Today we continue our series on the new Republican freshmen in Congress. And we look at one who has generated a lot of media coverage: Tim Scott:

http://www.votetimscott.com/about/

Much has been made about Scott becoming the first African-American elected to Congress from South Carolina since Reconstruction. That certainly deserves attention. But so does his business background:

“Tim is the owner of Tim Scott Allstate and has been awarded SC Agency Owner of the Year. He served as Co-Chairman of the Financial Services Committee of the Allstate National Advisory Board from 2004-2008. He is also a partner of Pathway Real Estate Group, LLC.”

You think Tim might have a different perspective on nationalized health care than President Obama since he’s had to pay for the health care coverage of his employees? We need more people like Tim Scott in Congress.

In the next few days our blog will be focused on the new Republican members of Congress:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/44767.html

One thing that many of these members have in common is that they come from a business background. When Obama and Biden were elected in 2008, they collectively offered zero years of experience in the business world. I believe that’s part of why we are struggling to find answers to our economy now in Washington. How can we expect political leaders to understand the business world when they’ve never worked in it?

Fortunately, many of the new Republican members have. And we’ll focus on them in the new few days.

Today we continue our series on the upcoming election. And we do so by focusing on something every voter should know: how to read a poll:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_obama_job_approval-1044.html

A lot is made about polls. But most people don’t know enough about them to judge them. Take for example the recent Newsweek poll that came out. It gave President Obama a 54-40 rating. Not bad. But here’s what you need to keep in mind: most political strategists put more faith in the cumulative polling average than any one poll. So if you click on the link above, it will take you to the realclearpolitics.com site where several polls are listed and an average is given. When you look at all the polls, you see that Newsweek is way out of sorts with the other polls. Almost all the other polls have Obama’s approval rating way below 50%. And when you average all the polls together, including Newsweek’s, you find that Obama’s overall approval average is only 46%. That’s the number you should pay attention to…not the Newsweek poll.

And if Obama is at 46% on Election Day, that spells bad news for Democrats.

This week our blog will be focusing on the unreported part of the new care law: the law of unintended consequences.

One of the major health care expenses in the federal budget is Medicaid, which is the federal assistance program from the needy. Unfortunately, while Washington was busy passing a health care law that will raise premiums for everyone else, little attention was paid to a cut in the Medicaid reiumbursement rate.

http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/health/Doctors-Threaten-to-Pull-Out-of-Texas-Medicaid-98202569.html

This is the fee the government pays to doctors who treat the poor. It’s scheduled to take place in September. And doctors in my state aren’t very happy about it:

“A survey by the Texas Medical Association, the state’s largest physicians interest group, showed that 45 percent of its members who responded said they would limit how many Medicaid patients they would treat if the Medicaid fees were cut by 1 or 2 percent, while another 24 percent said they would stop accepting any Medicaid patients.”

It may well be a good idea to reduce the Medicaid fees. But this is a discussion that should have had in public, deliberative process. And that’s not what what we’ve had in Washington lately.

The fundamental problem with the president’s response to the BP oil spill has been that he hasn’t understood that disasters like this require hands-on leadership:

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1316527220100614

Money quote from the article:

“Facing intense criticism that he has not shown enough personal leadership in the spill, Obama will seek to use his meeting with BP executives on Wednesday and his Oval office speech to show that he is on top of the crisis.”

Come again? The president will use a speech to try and solve the crisis? Unfortunately, this crisis won’t be resolved with words; it will be resolved with action.

So let me get this straight: the Obama administration is pushing for new regulations on Wall Street firms like Goldman Sachs and the Securities and Exchange Commission just so happened to file a lawsuit against…Goldman Sachs!

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/21/obama-denies-link-to-timing-of-s-e-c-case/?hp

Of course, the president assures us there is no reason to be worried:

“The S.E.C. is an entirely independent agency that we have no day-to-day control over. And they never discussed with us anything with respect to the charge that will be brought. So this notion that somehow there would be any attempt to interfere in an independent agency is completely false.”

An entirely independent agency?  Not entirely.  The agency’s leadership is appointed by the president.

Kind of makes you wonder, doesn’t it?

This week we’ll be looking at the same issue the president is: financial services regulation. But we’ll be reaching some different conclusions than he has.

Would you believe that the very regulations the president will pitch this week in New York will actually weaken the financial services industry and make bailouts more likely?

Check the blog this week to find out why.

Today we focus on the marketing of NASCAR. I’ve always been interested in marketing–how businesses market themselves to their target audiences. And few do this any better than NASCAR:

http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/stories/2006/05/29/smallb2.html

As this article puts it:

“So what has NASCAR done to be so successful? First and foremost, it understands and manages the brand. NASCAR is more than a sport; it is a lifestyle. NASCAR officials have worked hard to build both functional and emotional equities into their brand. The functional attributes include nonstop thrilling and exciting entertainment, action and teamwork. Emotional attributes include being genuine, open to all, like a big family, and athletes that are role models and down-to-earth regular people. This combination creates a powerful connection to the fans and attracts sponsors.”

These are great lessons for anyone in any business. We could all do worse than to market ourselves as well as NASCAR markets itself.

Today we conclude our series on what’s in the health care bill by looking at something that many in the media have missed: health savings accounts.

HSAs were signed into law by President Bush in 2003. They allow individuals to set-aside money into an IRA that is tax free. So, rather than pay for medical expenses with insurance, the HSA allows you to grow money tax-free and then use that money to cover whatever medical expenses you may need. Typically, individuals still purchase catastrophic insurance to pay for major medical emergencies.

HSAs seems to be working. So why would we want to scale them back? Yet that’s exactly what Obamacare does. It limits the amount of money that an individual can contribute to an HSA to $2500. That’s not nearly enough money to make HSAs work for most families, which frankly, is why that dollar amount was chosen. The creators of Obamacare don’t want people paying for their own health care with savings.

Did anyone read this bill before we made it a law?

Here is something else that is bad about the new health care law: the reforms start later; the taxes start now.

That’s because the administration deliberately set the new changes to begin after the 2012 election; but to cover the costs over a ten-year period, the administration will start their new fees and taxes immediately.

http://www.heartland.org/healthpolicy-news.org/article/27359/Obamacare_All_Pain_No_Gain.html

As the article notes:

“The 10 percent tax on tanning salons starts this year. Beginning in 2011 our drug bills will rise because of a $2.5 billion tax on name-brand drugs and removal of the tax exemption for over-the-counter drugs purchased using a Flexible Spending Account. The penalty for nonmedical Health Savings Account (HSA) distributions will also double. Seniors will begin losing benefits as a result of cuts in the Medicare program. The average Medicare Advantage Plan enrollee will lose nearly $200 in benefits in 2011—rising by a dozen times that amount ($2,437) by 2019. Seniors in traditional Medicare plans will lose only $22 in 2011, but this will rise to $1,137 by 2019.”

Again I ask: did anyone think this through before we passed this law?

Young people voted in record numbers for President Obama in 2008. In 2014, they will pay for it:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hLAMW_KTqY_JVMQF-gNn3O0_uUcQD9EOIBQO0

That’s because that’s the year all Americans will be required to purchase health insurance. According to a study by the Associated Press, young people purchasing their own health insurance on the open market will likely face an increase in their premiums of “17 percent on average, or roughly $42 a month….”

Why is this? As the article notes:

“The law relies on…young adults to shoulder more of the financial load in new health insurance risk pools. So under the new system, [young Americans] could expect to pay $300 to $500 a year more.”

In other words, to help pay for older Americans’ health care, Obamacare will make young people pay more than they are paying now. Much more.

Again I ask: did anyone think through this before we made it a law?

Uh oh. Can you say “unintended consequences”?

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gmzNv5LYXOA6UM_XmUHdOe9augtQD9ELVL3G1

So the new health care law is supposed to reduce costs, right? It won’t. Basic economics teaches that companies pass on their extra costs to others. So all the new regulations and mandates are going to get passed onto you and me in higher premiums.

But as the article above notes, even the health care coverage you get at work is going to change:

“In the first two days after the law was signed, three major companies — Deere & Co., Caterpillar Inc. and Valero Energy — said they expect to take a total hit of $265 million to account for smaller tax deductions in the future. With more than 3,500 companies now getting the tax break as an incentive to keep providing coverage, others are almost certain to announce similar cost increases in the weeks ahead as they sort out the impact of the change.”

By reducing the health care tax deductions companies can file, the federal government has inadvertently reduced the health care coverage these companies will offer.

Did anyone not think this through before passing this new law?

Today we end the week of blogs about health care by talking about one of the biggest tragedies of all in this new law: abortion.

Democrats say the new health care law will not create taxpayer funded abortion. But it will. Here is how: now that everyone will be required to purchase insurance, people will be buying all kinds of plans, including some that cover abortion services. But since many people will not be buying insurance plans with federal subsidies, in effect, the taxpayers are covering their expenses should they ever need an abortion.

The “fix” that Democrats proposed for this was for President Obama to issue an executive order saying that abortions can not be paid for with taxdollars. But executive orders can be changed by any president. A law is a law and can only be changed by an act of Congress.

That’s why I think it’s likely we will see taxpayer funded abortion. And what a shame that is.

16,000.

That’s a number that should scare all Americans. Why? Because that’s the number of new IRS agents that will be hired by the government to enforce the new tax provisions in the Obama health care law. The new law requires every American to purchase health insurance; and any American not purchasing it will be required to pay a fine to the government. To make sure these fines are paid, 16,000 new IRS agents will be on the patrol to collect the money.

This doesn’t make any sense. At a time of economic recession, we should be helping families and small businesses, not taxing them and then punishing them.

Today we begin our series on the behind scenes stories of the recently-passed health care bill. And we do so by taking a look at one of the favorite talking points that Democrats have used: that the bill will reduce the budget deficit.

How is it possible to increase spending and reduce the federal deficit at the same time? It’s not. So how do Democrats claim they do it? Because they invented a trick called “double counting.” Here is how it works:

“Basically, Medicare, like Social Security, has a “trust fund” (actually, more than one), which is supposed to fund it until the trust fund is exhausted in 2019. The “trust fund” does not exist in any meaningful sense, because its “assets” consist of claims on the general fund, i.e. all the rest of the tax money. As Medicare goes into deficit, it trades in those assets to cover its funding gap, which means the general fund has to find the money to pay off the special bonds by either raising taxes, cutting other spending, or borrowing more money. After the trust fund is exhausted, the general fund has to find the money to pay for the Medicare deficit by either . . . raising taxes, cutting other spending, or borrowing more money. The difference to taxpayers is nil. Technically, when you cut Medicare spending, that money shows up as an increase in the Medicare trust fund, rather than some other possible accounting entry. But the effect on the unified budget is the same: the money saved by cutting Medicare is spent on other stuff.”
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2009/12/cbo-democrats-double-counting-medicare-savings/32538/

In other words, Democrats are claiming that by reducing Medicare, they are saving money that can be spent on health care and not increase the deficit; but any money saved from Medicare comes out of the same general operating budget. Therefore, any increase in spending increases the deficit. Period.

Double counting is double speak.

Last night the House of Representatives passed legislation to change health care in this country. You probably have heard all about it.

But what you probably haven’t heard about is all the gimmicks and short cuts that are included in the bill, like the fact that the bill is “paid for” by double counting.

Check in each day this week and next week as we take you behind the scenes and expose some of the gimmicks that make this bill bad for your health.

Today we end our series on taxes with a call to action.

This weekend the House of Representatives will vote on the Obama health care bill that will include new taxes. But you can do something about it. Call the Congressional switchboard and ask to speak to your representative. The number is:

(202) 224-3121

Call today and say “no thanks” to this new health care plan and these new taxes.

So let me get this straight: the president of the United States is going to try and raise taxes by using a procedural move that avoids the House of Representatives even voting on it?

Yes, you read that correctly. The president wants to pass his health care bill (which includes tax increases) using a process called “deem and pass.” It essentially “deems” that the Senate bill is good enough and just sends it onto the president for his signature. The House doesn’t even vote on it.

Are you kidding me? The Constitution specifically gives the House of Representatives the responsibility for all tax measures. So any vote to increase taxes must be voted on by the House. And yet the president wants to find a way around this because he knows he doesn’t have the votes in the House.

Whatever happened to change we can believe in?

Today we continue our blog series on taxes. And we do so by focusing on a different tax than the income tax.

Did you know that most people in America pay more in payroll taxes than they do income taxes? Payroll taxes come straight out of your paycheck and are supposed to go to fund entitlements like Social Security and Medicare. But in these tough economic times, these payroll taxes are hurting many working people.

So then why is the Obama administration proposing to increase payroll taxes to pay for health care?

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/print/61720

This is a bad idea and a bad policy. Raising taxes is not the way to improve health care.

This week we’ll be talking about something else that’s been in the news a lot: taxes. You may have read about the carwash in Sacramento that was audited for four cents!

What’s going on with the IRS? Why does the government need so much in tax dollars and yet still run such huge deficits? That’s what we’ll be talking about on the blog this week. So check in each day.