My main question is is health care reform is so important why are Democrats trying to push through legislation at the speed of sound? Should not the most important bills receive the most scrutiny and debate? Should not the public and particularly the professionals have time to share their input?

I believe health care reform is important. However, my ideas of reform have more to do with insurance companies providing incentives for healthy living as well as governmental restrictions on malpractice lawsuits rather than turning health care over to the government. I do have to add, probably to the chagrin of pure libertarians, that I'm not necessarily opposed to nationalized health care if it makes preventative care a major focus - most national systems do not, by the way - and if it does not reduce physician reimbursement down to Medicaid levels. There are other provisions nationalized health care needs to have for it to be acceptable to me. We should pump more money into research and development and keep the pharmaceutical companies and others doing medical research going at full speed; contrary to what some detractors believe, pharmaceutical companies are [usually] not the enemy. I do not take pharmaceuticals if I can avoid it - it's been many years since I've had a prescription medication - but most pharmaceutical companies do a lot of good.

The same thing [hurrying a bill through Congress] happened with the stimulus bill. It was shoved through Congress so quickly no one had time to actually analyze it fully. There is a time for decisive action but when that action comes at the cost of hundreds of billions of dollars, the government should have the courtesy to take a little time on the matter. I know Pres. Obama is operating in the post-Katrina world where the federal government was perceived as acting too slowly in response. However, where were the local and state governments? Are not they the first responders? This does not give the federal government freedom to rush in to a perceived crisis without planning or without at least a little debate. Where lives are imminently at stake such as with a hurricane, responses should be faster (and driven first locally and lastly nationally). However, with stimulus packages and with health care (especially with health care), there is time to work together.

So far in Pres. Obama's administration he has come across as nothing but partisan. He is condescending towards those who disagree with him; he is finding out that people - even those within his own party - actually have the audacity to disagree with him. Repeatedly I read about Obama mocking those who disagree. Such childish snobbery is sad. He comes across as defensive and elitist. Pres. Obama's approval rating is falling faster than the stock market last year. As an investment he's leaving many people poor.

Democrats trying to cram bills through shows that they are as partisan as any Congress ever was. They are acting as if they feel like they have to get everything passed that they can while they still have a majority. If they have a majority after the elections in 2010, it will not be very large. Yet through all this Democrats say that none of these bills are political; Pres. Obama in particular has stated this a number of times. Who is not being truthful?

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After eight years of Pres. Bush, the country was fed up with Republicans, the economy (although we had some really good years during Pres. Bush's presidency), and the wars. Not all of us were fed up with Pres. Bush but most people were. Of course, many people never gave him a chance or the benefit of the doubt because of the controversies Democrats created over the 2000 election. I was not a fan of Pres. Bush's fiscal policies in general but the treatment of him by much of the media and many liberals was inexcusable. The media should be able to and should criticize presidents but the relentless barrage on Pres. Bush and his administration was almost without precedent and bordered on unethical. Pres. Bush also had the misfortune to have his tenure come during the maturation of the internet and rise of social media. The vitriol exploded and the administration did not know how to deal with it (or did not want to waste time dealing with it, unlike the present administration). Part of it was the fact that Pres. Bush was not a "good politician"; he was successful in politics but was not a politician like Pres. Clinton or Pres. Obama. After eight years, our country wanted change.

This is where Pres. Obama came in. In 2006 Congress changed from a Republican majority to a Democrat majority. This was the beginning of the overall governmental change. For a time Sen. Clinton had the lead in the Democrat race for nomination. She had years of experience in Washington and had many connections. However, she was a "Clinton" and had her own history of scandals as well as those of her husband. She did not stand a chance once the media got behind and helped create the juggernaut that was Obama. He was young, cool, polished, intelligent, and media-savvy. As a community organizer he knew how to set up grassroots campaigns and raise funds in small amounts from many people. He was also African-American, which rather than hurting him, helped him tremendously. He had the African-American vote locked up and sealed. Overall, African-Americans compose about 13% of the U.S. population. Obama had virtually all of the African-American vote. Pres. Obama, smartly, ran his campaign on the promise of "Change you can believe in!" He was the person ostensibly from outside Washington who would re-create Washington, giving it an extreme makeover and more metrosexual appeal. Obama was to be a new JFK with the beautiful wife, cute kids, and polished rhetoric. Maybe he could build Camelot anew within the marbled pillars of the White House. He, to some of his followers, is a savior who not only cures cancer with a sympathetic look but also plays a decent game of basketball and looks good without a shirt on. Obama received the Democrat nomination also in part because the economy became of larger concern than the War Against Terror and the war in Iraq at a pivotal moment last year. Sen. Clinton suffered because of this and Sen. Obama benefited.

A similar thing happened in the Republican primary, although for different reasons. Mitt Romney was running 2nd to John McCain but in reality the race was close. However, Mike Huckabee proved to be more than a stinging gnat for Mitt Romney. Mike Huckabee pulled many of Christian conservatives away from Romney because they, in part, were already reticent about supporting a Mormon. Mormons, according to many Evangelicals, are the worst kind of cult; the worst thing to happen to Christianity since the feeding of early Christians to lions by the Romans. Mormons had the audacity to believe in and practice plural marriages in the 1800s, a practice many Westerners just cannot seem to stomach. Of course, Evangelicals do not seem to remember that many of their Biblical prophets practiced polygamy as has most of the world throughout most of history. In any case, Mormons are not well-liked among many fundamental Christian groups. Romney, in addition to losing supporters to Huckabee, also had the misfortune of the war in Iraq becoming the major issue within the Republican Party for a short while. The main focus on the economy did not come until after Romney withdrew and really not until after McCain was nominated. The war was McCain's strong point while the economy was (and is) Romney's.

More than a year ago I stated that Mitt Romney is "the man for the economic crisis in America." We did not realize at the time how bad the economy really was becoming. That was unfortunate. Had the economy remained the major issue, Mitt Romney would have received the Republican nomination. He has proven business acumen, rescuing troubled businesses over and over (including the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics). While experience can sometimes be over-rated, Mitt Romney's economic experience is not over-rated and cannot be over-stated. He would have been a president who would not have to rely completely on advisers to understand and establish economic policies. He could have worked even with a Democrat-controlled Congress, just as he did as governor of Massachusetts, to get sound fiscal policies passed (although the Legislature in Massachusetts did not like many of Romney's fiscal policies, which were too conservative for them).

Instead of Romney we are left with a spend-happy Pres. Obama and a Congress that is even more spend-happy. The stimulus and bailout packages might help in the short-term, should the money actually ever be released, but they set a precedent for future spending and debt. We purchase short-term and ephemeral gains at the expense of the livelihood of our children and their children. Even with the so-called stimulus package, we face unemployment rates that rival Europe's (at least Europe's in a good economic climate). As many European nations move away from socialist economic policy, America moves towards it. Even China has largely moved away from a socialist economy. We should let the market run itself without too much government intervention. I'm not idealistic enough to believe that a purely capitalist nation without government intervention is the best way but less governmental intervention and meddling is usually better.

While I think Pres. Obama is a good person trying the best he knows how to do, I do not believe he is the right person for the job. We elected the wrong person. Instead of Obama, we should have elected Mitt Romney. Fortunately we might have that opportunity in 2012. My only worry is that the economy will have recovered by then and many of us will believe that just because the symptoms are gone, the illness is gone. However, just like antibiotics, we need to extend the treatment long after the symptoms are gone in order to get rid of the disease. I believe that Obama's fiscal policies contribute to the disease instead of curing it. Maybe Obama can cure cancer but he cannot fix the economy; Congress cannot fix it either. Only the economy can fix the economy. Governments can help the economy but they cannot repair it; they can, however, make it worse by meddling. Again, this does not mean governments should leave economies completely untouched but our government should worry first about plugging the gaping holes in its bank accounts before it tries to do anything with the broader economy. We need fiscal responsibility, not this wanton spending our government is doing.

Mitt Romney was ready to answer the call to service but we rejected him. Hopefully we will not make the same mistake again in 2012 when we will need him more than ever to help clean up the mess the current administration and Congress are making.

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"This year, Republicans are again outpacing Democrats. First-quarter fund-raising reports show the Republican National Committee had $23.9 million in the bank at the end of March and no debt. The Democratic National Committee reported $9.8 million on hand and a debt of $6.7 million, which grew in the first quarter."

Now, why is it that the party that pushed so quickly to bail out so many companies also happens to be in debt? Granted, they could pay off their debt with their cash but their debt is growing. The RNC, on the other hand, has  a lot more money on hand and no debt, yet the Democrats are largely responsible for managing the federal budget (not that Republicans and Pres. Bush did such a hot job from 2001-2006 when they had control of the White House and Congress; however, the spending got worse after 2006 once Democrats had control of Congress {not that they necessarily are to blame for the increased budget deficit} and is now much worse than it ever has been). Is the DNC looking for their own stimulus package or federal bailout? This reminds me of the father of modern socialism - Karl Marx - who was always dirt poor and in debt. Is it telling that people who either don't have a lot of money and/or have a lot of debt seem to favor more government control over business and the economy?

Further, Republicans, on average, have higher socioeconomic status (SES) than Democrats (Subramanian & Perkins, 2009). Democrats also tend to favor more government control of the economy (e.g., more "socialist" economic policies) than Republicans do. This means that people, on average, who have less education and lower incomes (i.e., lower SES) tend to favor governmental policies that are economic equalizers (this means that they, as people with lower incomes, are more likely to receive money from the government). Again I return to Karl Marx. He started the modern economic socialism movement (at least he was one of the major theorists) and he was always in debt. He was terrible with money; it's not that he wasn't earning money, he just had no control over it. Marx reminds me of our federal government right now - always in debt and poor managers of our - the taxpayers' - money.

Reference

Subramanian, S. V., & Perkins, J. M. (2009). Are republicans healthier than democrats? International Journal of Epidemiology, doi:10.1093/ije/dyp152 (http://ije.oxfordjournals.org)

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The budget deficit was predicted (by the administration) to be $1.752 trillion for the current fiscal year. How much money is that? It's $1,752,000,000,000. That's too large a number to really understand. If you took $1 bills and laid them end to end around the earth, you would wrap around the earth 6,477,130,690 times! That's about 6.5 billion times. That's still too large a number to really understand. Using the same end-to-end laying of $1 bills, you could travel to the sun and back 865,700.554 times! What that means is that using $1 bills, we could travel 1,731,401.11 AU (astronomical units). That's 27.38 light years! These are astronomical amounts.

Of course, my use of the length of the U.S. $1 bill was arbitrary, I could have made any number of other comparisons but the point remains the same; that is a lot of money. And that's just the projected 1 year budget deficit! Of course, that deficit includes additional bailout money Congress might not approve but even so, we'll have at least a $1.5 trillion budget deficit with another large one next year (and so on for the forseeable future). I'm not even going to broach the subject of the actual national debt.

I appreciate that Pres. Obama and Congress are trying to address the weak economy and the budget shortfalls but right now Pres. Obama seems too much like Pres. Lyndon Johnson trying to escalate the Vietnam War while pushing for his Great Society; it was more than he could handle so he wasn't particularly successful at either. I'm not saying all of the Great Society programs were bad - many were good - but he was not able to focus on both social and military programs at the same time. He should have done one or the other, not both. Pres. Obama, like LBJ, is trying to do everything. I think he's more capable than LBJ was but Pres. Obama is not only trying to "fix" the economy, he is trying to create his own Great Society while fighting the War on Terrorism (including two ongoing campaigns - Iraq and Afghanistan). I recognize that Pres. Obama was thrown some flaming torches and asked to juggle them but instead of letting some fall and go out, he decided to keep juggling them all while asking for more.

I applaude that Pres. Obama did not implement his original plan to start taking troops out of Iraq immediately, at least he listened to his military leaders and implemented what is essentially Pres. Bush's withdrawal plan (although Pres. Bush did not like that word). I think some bailouts were probably necessary, although they should have been much smaller than were approved, but much of Pres. Obama's "stimulus" or other budgetary monies are going towards social programs at a time when we cannot afford them. Increaing Pell Grants is a nice idea (I know many other conservatives disagree) and as a researcher, I always appreciate having more money available for reserach grants, but this money is borrowed money. It's not real; we are borrowing against the future for things we cannot afford now. Fix the budget first, then try to work on social programs. We need to cut spending, not increase it.

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• Recruiting and retention adjustments: $6.24 billion
• Future combat systems of manned ground vehicles: $2.98 billion
• F-22 raptor fighter aircraft: $2.9 billion
• Transformational satellite: $768 million
• Joint strike fighter alternate engine: $465 million

That is $13.35 billion cut from defense spending alone (other estimates put the defense department cuts at $9.4 billion; my guess is that the numbers in the CNN article are off, or at least counted differently). However, are these really cuts? No, the $17 billion is going to go towards previously unfunded health care, education, and energy initiatives! There is no budget cutting occurring, there is just budget shifting. That's pretty disingenuous for an administration who talks so much of reducing spending and cutting the deficit. Of course, these proposals have to muster support in Congress in order to pass; Congress has the real power over the budget so all of these "cuts" are moot at the moment.

I applaud the Obama administration for taking serious looks at the budget and trying to find ways to reduce spending, no matter how small, but if they plan on cutting spending they should really cut spending rather than shift spending onto other priorities. I'm not even opposed to reduced defense spending if the reductions really are unnecessary programs (i.e., inefficient/outdated ones that are being replaced with more efficient and modern programs). After all, one of the major reasons for the federal government is to help defend the nation, so defense spending is important and Constitutionally mandated.

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Whenever I feel like punishing myself I read comments on CNN.com political stories. They are seriously that bad. I don't mind intelligent commentary from liberals or conservatives or whomever but there are so few logical, balanced, and intelligent comments that it is painful for me to read, which is why I rarely do. On this particular story, not more than 10% of the comments are from conservative posters. That is the norm for CNN.com stories. Why are only about 10% of comments from conservatives?

I posted a comment a number of hours ago, well before some of the most recent comments. Is my comment on the site? Nope. Hmm, maybe I didn't submit it correctly. Maybe my 15 year experience with the world wide web does not give me enough skills to successfully interact with websites and successfully submit my comments. That's probably why my comment went missing.

Or, maybe my comment was too inflammatory. I guess when I set up a straw man and ad hominem attack like the following it is to be expected that my comment would not be posted: "Isn't it funny that so many liberals comment so frequently on CNN.com stories. Maybe it's because they are all living off welfare and aren't doing anything more useful than comment on online news stories while conservatives are out working or at church (since it is Sunday) or otherwise being productive." Okay, I really did not post that. I didn't even think of it until just now as I was trying to come up with some completely off-the-wall, ridiculous, and stupid comment for my somewhat sarcastic post.

So what terrible comment did I really post? I replied to the many people who said things like, "This just goes to show that this Dying Old Party has not got a clue" or " It was because of the Bush Economics [sic] that the economy fell apart". Mainly I replied to the people who posted scathing, hateful comments that insulted Mitt Romney (and Republicans in general) as well as who said that he was just trying to deny any Republican responsibility (e.g., "The arrogance of this party [Republicans] is revolting. Still not willing to own up to any thing, truly pathetic [sic]").

This is roughly what I said (I'm expanding on my comment here on my blog). Romney was not denying Republican responsibility. He said, "Republicans and Democrats have been playing this game, passing the hot the [sic] potato, spending money like there was no tomorrow." All he did was include Democrats in his criticism yet so many people think he's trying to push the blame onto anybody but Republicans or Pres. Bush ("speaking" of Pres. Bush, here's a wonderful, hateful ad hominem comment on the story: "The Republicans still don't get it…They picked a drunk sot, hooker chasing, coke sniffing, moron, loud mouth, scum bag, out of Texas in 2000..."; I guess it could have been worse!).

Romney was simply criticizing the constant fiscal irresponsibility of Washington. Democrats are to blame as well as Republicans. Democrats have had control of Congress since 2006. Congress have the authority to actually pass budgets; they have to work with the executive branch but Congress "pays the bills" (technically, we pay the bills, or actually the Chinese and the rest of the world who loan us the money, but that's beside the point).

Further, the causes of the economic crisis started in the 1990s (actually, they started a long time ago when we as a people started individually being more fiscally irresponsible, which I believe started en masse some time after WWII). Some people decry the Republicans for not providing enough oversight of Wall Street (hindsight is 20/20, isn't it? Not that more regulations are the best idea.) while forgetting that many Republicans (including Pres. Bush) pushed for oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 2004 and Democrats refused to vote for that oversight (to be fair - so did some Republicans). Further, in general, Democrats weren't exactly clamoring for any sort of financial markets oversight. In fact, it was mainly Democrats (including Clinton) in the 90s who pushed (successfully) to force lenders to carry more risky debt by offering mortgages to historically unqualified borrowers (again, Republicans are partially to blame for this too). If you want a cause of the financial crisis, that's certainly a big part of it.

Romney did criticize Republicans but he also criticized Democrats. He criticized all wasteful spending, regardless of who authorized it. Pres. Bush was a big spender (actually, Congress was the big spender, Pres. Bush just asked them to spend a lot of money; however, Pres. Bush's spending is "small potatoes" to Pres. Obama's spending). Unlike what many people believe, Pres. Obama is not spending money (again, it's really Congress spending the money) to clean up Pres. Bush's mess - that's a naive and ludicrous argument; it's like saying Pres. Bush physically caused Hurricane Katrina (there are people who believe that!) and Pres. Obama has to clean up New Orleans because of Pres. Bush's hurricane. Republicans in general did not even cause the financial crisis. We (citizens of the United States) all did - all of us who were irresponsible with our money, from the top down and the bottom up! We speculated on speculations of real estate or oil or whatever else we could. We let the government's size grow out of control and few even tried to stop it; certainly most Democrats didn't.

That's basically what I posted (it was much briefer on CNN.com). Yet, my comment did not make it through moderation; however, hateful anti-Mormon comments (e.g., "Romney still does not get it! No one will vote for him a cult member aka MORMON." [note: that is a direct quote]) and otherwise inane or bigoted comments did. Like I said, I only read CNN.com political comments when I want to punish myself.

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