Howie's Views on The State of the Union

After watching and listening to the State of The Union address last night and reading the article from the AP which is attached below, is anyone else as underwhelmed by the lies and deceptions as I am? Does anyone wonder how our government thinks they can make things up, tell them and get away with it? Simple, they think we are mindless idiots that aren’t smart enough for these tough decisions!

Let’s take Healthcare Reform: The original Congressional Budget Office cost: "$1.3 Trillion over ten years." New CBO estimate per Obama: "Reduces deficit by $1.0 Trillion over ten years!" One of four things will have to happen: One of Four things will happen:

A: To swing the cost by $2.3 Trillion, you have to drastically increase the taxes, fees, penalties, premiums and fines to make up the $2.3 Trillion difference! Are you ready for that kind of additional cost put on the American people and businesses (who will pass it on to the public!)? Brace yourself, we cannot in anyway, shape or form survive that type of cost! It will destroy our country! If you think the economy is bad now, you haven’t seen anything near what is to come with the passage of Obamacare!

Or

B: To make the $2.3 Trillion swing; the government will cut medical care! If you think your medical care will be the same in five years as it is now, you are delusional! Seniors will suffer and die earlier! White House advisors have already stated, “Only those that are young enough to be an investment in our future will receive costly medical treatment.” Are you ready for the government to say who is young enough or choose who will get the treatment? I’m not; I’m on the short future list! All of you or members of your families are also! Are you really ready to let the government choose who will continue getting all the care that they need?

Or

C: A combination of A and B make up the $2.3 Trillion swing. This is still not a good solution. And this is assuming that the government will control the healthcare industry well enough so that the costs don’t skyrocket. Has the government ever shown that it can control costs, run something efficiently, manage well or not let corruption run free? AMTRAK, Postal Service, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac… Need I go on? We were told last night that a window company in the northeast is doing well and is growing. Do you know why? Part of the stimulus package has an item available for replacing inefficient windows in your home or business. If you do you can get a large portion of the cost back in credit/rebates. Good right? Wrong! Only one window manufacturer’s windows qualify for the program! Nothing special about these windows other than they are made by that one company! Who is this lucky company? The woman in charge of the department that gives the credits just happens to be the wife of the VP of that window company. And yes, the window company and its employees contributed heavily to the Obama campaign for president. Still ready to let the government control the healthcare industry?

Or

D: TORT Reform and allowing Interstate Health Insurance will equal lower costs in healthcare without any added costs, taxes, fees, penalties etc.! The cost of healthcare today is too high because of fear of lawsuits, class-action suits and malpractice insurance. How do you lessen the impact? Stop making the courts a pathway to fortunes! Awards, settlements, and judgments have gone out of control! We are literally making people wealthy from the court system! Recovery of damages and costs of future care is reasonable but multi-million dollar awards for wealth must stop!

Allow insurance companies to market across state lines and allow individuals the ability to seek out affordable health insurance from competitive markets will keep costs of insurance down! It will allow the cost effective, well run insurance that give the customer what they want and need to flourish! The bad will fall by the wayside. Free market and competition is what lowers costs not government control and restrictions!

AND don’t forget to remind your congressmen that you expect them to be a part of the new healthcare program! RIGHT NOW THEY DON’T CARE! They have their own healthcare program that is not affected by the new reform! You got it; they get great care, while we get government care! Does that give you warm fuzzy feelings towards elected officials? ALL ELECTED AND GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES SHOULD GET THE SAME REFORM AS US! No exceptions. Congress should have to live with the same rules and programs that they legislate for the public! Tell them today!

Contact your congressmen today and let them know your feelings. If they don’t agree with your feelings, become active in sending them home at their next re-election! We get what we vote for. And unfortunately, we haven’t voted for very many that are concerned about us the people. Too many of them go to Washington and lose their souls. They forget and join the “Elitist Class” and their actions reflect the influence of the groups that will give them the most power instead of representing us, their constituents. The founding fathers had concerns that the elected officials would not return to their lives as citizens after their time in service to the public and would become an “Elitist Class”. These were very smart men one of the wisest was Thomas Jefferson:

A government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have…The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases.”
Thomas Jefferson

“The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.”
Thomas Jefferson

The Utah Caucus meetings will take place on March 16th. The Republican meetings and the Democrat meetings are on the same day. If you are outside of Utah, find out when yours are and get involved. Become a state or county delegate. The party doesn’t matter, the candidates do. Make sure that the candidates from your party are ready to represent their constituents and not the large and powerful outside influences. Their time in office is not about power, it is about service! They should be ready to proclaim that they are American Patriots and that they adhere to the 9/12 Principles and Values (http://www.the912project.com/):

9 Principles
● America Is Good.

● I believe in God and He is the Center of my Life.

● I must always try to be a more honest person than I was yesterday.

● The family is sacred. My spouse and I are the ultimate authority, not the government.

● If you break the law you pay the penalty. Justice is blind and no one is above it.

● I have a right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, but there is no guarantee of equal results.

● I work hard for what I have and I will share it with who I want to. Government cannot force me to be charitable.

● It is not un-American for me to disagree with authority or to share my personal opinion.

● The government works for me. I do not answer to them, they answer to me.
12 Values
Honesty
Reverence
Hope
Thrift
Humility
Charity
Sincerity
Moderation
Hard Work
Courage
Personal Responsibility
Gratitude

The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment. - Robert M Hutchins

All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing. – Edmund Burke

Thanks for letting me express my views and thoughts. This really is important. We need to be in charge of our government again. We are the ones that have to do it!

Howard Norton


- AP - January 27, 2010
Fact Check: How State of Union Compares With Reality
A look at some of Obama's claims in the State of the Union and how they compare with the facts
WASHINGTON -- President Obama, who once considered government spending freezes a hatchet job, told Americans on Wednesday it's now part of his solution to the exploding deficit. He didn't explain what had changed.
His State of the Union speech skipped over a variety of complex realities in laying out a "common-sense" call to action.
A look at some of his claims and how they compare with the facts:
OBAMA: "Starting in 2011, we are prepared to freeze government spending for three years. Spending related to our national security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security will not be affected. But all other discretionary government programs will. Like any cash-strapped family, we will work within a budget to invest in what we need and sacrifice what we don't."
THE FACTS: The anticipated savings from this proposal would amount to less than one percent of the deficit -- and that's if the president can persuade Congress to go along.
Obama is a convert to the cause of broad spending freezes. In the presidential campaign, he criticized Republican opponent John McCain for suggesting one. "The problem with a spending freeze is you're using a hatchet where you need a scalpel," he said a month before the election. Now, Obama wants domestic spending held steady in most areas where the government can control year to year costs. The proposal is similar to McCain's.
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OBAMA: "I've called for a bipartisan fiscal commission, modeled on a proposal by Republican Judd Gregg and Democrat Kent Conrad. This can't be one of those Washington gimmicks that lets us pretend we solved a problem. The commission will have to provide a specific set of solutions by a certain deadline. Yesterday, the Senate blocked a bill that would have created this commission. So I will issue an executive order that will allow us to go forward, because I refuse to pass this problem on to another generation of Americans."
THE FACTS: Any commission that Obama creates would be a weak substitute for what he really wanted -- a commission created by Congress that could force lawmakers to consider unpopular remedies to reduce the debt, including curbing politically sensitive entitlements like Social Security and Medicare. That idea crashed in the Senate this week, defeated by equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans. Any commission set up by Obama alone would lack authority to force its recommendations before Congress, and would stand almost no chance of success.
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OBAMA: Discussing his health care initiative, he said: "Our approach would preserve the right of Americans who have insurance to keep their doctor and their plan."
THE FACTS: The Democratic legislation now hanging in limbo on Capitol Hill aims to keep people with employer-sponsored coverage -- the majority of Americans under age 65 -- in the plans they already have. But Obama can't guarantee g point of contention for the president. In December, the administration reported that recipients of direct assistance from the government created or saved about 650,000 jobs. The number was based on self-reporting by recipients and some of the calculations were shown to be in error.
The Congressional Budget Office has been much more guarded than Obama in characterizing the success of the stimulus plan. In November, it reported that the stimulus increased the number of people employed by between 600,000 and 1.6 million "compared with what those values would have been otherwise." It said the ranges "reflect the uncertainty of such estimates." And it added: "It is impossible to determine how many of the reported jobs would have existed in the absence of the stimulus package."
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OBAMA: He called for action by the White House and Congress "to do our work openly, and to give our people the government they deserve."
THE FACTS: Obama skipped past a broken promise from his campaign -- to have the negotiations for health care legislation broadcast on C-SPAN "so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies." Instead, Democrats in the White House and Congress have conducted the usual private negotiations, making multibillion-dollar deals with hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and other stakeholders behind closed doors. Nor has Obama lived up consistently to his pledge to ensure that legislation is posted online for five days before it's acted upon.
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OBAMA: "We will continue to go through the budget line by line to eliminate programs that we can't afford and don't work. We've already identified $20 billion in savings for next year."
THE FACTS: Identifying savings is far from achieving them. If the past is any guide, little will result from this exercise because Congress routinely rejects the White House's suggested spending cuts.
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OBAMA: "The United States and Russia are completing negotiations on the farthest-reaching arms control treaty in nearly two decades."
THE FACTS: Despite insisting early last year that they would complete the negotiations in time to avoid expiration of the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty in early December, the U.S. and Russia failed to do so. And while officials say they think a deal on a new treaty is within reach, there has been no breakthrough. A new round of talks is set to start Monday. One important sticking point: disagreement over including missile defense issues in a new accord. If completed, the new deal may arguably be the farthest-reaching arms control treaty since the original 1991 agreement. An interim deal reached in 2002 did not include its own rules on verifying nuclear reductions.
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OBAMA: Drawing on classified information, he claimed more success than his predecessor at killing terrorists: "And in the last year, hundreds of al-Qaida's fighters and affiliates, including many senior leaders, have been captured or killed -- far more than in 2008."
THE FACTS: It is an impossible claim to verify. Neither the Bush nor the Obama administration has published enemy body counts, particularly those targeted by armed drones in the Pakistan-Afghan border region. The pace of drone attacks has increased dramatically in the last 18 months, according to congressional officials briefed on the secret program.
© Associated Press. All rights reserved.Copyright 2009 FOX News Network, LLC. All rights reserved.