United Liberty

Despite backing Mitt Romney for the GOP nomination in 2008, Sen. Jim DeMint says he won’t do so again unless the former Massachusetts Governor apologizes for the health insurance reform law - known as RomneyCare - that he still defends:

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) “would never consider” endorsing former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney for president again in 2012 unless Romney repudiates the health reforms he sought as governor, a source close to DeMint said Thursday.

A source close to the conservative icon emphasized that, despite comments to The Hill indicating that Romney shouldn’t shoulder all the political blame for the Massachusetts healthcare plan, DeMint wouldn’t endorse Romney again unless he admits the plan was mistaken.

“It’s obvious Jim was just trying to be nice to the guy he backed over McCain, as many conservatives did in 2008,” the source said. “But he would never consider backing Romney again unless he admits that his Massachusetts healthcare plan was a colossal mistake.”

DeMint says that Romney shouldn’t shoulder all the blame for it. I think he should since, as noted, Romney suggests to this day that his plan is a free market alternative and he defends the individual mandate - also a central part of ObamaCare.

As Jeff Jacoby notes, RomneyCare has been a disaster:

At the beginning of the year, our own Zach Holiday noted that PolitiFact’s “Lie of the Year” really wasn’t a lie. Michael Cannon presented his case against the “fact-checking” website as well, noting that there is no difference in “a public system where the government taxes and spends your money, and a ‘private’ system where the government forces you to spend your money in the same way.”

Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) apparently didn’t get the memo from PolitiFact as he called ObamaCare a “platform” for bringing a single-payer system to the United States:

Conyers is just the latest Democrat to recognize that ObamaCare is the vehicle that will be used to do away with private health insurance.

Few things in life confound me more than the propensity of the political left to put unbridled faith in the government’s ability to make wise decisions for us all, while simultaneously treating purveyors of goods and services on the free market as if they were shady characters lurking in some beer bottle strewn, garbage littered back alley, just waiting to take advantage of the unsuspecting traveler lost and wandering into the wrong side of town.

In the free market, those who provide goods and services must do so (theoretically, at least…pretending big business and big government don’t collude to rig the market to the advantage of those willing to pay) by providing those goods or services with a level of quality superior to those of their competitors at a given price point. And because businesses are subject to the profit motive, they must constantly work to become more efficient and innovative than their competitors. If they fail to do so, they lose market share, which means they lose money, which means they go out of business. Many companies that were once king of the hill have fallen by the wayside, victims to more innovative upstarts. Remember Eastern Airlines, Atari video games, American Motor Company, Rich’s, Datsun, Woolworth’s, KB Toys and Enron? All were once major players in their markets, and all are now nowhere to be found.

The process of “creative destruction”, by which the existing economic order is constantly churned by the very nature of free market dynamics, is what drives the rapid advances in technology and efficiency. Oddly enough, the concept of creative destruction finds its roots in Marxist economic theory, tracing back to Karl Marx’s The Communist Manifesto and later Das Kapital. Of course, Marx saw the concept as negative, preferring the economy to be managed by a powerful central government directing the lives of its citizens by force.

While the House passed a three week Continuing Resolution on Tuesday - you can see the roll call vote here - to keep the government running and avoid a shut down, there are more signs that Senate Republicans are going to force the Obama Administration to deal with stronger cuts; including entitlements:

Twenty-two Republicans senators are threatening to vote against raising the debt ceiling later this year unless the president concedes to cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid in the current budget negotiations.

“Strong leadership is needed now to advance possible solutions to ensure that our entitlement programs can serve both current and future generations. Without action to begin addressing the deficit, it will be difficult, if not impossible, for us to support a further increase in the debt ceiling,” wrote Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.) in the letter, obtained by POLITICO.
[…]
But the group of almost two dozen GOP senators are withholding their vote to raise the debt ceiling until, as Coats writes, President Barack Obama exhibits the same leadership that former President Ronald Reagan and then House Speaker Tip O’Neill in 1983 when they tackled Social Security reform.

“A similar show of leadership from you and from congressional leaders of both parties is necessary to address the long-term challenges facing our country,” wrote the GOP senators.

A week after Judge Roger Vinson issued a stay of his own ruling on the unconstitutionality of ObamaCare, the Obama Administration has filed for an expedited review of the case with the Eleventh District Court of Appeals in Atlanta:

The Obama administration has asked a Florida court to hurry up and decide on its appeal of an order that declared the health care law unconstitutional.

The Justice Department filed a motion in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals for an expedited review of the administration’s appeal, filed on Tuesday.

The department says it has also sought expedited appellate review of rulings made in the 4th Circuit in Virginia and the 6th Circuit in Michigan.

U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson ruled on January 31 that the mandate requiring just about everyone to buy health insurance was unconstitutional, which made the entire law unworkable. The case was brought by 26 states.

Politico reports that the appeal would begin rolling out next month, assuming the calendar is accepted by the 11th Circuit:

The Justice Department proposed that its appeal brief would be due April 18. The 26 states and National Federation of Independent Business would have a month to respond. The Justice Department’s final response would be due June 1.

Brad Joondeph, a Santa Clara University professor who is following the suits, said the schedule could lead to oral arguments in late June or early July.

Jon Bruning, the Attorney General in Nebraska and a Republican candidate for United States Senate, is running a great web ad hitting Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) for his support of ObamaCare and the Cornhusker Kickback:

According to a poll released earlier this month, Nelson trails Bruning by double-digits in a potential match up in 2012, 50% to 39% with 11% undecided. The poll shows that 50% of Nebraskans disapprove of Nelson’s job performance.

There’s an email that’s been circulating for a little while now.  This email proposes a new amendment to the Constitution.  It doesn’t sound like a bad idea either, but here’s the email so you can judge it for yourself.

This will take less than thirty seconds to read.  If you agree, please pass it on.

An idea whose time has come

For too long we have been too complacent about the workings of Congress. Many citizens had no idea that members of Congress could retire with the same pay after only one term, that they didn’t pay into Social Security , that they specifically exempted themselves from many of the laws they have passed (such as being exempt from any fear of prosecution for sexual harassment) while ordinary citizens must live under those laws.  The latest is to exempt themselves from the Health Care Reform that has passed…in all of its forms.  Somehow, that doesn’t seem logical.  We do not have an elite that is above the law.  I truly don’t care if they are Democrat, Republican, Independent or whatever.  The self-serving must stop.  This is a good way to do that.  It is an idea whose time has come.

Have each person contact a  minimum  of Twenty people on their Address list, in turn ask each of those to do likewise.

In three days, most people in The United States of America will have the message.  This is one proposal that really should be passed around.

Proposed 28th Amendment to the  United States  Constitution

“Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the  United States  that does not apply equally to the Senators and/or Representatives; and, Congress shall make no law that applies to the Senators and/or Representatives that does not apply equally to the citizens of the  United States ”

You are one of my 20.

President Obama recently released his proposed budget, a $3.73 trillion monstrosity that is a monument to his own arrogance and complete inability or refusal to understand the concerns of the American people. After a historic tail-whipping of his party in November, Obama decided to engage in a little rhetorical compromise, and then turned around and doubled down on the disastrous policies that have kept this country in a long recession followed by a jobless recovery.

Simply put, even if we tax the “millionaires and billionaires” at 100% of earnings, it still won’t put much more than a dent in our $14+ trillion national debt. Within a decade we’ll be spending more than $800 billion (conservatively) for interest payments on the debt, and even more if interest rates rise, which they surely will. The fact is that our road to economic recovery lies down the path to drastically reduced spending.

The problem we have as a nation is that Democrats embrace fiscal irresponsibility; a policy of tax, borrow and spend (as if we can keep borrowing to pay for lavish welfare and entitlement programs and the bill will never come due) and Republicans claim the mantle of fiscal responsibility, but engage in a policy of borrow and spend. Yes, cutting tax rates stimulates the economy, but even with increased gross revenues, spending more than you raise still leads to deficits. Republicans are half right, refusing to raise taxes, but drop the ball by not making the case for spending cuts. Republicans, fearing Democrats will demagogue them as heartless to the plight of the poor, back off of spending cuts at the first sign of trouble.

During the debate last week on spending cuts in the House of Representatives, Rep. Tom Graves (R-GA) frequently referred to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act last year as “ObamaCare,” as it is frequently called by those of us that would like to see it repealed. This upset Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), who claimed that calling the law “ObamaCare” was a violation of House rules because it is “disparaging reference to the President of the United States.”

It has been noted that the Obama Administration has effectively owned the word as they have launched a Google Ad Words campaign targeting “ObamaCare” to bring people into government websites that try to sell us on the law. So, yes, the term “ObamaCare” is appropriate to use on the House floor.

Below is a collection of several links that we didn’t get around to writing about, but still wanted to post for readers to examine. The stories typically range from news about prominent figures in the liberty movement, national politics, the nanny state, foreign policy and free markets.