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by John Stossel

Going “Green”

I ride my bike to work. It seems so pure.

We’re constantly urged to “go green” — use less energy, shrink our carbon footprint, save the Earth. How? We should drive less, use ethanol, recycle plastic and buy things with the government’s Energy Star label.

But what if much of going green is just bunk? Al Gore’s group, Repower America, claims we can replace all our dirty energy with clean, carbon-free renewables. Gore says we can do it within 10 years.

“It’s simply not possible,” says Robert Bryce, author of “Power Hungry: The Myths of ‘Green’ Energy.” “Nine out of 10 units of power that we consume are produced by hydrocarbons — coal, oil and natural gas. Any transition away from those sources is going to be a decades-long, maybe even a century-long process. … The world consumes 200 million barrels of oil equivalent in hydrocarbons per day. We would have to find the energy equivalent of 23 Saudi Arabias.”

Bryce used to be a left-liberal, but then: “I educated myself about math and physics. I’m a liberal who was mugged by the laws of thermodynamics.”

Bryce mocked the “green” value of my riding my bike to work:

“Let’s assume you saved a gallon of oil in your commute (a generous assumption!). Global daily energy consumption is 9.5 billion gallons of oil equivalent. … So by biking to work, you save the equivalent of one drop in 10 gasoline tanker trucks. Put another way, it’s one pinch of salt in a 100-pound bag of potato chips.”

How about wind power?

“Wind does not replace oil. This is one of the great fallacies, and it’s one that the wind energy business continues to promote,” Bryce said.

The problem is that windmills cannot provide a constant source of electricity. Wind turbines only achieve 10 percent to 20 percent of their maximum capacity because sometimes the wind doesn’t blow.

“That means you have to keep conventional power plants up and running. You have to ramp them up to replace the power that disappears from wind turbines and ramp them down when power reappears.”

Yet the media rave about Denmark, which gets some power from wind. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman says, “If only we could be as energy smart as Denmark.”

“Friedman doesn’t fundamentally understand what he’s talking about,” Bryce said.

Bryce’s book shows that Denmark uses eight times more coal and 25 times more oil than wind.

If wind and solar power were practical, entrepreneurs would invest in it. There would be no need for government to take money from taxpayers and give it to people pushing green products.

Even with subsidies, “renewable” energy today barely makes a dent on our energy needs.

Bryce points out that energy production from every solar panel and windmill in America is less than the production from one coal mine and much less than natural gas production from Oklahoma alone.

But what if we build more windmills?

“One nuclear power plant in Texas covers about 19 square miles, an area slightly smaller than Manhattan. To produce the same amount of power from wind turbines would require an area the size of Rhode Island. This is energy sprawl.” To produce the same amount of energy with ethanol, another “green” fuel, it would take 24 Rhode Islands to grow enough corn.

Maybe the electric car is the next big thing?

“Electric cars are the next big thing, and they always will be.”

There have been impressive headlines about electric cars from my brilliant colleagues in the media. The Washington Post said, “Prices on electric cars will continue to drop until they’re within reach of the average family.”

That was in 1915.

In 1959, The New York Times said, “Electric is the car of the tomorrow.”

In 1979, The Washington Post said, “GM has an electric car breakthrough in batteries, now makes them commercially practical.”

I’m still waiting.

“The problem is very simple,” Bryce said. “It’s not political will. It’s simple physics. Gasoline has 80 times the energy density of the best lithium ion batteries. There’s no conspiracy here of big oil or big auto. It’s a conspiracy of physics.”

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Obama Names Rationing Czar to Run Medicare

By Terence Jeffrey

Dr. Donald Berwick of the Harvard Medical School does not like free enterprise, but he does like rationing.

Two years ago, in England, he delivered a talk celebrating the 60th birthday of Great Britain’s National Health Service, the bureaucracy that runs that nation’s socialized medical system. He apparently entertained some fear that day that the Brits might turn back to free enterprise. So, in his address (as reprinted in the July 26, 2008, edition of the British Medical Journal), and as reported this week by Matt Cover of CNSNews.com, he offered British socialists some words of advice.

“Please,” he told them, “don’t put your faith in market forces — it’s a popular idea: that Adam Smith’s invisible hand would do a better job of designing care than leaders with plans can. I find little evidence that market forces relying on consumers choosing among an array of products, with competitors fighting it out, leads to the health care system you want and need. In the U.S., competition is a major reason for our duplicative, supply driven, fragmented care system.”

To Berwick, America’s health care system is not the model for the world. Great Britain’s is. In his view, it is vital for the Brits to hold high the flame of socialized medicine so the world can follow its lead.

“I hope you will never, ever give up what you have begun,” said Berwick. “I hope you realize and affirm how badly you need — how badly the world needs — an example at scale of a health system that is universal, accessible, excellent and free at the point of care — a health system that, at its core is like the world we wish we had: generous, hopeful, confident, joyous and just.

“Happy birthday,” the ebullient doctor told the British health care socialists.

If you have not noticed already, this man has a crush on collectivism. “Cynics beware,” he said. “I am romantic about the National Health Service; I love it.”

This love extends to approbation for rationing health care and using the health care system to redistribute wealth.

“You cap your health care budget, and you make the political and economic choices you need to make to keep affordability within reach,” Berwick told the Brits. “You plan the supply; you aim a bit low; you prefer slightly too little of a technology or a service to too much; then you search for care bottlenecks and try to relieve them.”

And they get to play Robin Hood in lab coats. “You could have protected the wealthy and the well,” he said, “instead of recognizing that sick people tend to be poorer and that poor people tend to be sicker, and that any health care funding plan that is just must redistribute wealth.”

Last June, after President Barack Obama signed the $787 billion stimulus law that included funding for a Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research, thus pre-positioning the federal infrastructure that would be needed to guide federal health care rationing decisions under a new national health care system, Berwick gave an interview to Biotechnology Healthcare that was brought to light this week in a report by Fred Lucas of CNSNews.com.

Berwick explained that there are three steps to “comparative effectiveness research.” The first is to determine whether a therapy works or not. The second is to determine how well the therapy works compared to other therapies. The third is to do a cost-benefit analysis.

“If a new drug or procedure is effective, and has some advantage over existing alternatives,” Berwick said, “then does the incremental benefit justify the likely additional cost?”

Now, in a free country where people freely chose to pay for their own health care with their own money, this is a good question for any prudent consumer. It is exactly that “free market force” that Berwick implored the British socialists not to put their faith in.

But in a country where the government has taken regulatory and fiscal control of the health care system — where the state is subsidizing most people’s care — and where government bureaucrats make the decisions about who gets what treatment, this question is not the animating moving force behind the invisible hand of the market, it is the dark materialistic spirit behind the iron hand of a life-and-death tyranny.

In the socialistic health care system that Berwick envisions — and that President Obama signed into law two months ago — life-and-death rationing is inevitable.

“The decision is not whether or not we will ration care,” Berwick told Biotechnology Healthcare, “the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open.”

President Obama has nominated Berwick to be administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, the federal agency that runs these two massive proto-socialist health care programs. If confirmed, he will oversee the massive cuts that Obamacare mandated in Medicare.

He will do the cost-benefit analysis on your life or on the life of a loved one.

Unless, of course, too many incumbent senators make the self-diagnosis that a vote to confirm would result in the premature end of their sickly political lives.

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David Malpass’s article in the Wall Street Journal today on the positive impact on markets, capital flows and jobs if there were federal spending cuts.

The Panic, Round Two: What Would Reagan Do?

‘Giant pools of capital are sitting idle in unproductive deposits or inflation hedges. They could easily fund job growth if real, after-tax prospects improved.’

By DAVID MALPASS

When Ronald Reagan became president, the world had too much inflation, i.e., too much money chasing too few goods. Economists argued for higher taxes to sop up extra demand. Instead, Reagan chose to cut tax rates to encourage more output and pursued a strong-dollar policy. The result was more goods and a better balance between the supply and demand for the dollar. The malaise ended 18 months into his administration, with inflation declining gradually for nearly 20 years.

We now face a different, equally severe problem-too much government spending and debt. It is disrupting job growth and financial markets across the industrialized world. The current policy response is to keep interest rates super-low for big borrowers (saving governments billions at the expense of savers), increase government spending, and then apply large tax increases.

This approach isn’t working. It is rapidly reducing the capital in small businesses and holding back hiring. The result is very fast growth in the national debt, the opposite of the desired outcome. The Congressional Budget Office projects that under the Obama budget unveiled in February, spending will increase to $3.6 trillion in 2010 and $5.7 trillion in 2020 from $3 trillion in 2008.

This plan for profligate government spending creates $20 trillion in marketable Treasury debt by 2020, nearly 2.5 times today’s $8.4 trillion burden. It would amount to 90% of the nation’s annual output. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates for the U.S. debt are even higher-107% of GDP by 2020, based on its less rosy assumptions about debt service as debt levels rise.

All the forecasts are at nosebleed levels by any economic standards,

yet they don’t count the debt on taxpayers from unfunded benefit programs and Washington’s huge money-losing mortgage institutions, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In effect, we’re in a debt hole the size of the Grand Canyon yet current economic wisdom is to dig deeper with more “fiscal stimulus.” Transfer payments already exceed 18% of the nation’s personal income, shifting trillions in income from more productive parts of the economy to less productive.

Adding to the strain on the private sector, Washington is using complex, heavily lobbied backroom processes to pass huge regulatory expansions. The health-care reform bill alone was a whopping 2,700 pages; the nearly finished financial reform bill is expected to top 2,000 pages. Washington may pass hundreds of pages of tax law late this year, claiming a middle-class tax cut. But with the expiration of the Bush tax cuts most Americans will pay as much or more in taxes in 2011 as in 2010. Congress’s rationale for allowing a tax increase during hard economic times is the erroneous belief that U.S. growth and investment aren’t very sensitive to tax rates. The reality is that the private sector takes the hit.

A more effective approach would be to restrain government spending in both the U.S. and Europe in order to attract more private-sector investment. Sadly, most politicians and government officials will undercut that approach, preferring taxes on the rich and value-added taxes rather than reductions in government expenditures.

Instead of tackling the spending problem, most governments are still trying to cover it up. Even if Greece implements its bailout deal with the IMF, taxes and government spending there will rise despite the deep recession. Gross debt will rise to $436 billion in 2015 from $379 billion in 2010. This explains the market’s disappointment with the program. The private sector gets to cash in some of its Greek paper, but Greece is left owing ever more to the IMF and other euro-zone governments.

World financial markets react quickly to changes in the growth outlook. This is a two-edged sword. When constructive changes are underway, there’s an immediate reward-higher prices for stocks and bonds mean a lower cost of capital, creating more jobs, profits and tax payments. When growth conditions deteriorate, however, financial markets tend to pile on as we’ve seen in recent weeks. Persistent financial market weakness means a higher cost of capital and less job growth.

The U.S., Japan and Europe need to tap into the constructive side of this momentum-driven feedback look. There’s a global competition for capital that the U.S. and Europe are losing to Asia and other emerging markets. At present, world financial markets are intensely focused on debt and government spending commitments, yet we keep adding to spending and debt at a rapid clip.

Governments can’t completely solve the spending excesses overnight, but markets would react positively to a process of constructive change. If government leaders in the U.S. or Europe announced meaningful cuts in government spending or even a credible process to reduce the rate of increase-not a commission or a legislative rule, but concrete executive action-markets would celebrate and public applause would encourage more decisive action.

As Asia is showing, the pool of investable capital is practically unlimited for countries on the ascent. Giant pools of capital are sitting idle-corporate and bank cash, chock-full money-market funds, and unproductive inflation hedges like gold and oil exchange-traded funds that could easily fund job growth if real after-tax prospects improved.

With U.S. unemployment at nearly 10% and Washington policies still starving small businesses of capital, the U.S. faces immense challenges to substantive growth. Yet global growth and job creation is a dynamic process in which capital flows to countries and companies that provide a good after-tax return. It’s not a zero-sum game pitting one country or company against another. As Reagan understood, true leadership requires stating goals and taking decisive action, in this case reducing government spending substantially enough to convince the private sector to invest again.

Mr. Malpass, deputy assistant treasury secretary in the Reagan administration, is president of Encima Global LLC and a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in New York.

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You can view the article on WSJ’s website by clicking here.

For more information on David Malpass, visit www.MalpassforSenate.com

TOP TEN

ANDREW CUOMO

EXCUSES FOR

ACCEPTING TAINTED

“WORKING FAMILIES”

PARTY LINE

 New York, NY-May 26… In anticipation of New York gubernatorial candidate Andrew  Cuomo’s expected capitulation to the Working Families Party – after promising that he “will be taking on very powerful special interests” as New York’s next governor – the fiscal reform group New Yorkers for Growth announced a contest Monday, challenging New Yorkers to guess how Mr. Cuomo will try to explain away his acceptance of the Über-special-interest WFP ballot line.

Contest participants were asked to complete the following statement for Mr. Cuomo: “I know I said I am running as a reformer, but I am accepting the special-interest WFP line because______________.”

 Here are the top 10 submissions to date (the contest remains open until the day Mr. Cuomo caves into special-interest pressure and accepts the WFP line. An online link to the Top 10 List is available here.)

1.       “Who said anyone’s getting screwed? I’m only climbing into bed with the WFP.”

2.      “I’m not investigating the WFP, the US Attorney is. He’s the one who shouldn’t take their line.

3.      “I didn’t say ‘reformer.’  I said ‘PERFORMER’ — with a ‘P.’  Get it?”

4.      “I like the WFP.  They tip well when you return their coats.”

5.      “What’s wrong with special interest groups? Someone has to like the state budget.”

6.      “I took the Liberal line once and look what happened to those guys.  I’m really doing everyone a favor.”

7.      “I wasn’t going to take the WFP line, but the Legislative Bill Drafting Union threatened to go on strike.”

8.     “Now that ACORN is out of business, who’s going to man those ‘job centers.’”

9.      “Everyone gets a seat at the table in a Cuomo administration — unless we have to sell the furniture to pay for union raises,” and

10.  “I need the WFP Line; the Hard-Working Families Party won’t back me.”

 The WFP, which was founded by the radical political organization ACORN and a collection of union interests – and which is currently under investigation by the U.S. Attorney for multiple allegations of illegalities – exists to influence legislators to raise taxes and increase government spending in New York State.  Even as New York faces imminent insolvency, the WFP is advocating higher state spending.

The New York Post and the Daily News have both urged Mr. Cuomo to refuse the WFP line because of the Party’s negative impact on New York State.  The New York Post put it succinctly:

“By explicitly turning his back on the Working Families Party, Andrew Cuomo would be sending a powerful signal that he means to be that kind of reformer. And if he doesn’t — well, that would send a signal, too.”

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 CONTEST TERMS 

1.    Entries must be emailed to info@newyorkersforgrowth.com before Mr. Cuomo caves into WFP pressure;

2.    Members of Mr. Cuomo’s political team, including WFP members and WFP affiliates, are excluded from competing.

3.    A hooded panel of independent judges (to ensure safety from recrimination) will determine the winning entry;

4.    There will be only one winner.  In the event of a tie, the first entry received will be declared the winner;

5.    “How dare you ask me; I’m Andrew Cuomo” has already been taken.

“The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered as the palladium of the liberties of a republic.” –Joseph Story

Editorial Exegesis

Palladium of liberties or source of Mexico’s troubles?

“Felipe Calderon received liberal plaudits for falsely claiming Arizona’s new immigration law uses racial profiling, but that wasn’t the only baloney the Mexican president peddled during his state visit. Over four minutes of his Thursday address to Congress was spent lecturing Americans to renew the federal Assault Weapons Ban that sunset in September 2004. His justifications for the ban were all garbage. Mr. Calderon claimed that guns covered by the federal ban were particularly ‘powerful weapons.’ While the term ‘assault weapons’ may conjure up visions of military hardware, the inside guts of these feared guns are essentially the same as deer hunting rifles. The firing mechanisms in semiautomatics and machine guns are completely different. … ‘If you look carefully, you will notice that the violence in Mexico started to grow a couple of years before I took office in 2006,’ Mr. Calderon said. ‘This coincides, at least, with the lifting of the [U.S.] assault weapons ban in 2004.’ … Mr. Calderon’s claim that 80 percent of guns used in Mexican crimes come from the United States is completely false. Most weapons seized in Mexico have traceable serial numbers that show they come from countries other than the United States. The 80 percent number reflects how many guns sent to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives for tracing end up being from America. Most weapons seized in Mexico aren’t transferred to U.S. authorities, so that figure is meaningless for calculating overall totals. It is offensive for Mr. Calderon to come here as our guest and make up facts to blame America for Mexico’s many problems. But it was more frightening to witness Democratic House and Senate members jump up and give a standing ovation when the foreigner called for renewing the Assault Weapons Ban. That’s a warning all American gun owners should heed.” –The Washington Times

Upright

“Memo to Republican National Committee: this is the branding opportunity of a lifetime. Mr. Calderon whacking decent Americans and being cheered by leftist Democrats is an election-year dream come true. What could be better than a thirty-second commercial showing the power center of a bankrupt political party taking the side of a shamelessly hypocritical foreigner over their fellow Americans? One could even envision a voice-over announcer asking the ultimate brand-reinforcing question: Are Democrats the political party you want representing American interests in Washington, D.C. after the November election?” –columnist Arnold Ahlert

“The fact is, Mexico has two big exports: Oil, and their second biggest export is poverty to the United States — from which, in remittances sent back to Mexico, they get $21 billion a year. Mr. Calderon has a stake in illegal immigration to our country.” –columnist George Will

“Washington keeps pushing the envelope on craven. For his part, President Obama is a virtuoso at talking out of both sides of his mouth on immigration. He calls the immigration system broken, then proposes to fix the system by paving a path to citizenship for those who broke the law. He has called SB1070 misguided in order to appeal to the lathered-up pro-illegal immigration corner. Then he appeals to ‘misguided’ voters by assuring them that he is gung-ho when it comes to enforcing the immigration laws.” –columnist Debra Saunders

“When President Obama discussed the new Arizona immigration law with Mexican President Felipe Calderon at the White House Wednesday, he was doing something he has never done with the governor of Arizona. Although Obama has repeatedly criticized the law, he has not once talked about it with Gov. Jan Brewer, nor is any such discussion in the works. … The bottom line is that Obama, the Justice Department, and the entire executive branch are on Mexico’s side in this dispute. On the other hand, the majority of the American people are with Arizona.” –columnist Byron York

“Voters said: ‘It’s not the incumbents, stupid. It’s how they voted. It’s what they stand for.’ No incumbent who voted against the Bush/Obama bank bailouts, the ‘stimulus’ package and ObamaCare lost his or her job. Voters hate the bank bailouts. They hate the government takeover of car companies. They do not believe that the $800 billion stimulus package stimulated anything but bigger government. They reject ObamaCare and think it’s costly and likely to worsen health care. Incumbents who voted for these things now face the music.” –columnist Larry Elder

Insight

“It is incredible how as soon as a people become subject, it promptly falls into such complete forgetfulness of its freedom that it can hardly be roused to the point of regaining it, obeying so easily and willingly that one is led to say that this people has not so much lost its liberty as won its enslavement.” –French judge, writer, philosopher Estienne de la Boétie (1530-1563)

“Justice, like liberty and coercion, is a concept which, for the sake of clarity, ought to be confined to the deliberate treatment of men by other men.” –economist Fredrich August von Hayek (1899-1992)

“A judicial activist is a judge who interprets the Constitution to mean what it would have said if he, instead of the Founding Fathers, had written it.” –former senator Sam Erving (1896-1985)

Dezinformatsia

Blame America: “Why do so many Mexicans risk their lives to pick our fruit and cut our lawns? They are fleeing a country where life is cheap and honest jobs are getting harder to find. And that, without question, is partly our fault. We have a right to enforce our own laws. Every country does. But we have an obligation not to arm the gangsters who are destroying the quality of life in Mexico, scaring away tourists (and in turn taking away decent jobs) and gunning down innocents — all in the hopes of making money from our insatiable demand for illegal drugs. … I understand that some folks, especially in Arizona, will take offense at the criticism of a foreign leader. But before we throw too many stones, we should take a look at just what we’re doing to destroy their country and foster the very migration about which we legitimately complain.” –Fox News commentator Susan Estrich

What goes around comes around? “President Bill Clinton went to the Great Hall of the People and when Jiang Zemin was President of China. I heard President Clinton say, ‘what you did in Tiananmen Square was wrong.’ He lectured. We all said, that’s terrific because it was the ox being gored on the other side. President Calderon represents Mexico. And he said what a lot of Americans are also saying, that that Arizona law is discriminatory and it ought not to have been on the books.” –ABC’s Sam Donaldson (“That law is actually supported by a majority of Americans, according to polling. And I can’t believe that you’re actually comparing it to Tiananmen Square, right? I mean, you’re not?” –ABC’s Jake Tapper)

Watching the watchers: “We think the [New York] Times should investigate some of its investigative reporting.” –MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan chastising the Times for its report that Connecticut Attorney General and Democrat Senate candidate Richard Blumenthal has been lying about his military record

Heaven forbid: “Textbooks must now include mention of the conservative resurgence of the ’80s and ’90s, the National Rifle Association, the Moral Majority, and include the idea that our Founding Fathers may not have intended a separation of church and state. Even some vocabulary would change. The world ‘imperialism’ would be replaced with ‘expansionism’ in describing America’s land acquisitions. … Critics say the board is whitewashing history.” –NBC’s Rehema Ellis on the “new” social studies curriculum guidelines passed by the Texas State Board of Education

Newspulper Headlines:

Does Anyone Really Win This Sort of Fight?: “City Winning Bird Feces Fight” –Mountain View Voice (Palo Alto, CA)

Questions Nobody Is Asking: “Moonshine or the Kids?” –The New York Times

Answers to Questions Nobody Is Asking: “What the Tea Party Can Learn From Jimmy Carter” –The Washington Post

Everything Seemingly Is Spinning Out of Control: “Public Trust of Federal Government Has Increased” –WFED-AM website (Washington)

Bottom Stories of the Day: “Obama Campaigns Against Bush — Again” –Politico.com

(Thanks to The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto)

The Demo-gogues

President of what country? “I want everyone, American and Mexican, to know my administration is taking a very close look at the Arizona law. We’re examining any implications, especially for civil rights because in the United States of America no law-abiding person — be they an American citizen or a visitor or tourist from Mexico — should ever be subject to suspicion simply because of what they look like.” –Barack Obama

Sí, se puede: “Mexican-American families have been here for centuries, as well as those who continue … our proud tradition as a nation of immigrants. All of whom strengthen our American family and who join us today. Mr. President [Calderon], your visit speaks to a truth of our time in North America and the world. In the 21st century, we are defined not by our borders but by our bonds. So I say to you and to the Mexican people, ‘Let us stand together. Let us face the future. Let us work together.’ Trabajemos juntos!” –Barack Obama

Spoken like a true leader: “Plug the damn hole.” –Barack Obama on the oil spill (That’s what we say every time he opens his mouth.)

Non Compos Mentis: “Obviously, the loss of Daniel Pearl was one of those moments that captured the world’s imagination because it reminded us of how valuable a free press is.” –Barack Obama (Pearl wasn’t “lost,” he was beheaded by terrorists.)

Classy: “I want to see the schools work… I want to see hospitals work. I don’t think the Republicans share that point of view. Why would you put people in charge of government who just don’t want to do it? I mean, you wouldn’t expect to see al-Qa’ida members as pilots.” –Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) comparing Republicans to terrorists

Belly laugh of the week: “The Democratic Congress and the Obama administration share a strong commitment to fiscal discipline and common sense in our budget, and we must continue to do everything in our power to boost our economic recovery, rein in the deficits we inherited, and remain responsible stewards of the public purse. After President Bush and Republicans in Congress turned record surpluses into record deficits and nearly doubled the national debt, Democrats are returning our nation to a course of fiscal responsibility.” –House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on her own party’s quadrupling of the deficit

Village Idiots

Global village: “There is one issue where Mexico needs your cooperation. And that is stopping the flow of assault weapons and other deadly arms across the border. … I would ask Congress to help us, with respect, and to understand how important it is for us that you enforce current laws to stem the supply of these weapons to criminals and consider reinstating the assault weapons ban.” –Mexican President Felipe Calderon in an address to Congress

No free market: “Please don’t put your faith in market forces [emphasis in original]. It’s a popular idea: that Adam Smith’s invisible hand would do a better job of designing care than leaders with plans can. I find little evidence that market forces relying on consumers choosing among an array of products, with competitors fighting it out, leads to the healthcare system you want and need. In the U.S., competition is a major reason for our duplicative, supply driven, fragmented care system.” –Dr. Donald Berwick, nominated by Barack Obama to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the agency that runs Medicare

Goose and gander: “My carbon footprint, I think I can say confidently is much bigger than most people’s because I travel in a bus. … What I try and do is try and, with the knowledge that I have, is offset my contribution to [carbon emissions]. I think people that don’t move around as much as me can take a bike when it’s a nice day.” –rocker Dave Matthews

“Too bad if we have to pay a little extra money for gasoline, if we have to pay a little extra money for coal, or if we have to curb our appetite with what we pull out of the ocean. That’s what we have to do, or else we’re giving up on our children. So, that’s what I would hope happens.” –Dave Matthews (Matthews earns about $20 million each year and is worth roughly $250 million.)

Short Cuts

“I mentioned last week the attorney general’s peculiar insistence that ‘radical Islam’ was nothing to do with the Times Square bomber, the Pantybomber, the Fort Hood killer. Just a lot of moments ‘capturing the world’s imagination.’ For now, the jihadists seem to have ceased cutting our heads off. Listening to Obama and Eric Holder, perhaps they’ve figured out there’s nothing much up there anyway.” –columnist Mark Steyn

“Attorney General Eric Holder was grilled in Congress … about Arizona’s new immigration law. He’s denounced the Arizona law as unconstitutional while admitting he hasn’t read it. He’s read the law, it’s the Constitution he’s never seen.” –comedian Argus Hamilton

“[Obama] came into office promising rainbows and puppies for everyone and has, like Pizza Hut during a blizzard, failed to deliver.” –columnist Jonah Goldberg

“By this time, I’m sure we’ve all seen those posters of George W. Bush captioned ‘Miss Me Yet?’ I, personally, think things have gotten so bad in Obama’s America that I wouldn’t be surprised if we begin seeing those same posters springing up with Jimmy Carter’s picture.” –columnist Burt Prelutsky

Right Principles PAC endorses Steve Labate

May 24, 2010 – Stamford, CT:  It is with great pride that Right Principles PAC endorses Steve Labate as Congressional Representative for election to the 2^nd District in NY.

Steve is not a career politician but a patriot who has proudly served his country both as an Iraq War veteran and as an Army Reserve Lieutenant Colonel.  A family man who works as a financial consultant for a major firm, Steve is a person who embodies the type of strong traditional values Conservatives should expect from those who seek to represent their beliefs.

Steve is committed to ending the catastrophic consequences of the policies of the Obama / Pelosi / Reid regime, which can always count on the support of the 2^nd District’s current representative, Steve Israel.

Steve is a fiscal conservative who will work to cut taxes and put a stop to the Big Government policies of the Obama Administration.  He opposes the job-killing “Cap and Trade” bill and the increased tax burdens that will be placed on individuals and small businesses to pay for socialistic schemes like President Obama’s Healthcare plan.  Steve has pledged to fight to repeal this bank-breaking European socialist style legislation and oppose similar wasteful spending designed to secure the votes of special interest lobbies such as the ACORN and the Public Service unions.

Steve’s entire military career is a testament to his support for a strong military and he supports America’s allies, especially the State of Israel.

It is time for Republicans to be represented by a person who comes from them.  Steve is an active member of the Tea Party Movement, which seeks to restore our Nation to the principles upon which it was founded.  He is not part of the Republican Party Machine, which all too often supports candidates not because of their support for conservative principles, but because of the money they can fund-raise for them.

Right Principles believes that rank and file Republicans must reject such a self-serving view and instead support a candidate who has stood in the trenches with them demonstrating and speaking against the dangerous policies the Obama Administration seeks to inflict on the American people.

Steve Labate is such a person.

Where Steve Israel votes the Party Line with Obama and Pelosi to raise our taxes and expand the government’s power over us, Steve Labate stands with us against the type of Big Government policies that will bankrupt our country.

Where Steve Israel is a supporter of the left-wing J Street Group, which even Chuck Schumer and Kristin Gillibrand have refused to participate with due to its weak stance on Israel’s defense, Steve Labate is a strong supporter of Israel as our ally in the War on Terror.

Where Steve Israel is a career politician who poses as a “moderate” when in reality he is a tethered creature, wholly owned by Nancy Pelosi, Steve Labate comes out of the most important people’s movement in the last 50 years, The Tea Party Movement.  He is a solid conservative beholden to no one but the electorate.

It should also be noted that Steve was also recently honored by the “Police Surgeons Benevolent Association of New York at the Larkfield Manor in East Northport.  The event was attended by 75 medical professionals directly affiliated with New York law enforcement.  He has also been endorsed by Combat Veterans for Congress PAC, National Defense PAC, Stephen Flanagan (the founder and current chair of the Conservative Society for Action Tea Party Group) and the CABOSA Group, Citizens against Barack Obama’s Socialist Agenda.

We need a Congressman who represents US, not the narrow interests of political hacks in Washington DC.

We need Stephen A. Labate.

Right Principles is proud to endorse his candidacy.

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National Veterans Group Endorses Labate

Iraq Veterans for Congress

White Plains, NY. (May 26, 2010) – Iraq Veterans for Congress, a national veterans group, today endorsed Republican Stephen Labate for U.S. Congress in New York’s 2^nd Congressional District.

D. Patrick Mahoney, president of Iraq Veterans for Congress (IVC), said, “It is with great pleasure that we endorse Iraq Veteran Stephen Labate for the U.S. House.  Mobilized three times since the attacks of 9/11, Mr. Labate is the epitome of the citizen soldier and we are excited to help him become a citizen legislator.”

Mahoney went on to say, “In addition to an understanding what it takes to secure a nation, Mr. Labate knows how a nation becomes prosperous from his work in the financial services industry.  We are optimistic that when Mr. Labate gets to Washington he’ll have the credibility and knowledge to reform Wall Street while ensuring a prosperous economy.”

Despite its liberal leanings, New York likes warriors.  The average Republican House challenger in New York got 25% of the vote in 2008.  But Iraq Veterans Kieran Michael Lalor running in the Hudson Valley’s NY-19 and Lee Zeldin running in Suffolk Counties NY-1 got 42% of the vote.  Despite a historically abysmal year for the GOP in 2008, status as a proud Iraq War veteran was invaluable on Election Day.

Concluded Mahoney, “Voters understand that Stephen Labate has put service to country first his entire life and that such a credential is sorely missing in Washington.  Perhaps most importantly in this era of discontent with government, voters realize that Labate has already gone eye-ball-to-eye-ball with al Qaeda and the Sunni Insurgency and is more than equipped to stand up to special interests and party bosses

Iraq Veterans for Congress PAC (IVC) is a federally registered political action committee supporting the congressional campaigns of conservative Republican Veterans. IVC looks for conservative Republican veterans who are determined to become a voice for our troops, military families, and hardworking patriotic Americans who believe that our country, our Constitution and our way of life are worth fighting for.  

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