up — one percent! — while their CEO Lloyd Blankfein pulled down over $40 million. That's God's work, if you can get it. And, believe me, Wall Street bankers know how to get it.
http://tinyurl.com/ycpgblg
Posted by: Lloyd | January 9, 2010 1:48 PM
panty waist Paolo:
Still waiting to hear your plan for protecting yourself against terrorists.
Posted by: writerofwrongs | January 9, 2010 1:54 PM
Good Afternoon, Wingnuts!
Here's todays lesson:
AL-QAEDA - hates the gays, wants to dominate women, loves war, hates science, believes in theocracy, and wants Obama to fail
THE REPUBLICAN PARTY - hates the gays, wants to dominate women, loves war, hates science, believes in theocracy, and wants Obama to fail
Class dismissed...
Posted by: former Republican | January 9, 2010 4:22 PM
“We the People”
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
Those stirring 52 words of the Preamble to America’s Constitution, which has been called the most perfect political document in the history of man, are words which many of us have forgotten and which many of our leaders have abandoned.
They assert the rights of “the people” to seek perfection in our system of governing and government even though the framers understood perfection was beyond the reach of man. They call for justice and peace within our borders, security from foreign invasion, and the well-being of our people. They seek freedom now and freedom for our future citizenry under the guidelines set forth in our Constitution.
Drafted in 1787 and adopted in 1789 by the 13 original states, in the year Anno Domini 2010, 221 years later, we have lost our way.
Singer Ray Stevens has captured . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1415)
Posted by: Berlet98 | January 9, 2010 5:54 PM
Paulo.....We haven't heard much from you lately. Suddenly you have found your voice again. Please don't confuse "all" the negative to bigoted people such as yourself. There are honest people who just disagree with his policy. But by all means feel free to resume your "fried chicken" jokes as you have in the past.
Posted by: bill r. | January 9, 2010 6:03 PM
Posted by: John D | January 9, 2010 1:45 PM
JohnD
You always seem to think you know all the answers. Tell me, wheres your proof? The bill hasnt even been passed yet. Idiot
Paulo,
These are our prisoners not Cuba's. And whats with that? We have a military prison in a country we despise and disapprove of and yet we cant even go there on vacation like everybody else in the world! Who the heck do you wing nuts think you are? You're not the rulers of the world! America is not the bully country it used to be get over it already. The era of Bush and Shove is finished! The American people voted for Obama based on many of his goals. Reforming health care and Closing Gitmo were two of them.From what I understand, Obama won the majority vote and the electorate vote, that says to me we want healthcare reform and Gitmo closed. Period. Shut up and move on already!
Posted by: HarryRiedis a brilliantidiotandracistlikeeveryoneelse | January 9, 2010 11:41 PM
Well, thank-you bill r. for your concern about my where abouts. I never lost my voice, I was just on an extended vacation in the Philippines. It's very sunny and hot there, and I came back with a real dark tan.
Manila is like any other big city, McDonald's, Domino's Pizza, Burger King and a lot of Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants.
Paulo
Posted by: Paulo | January 10, 2010 2:10 AM
How much does this cost our health system?
Cerberus Capital: Literally Blood-Sucking the Poor to Make Their Billions
Cerberus Capital, one of Wall Street’s most notoriously ruthless leveraged-buyout firms (or “private equity firms” in PC-speak), recently made a $1.8 billion killing on its human plasma investment, a company called Talecris. Talecris was purchased for a mere $82.5 million just four years earlier, meaning Cerberus made 23 times its investment on human plasma. This was accomplished by the most savage, heartless means possible: by paying peanuts to impoverished human plasma donors, who increasingly come from Mexican border towns to blood-pumping stations set up on the American side, jacking up the price of plasma by restricting supply (a lawsuit filed by the Federal Trade Commission accused Cerberus Plasma Holdings of “operat[ing] as an oligopoly”), and then selling the refined products to the most desperately ill—patients suffering from hemophilia, severe burns, multiple sclerosis and autoimmune deficiencies. The products cost so much—one, IVIG (intravenous immunoglobulin) cost twice the price of gold as of last summer—that American health insurance companies have been dropping or denying their policyholders in increasing numbers, endangering untold numbers of people.
Profiting from ruined American lives is nothing new to Cerberus. (The company takes its name from the legendary three-headed attack dog of Greek legend who guards the gates of Hell, making sure no condemned soul ever escapes. How appropriate.) Cerberus is the same shady fund that bought Chrysler and GMAC in 2007 and drove them into the ground, blamed everything on unions (even after firing 30,000 Chrysler employees), and dumped the companies onto American taxpayers—but only after lining up tens of billions in taxpayer-funded bailout funds. Cerberus is led by some of the most aggressive "free market" Republicans of our time. The chairman of Cerberus is former Treasury Secretary John Snow, who oversaw the destruction of America’s economy while serving under Bush from 2003 to 2006, bragging during his tenure, "We are the envy of the world."
The top vampire in Cerberus is the fund’s founder, billionaire Stephen Feinberg, a major Republican Party campaign donor with a hardcore fetish for Harleys and big guns. Supposedly Feinberg was very uncomfortable with taking all those socialism-esque billions from American taxpayers. The New York Times described him as "a longtime free-market enthusiast and a Republican who never envisioned himself needing the government for help.”
It’s such a miserable way to make cash that Cerberus and its fellow oligopolists have resorted to setting up plasma-sucking franchises along the U.S.-Mexico border, which have mushroomed like Starbucks Coffee did in the '90s. In the latter part of 2009 alone, Cerberus-owned Talecris opened four new plasma-milking factories, plastering the Mexican side of the border with advertisements promising easy cash, and parking special plasma-farm buses on the American side of the border to haul their human cargo to those milking dens not within walking distance of the Rio Grande.
http://tinyurl.com/yhv6kz9
Posted by: leo | January 10, 2010 2:43 PM
Step by step Obamacare:
1. Increase taxes today, directly for the rich, indirectly for the middle class. The poor continue to pay nothing and vote for Democrats, go figure. Ignore all polling data that suggests Americans don’t want this.
2. Increase the cost of the premiums we have today to offset the billions in taxes that our current carriers are going to be forced to pay now. In addition, the pre-existing-condition clause may double your current rates, remember, this is not a tax nor does it increase the deficit.
3. Increase the general cost of health care as drug companies and medical equipment manufacturers are going to have additional billions in taxes as well. As this gets passed on to consumers and insurers, look for another bump in premiums.
4. Now the government plan kicks in and under cuts the private insurers by 30%. Evil profit mongering insurers are forced out of business by the valiant left.
5. Government finds out just how much health care really costs, since they never really asked. Health care providers are forced to decrease the cost for service. Doctor's salaries are capped (nurses have a better union).
6. Caps are placed on the cost of drugs and medical equipment. The lefties cheer as the government sticks it to the man.
7. Americas best doctors "opt out" of the government system and set up shop as private, for profit, entities. The best hospitals follow.
8. Drug companies slash R&D to keep up with increases in costs from litigation and the cap on sales. This is followed by the inevitable chapter 7 bankruptcy. Medical equipment follows.
9. Government steps up to fix the new and unforeseeable health care crisis and makes all health care providers still in the system government employees. Under the new program, costs soar and the deficit skyrockets.
10. Mediocre doctors and hospitals join the elite.
11. The benevolent government faces a new challenge as 50% of the socialized health care spend is due to litigation. It seems that the bottom of the barrel doctors make teensy weensy mistakes.
Posted by: Greg | January 11, 2010 11:10 AM
America’s Elitists and Obamacare
Ever get the feeling that those people in Congress just don’t get it?
I don’t just mean they don’t get the idea of why they are there in the first place, to represent their various constituencies and to create legislation that serves the best interests of the nation. They surely don’t get that.
I mean that, for the most part, although they technically represent us, they seem different, above it all, as if they exist in another sphere, on another plane.
Every two or six years they descend to the commoners’ level to troll for votes from the democratic masses, when they rub elbows with the hoi polloi, glad-hand some few select constituents, bestow uninvited, germ-laden kisses on a few babies to demonstrate they’re just your average guys and gals, and then probably lather on the Purell and gargle Listerine after they’re ushered into their limos.
Infatuated with wealth, F. Scott Fitzgerald famously said, “The rich are different from you and me” to his sometimes buddy Ernest Hemingway who gently corrected him with the rejoinder, “Yes, they have more money.”
Both writers were correct.
With some few exceptions, our elected leaders also have more money than the rest of us and, yes, they are different from you and me as a result.
Recently, CNBC featured a slideshow report on “The Richest Members of the US Congress” based on research conducted by the Center for Responsive Politics which determined that there were 237 millionaires in Congress, out of 435 members of the House and 100 senators: http://bit.ly/1ficst
My math-challenged brain computes that 44.3% of our D.C. representatives have a net worth above 7 figures, many vastly above 7 figures, a few well above 9 digits. Of the remaining 298 congresspeople, I think it would be fair to guesstimate . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1422)
Posted by: Berlet98 | January 12, 2010 2:23 AM