Conservative Papa

Tax Day, originally uploaded by Michael Sallmen.

April 15 should be just another fine spring day! www.fairtax.org

Here is a great article about the presidential candidates’ health care plans: Why McCain has the best health-care plan - Mar. 11, 2008. I agree with the author that McCain’s plan is far superior. The Democrat’s plan will only exacerbate the current problems in health care. It’s something that’s not immedidately obvious, but the article points out that those (like me) with employee-sponsored health care without high deductables aren’t really acting as consumers. There is little incentive to shop around to find the best price and service combination. We just fork over our $30 co-pay and see the doctor. If our employers rolled into our pay-checks what they are paying for our healthcare, we could buy a high-deductible plan and shop around with the extra cash.

Thanks to Raj for the link via Facebook.

Mullings: The Spitzer Back Story

• Former Congresswoman and Walter Mondale’s choice for his Vice Presidential running mate in 1984, Geraldine Ferraro, pointed out in a speech that Barack Obama is Black saying: “If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position,” for which was forced to step down from the Hillary Rodham Clinton campaign for those remarks, a decision which I wholeheartedly endorse.
• What she should have said was: “If Obama WERE a white man …”
• It is that kind of grammatical error up with which I will not put.

Home schooling unlawful, says California court (OneNewsNow.com)
A three-judge panel of the California Court of Appeal has determined parents in that state have no legal right to home school.

Read the entire article.
God brought my family out of the Left Coast none too soon!

Republican Healthcare Alternative - HUMAN EVENTS
“I firmly believe we can and should solve America’s health care crisis in an American way,” said Camp in a statement. “If we choose to go down the path that Western Europe or Canada has, it will be no surprise when we come to the same destination – a universal health care system that leaves your family dog with better coverage and care than you get.”

If left up to Camp, the Republican message on health care would be clear. Use the tax code to create personal care. Reform insurance regulations. Update laws to accommodate a focus on wellness and preventive care. No government mandates on who can choose what health insurance plan.

And get rid of the misleading rhetoric on the number of uninsured Americans.

The highly-popularized 47-million uninsured comes from several twisted facts, Camp explained. Ten million of those 47 million are illegal, and another 10 million are people who are eligible but do not enroll.

That leaves 26 million uninsured, some of whom simply choose to pay out of pocket.

That’s “a little less than nine percent of the population, but Hillary wants us — you — to pay for all of these people,” said Camp.

Even without a Democratic plan to cover uninsured Americans, those who currently have health insurance will increasingly rely on the public for health care support. The government report released today by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services detailed how an aging population will lead to an explosion in the number of Americans who qualify for Medicare, and drive up the public cost of health care by 6.7 percent per year through 2017.

Read the entire article.

Climate Change News and Actions by SafeClimate | calculator

Looks like I have a smaller than average carbon footprint. Obviously I’m not doing my part to fight off the frigid winter! If only I could afford a less fuel-efficient vehicle. Sadly, I’ll have to wait until my children are older and start taking long, hot showers. Until then, I can only hope God fires off a volcano to make up for the carbon I’m not generating.

Ann Coulter writes an interesting piece on why we don’t have a candidate of Regan’s candidate. Her last two paragraphs sum it up well, but read the entire article.

How to Keep Reagan Out of Office
It is because of campaign-finance laws like McCain-Feingold that big men dont run for office anymore. Little men do. And John McCain is the head homunculus.

You want Reagan back? Restore the right to free speech, and you will have created the conditions that allowed Reagan to run.

Rush Limbaugh read this piece today. Here’s an excerpt, but you can read the entire article.

Aspen Times News for Aspen Colorado - Aspen Times Weekly Opinion
There is one group no one has recognized, and it is the group that will decide the election: the Angry White Man. The Angry White Man comes from all economic backgrounds, from dirt-poor to filthy rich. He represents all geographic areas in America, from urban sophisticate to rural redneck, deep South to mountain West, left Coast to Eastern Seaboard.

His common traits are that he isn’t looking for anything from anyone — just the promise to be able to make his own way on a level playing field. In many cases, he is an independent businessman and employs several people. He pays more than his share of taxes and works hard.

The victimhood syndrome buzzwords — “disenfranchised,” “marginalized” and “voiceless” — don’t resonate with him. “Press ‘one’ for English” is a curse-word to him. He’s used to picking up the tab, whether it’s the company Christmas party, three sets of braces, three college educations or a beautiful wedding.

He believes the Constitution is to be interpreted literally, not as a “living document” open to the whims and vagaries of a panel of judges who have never worked an honest day in their lives.

Not Yours to Give
Col. David Crockett
US Representative from TennesseeOriginally published in “The Life of Colonel David Crockett,” by Edward Sylvester Ellis.

One day in the House of Representatives a bill was taken up appropriating money for the benefit of a widow of a distinguished naval officer. Several beautiful speeches had been made in its support. The speaker was just about to put the question when Crockett arose:

“Mr. Speaker–I have as much respect for the memory of the deceased, and as much sympathy for the suffering of the living, if there be, as any man in this House, but we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has not the power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member on this floor knows it.

We have the right as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right to appropriate a dollar of the public money. Some eloquent appeals have been made to us upon the ground that it is a debt due the deceased. Mr. Speaker, the deceased lived long after the close of the war; he was in office to the day of his death, and I ever heard that the government was in arrears to him.

“Every man in this House knows it is not a debt. We cannot without the grossest corruption, appropriate this money as the payment of a debt. We have not the semblance of authority to appropriate it as charity. Mr. Speaker, I have said we have the right to give as much money of our own as we please. I am the poorest man on this floor. I cannot vote for this bill, but I will give one weeks pay to the object, and if every member of Congress will do the same, it will amount to more than the bill asks.”

Read the entire article.

From Human Events:

Newt: A GOP Dark Horse?

by Michael Reagan

Posted: 01/25/2008

Why Newt? Ask yourself why Ronald Reagan won. He won because he was able to excite a group of people in America that the liberal wing of the Republican party has never excited — the grass roots.

Newt Gingrich is the last Republican to have done that — to reach out to the grass roots, to all those conservative Republicans and Reagan Democrats. Remember, it was Newt who engineered the miraculous Republican take-over of Congress in 1994 — something that was deemed impossible two years after Bill Clinton won the White House.

I wouldn’t be surprised if he was out there quietly working the phones and hoping for a wide-open convention where the delegates — not the primaries that selected many of them — decide for themselves who they want to carry the GOP banner in the presidential election in November.

If Newt throws his hat in the ring he knows that in the blink of an eye he will have the grass roots behind him.

Look at what happened Saturday in South Carolina. McCain won with 33 percent of the vote, which means 67 percent of the voters said we don’t want McCain; only 30 percent said yes to Huckabee, which means that 70 percent said no to him. About 15 percent went for Thompson, a mere 14 percent went for Romney and 2 percent went for Giuliani.

So basically the voters said a resounding “No” to all of the above.

So who can electrify the base and get them to come out from their bunkers and ignite a groundswell? On the record, the only person capable of doing that is Newt Gingrich.