The January 7th meeting will move back to the Machine Shed Restaurant. The meeting will start at 6:30 pm on Thursday night the 7th of January. Our main speaker will be Mr. Peter Bell who is the Chair of The Metropolitan Council. He has been gracious enough to accept our offer to be a speaker and stay for some Q & A as well. This should be very enlightening!

We have asked the local candidates to put together a brief video presentation and they will be available after the videos to answer some questions live. We are getting very close to Caucus so we must make up our minds.

Vice Chair Ted Harasyn, has offered to hold a Caucus Convenor Training at the meeting as well. We still have some openings for convenors, so if you are interested please let Ted or I know ASAP.

We will also asking for some volunteers for committees. Please listen to the request at the meeting and let us know where you can help.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

"This vote is indeed historic. This Congress will be remembered for its arrogance, corruption and stupidity. In the year of 2009, a Congress ignored the coming economic storm and impending bankruptcy of our entitlement programs and embarked on an ideological crusade to bring our nation as close to single-payer, government-run health care as possible. If this bill becomes law, future generations will rue this day and I will do everything in my power to work toward its repeal. This bill will ration care, cut Medicare, increase premiums, fund abortion and bury our children in debt."

More at Real Clear Politics

After a 60, 39, 1 vote in the Senate, the Senate version of the Health Care bill has passed. It appears there is a total lack of a certain human quality by Democrats in the Senate;

Scruple(s)

1.  an ethical consideration or principle that inhibits action
2.  the quality or state of being scrupulous
3.  mental reservation

Can you believe not a single Democrat could vote against this atrocity. Where a 51 to 49 vote would have sufficed.

The bill HR3590

Here are a couple of lists. Republican Governors as of 2009, and Senators up for election in 2010.

• Senators up for Election in 2010
• Republican Governors

Lists from senate.gov and wikipedia.

Interesting note: In 2010 - 53 percent of the Senators up for reelection are Republican seats, 47 percent Democrat.  Republicans will have six open seats however, due to retirements.  In 2012 - 73 percent of the Senators up for re-election will be Democrats.

From Sarah Palin's Facebook notes...

Last weekend while you were preparing for the holidays with your family, Harry Reid’s Senate was making shady backroom deals to ram through the Democrat health care take-over. The Senate ended debate on this bill without even reading it. That and midnight weekend votes seem to be standard operating procedures in D.C. No one is certain of what’s in the bill,..

Bradley Fikes is a science writer for the North County Times, a paper that covers San Diego and SW Riverside Co. in California.  He wrote this yesterday in his blog;

A few years ago, I accepted global warming theory with few doubts. I wrote several columns for this paper condemning what I thought were unfair attacks by skeptics and defending the climate scientists.

Boy, was I naive.

Since the Climategate emails and documents revealed active collusion to thwart skeptics and even outright fraud, I’ve been trying to correct the record of my earlier foolishness.

The rest of his blog entry is here...

Politico has just reported that Representative Parker Griffith from Huntsville Alabama will switch to the GOP this afternoon.  More importantly from the politico article :

Griffith, who captured the seat in a close 2008 open seat contest, will become the first Republican to hold the historically Democratic, Huntsville-based district. A radiation oncologist who founded a cancer treatment center, Griffith plans to blast the Democratic health care bill as a prime reason for his decision to switch parties - and is expected to cite his medical background as his authority on the subject.

Read the article at the Politco

UPDATE: Griffith was one among 39 Democrats who voted against the house version of the health care bill in November.

The Tea Party Express III will begin is trek across America in Searchlight, NV (Harry Reid's home town) on March 27, 2010.  It will make a stop in Minneapolis on April 8^th 2010. On April 15^th it will reach its destination Washington, DC.  During its cross country tour the Tea Party Express III bus will stop in over 40 cities. Visit TeaPartyExpress.org for more information.

The January Newsletter is now available for download  NOTE: This is a revised edition  as of 1/2/2010

Contents:

• Review of Dec 10^th meeting
• Candidate Forum : Kelly Parker, running for Senate of SD56
• Defining Conservatism, Brian Marum
• Tenth Judicial District Evaluation Committee, Bob Tatreau
• Book Club, Randy Brown & Brian Marum
• Interesting Links
• Up Coming Events

This newsletter and previous newsletters are available online

I am not sure who first came up with the mantra of buying health insurance across state lines slogan. All it is a slogan. All of the states have created certain requirements to sell insurance in each state. They have various mandates, and numerous regulations that determine what coverage must be provided.

In my view unfortunately, it is an empty attention-getting phrase and not much more. The state legislatures essentially collude with insurance companies to maximize the companies competitive position. Between the legislature and the insurance companies competition is driven from the states.

A good example was in a letter I received from Amy Klobuchar just last month. In the letter she explains how she got a mandate passed in the Minnesota legislature.

“When my daughter was born she was very sick. But due to an insurance company rule, I was forced to leave the hospital just 24 hours after she was born. Along with other mothers, I went to the state legislature and got one of the first laws passed in the country guaranteeing new moms and their babies a 48-hour hospital stay.“

What did that mandate cost? I don't really know. But in today's economy a day in the hospital is well over $1,000. A thousand dollars that is paid for through increased insurance premiums. There are many-many more mandates just like this one which drive up the cost of health care in the U.S. They do this by directly increasing costs like this item, but also by driving out potential competitors who won't put up with yet another mandate.

Because of all the variations between states, it is very unlikely that you will really ever to be able to buy across state lines. Nice slogan, but empty rhetoric.

TO: Individuals Interested in the Administrative Rules of the Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board

On December 21, 2009, the Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board (the Board) published in the State Register a Request for Comments on the possible adoption of new and amended Administrative Rules governing the requirements and procedures found in Minnesota Rules Chapters 4501, 4503, and 4525. The Board recognizes that the State Register has a limited audience. Therefore, in order to reach more individuals and associations that may be interested or significantly affected by the adoption of administrative rules related to Minnesota Statutes Chapter 10A the Board is carrying out an additional notice plan. Through the additional notice plan the Board hopes to include a larger range of individuals in the rulemaking process. You are being provided this notice as a part of the additional notice plan.

Attached to this notice is the Request for Comments as it appears in the State Register. The Request for Comments identifies seventeen subject areas that are being considered by the Board. Comments on this draft of the proposed rules will be accepted for at least 60 days and until the Board has finished developing the proposed administrative rules and publishes a Notice of Intent to Adopt Administrative Rules in the State Register.

The Board will provide additional information on the subject areas being considered and the status of the rulemaking process on the Board’s website at http://www.cfboard.state.mn.us/

The method for participating in the administrative rule process is provided in the Request for Comments.

The request for comments in PDF form.

In the dead of night at 1:08 AM, December 21, the Senate on a vote of 60 to 40 passed the cloture vote on health care.  A vote for passage is expected on Christmas eve.  Our Chrstmas present from Congress will be a lump of coal.

Today President Obama in a press conference said the in the first decade of its implementation the bill would reduce the deficit by $152 billion. Wait a minute... a $152 billion over 10 years is $15 billion a year.  When annual deficits are now running well over a trillion dollars, $15 billion is just noise. $15 billion is less than ½ of one percent of a $3.6 trillion budget, and only 1 percent of a $1.5 trillion dollar deficit.

In the second decade Obama claims that the HC program will further reduce deficits by $1 trillion dollars.  I hate to say it but the way things are going in 10 years a $100 billion a year improvement on deficit reduction will also be just noise.

This country is in big trouble, and it is going to get much worse in the coming years.  One ray of hope is with the pending passage of this bill, the tax increases and reductions in Medicare are expected to happen immediately. If the reaction to this is general outrage, there is the opportunity to reverse this atrocity by the citizens in an election revolution.

"I think I understand what they mean by lowering the debt. We are already in the hole, and by going deeper, it is lower!"

A goodly number of Republican Senators have put together this YouTube Video to ask your help in stopping the ObamaCare leviathan.

The picture below is from the official Whitehouse Flickr web site. It is a photo of one of Obama's Valet's lapel with a flag pin affixed. Not any flag pin but one with a picture of Obama super imposed. I am speechless.

The original photo is here.  Additional photos from the Whitehouse are here

The very Junior Senator from MN Al Franken, denied Joe Lieberman a moment to finish his floor speech.  Senator John McCain rose to object to the behavior.

Read about it here and also look at the video of the no-class Senator from MN.

The US House today increase the debt limit by $290 billion dollars, on a vote of 218 to 214 (passage requires 218 yea votes). The Senate is expected to pass the measure soon.  The House had earler said it wanted to increase the debt limit by $1.8 trillion for the fiscal year 2010, but "conservative" Democrats and the Republicans objected to the idea.

Meanwhile the Treasury has reported that the current debt limit has been exceeded. But through accounting tricks they claim the can fudge an excess of $150 billion give or take.  Since the fiscal year has started on October 1^st  the Treasury has been building up the defiict at a record breaking pace. Exceeding $292 billion in the first two months.

As of December 15 the Treasury is reporting a debt of $12,134,970,556,795.04  ($12.134 trillion) . The current debt limit is $12.104 trillion.  I seem to see a problem here.

President Obama's approval index = percent strongly approve - percent strongly dis-approve hits a new low of minus 19 percent.  Among those where fiscal concerns are most important is approval is 1 percent strongly approve, and 81 percent strongly disapprove.

See more at Rasmussen Reports.

A photo of a sign put up for the administration;

We had a very exciting meeting at the Sheraton Woodbury on Thursday night. This was the first meeting at our new location and seemed to be well received by all in attendance except for maybe one. Part way through the meeting members standing in the back of the room noticed a women video taping the meeting. When asked who she was she admitted that she was from the DFL! I guess we should accept this covert action by the other side as a compliment.

We heard from 4 of our 5 announced candidates for State House and State Senate.  We asked for three questions from the audience based on the content of the candidates talk. The questions were few. As we move forward we need to toughen our candidates. At our next meetings we will ask for questions that are not restricted. I believe we have a strong slate of candidates and we need to work with them by getting them ready for debates and interviews. So, not only do we need to build their confidence, but we need to get tough ourselves and ask the hard questions. The tougher we are the better equipped the candidates will become.

We heard from Drew Emmer about the ‘Colorado Model’ which is a frightening example of what four men can do to flip a state from red to blue. They were so successful in Colorado that they have now moved to 17 more states with Minnesota being one. Drew also introduced us to Americans for Prosperity which is the rights answer to the Colorado Model. AFP has branches in 27 states and will be in Minnesota as soon as we can raise the seed money to get our branch started.

The December 10^th meeting started the second round of visits from gubernatorial candidates. Pat Anderson was our first guest. She told us more about her platform and fielded quite a few questions from the audience. We will continue showcasing the rest of the top four candidates as we move toward the February 2^nd Caucus and the straw poll that will take place at Caucus.

On a personal note, I would like to thank the 75+ people who came to the December 10^th meeting. Considering that we were faced with bitter cold, freezing roads, a new meeting place, a new start time – wow what a crowd. Thanks to all and I hope to see you at our next meeting on January 7^th, 6:30 pm at the Sheraton Woodbury.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

At our Thursday night BPOU meeting Brian Marum presented an idea for creating a district book club. The club would help supplement funding for the district. It works by putting a deposit on the book when you take it out. When you return the book you receive one half of your deposit back. The remainder will help with district expenses.

I changed the menu item "Bookmark" in the menu bar above to "Bookclub". Clicking on it will bring up the page to access the list titles of books available. The book information is stored in a database for future enhancements.  You can also use this link;   BookClub

Listen to Michele Bachmann on the B-CAST for a call to action to stop the financial services bill in Congress. On Breitbart.TV 

UPDATE:

• More at HotAir.com : Bachmann: Stop Barney Frank’s power grab in the financial sector
•  The 1300 Page bill HR4173 - "The Wall Street Re-form and Consumer Protection Act of 2009"  - This bill is another takeover of financial services by the government. Must be defeated.

UPDATE:  HR4173 has passed the house on roll call 968  Next stop the Senate.

The bill passed on a vote of  Yea = 223, Nay = 202, NotVoting = 9.  27 Democrats voted against the bill, 7 Democrats and 2 Republicans did not vote.

With the publication of damaging e-mails from a climate research center in Britain, the radical environmental movement appears to face a tipping point. The revelation of appalling actions by so-called climate change experts allows the American public to finally understand the concerns so many of us have articulated on this issue.

“Climate-gate,” as the e-mails and other documents from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia have become known, exposes a highly politicized scientific circle -- the same circle whose work underlies efforts at the Copenhagen climate change conference. The agenda-driven policies being pushed in Copenhagen won’t change the weather, but they would change our economy for the worse.

The e-mails reveal that leading climate “experts” deliberately destroyed records, manipulated data to “hide the decline” in global temperatures, and tried to silence their critics by preventing them from publishing in peer-reviewed journals. What’s more, the documents show that there was no real consensus even within the CRU crowd. Some scientists had strong doubts about the accuracy of estimates of temperatures from centuries ago, estimates used to back claims that more recent temperatures are rising at an alarming rate.
 

Read the rest on Sarah Palin's, Facebook Notes page.

Dan Mitchell of the Cato Institute explains how both of the current health care plans in Congress will cause deficits to explode.  See it on YouTube.

Wow - Here we are only two months into fiscal year 2010 and the Federal Government already has a deficit of $292 billion dollars. This is ahead of the rate of deficit growth seen in 2009 which was triple the highest ever deficit preceding it.

Reuters has more on it here.

I don't think this administration knows the concept of STOP SPENDING.  Obama is now talking of spending our way out the recession.  It must be something in the water in Washington DC, the same water must also be in Chicago.

UPDATE: Read more on the record deficits at BizzyBlog

A while back I wrote to Amy Klobuchar to urge her to vote against ObamaCare. She wrote the following letter back to me. Several of my comments are in blockquotes. Sorry about the delay in putting this up. I just re-read it and decided to post it on mnsd56.com.

November 24, 2009

Dear Mr. Brown:

Thank you for contacting me about health care. Knowing your views is important to me as I work to ensure that Americans have affordable, high quality health care choices. I am committed to protecting what works and fixing what's broken in our health care system. It is getting harder and harder for Americans to pay for health care and that is why I am focused on making it more affordable.

Good health care is a very personal matter for me and my family. When my daughter was born she was very sick. But due to an insurance company rule, I was forced to leave the hospital just 24 hours after she was born. Along with other mothers, I went to the state legislature and got one of the first laws passed in the country guaranteeing new moms and their babies a 48-hour hospital stay. That experience was a crucial part of my decision to enter public service and fight for common sense health care solutions.

I went to the state legislature and got one of the first laws passed in the country guaranteeing new moms and their babies a 48-hour hospital stay. One of those little changes that helps drive up health care costs.

Americans rightfully expect to choose their own doctors and their own health plans. While protecting these basic principles we must reform the way our system delivers quality care, and in so doing reduce costs, provide safeguards so that people don't lose their coverage if they lose or change jobs, and promote wellness and prevention. According to the Congressional Budget Office, each year nearly $700 billion is spent on health care services in the United States without improving health outcomes. We must make the system cost-effective, proactive and stable.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, each year nearly $700 billion is spent on health care services in the United States without improving health outcomes. What? Money spent on health care does not help anyone?. Oh that is true, everyone dies eventually.

I believe the following priorities should guide our health care discussions: First, we must reform our system to reward high-quality, efficient care. As it happens, doctors and hospitals in many regions of the country, including Minnesota, practice exactly this kind of medicine. However, Medicare does not currently reward them for it. The problem is that, despite periodic efforts at reform, Medicare pays for quantity not quality. States that have historically delivered low quality, inefficient care are still rewarded for wasteful practice, while efficient states such as Minnesota are punished. For example, according to a study by the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, if spending for chronically ill patients everywhere in the country mirrored the efficient level of spending in the Mayo Clinic's home region of Rochester, MN, Medicare could save $50 billion in taxpayer money over five years. To rein in costs, we need to have all states aiming for high-quality, cost-effective results like those we have achieved in Minnesota. That's why I've introduced bi-partisan legislation that would create a "value index" as part of the formula used to determine Medicare's reimbursement system. My bill would give physicians an incentive to maximize the quality of their care to patients and help to reduce costs.

First, we must reform our system to reward high-quality, efficient care.  As it happens, doctors and hospitals in many regions of the country, including Minnesota, practice exactly this kind of medicine. However, Medicare does not currently reward them for it.  Maybe health care issues should be left to the states. Kind of like in the Consitution.

One of the driving forces behind Minnesota's well-earned reputation for high quality health care is a team approach of coordinated, accountable care, including prevention, and measures to remove perverse financial incentives from patient care decision-making. The beauty of integrated care systems is that a patient's overall care is managed by a primary care physician in coordination with specialists, nurses and other care providers, as needed. To better reward and encourage this collaboration, we need to have better coordination of care and less incentive to bill Medicare purely by volume. Increasing the "bundling'' of services in Medicare's payment system has the potential to deliver savings and start encouraging quality, integrated care. The lesson of the high-quality, efficient states like Minnesota is that someone has to be responsible for the care of the patient from start to finish. Bundling will help ensure that practice is rewarded.

To better reward and encourage this collaboration, we need to have better coordination of care and less incentive to bill Medicare purely by volume. As a Medicare recipent I see no evidence of volume based charges.

With the 2010 election still nearly a year away, we have seen smear ads such as this one anti-bachmann-tv-commercial sponsored by the leftist Sierra Club attacking our Congresswomen Michele Bachmann.  Katherine Kersten writes about the campaign against Bachmann in today's Star-Tribune and on line at the:  Star-Tribune

Here is an excerpt from Katherine Kersten's article:

It's no surprise that Bachmann finds herself in the left's cross hairs. She is everything its zealots most despise: a woman who flaunts feminist orthodoxy and dares to advocate limited government, free markets and traditional marriage.

The Colorado model is fueled by unprecedented piles of money, contributed by a clubby group of multimillionaires. It uses left-wing nonprofit organizations, rather than traditional Democratic Party channels, to get its message to voters. Its scorched-earth tactics range from smear ads that twist the facts to trumped-up charges of ethical violations.

These attack ads are an indication to me that Michele Bachmann is tweaking the right noses in Washington DC. Keep up the good work you do for the 6th District and for America. 

The article by Kersten also discusses the "Colorado Model"  which is a plan to elect Democrats in various states including Minnesota. Learn more about the Colorado Model at this weeks SD56 BPOU meeting.  Details on the meeting are in the Upcoming Events notices on this website.

I attended the Pancake Breakfast Christmas party with Michele Bachmann yesterday morning. Michele was firing on all cylinders, she covered many topics and answered everyone's questions with aplomb. She covered everything from ObamaCare to out of control federal spending.  We all had a great time and a nice breakfast too.

Carly Fiorina, candidate for Senate in California delivers a powerful message on cancer survival and ObamaCare. She does this without once mentioning Republican, or that she is a candidate for the US Senate (running against Barbara "don't call me ma'am" Boxer).  See the YouTube Video

Jobs are created by companies when the environment is conducive to do so.  They hire when they anticipate that their business will be expanding in the future, when the future looks stable, and when sales forecasts indicate they can afford  the costs associated with adding to the payroll. They have to balance future profits with the risk of adding to their payrolls. Ideally they will hire employees who add to the success of the company, but few employees add to the bottom line right away.

What kind of things may hinder hiring. Too many unknowns are a huge hindrance. What will future costs of employing people be?  What will health care costs be. What about payroll taxes, unemployment taxes.

In the current environment it would be difficult for anyone to hire people. In January 2011 the Bush tax cuts are set to expire. When that happens many taxes will increase unless Congress acts before then.  All tax rates would increase. The 10 percent tax bracket would disappear, the upper tax rate would increase from 35 percent to 39.6 percent. Capital gains taxes would increase. A special capital gains tax rate of 5 percent and 10 percent for lower income tax payers would disappear.  The general cap gains tax would revert to 20 percent from the current 15 percent. The inheritance tax would be back in full force. Employers especially small businesses are hand cuffed by such unknowns.  Our current Congress has pledged to let the Bush tax cuts expire. So we will see what they do in 2010.

On top of that, we have the current threats of ever more tax increases; A high income surtax of 5.4 percent is being considered, a “war tax” of another 5 percent is being discussed, extending Social Security taxes to all income is being discussed.  SS tax is currently capped at $106,800 of income.

Health care costs will accelerate under current plans. Costs for insurance will increase, and various  subsidies will add to the tax burden of many, in addition to the added cost of insurance.

New regulations are also being considered in the financial arena, and for other businesses. Another stimulus package is being conjured up that will add either to our tax burden or to our national debt or to both.

Meanwhile the Federal Reserve under Ben Bernanke has been printing money which will likely cause inflation to rear its ugly head sooner than later.

The Tea Party protesters are right - Stop the Spending. Until that happens employers will likely stay on the side lines. Besides stopping the spending and stopping over regulation, government must stop raising taxes during an economic down turn.

The above is an opinion piece by the author, and may not represent the views of SD56.