-By Dan Scott
To say the least, liberals have a peculiar view of the world and no more peculiar is their view of economics. The assertions based on this view are thinly veiled promises of prosperity and equality for all. Senator Mary Landrieu (D) of Louisiana expressed this worldview in a WSJ opinion piece recently. As I have said many times, the best told lies are those sprinkled with facts.
Nationwide, small firms will spend $156 billion on health premiums this year. In place of those high premiums, small business owners could employ 10 million additional workers—the entire state of Michigan—at minimum wage for a year.
The central assertion offered to the public to accept ObamaCare is the idea billions of dollars will be saved if their so called Reform is passed and furthermore those savings would create 10 million new jobs. In fact, isn’t that similar to what we hear from President Obama? Healthcare Reform will create jobs and is essential to get the economy growing again? Let’s examine what she said; firstly small businesses spend $156 billion annually on health insurance premiums. I’m not sure where this figure is derived, however, let’s just accept for the moment that as accurate for the sake of argument without passing judgment on it or doing lots of research to verify or discredit it. Then she goes on to make the claim IF, in place of spending that money on health insurance small businesses could employ 10 million people at minimum wage. Her math is correct, $156 billion divided by 10 million people do indeed equate to minimum wage of $7.35 an hour. However, this is where the lie occurs, you notice small businesses in order to have the money to create these jobs would have to drop health insurance altogether, not merely saving on some of the premiums.
I frequently find liberal math an exercise in clever misdirection; it’s like a who-done-it crime scenario. So what Senator Landrieu is advocating is the government would be picking up the tab for 10 million low wage workers in addition to all the workers who would lose their employer sponsored health insurance in order to create those jobs. But let’s not dwell on the fact that the point of ObamaCare as Senator Landrieu understands it is about getting rid of the insurance companies to have the government take over this function in the healthcare system. We shouldn’t waste our time on the obvious because liberals have already admitted to this before the election, it’s old news and they just don’t want to talk about it publicly. Let’s also not dwell on the liberal math where the money for people’s healthcare has to come from somewhere else if small businesses are expected to create those 10 million jobs they would not spend on employer sponsored healthcare. That’s misdirection by liberals for government having to raise the entire amount (in taxes) no longer spent by small business.
It is said the truth will out, that in between all the misdirection and lies the true picture of the hidden agenda will be revealed. Senator Landrieu has inadvertently revealed the unspoken truth where Obama and the Democrats believe job creation should occur. Notice that the qualifier for those 10 million jobs is “at minimum wage”. What the Democrats have admitted is their desire for a bifurcated work force; those at the bottom of the economic scale dependent on government handouts thus solidifying their voting base. The Democrats vision for America is low wage jobs. That’s a pretty bleak view of the future for our children. Every year, the economy must create enough new jobs to employ those new workers graduating from high school and college. On average during this time period approximately 1.5 million jobs must be created to offset the net increase of workers due to an expanding population.
Is it any accident that Democrats have insisted that any new taxes to pay for ObamaCare must come from the wealthy and be redirected from Medicare? We also know that the middle class will also pay for this program in higher premiums, all taxes the health insurance companies pay are passed on to consumers. This is both (economic) class and generational warfare, the politics of polarization by division, the haves versus the have-nots. The uninsured is the new victim class.
Just as importantly, you notice that Democrats believe that government can manipulate the economy to make it grow by redistributing costs and seizing wealth in the form of taxes. The Elite believe government centrally planned micromanagement of the economy by reallocating resources is more efficacious than the diversified market. The Elites believe their system of management can create more jobs and provide for the common good better than the collective actions of 300 million people. So let us come back to Senator Landrieu’s assertion that if small businesses didn’t spend $156 billion on healthcare they could redirect this money to create 10 million jobs. If this is true, then what is the effect of the government redirecting capital by raising taxes on the owners of small businesses over ten years to the tune of $829 billion? More jobs or fewer jobs? ObamaCare is a job killer. The problem for all of us is that kind of central control has never worked. Even the Chinese gave up on a centrally planned economy to adopt a form of capitalism properly called Fascism. They are content to let individuals own and control the means of production by stepping back and influencing private enterprise via bank loans.
Central control requires capital in order to direct the economy. In a world where profit is vilified, there is little money available to invest. All money taken (confiscated via taxation) from private enterprise is money not used for investment in the enterprise thus limiting any expansion of that enterprise. No matter how many people the government employs or subsidizes with free benefits, none of that confiscated money stimulates the economy. On the contrary, it acts to depress the economy because there is no investment in physical facilities such as buildings, equipment, i.e. the means of production.
Wealth redistribution does not work as it takes money from productive investments and misdirects them to consumption spending. Any tax to fund ObamaCare will do exactly the same thing, depress the economy and stifle job creation. The false choice of liberalism is the idea a group of meddling know-it-all busybodies can make right all the inequities of the world. ObamaCare is a false choice because it has little to do with healthcare and more to do with interfering in the market place. What liberals don’t want the public to realize is the reason why healthcare today is more expensive; it is due to their own meddling. It was after all their idea to under reimburse medical providers for the government controlled programs of Medicare and Medicaid. Who picked up the tab for the under reimbursement? The rest of us in the form of higher insurance premiums. The only result of any expansion of government run healthcare is higher costs for the rest of us. The idea of adding 15 or 20 million people to a Public Option, which will behave exactly like Medicare and Medicaid with under reimbursements will reduce overall costs is lunacy and quite frankly a deception.
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Dan Scott calls himself a “Member of the Global Capitalist Cabal preaching Capitalism and personal responsibility as the economic solution to world poverty.” He is also a member of the 14th Amendment Society — victimhood is a liberal code word for denying the civil rights of others. He is also a proud member of the Global Warming Denier Cabal, insisting that facts not agendas determine the truth.
Dan can be seen on the web at http://www.geocities.com/fightbigotry2002/ as well as http://www.geocities.com/dscott8186/saidwebpage.htm, And can be reached for comments at dscott8186@yahoo.com.
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