Paul Ryan Speaks Out

During the summit yesterday a young, Republican Congressman provided a wealth of information involving Medicare, the hellcare bill, funding for the bill, etc.
I got more information in the five minutes he spoke than I did in the countless speeches given by President Obama. Paul Ryan answered many of my questions.

From the transcript of the summit, I organized a list of the most crucial details from Congressman Ryan's talking points. Paul Ryan is currently serving his sixth term in Congress. He graduated from Miami University with degrees in economics and political science.

I would like to mention that Congressman Ryan stated that he works with the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) every day. This is the one and only CBO and the CBO that was mentioned several times during the summit.

Below are points Paul Ryan made:

* Medicare has a $38 Trillion Unfunded Liability - empty promises to our parents' generation, our generation, our kids' generation.

* According to the CBO analysis, the bill does not control insurance costs, does not reduce deficits

* Medicare has a $38 trillion Unfunded Liability - that means empty promises to our parents' generation, our generation and our childrens' generation.

* According to the corrected, Congressional Budget Office analysis, the bill does not control insurance costs.

* Not only does the bill not control costs, insurance premiums will go up under the bill.

* The bill will not reduce the deficit as Harry Reid promised.

* The bill adds an enormous entitlement when we do not have the money to fund Medicare and Medicaid.

* The actual cost of this bill in 10 years is actually$2.3 trillion. It is not $847 billion as originally stated. (I will explain at the end)

* The bill takes $52 billion in higher Social Security tax revenues and counts them as offsets. But that money is really reserved for Social Security. So either they are double-counting them or they don't intend on paying those Social Security benefits.

* The bill takes $72 billion and claims money from the CLASS Act. That is the long-term care insurance program. It takes the money from premiums that are designed for that benefit and instead counts them as offsets.

* Regarding the Medicare cuts, what this bill essentially does -- it treats Medicare like a piggy bank. It raids a half a trillion dollars out of Medicare, not to shore up Medicare solvency, but to spend on this new government program.

Congressman Ryan reminded the attendees about Harry Reid's claim that the bill would reduce the deficit. He explained how and why Harry Reid's calculations did not add up. Paul Ryan pulled the lid off this bill and for the first time, I saw how messed up this bill really was. It was far worse than I ever imagined (and I already thought it was terrible).

After endorsing the Congressional Budget Office for their good work, Paul Ryan explained that the CBO was given a document full of gimmicks with smoke and mirrors. There were no mistakes in the calculation, but the CBO was given inaccurate numbers to work with. Amounts were added twice or put in as offsets beforehand. So therefore the bottom line - cost of the bill and effect on the deficit is inaccurate.

And what does all this mean? We cannot afford this bill at this time. As it is now, we do not even have the money we need for Medicare. There is a lot of hidden taxes in the bill, taxes on little things like soda, medical equipment and drugs. However, the bill relies a great deal on the money cut from Medicare. The problem is, Medicare has NO MONEY.

It is a trick. It's a scheme. If the bill is passed, we just start paying extra taxes immediately. The taxes will not just affect rich people. Hidden taxes will be everywhere from soda to medical equipment.

The Democrat Party keeps calling the Republicans "the party of no". I am not even a Republican, but I respect that Republicans say "no" when it is fiscally impossible and worse, irresponsible.

After seven and a half hours of talking points, the Democrats left the summit already planning to use the controversial reconciliation process. The entire summit was all for show. We know that now.

It has been weeks since the summit and I have not seen Congressman Ryan quoted in any newspaper or mainstream-media news program.
In the immortal words of George Carlin, "The game is rigged. It's a big club and you're not in it. You and I are not in the big club."


Sources

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/25/AR2010022504074.html

Scaling the Summit

Scaling the Summit by Susan Fentz

Today I watched most of President Obama's bipartisan summit. I had an important doctor appointment at 1:45 and I was afraid I would miss too much. I put my feet up and leaned back; there was still an hour to go before I had to leave.

In the background, I could hear the melodious rhythm of the president's voice. There were rainbows, sugar plums and John McCain's voice. Oh no; I'd fallen asleep! I sprung from my chair and looked at the clock. It was 2:15 and I had missed my appointment. I called and rescheduled right away. Annoyed with myself for falling asleep, I decided I was going to force myself to watch the whole summit. I looked at it as sort of a penance. A word of advice, if ever you find yourself having trouble falling asleep, I suggest you keep a DVD of politicians talking around a table. It's the best sleep aid I have ever tried. I made a cup of coffee and hunkered down for a long afternoon. Surely there would be some fireworks, right? They did not disappoint. Well, Nancy Pelosi did.

After the president announced that only three people had spoken and they were already behind on time, Nancy Pelosi offered to share her time with Harry Reid and keep it short. Ms. Pelosi opened her mouth and waved her pinched fingers wildly in front of her as she spoke. I get the feeling someone taught her this maneuver in High School Public Speaking class. In my opinion, it is distracting and annoying. I think she believes this gives her the appearance of credibility. You already know what I think.

Nancy Pelosi's gestures did not irritate me nearly as much as her words. I could not believe my ears when she said, "The American people want this bill". Nancy Pelosi must not have looked at the polls in quite awhile. Last week, Rasmusson Polls reported that 58% of the American people oppose the house and senate bill. Perhaps she should pay attention to the Tea Party Movement whom she coined, "Astroturf." It was the threat of this terrible piece of legislation that actually stimulated middle America and prompted the organization of the Tea Party movement.

The Wall Street Journal called Nancy Pelosi's version of the bill, "The worst piece of legislation ever". With over two thousand pages of legalese, questionable language, fuzzy math and a whopping price tag, the house version of the bill became wildly unpopular. But you would never know it when listening to Nancy Pelosi. At the summit, she sounded out of touch when she spoke of the "backbone of our country," the middle class workers. Yes, middle class workers are the backbone of our country. Nancy might like to know that many of them are outside carrying signs, waving American flags and they do not want any part of her bill.

Nancy finished up her overly rehearsed speech and allowed Harry Reid to have his turn to speak. Senator Reid appeared to be angry during his opening statements. He commented on the Republican's concern over the possible "reconciliation" hanging over their heads. Senator Reid clenched his teeth when he spoke, "No one has talked about reconciliation, but that's what you folks have talked about ever since that came out, as if it's something that has never been done before."

Harry Reid sounded defensive and understandably so. Despite what he said, I had just seen him speaking of reconciliation several times during the past, two weeks. So he has been talking about it. Suddenly I had that feeling of deja vu. I knew I'd heard Reid say something like that before around Christmas. It was coming back to me. Yes, he was speaking of the back room bribes that went on before the voting of the senate bill. Whenever Harry Reid is accused of plotting something unsavory, he reminds us that the Republicans did the same thing. He does not get it. We didn't have YouTube several years ago. Our economy was not in shambles and unemployment was not so high. The American people woke up when their world started falling apart. We started paying attention and utilizing the technology we didn't have before. Most of us Americans, including the entire Tea Party movement are disgusted at the corruption in Washington. That includes Democrats and Republicans.

Harry Reid's tactics remind me of a sixth-grader pointing to his classmate, "Johnny hit me first!" It is juvenile teetering on vengeful. I wonder what his motives really are. Two wrongs don't make it right. We are learning more and more that when the Republicans had power, they did a lot of things most people would find unethical. That does not make it OK now. Many of us are paying close attention and rereading our history books.

Today, President Obama spoke for all Americans when he said, "The American people do not care about the process. They just want us to get the job done." On the contrary, I am one American who is very concerned about the process and I am not alone. Too much damage has been done. Most of us disapprove of the partisan bills and back-room bribes behind closed doors. Our eyes are open now. Americans are fed up and we are not going to tolerate this sleazy, Chicago-style politics.

I will give President Obama credit for being a decent moderator. At one point, the time keeper told him that so far Democrats spoke for fifty-six minutes and Republicans spoke for thirty-four. President Obama's answer to that was, "I am the President." No one could argue with that. There were a few times where the president's level of arrogance was distasteful.

At one point during Senator McCain's time to speak, Mr. Obama was going back and forth with him. He suddenly put his hand up to stop the exchange, "We're not campaigning anymore. The election is over. I won." I expected the President to crack a smile, but he was not joking. I found that odd and somewhat offensive. However, President Obama did seem to listen when the Republican officials spoke. He showed some interest and said he was willing to look at ideas again. There were two conflicting ideas hovering over the entire summit. The Republicans wanted to start working on the bill from scratch in a bipartisan manner. This was very clear. Just as evident, the Democrats had no intentions of even considering that notion. This was the bill and if Republicans wanted some ideas to be added to it, the President would think about it. There were no promises made.

The Republicans also brought up most of the concerns Americans had about the bill: the cuts to Medicare, the cost, the high taxes in a recession and the effectiveness of the bill to name a few. One of the most disturbing parts of the bill is the $500 billion in cuts to Medicare. At times, this was frustrating because the president always got the last word. He rebutted their findings, always with his cool, calm demeanor. He tried to clarify, this was not a "government takeover". He described the insurance "exchange" and how they worked again.
President Obama compared the insurance described in the bill to the same kind of health care congress received. It sounded great. If only it were true. Realistically, insurance in the exchange would be more comparable to Medicaid and Medicare.

Senator Chuck Schumer from New York addressed the issue of Medicare cuts. He explained that they wanted to keep the "good" and just get rid of the "bad" in Medicare. If it wasn't so disturbing, that answer would have been almost humorous. The Democrats consider the "bad" to be fraud and waste. Regrettably, the Democrats have never explained how they intend to do this. I would hope that they would already be cutting out fraud and waste if they new how.

The leaders on the left: Obama, Pelosi and Reid set the tone for the day and they were not budging. The original document was staying; additions would only be considered. Often when a Republican senator asked a question, President Obama would smoothly pass over it and move on. However, if he did not like a point being made, he would interrupt and make his point. However, these were the same points he made over and over again in his many speeches about health care reform. We had heard it all before.

It is a good thing I read a lot about the bill beforehand because there were times the Democrats were convincing. The cost of the bill is very misleading. All the elected officials from the right made good points, but it was one congressman from Wisconsin that brought some of the fuzzy calculations to light. Congressman Paul Ryan woke me from a near slumber when he was called upon.

Obama was literally speechless (if that is possible) when Ryan made these talking points:

* Medicare has a $38 Trillion Unfunded Liability - empty promises to our parents' generation, our generation, our kids' generation.

* According to the CBO analysis, the bill does not control insurance costs, does not reduce deficits

* Medicare has a $38 trillion Unfunded Liability - that means empty promises to our parents' generation, our generation, our kids' generation.

* According to the corrected, Congressional Budget Office analysis, the bill does not control insurance costs, does not reduce deficits

* The bill adds an entitlement when we do not have the money to pay what we need for Medicare and Medicaid

* The actual 10-year cost of this bill in 10 years is $2.3 trillion, not $847 billion as originally promised.

* The bill takes $52 billion in higher Social Security tax revenues and counts them as offsets. But that money is really reserved for Social Security. So either they are double-counting them or they don't intend on paying those Social Security benefits.

* The bill takes $72 billion and claims money from the CLASS Act. That is the long-term care insurance program. It takes the money from premiums that are designed for that benefit and instead counts them as offsets.

* Regarding the Medicare cuts, what this bill essentially does -- it treats Medicare like a piggy bank. It raids a half a trillion dollars out of Medicare, not to store up Medicare solvency, but to spend on this new government program.

Congressman Ryan referred to the bill as " a Ponzi scheme that would make Bernie Madoff proud." I was impressed by Paul Ryan's nerve to speak his mind. He spoke of the Congressional Budget Office, whom he works very closely with. He reminded the attendees about Harry Reid's claim of the bill will reducing the deficit. He clarified how Harry Reid's calculations did not make sense.explained how Congressman Ryan pulled the lid off this bill. After commending the CBO for their good work, Congressman Ryan clarified that they were given a document full of gimmicks with smoke and mirrors. There were no mistakes in the calculation, but the CBO was given inaccurate numbers to work with.

At the end of the summit, President Obama brought up the pre-existing clause in the bill. Out of the clear blue, he told the Republicans how important the pre-existing clause was to the American people. The president spoke as if they had been opposed to the pre-existing clause. Now all day, I never heard a Republican official object to that clause. That was the one point everyone would agree on. I even googled it and there is nothing about the right being opposed to a pre-existing clause. Personally, it is my belief that the president wanted to plant that idea in the minds of Americans, to leave them with a negative impression.

A day after the Summit, all liberal reports state that the Republicans said "no' to everything.
One source on MSNBC said nothing was "good enough" for the Republicans. The bottom line is even if we were not in a deep recession, this would be a very expensive bill to make law.
As it is, America is in deep debt. We cannot afford to fund the programs we have already.
It is fiscally irresponsible for the left to add more debt to America's record-breaking deficit. Our country is in trouble and our president may have a Harvard degree, but he lacks common sense.

I was so impressed by Congressman Ryan's report. It answered every question I had about the cost and why it didn't add up. There was another senator who made a good impression.
I did not appreciate the way Obama spoke to him, but he kept pushing on behalf of America. After having the current administration ignore us in every way, one senator made a point to express the way many of us are feeling since this all started. He made a lot of good points, but John McCain let the president know we were not as simpleminded as he thought.
He interrupted Obama in the end and said, "Could I just say one thing, Mr. President? the American people care about what we do and how we do it. And I think it's a subject that we should discuss. And I thank you."

Yes, we do care, Mr. President. We do care about the process. We care about our country. And if you want to keep ignoring us, our voices will be heard later this year and again in 2012.

It's Madness!

It's MADNESS. It is like Obama is telling you that you are too stupid to know how to spend your money. So we should let him have it in the form of taxes. I say it is the opposite. Congress has already proven to us, they are the ones who are too stupid to handle our money. I heard Obama say today that everyone should have health insurance. Yes, everyone should! I can barely pay for my own, so I should help pay for Joe Schmo's insurance too? And what will I get for that, according to Obama's bill? I will get sub-standard insurance at premium prices.

It's MADNESS! There are simple answers that would fit on a twenty page bill; 1. Tort Reform, 2. Competition - allowing insurance companies to sell across state lines. 3. A "no pre-existing" clause, 4. NO SPECIAL FAVORS for SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS.

So many people say, "Everyone criticizes the president; no one has solutions."
That is BS. We have been jumping up and down with these solutions for a year now.
I just heard the president say Tort Reform is in the bill.
There is no tort reform in the bill as it stands now.
Dare I say it? Did he lie again? It's your guess, but I hope you guess right.

Those of you who take him at his word, WAKE UP!
We have the evidence to show you how many times he has lied to you, Yes, you!

Every time Obama steps up to that podium, he insults your intelligence. He tells you what you want to hear. During Obama's SOTU Address, he was all over the place - making sure he lied equally to everyone. He made sure that whatever he promised, everyone out there would be pleased with one of those promises. The sad truth is, Obama made promises he has no intention of keeping. He has been doing it all along.

Often candidates make false promises during their campaign so they can get elected.
Obama was no different, but the election is over. He won! He can stop making those false promises now. I am tired of it. I am tired of his form of "Hope and Change". His "Hope and Change" feels a lot like "Despair and Business as Usual" to me.

For those women out there, he is like that old boyfriend who only wanted sex from you. He is saying anything to get you to see things his way. Obama will say ANYTHING to get you to shut up, accept his policies and go back to work. That is all he wants from us. He wants us to be obedient workers.

The sad reality is his idea of creating jobs does not help middle-class America at all.
Unless you are in construction and part of a union, his policies for job creation do not include you. Personally, I would love to get back to work. I am not fussy either. There is no work here.

President Obama even lies to you when he says he is offering "change" to America. I hate to break it to you, but he is doing everything just as Bush had. He has even chosen the same guy Bush chose, Ben Bernanke to handle the federal reserve. This is insane. It's madness! So when you tell me you voted for Obama because you did not want more of Bush, I have news for you, you've been duped.

You got more Bushonomics and you got a whole lot more that you did not bargain for.
Furthermore, Obama cannot keep blaming Bush for his inherited problems when he keeps doing everything the way Bush did.

The only difference is he wants more of your tax dollars. When Obama goes on TV and presents a budget as he did, he is telling you that your taxes are going to go up.
He is not saying those words, but his actions are telling you.

Don't let the current administration fool you. Don't let them insult your intelligence.

Proceed With Caution

Last year, we all witnessed our congress at work on health care reform. Well, part of our congress anyway. The other part was not invited. President Obama wanted to fundamentally change the way health care is done in the United States. Although health care in the United States is very expensive, most people who do have health insurance are pleased with their plans. However, the cost is high and many people do not have health insurance. This is the guise President Obama used for his urgent need to pass a law on health care reform.
However, those plans brought about many questions because much of what he promised sounded too good to be true.

Briefly, the most controversial components of the president's bill were: 1. $500 billion in cuts to Medicare (supposedly from waste and fraud, but if that were so easy, they would already be doing it). 2. Policy analysts from the Congressional Budget Office reported that insurance premiums would likely go up rather than down under the new bill. 3. Tax hikes would go into affect right away when any "benefits" from Obamacare would not be seen until 2012. Oh, and under the bill with the public option, Obama promised you would be able to keep your doctor and even your plan if you wanted to. This was proven to be untrue under the public option. It was just one of many untruths we were told. Just like the tax lie.

During a deep recession, the American people cannot afford such tax increases. As it is, the deficit is at a record high. Many people, like myself, were wondering why this could not wait?
President Obama did express his "concern" for "people dying in the streets" because they did not have health insurance. Under his new plan, those hypothetical people would be long dead by the time Obamacare could offer them any benefits. None of the plan made sense. It appeared to be fiscally irresponsible and many Americans objected.

There were town hall meetings, protests and the Tea Party Movement was born. It was no secret that many republican and independents objected to the two, enormous, two-thousand plus-page, bills Pelosi and Reid presented. It became blatantly obvious that the left did not care that so many were opposed to these bills. They pushed forward anyway.

Let's not forget the attacks on the tea partiers. Main stream media mostly did not report on the large protests. The left downplayed the protests. In many cases the tea partiers were attacked and called names by the left. They were referred to as "Astroturf" and "angry mobs" when the protests were always peaceful. The largest protest drew at least one million people to Washington D.C. to protest Obamacare. Reporting on this event was scarce if at all in the main stream media. Much of America was being ignored by President Obama and his cronies. Rather than listen to what the people had to say, they moved forward, full speed ahead.

We all know about the sweetheart deals that were given to senators to vote in favor of the bills. Where I come from, we call that a "bribe." I do not care if it has been done before. I do not care if Harry Reid said, "This is how it is always done." It was not acceptable to many of us. Even some democrats began to take notice. Something was beginning to stink on Capitol Hill. This did not even resemble ethical behavior. More and more people began to open their eyes.

Pelosi, Reid and Obama would probably have gotten that bill through if not for one element we all thought was impossible. A republican senator, Scott Brown, was elected in Massachusetts. We never saw it coming. We thought that could never happen in such a liberal state as Massachusetts. It happened all right. The American people were sending a message to Washington, "Listen to us! We don't want this!" Scott Brown winning Ted Kennedy's old, senate seat was nothing short of a miracle...and it really messed up Obama's plans.

So now the big news is President Obama is agreeing to do what he should have done in the first place. He is agreeing to a bipartisan meeting to get all the ideas on health care on the table. Some of his supporters are saying, "See? He IS a good guy!"

Well, he really has no choice now. He cannot push this through without the democratic super-party he had before. Scott Brown campaigned, promising to vote against the bill.
So now the cool prez saunters around, going to republican press conferences and giving interviews with his number one fan, Katie Couric.

We need to be cautious; we cannot forget the way he tried to push that healthcare bill through. We cannot take this man at his word. Would you trust anyone who repeatedly lied to you before? How about someone who lied and is now desperate? Despite his cool demeanor, the president is desperate. So far, he has not done much since he took office. Liberals will argue that the stimulus package saved the economy from going over the edge. They will insist that without Obama's influence, unemployment would be worse. On the contrary, it is my belief that Obama's policies have drastically added to the unemployment problem.

I believe Obama's Cap & Trade bill and healthcare bill frightened small businesses from hiring. I am a former, small business owner myself. During the eleven years I had my two shops, I went through at least two recessions. Those were times I remember well. I hired the bare minimum and worked as many hours as I could. I can imagine the kind of affect the healthcare bill would have had on my decisions. There is a clause in the HC bill that would have forced me to raise my prices. As far as cap and trade goes, I would have had to go out of business had that passed back then. Small businesses have a lot to lose; it is their bread and butter. They cannot take any chances. If I were still a small business owner, I would not be hiring now either. The man does not realize this because he has never had a business before.

Obama PROMISED unemployment would not exceed 8% with the stimulus package. I do not even know how he can make a promise like that! He warned that without the stimulus package, unemployment would get as high as 10%. Well, with the stimulus package, unemployment exceeded Obama's worst, case scenario. I have my doubts that the very costly stimulus package did anything to help the economy. So please excuse me if I am not feeling warm and fuzzy over Obama's gesture to reach across the aisle.

Many of us are hoping the original bills will be scrapped and the process will start over. After to listening to one of many Obama speeches today, I am skeptical. Today President Obama said and I quote, "Bipartisanship can't be that I agree to all of the things that they believe in or want, and they agree to none of the things I believe in or want."

No kidding, really? Once again, President Obama insults my intelligence. However, by this statement we all know, he still wants certain things from that bill. Unless it is something I have not read or heard of, I really did not like ANY of that bill. There was only one thing I liked; the removal of the preexisting illness clause. He can have that one.I did not like the cuts to Medicare. I did not like the unconstitutional demand that every person must buy health insurance, be fined or go to jail. I do not like that our premiums will go up. I don't like the way they passed the stimulus bill and snuck controversial agendas into it. Many people do not know the government is allowed to electronically receive all our health information. This law was passed in the STIMULUS BILL. I do not like how sneaky they are.

So I urge you, all of you who can, please watch closely. Supposedly much of this will be televised (or so President Obama promised again that it would be). The more eyes watching, the better.

A man who looks you in the eye and lies time after time does not just wake up one morning and become honest and truthful. I do not care if he is a politician and I do not want to hear, "All politicians lie." Nope. All politicians LIED. We are going to stop accepting the norm and start insisting on what is honorable, ethical and right. When politicians start playing chess with the health of my loved ones and myself, I have got to INSIST on transparency. I am not throwing any celebrations because suddenly Obama has agreed to play by the rules.
When I say rules, I mean The Constitution.

There is no referee in congress. We, the American people have to watch and hold them accountable. The stakes our high - YOUR health and the health of your loved ones.