Pat Allen: The View from Right Field

Health Insurance: Just Another Decision the Government Will Make for Us

As I said on February 11, there was an easy solution for the Obama administration if they really thought providing free contraception services is critical to women’s health:  Have the government provide it.  If it would be too expensive to provide free contraception services to all women, how about “birth control stamps” for those who can’t otherwise afford it?  Obviously, some Catholics (and other people) would oppose the government doing this, but at least we wouldn’t be forcing them, either directly or indirectly through the sham of some insurance company providing it for “free,” to pay for it, other than as part of their general taxes.

Some might argue that such a program would not pass Congress, but if that is true, why should the executive branch institute such a policy all by itself?  Which is, actually, one of the problems with Obamacare: No choice.  For an administration that is all about choice when it comes to having babies or alternative lifestyles, the Obama administration sure doesn’t want to let people choose when it comes to healthcare and health insurance.  In fact, you have to wonder if that isn’t at least one of the reasons for the unpopularity of Obamacare.

I certainly understand the very big concern about the constitutionality of a law forcing people to buy a product from a private company or be fined by the government.  I understand why some people feel, as has been argued, that if the federal government can force you to buy health insurance, what is there the government can’t force you to buy – or do?

But there is also a concern about the limited choices there will be with respect to the insurance people have to buy.  While the private health insurance market is not all that developed today, because so many people get health insurance where they work, there are still lots of choices.  You can buy plans that provide full coverage for all kinds of illnesses and conditions.  You can include dental coverage if you want; or exclude it if you want.  You can have your health insurance cover some drugs, all drugs, or no drugs at all.  You can even buy a policy that provides just only catastrophic coverage.  You pay, for example, the first $5,000 of medical expenses in a year, and the insurance company pays all the rest.  The insurance is fairly inexpensive, and if all you need is coverage for a major problem, it could be exactly what you want.

But when President Obama’s healthcare “exchanges” come into existence in 2014, people aren’t going to have those kinds of choices.   There may be more than one company offering policies, but the policies are going to be pretty much all the same.  They are going to cover everything – and more – and they are going to be very expensive.  And people are going to have to buy them even if they don’t want that much coverage.

Because the Obama administration doesn’t want to let people choose.  In some ways it’s like the Democrats who don’t like vouchers and other programs that let parents choose what school their children go to.  They don’t think parents are smart enough to know what school is best for their children.  Experts need to make the decisions, not parents.

And so it is with the health insurance people will have to buy.  Liberals think they know what kind of health insurance people should have – and liberals are going to make them buy it, whether they want it or not.  It reminds me of a conversation we had with a young couple in East Germany in 1982.  We told them that, in the United States, people could decide whether or not they wanted to buy health insurance for themselves.  The woman noted that in East Germany one did not have such decisions to make.  She said that the government made those decisions for people so they did not need to worry about making mistakes. 

Which is the way it seems to be moving in the United States – and the way it will continue to move if Barack Obama is re-elected in November.  The government in Washington will decide things for us.  Because they are (or, they think they are) the experts, and they know better than we do what is good for us.  And they will decide for us – so we do not need to worry about making mistakes.

A Couple of Comments on Ryan Braun

First, Ryan Braun is not guilty of taking performance enhancing drugs.  While we will not know the exact reason for the arbitrator’s decision until he issues a written opinion, that is, in effect, what he said.  If we are going to take the arbitrator’s decision when he says athletes did take drugs, why don’t we take his decision when he decides the other way?

Second, Major League Baseball seems incensed by the decision, which makes no sense to me unless they think their drug testing system is absolutely perfect and never, ever makes a mistake.  But nothing in this world is perfect, and people do make mistakes.  How does major league baseball know this wasn’t the time a mistake was made?

Speaking of which, if MLB’s system is perfect, how did the results of Ryan Braun’s test leak out?  Wasn't it supposed to be announced only after any appeals?  So why did we find out before that?  Does that mean the system isn’t perfect?  And if it’s not perfect in this way, in terms of secrecy, how do we know it’s perfect in the other way; i.e., in terms of the results of the tests?  Also, where was MLB’s apology to Ryan Braun for the leak of the results?  Did I miss that?

Finally, I would be a lot more impressed by Bud Selig’s outrage at this decision if it had not taken him so long to speak out on the issue of drugs in baseball.  I understand that MLB couldn’t institute a drug testing regime without consent of the players union, but did that mean Mr. Selig couldn’t take a public position?  The problem of drugs in baseball was obvious to a lot of people for a long time before the commissioner or the owners said anything.  Their self-righteousness now is a little late.

Gas Prices Are High and President Obama Seems Worried

On Thursday President Obama complained that Republicans would be trying to take political advantage of the recent spike in gasoline prices (something the President would never do if the situation was reversed) and that the Republicans’ only energy plan was to “drill, drill, and keep drilling.”* Of course that’s not true, and the President knows it is not true, so I don’t know why he said it. But in any case, the fact that more drilling won’t solve the whole problem, doesn’t mean more drilling isn’t part of the solution.

But then Democrats also say that more drilling won’t help because it will take five years for the oil from the new drilling to reach the market. I could not tell whether President Obama used this line yesterday, but it is a common statement by anti-drilling Democrats (which is most of them).

In fact, I remember the Democrats using this argument in the summer of 2008 in response to Republican calls for more drilling at that time. President Bush wanted to allow more drilling on federal lands, but the Democrats wouldn’t allow it. We were visiting our daughter in Washington in August of that year. The Republicans in the House wanted to have a debate on energy – and on drilling. But Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic Speaker of the House (but not a democratic Speaker of the House), wouldn’t allow it. She locked the doors of the House chamber and shut off all the lights (except emergency lighting), microphones, C-SPAN cameras, etc. She shut down everything she could. But that didn’t stop the Republicans. They let people enter the House chamber through the Republican cloakroom, the one door Speaker Pelosi couldn’t lock, and they talked to the American people about energy. And while the Republicans were talking about energy inside the House, the Democrats were outside saying how drilling wouldn’t help because it would take five years for the oil to get to market.

Well, that was three and one-half years ago. If we had started drilling then, the oil wouldn’t be here yet, but it would be here in the summer of 2013. And that is not all that long from now.

Obviously, more drilling won’t solve our energy problems by itself. But more drilling will reduce our dependence on foreign energy. And to the extent more oil comes from the United States (and other stable countries), the whole world will be better off.

Also, while starting more drilling today won’t do these things now, the quicker we start, the quicker they will happen. And if we never start, we will continue to be more dependent on foreign sources of oil than we need to be, and we will continue to be more dependent than necessary on places that nobody wants to be dependent on.

-------
* This is actually a paraphrase of what the President said. The full quote is as follows:

"‘You can bet that since it's an election year, they're already dusting off their three-point plans for $2 gas. I'll save you the suspense: Step one is to drill, step two is to drill, and step three is to keep drilling. ... We've heard the same thing for thirty years. Well, the American people aren't stupid.’"

Obama’s Corporate Tax Plan Is So Good, We Ought To Do It for Individuals, Too

The Obama administration has proposed lowering the corporate tax rate from 35% to 28% while, at the same time, getting rid of “dozens” of special tax breaks and deductions.

Three comments on the plan. First, I think it’s great. Lowering rates and broadening the tax base is a great idea. It even has the potential, if done right, to increase tax revenues while lowering marginal rates.

Second, I hope the Obama administration does not reduce the benefits from getting rid of a lot of special interest tax breaks and deductions by replacing the old ones with new ones aimed at President Obama’s special favorites. Articles here and here list some new tax breaks that President Obama wants to grant. That is not a good sign. Just moving the tax breaks around like a giant shell game doesn’t help. We need to actually get rid of them – and keep them gone.

Third, the Administration’s plan to lower corporate income tax rates and eliminate special tax breaks is such a good idea, they ought to do it for personal income taxes, too.

A final comment on tax reform: I have mentioned before, in posts on President Obama’s desire to raise tax rates on the “rich” (i.e., couples making more than $250,000 a year and individuals making more than $200,000 a year), that the rich, and especially the really rich, won’t wind up paying all of those extra taxes the Obama administration thinks it will collect. The rich will rearrange their finances and how they get their income to minimize their taxes under the new rates. And the richer they are, the better they’ll do because they can afford the best tax lawyers and accountants.

Now, at the same time the Administration wants to increase personal income tax rates, it is proposing to cut corporate income tax rates. Which makes it clear one of the ways the rich, and especially the really rich, will avoid those higher personal income tax rates: Instead of taking income personally, they will rearrange things so that more of their income is in corporations, which pay a lower rate. Back when the top personal income tax rates were 50% and more, people arranged their affairs so they got less of their income personally and more of their income in corporations. When personal tax rates came down, this was no longer necessary. It became easier just to take income personally. If President Obama gets his way, the reverse will happen.

Should President Obama Be Using His Family In Campaign Ads?

According to an article in The Washington Post:

“A new Internet ad by the president’s reelection campaign features a portrait of the first family asking supporters to ‘help the Obamas stand up for working Americans.’ …

In the months to come, political strategists expect to see the first family used as a political asset. …

‘The value of the family is enormous,’ said Democratic pollster Celinda Lake. ‘The more you know this family and the more you think of Barack Obama in these terms, the harder it is to vilify him.’

During his presidency, Obama’s children have rarely been featured in such an overtly political way. He has been pointed about leaving family members, especially his children, out of politics.”

While I understand why President Obama may decide to include his wife, and children, in campaign ads, it is unfortunate. If somebody is used as “a political asset,” they are going to be viewed as a political target. I agree with President Obama that family members, especially children, should be left out of politics. But if you think they should be left out, then you need to leave them out.

The Incredible Story of a 60-Person 30-Kidney Donation Chain

See Tom Maguire's "JustOneMinute" and The New York Times for the story of a 60-person, 30-kidney donation chain.  Please read it.  It's incredible what one person can do.

President Obama’s Budget: “It’s Not How Much You Cut the Deficit; It’s How Much You Increase the Debt”

President Obama is talking about how much his budget plan will, through increased taxes and supposed savings in federal spending, reduce the deficits in the next few years.  But his claims miss the real point. 

Even with the U.S. out of Iraq and leaving Afghanistan, and assuming the Bush tax cuts are allowed to expire for the “rich,” the three things which Democrats have said were the main cause for the huge deficits since President Obama took office, the Obama budget plan for the next ten years would increase the national debt from $15.3 trillion to $25.9 trillion.

In other words:  It’s not how much you cut the deficit; it’s how much you increase the debt.

President Obama’s Defense Budget: “You Can’t Use What You Can’t Afford to Lose”

The Obama administration’s plan for the Defense Department involves much less spending.  When Robert Gates was Defense Secretary, he went after unnecessary weapons systems in order to save money for other, better uses.  But even with all of the cuts Secretary Gates made, President Obama is proposing more cuts.  Secretary Gates cut the F-22 because we had the F-35.  Now the Obama administration is slowing down the production of F-35s.  And the Navy is shrinking, too.

Which brings me to my point:  When it comes to defense, you not only need quality, you need quantity.  Because if you don’t have enough of something so that you can afford to lose some of them, then you can’t use them – or you will be forced to use them in ways that limit their effectiveness.

In other words: You can’t use what you can’t afford to lose.

Paul Sullivan on the Cubs’ Top Five Issues

In today’s Chicago Tribune, Paul Sullivan says that “[Starlin] Castro’s erratic defense and focus is one of the five issues facing the Cubs.”  I wonder.  Certainly Starlin’s defense needs some work and he needs to focus all the time, but he’s 22 years old and has hit .300 his first two years in the National League. 

The Cubs have lots of issues, as Mr. Sullivan notes, but is Starlin Castro’s defense (and focus) one of top five – or even top ten?  If the Cubs had a few more issues like Starlin Castro, they’d be going to the World Series this year.

Tim Geithner to Paul Ryan: We Don’t Have a Plan. “What We Do Know Is We Don’t Like Yours.”

The whole exchange is here, but to sum it up, Treasury Secretary Geithner makes it very clear that the Obama budget plan only stabilizes the budget deficit for the next ten years (assuming everything goes according to plan, which it often doesn’t*).  After that, the deficit and the debt takes off like crazy, and Secretary Geithner, in speaking to Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan, admits that the Obama administration does not have a plan for dealing with it:

“We're not coming before you to say we have a definitive solution to our long-term problem. What we do know is we don't like yours.”

--------
* And it “stabilizes” the deficit at too high a level, in my opinion.

What Would Voltaire Say About Forcing Religious Institutions to Violate Their Principles

Voltaire famously said, “I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it.”

Trying to fit this idea into the current controversy as to whether religious institutions should be forced to include, in health insurance plans they provide to their employees, coverage(s) which are contrary to their religious beliefs, I came up with this:

“I do not agree with your religious principals, but I will defend your right* to not provide a health insurance plan that violates your religious principles.”

Unfortunately, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center earlier this month, 44% of Americans who have heard about the issue, said that, even if a religious institution objects to contraception on the basis of its religious principles, it should still have to provide contraception in its health plan.  I guess we don’t have many Voltaires today.  But at least we have the First Amendment.

--------
* “To the death” probably doesn’t fit today.

Carlos Zambrano – Mostly the Cubs Fault

I realize that this probably seems like piling on, but a short article in today’s Chicago Tribune explains exactly what was wrong with the prior Chicago Cubs management.  Here is Ozzie Guillen on how he will handle Carlos Zambrano:

“Marlins manager Ozzie Guillen says he won’t tolerate Carlos Zambrano’s misbehavior.  He can smash all the water coolers he wants.  What Guillen won’t abide are physical confrontations (see Michael Barrett) and disrespect.

‘Is Carlos going to hit one of my players? No,’ Guillen said.  ‘If you’re going to talk about your teammates, be ready for the biggest fight because I will fight you.  You will kick my butt because I’m old and out of shape, but I will give you a good fight.

‘I know Carlos better than anybody.  I expect Carlos to be upset and throw Gatorade coolers.  Please do.  Don’t hurt anybody.’”*

This is what the prior Cubs baseball management never got right.  Carlos beat up on Michael Barrett.  Barrett got traded and Carlos got a five-year contract extension.

In 2004 players were allowed to, effectively, run the Cubs TV broadcasters out of town because management (whether the manager or the general manager) either could not or would not stop the players from ripping on the broadcasters for criticizing (i.e., telling the truth) about the team.

I don’t know if Tom Ricketts saw this problem with the Cubs prior baseball management.  Let’s hope Theo Epstein gets it right.

---------
* “Guillen gives ‘Z’ the score,” Chicago Tribune (print edition), February 17, 2012.

Cubs Projected Batting Order For 2012

According to Carrie Muskat at Cubs.com, here is the Cubs’ projected batting order for 2012:

1. RF David DeJesus:
    .240 BA, .323 OBP, .376 SLG, 10 HR, 46 RBI in 2011
2. 2B Darwin Barney:
    .276 BA, .313 OBP, .353 SLG, 2 HR, 43 RBI in 2011
3. SS Starlin Castro:
    .307 BA, .341 OBP, .432 SLG, 10 HR, 66 RBI in 2011
4. 1B Bryan LaHair:
    .288 BA, .377 OBP, .508 SLG, 2 HR, 6 RBI in 2011
5. CF Marlon Byrd:
    .276 BA, .324 OBP, .395 SLG, 9 HR, 35 RBI in 2011
6. LF Alfonso Soriano:
    .244 BA, .289 OBP, .469 SLG, 26 HR, 88 RBI in 2011
7. 3B Ian Stewart:
    .156 BA, .243 OBP, .221 SLG, 0 HR, 6 RBI in 2011
8. C Geovany Soto:
    .228 BA, .310 OBP, .411 SLG, 17 HR, 54 RBI in 2011

Oh my gosh.  Look at some of those OBPs.  And Bryan LaHair batting clean-up?   It could be, in the words of Jim Brosnan, a “Long Season.”  Unless ... 

President Obama Complains About Obstructionist Republicans. What About the Do-Nothing Democratic Senate?

President Obama has made it pretty clear he is going to run for re-election against the obstructionist Republicans in Congress.  Or maybe even, the obstructionist Republican Congress.  Of course, that last phrasing is a bit of a problem since the Democrats control the Senate.  (Harry Reid is, after all {and unfortunately}, the Majority Leader.)  But I don’t think it will interfere with the President’s campaign rhetoric.

What makes it interesting is that it is Harry Reid who has said the Senate will not be passing a budget this year.  Senator Reid claims that passing a budget resolution is not necessary because the debt-limit increase passed last August did the job:

“[Senator] Reid and [Senator Charles] Schumer [D-NY] said the outline already exists and an overall spending level is agreed to for the fiscal 2013 bills. The [Senate Appropriations] committee will divide up $1.047 trillion in discretionary spending, with roughly half headed for the Defense Department.” 

However, a real budget resolution is supposed to do a lot more than just set an overall spending limit on discretionary spending:

“A budget resolution is a broad budget framework that sets priorities for spending and taxes.  It guides how much will be spent and where spending should be allocated among government programs such as national defense, transportation, welfare, Medicare, and so on. … It charts the budget course in a rational, coherent way for all the spending and tax bills that follow.

The BCA [Budget Control Act]* was never more than a poor substitute for a budget resolution – a rushed, eleventh-hour ‘solution’ to a manufactured debt ceiling crisis.  Its cap on discretionary budget authority affects only about one-third of total spending, and it is riddled with deliberate loopholes that make the limit all but meaningless.  Apart from that, the BCA contained a requirement for a ‘super committee’ to identify at least $1.2 trillion for additional deficit reduction.  That process has failed, triggering a crude enforcement procedure that now threatens devastating cuts in defense spending and must be rewritten.”

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has said that passing a budget resolution is important for the economy and that not having a budget is bad for growth.  But Senator Reid disagrees; he doesn’t think a budget is necessary; it’s already been done.  Of course, the real reason Senator Reid doesn’t want to pass a budget has nothing to do with whether the Budget Control Act is a sufficient substitute for a formal budget resolution or whether Chairman Bernanke thinks it a budget would be good for the economy.  It’s because Senator Reid doesn’t want to force Democratic senators who are up for re-election to cast tough votes that might hurt their chances in November.  In other words, it has nothing to do with what’s good for the country and everything to do with what’s good for re-electing Democrats. 

And the President, at least based on what his press secretary has said, agrees with Senator Reid:

“I have no opinion — the White House has no opinion on Chairman Bernanke’s assessment of how the Senate ought to do its business.”

Now this is a President who has an opinion on all kinds of things.  He fills out an NCAA bracket every March, he lectured the United States Supreme Court on how it should decide its cases on nationwide TV during a State of the Union address, and he will be campaigning this fall on all of the problems caused by the do-nothing Republicans in the Congress.  But when it comes to whether the Democratic Senate should pass a budget resolution, something that Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke says would be a good thing for the economy, he doesn’t have an opinion.

---------
* The Budget Control Act was the official name of the bill passed in August of last year to raise the national debt ceiling.

President Obama Accommodates Catholics – By Making Big Insurance Companies Pay

Here is the latest on the controversy over the Obama administration’s new regulations that require religious organizations, except actual churches, to provide birth control/contraception coverage under any health insurance programs that they provide to their employees:

“The White House has given reporters the rundown on the ‘accommodations’ that President Obama will announce on the health reform law’s requirements for hospitals run by faith-based groups to cover the costs of employees’ contraceptives. Here’s how it works.

As it stands, church-run hospitals are required to cover contraceptives at no cost to employees. A slew of Catholic groups have opposed that requirement. So on Friday, the White House rolled out a new rule, where insurance companies, rather than faith-based agencies, will offer birth-control coverage directly to these employees and foot the bill.

‘If a charity, hospital or another organization has an objection to the policy going forward, insurance companies will be required to reach out to directly offer contraceptive care free of charge,’ one administration official explained. …

The administration thinks this is a good deal for insurance companies since the economics tend to work in their favor.  Numerous studies have shown that covering contraceptives is revenue-neutral, as such preventive measures can lower the rate of pregnancies down the line. Pregnancy and childbirth coverage is, of course, much more expensive.”

Except that what the Administration is proposing doesn’t work.  Maybe providing contraceptives is no more expensive than covering pregnancy and childbirth, but requiring insurance companies to provide contraceptives for free because they won’t have to pay for the additional pregnancies and births that would supposedly otherwise occur only works if the insurance company has already factored in those additional pregnancies and births in its pricing to begin with, which, of course, it hasn’t.  What the insurance company included in its pricing was contraception.  But religious organizations don’t want to pay for contraception (for legitimate religious reasons), so the amount they pay to the insurance company goes down.  It has to go down, or the religious organizations would be paying the same amount for less coverage, which makes no sense. 

So where does the insurance company get the money to pay for the contraceptives that it now has to provide for free?  It doesn’t get them from additional pregnancies that supposedly don’t happen because it never priced those pregnancies in its coverage in the first place.  It priced in contraceptives, but now it isn’t getting paid for those – even though it still has to provide them.

Let me give an example.  A hospital has 100 employees.  Half of them are women.  On average three of the women would get pregnant in any year and ten of the women would use contraceptives.  The insurance company prices the health plan for the hospital, including both childbirth coverage and contraceptives, based on these averages. 

But this hospital is Catholic and it cannot, in line with its religious beliefs, provide contraceptive coverage to its employees.  So it tells the insurance company it does not want to provide that contraceptive coverage to its employees.  And since it is not providing that coverage, it doesn’t want to pay for it. 

But now, the government comes in and tells the insurance company that it has to provide contraceptives to hospital employees free of charge even though the hospital doesn’t have to pay for them.  The Administration says that this is okay for the insurance company because providing contraception costs less than the childbirths that it would otherwise have to pay for.  Except that the insurance company didn’t price those births into its policy.  What it priced into its policy was contraceptives.  But the hospital didn’t want the contraceptive coverage and wouldn’t pay for it.  And now the insurance company has to provide the contraceptive coverage even though it’s not getting paid for either the contraceptives or the alleged extra births it is supposedly avoiding by giving away free contraceptives.

Actually, under the Obama administration’s theory, the insurance company shouldn’t charge the Catholic hospital less even though the insurance company is not providing contraceptive coverage because, without contraceptive coverage, there would supposedly be more births.

Also, a point I saw here:  Some big private employers “self-insure” the health coverage they provide to their employees (mine does), and they just hire an insurance company to administer the program, i.e., to handle the paperwork.  If a big religious hospital chain self-insures its health coverage, who provides the contraceptives in that case?  The insurance company which was hired to just handle the paperwork?

Actually, if the Obama administration thinks that free contraceptives are a great idea, there is simple solution.  The government should provide them and raise general taxes to pay for the program.  That would be honest and above board.  And religious groups wouldn’t have an objection – or at least the objection they have today.  But the Obama administration doesn’t want to do that way.  They want to hide the cost.  So instead of the government providing it, the Obama administration passes a regulation saying that private employers have to provide the coverage and that when they won’t, the big insurance companies have to provide it – for “free”.

Another Court Decides for Gay Marriage

As you know by now, on Tuesday the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco struck down a voter-approved amendment to the California constitution which banned gay marriages.  I am going to make a quick comment on the ruling, even though I haven’t read the whole opinion.  (It is probably not a good idea to do this, but I am going to do it anyway.)

According to the opinion of the Court of Appeals:

“Proposition 8 [the popular name of the amendment to the California constitution] serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially reclassify their relationship and families as inferior to those of opposite-sex couples.”

Obviously, that is not true.  The 52% of the people who voted for the amendment did not do so because they wanted to degrade gays and lesbians and take away their human dignity.  Maybe a few of them did, but all of them?  If this is what all 52% of the people voting for this proposition really thought, then any sensible person, even one who isn’t in favor of gay marriage but has no interest in degrading and humiliating gays and lesbians, ought to move out of California immediately because it would mean California is mainly populated by some really mean-spirited, evil people.  Including, I might add, the California Supreme Court, which upheld Proposition 8 after it was approved by the voters, by a vote of 6 to 1.

Actually, it would appear the judge who wrote this opinion did not strike down Proposition 8 because it did the things listed in the quotation above.  Rather, he said Proposition 8 did these things because he wanted to strike it down.  In other words, it would seem the decision to strike Proposition 8 down came first; the justification for doing so came later.  Which is not how courts are supposed to decide things.

Did Barack Obama Help Rick Santorum?

In January, the Obama administration issued final regulations under Obamacare that require religious organizations, not including actual churches but including colleges, hospitals, social service agencies, etc., run by religious organizations to provide birth control coverage under the health insurance programs that they provide to their employees – even if such practices go against the doctrine and beliefs of the religious organization.  In other words, among other situations, Catholic hospitals have to provide birth control coverage in any health insurance plans they provide to their employees.

Yesterday Rick Santorum surprised everyone with how well he did in Minnesota, Missouri and, especially, Colorado.  One cannot help but think that the Obama administration’s issuance of these regulations increased the support for Mr. Santorum. 

Carlos Zambrano and "A True Nightmare by Ross Allen"

This is a good post - and a nightmare I hope never comes true:

http://pitchersandpoets.com/2012/02/08/a-true-nightmare-by-ross-allen/

President Obama Says Jesus Wants the Rich to Pay More Taxes

In his campaign speech at the National Prayer Breakfast last week, President Obama explained how his Christian faith supported his calls for higher taxes on the rich:

“And I think to myself, if I'm willing to give something up as somebody who's been extraordinarily blessed, and give up some of the tax breaks that I enjoy, I actually think that's going to make economic sense.

But for me as a Christian, it also coincides with Jesus’ teaching that ‘for unto whom much is given, much shall be required.’”

I think that President Obama should be a little careful about using Jesus quite so prominently in his call for the rich to pay more taxes.  I say this because President Obama wants the government to force the rich to pay more by raising their taxes.  But I don’t recall Jesus ever calling on Caesar to raise taxes.  Instead, Jesus called on people to give more.  And giving more money to the government voluntarily is not something I have heard the President – or Mr. Buffett – ask their fellow billionaires and millionaires to do.

Leaving Afghanistan

I see that we are leaving Afghanistan earlier than expected, and possibly before the job is done, and that Defense Secretary Panetta told the news media before we told our allies.*  The latter is somewhat similar to what we did back in 2009, when we abandoned the ABM system we were planning against missiles from Iran and other such countries.  Important parts of the system were to be located in Poland and the Czech Republic, and the governments in those countries had taken huge political risks by agreeing to participate.  But we just changed our mind and too bad for them.**  (A couple more things like this, and we’ll need that "Reset button" for our friends.)

Basically, it appears that Afghanistan just isn’t that important to President Obama any more.  Or at least it isn’t as important as it was back in 2008 when he could use the “good war” of Afghanistan to beat up the Republicans in comparison to the “bad war” of Iraq.

I certainly understand that relations with Afghani President Karzai are not good, but diplomacy was where the Obama administration was supposed to be so much better than George W. Bush.  And if President Karzai was elected in a corrupt election, why didn’t we do more to make sure the Afghani presidential election in August of 2009 was honestly run?

In any case, the Administration says we can cut back in Afghanistan because we are succeeding.  Things do appear to be getting better in some parts of Afghanistan, but I doubt we are “succeeding” enough to justify the cutbacks that President Obama seems to want, both in terms of the number of troops in Afghanistan and what they should be doing.  It would be great if the Afghani forces were ready by next year to allow U.S. troops to switch to a purely advisory role, but I don’t think many people believe they will be.  And if we try to turn the fighting over to the Afghanis before they are ready, the result won’t be good.

But President Obama also says that we have to cut back in Afghanistan because we need to spend the money at home.  No, that’s wrong.  If we need to be in Afghanistan, we have enough money to be there.  Defense comes first, not last.  If our defense requires it, we can do it – if we want to.

Which brings me back to where I started.  As I said above, when President Obama was running for president, he would compare the “good war” of Afghanistan with the “bad war” in Iraq.  When he first came into office, he sent more troops to Afghanistan, and he affirmed the counterinsurgency strategy we had belatedly started to implement in Afghanistan.  Later in 2009 year, after a very long further review of our policy in Afghanistan, President Obama once again affirmed the counterinsurgency strategy, and he sent more troops to Afghanistan for a surge.  But this time he hesitated a little.   He didn’t send as many troops as were requested, and he announced when they would be coming home at the same time he said they were going.  This was a little unusual.  The idea of counterinsurgency operations is to protect the people.  But here was President Obama telling both the Afghani people we were going to protect and the enemy we were going to protect them from, when the protection was going to end.  There was a disconnect between those that I have yet to figure out.

But now, we are apparently done with counterinsurgency operations (based on the President’s defense budget for next year), and we are coming home from Afghanistan, apparently even faster than we previously said (or at least faster than we led people to believe).  Which makes me wonder why we did all that we did in Afghanistan over the last 2-1/2 years if we are leaving now in what seems like a bit of a rush, and regardless of whether we have accomplished what we set out to do.

So why are we leaving now?  Is President Obama tired of Afghanistan?  I understand why the American people have gotten tired of Afghanistan, especially when the Administration hasn’t spent much time explaining why what we are doing there is important.  But presidents are not supposed to give up just because they are tired.  Certainly, the American people got tired of Obamacare, but the President didn’t stop on that one.  Why is Afghanistan different?  If it was important to be there before, why is it not important now?

And don’t tell me it’s because the job is almost done.  As I said before, nobody really believes that.  Don’t tell me it’s because Navy SEALs killed Osama Bin Laden.  Hiding out like he was, he couldn’t have been providing real leadership to Al Qaeda for years.  Certainly, when George W. Bush was president, there were plenty of Democrats willing to say that killing Osama Bin Laden was all that important.  I can’t believe that they changed their mind just because we have a Democrat in the White House.

So why are we leaving now?  I don’t want to be cynical, but I almost wonder if it’s just that President Obama doesn’t care about Afghanistan now that it’s not an issue to use against President Bush.  Or maybe he really didn’t know what was going on in Afghanistan when he was running for president, and it has taken him three years to decide what he wants to do.

Whatever the reason for our leaving, and the clumsy way we are doing it (or at least announced it), if we are leaving before the job we promised to do id done, the results will not be good – either for the people of Afghanistan or for the United States.

---------
* Adam Entous, “Panetta Draws Fire Over Afghanistan Shift,” The Wall Street Journal, February 3, 2012.

** Marc Champion and Peter Spiegel, “U.S. Missile U-Turn Roils Allies,” The Wall Street Journal, September 18, 2009; “Obama’s Missile Offense,” The Wall Street Journal, September 18, 2009.