Here is a great interview with Michele Bachmann on the health care summit held on 2/25.

Do you want to be a Delegate for the CD6 and State Conventions?

Please understand the following:

• The term is two years.
• This year’s dates and locations are listed below.
  • The dates and locations for 2011 have not been established.
  • The CD6 convention is March 20th in St. Cloud
  • The State Convention is April 29, 30 and May 1 in Minneapolis.
    • The Convention starts on Thursday night and you will miss a work day on Friday.
• A delegate’s responsibility is to give representation to their district and the people who voted for them. Please, if you can’t attend these conventions do not run for delegate. Let someone who will attend serve as a delegate. We need to have a full delegation at these conventions in order to best serve the people of SD56.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke bluntly warned Congress yesterday (2/24) that the United States could soon face a debt crisis similar to what is happening in Greece.  He further declared that the fed will not help legislators by monetizing the debt, i.e. printing money to pay for the federal debt. 

In his comments to the House Financial Services Committee :"It's not something that is 10 years away. It affects the markets currently. It is possible that bond markets will become worried about the sustainability, and we may find ourselves facing higher interest rates even today."  Bernanke was refering to the sustainability of the huge annual deficits we are currently experiencing due to runaway spending by Congress.

Read more on Bernanke's testimony at the Washington Times.

Marketwatch.com has an article about Obama speaking at the Business Roundtable where he claimed: that he's no socialist plotting a government takeover of the economy.  The best part of the article is the comments section most of which are priceless.

It appears that there are a few Republican solutions to the healthcare non-crisis.  (Sorry folks not every problem is a crisis.)

The Republican Study Committee  (50 pages 1.01 MB PDF)  has provided 70 bills related to health care outlined here.

The March 2010 SD56 BPOU Newsletter is available here

Contents

• Uncle Sam Needs You To Be an Election Judge!, Janet Beihoffer
• Candidate forum on Conservatism, Dustin Endres
• Constitution Townhall from Hillsdale College, Linda Stanton
• Yellow Ribbon Proclamations given by Governor Pawlenty
• Minnesota North Star Train Budget Buster, by Richard Glasgow
• Upcoming Events

This and past newsletters are also posted at Newsletters

Congresswoman Michele Bachmann of MN CD6 spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday Feb 19^th. Here is part 1 of 3 parts of her speech;

Part 2 and Part 3

Our February 25th meeting features the following.

• Key speaker Sue Jeffers of KTLK 100.3. Her topic is "how to win local elections."
• We will also have a short debate with our Senate and House candidates with Q&A
• Discussion of the upcoming Endorsing Convention.

Start time 6:30 at Axel's at Prestwick Golf Club:  Directions and address
 

The following has been floating about various blogs for awhile now, but it makes a very important point about the consequences of big government intervention. The unintended consequences, or maybe intended are huge.

Reagan was right. Government is not the solution, government is the problem!

Free Market Versus Big Government

• The free market did not cause this crisis, the government did.
• The free market did not create Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Ginnie Mae and Sallie Mae, the government did.
• The free market did not pass laws that forced banks to lend to those who do not qualify for a loan, the government did.
• The free market did not take us off the gold standard, the government did.
• The free market did not dump trillions of dollars of cheap money into the system causing the largest asset bubble in history, the government did.
• The free market did not create multiple multi-trillion-dollar unfunded entitlement programs, the government did.
• The free market did not write a 60,000+ page tax code that punishes work, rewards sloth and buys the votes of special interest groups, the government did.
• The free market did not destroy public schools with forced unionization of teachers and a systematic failure to teach generations of students civics and financial literacy, the government did.
• The free market did not drive our jobs overseas and kill our entrepreneurial spirit with over-taxation, over-regulation and frivolous lawsuits, the government did.
• The free market did not ban drilling for oil, vilify coal and block the building of nuclear power plants in the United States, thereby transferring hundred of billions of dollars of American wealth and many thousands of energy-industry jobs to foreign countries, the government did.
• This crisis is the result of a giant social engineering experiment and vote-buying scheme gone tragically wrong.
• The free market does not try to engineer society or buy votes, the government does.
• The government caused this crisis, the free market did not.
• The government cannot fix the crisis, the free market can.

Seen first at HotAir.com - The Green Room  or click on the time here > author painesright on February 8, 2010 11:26 AM

A minor update:

• The free market did not mandate crummy 1.6 gallon toilets, or ban the incandescent light bulb (starting in 2012) the government did.

I sent Senator Al Franken a letter (email) awhile back on the Senate heath care bill.  I of course am against it.  Today I received an email from him.  Here are a few excerpts;

Today, too many Minnesota families are burdened with high health care costs, and are afraid of losing the coverage they have. Premiums for Minnesota residents have risen 90 percent since 2000, and 444,000 Minnesotans went without health insurance in 2008. If we don't act now, Minnesota families will pay an average of 40 percent of their annual income in health care costs by 2016. This path is unsustainable.

Lets see now a 90 percent increase in health care costs since 2000. That is a average annual increase of 6.05 percent.  Meanwhile the Federal budget has increased at a annual rate of 7.00 percent over the same period.  Hmm health care costs up 90 percent and Federal Budget up 97 percent.  Yeah lets go with the Federal program they know how to control costs much better than the health care sector. Much better to pay the government most of our pay check than that evil insurance company.

Six months after the bill becomes law, health insurance companies would no longer be allowed to deny coverage to children because of a pre-existing condition, or impose lifetime caps on anyone's benefits. Right away, small businesses would also be eligible for tax credits of up to 35% of their employees' premiums, making employee coverage more affordable.

Great idea but no mention of how much those items will cost. Eliminate pre-existing condition clauses will increase costs to everyone, no lifetime caps equals higher costs,  Small business tax credits more costs to taxpayers.

Then in 2014, many more benefits would kick in.  Insurance companies would be prohibited from placing annual limits on benefits.  No one would be denied coverage or charged more for preexisting conditions.

More increased costs here, no annual limits no lifetime limits. The sky is the limit. I am sure that will drive costs down.

I championed a provision in the Senate health reform bill to hold insurance companies accountable for patients, and reign in profits. The provision would kick in right away and ensure that a higher percentage of every premium dollar is spent on actual health care, not wasteful administrative costs and profits.

The Senator and most Democrats don't understand how the free market works. Profit is what drives costs down. Seeking profit automatically reduces administration costs, and increases innovation in delivering services.  If you take away the profit motive costs will continue to rise even faster.

Also beginning in 2010, health reform would strengthen Medicare for Minnesota seniors. Medicare beneficiaries would get a free wellness visit every year. The bill would also shrink the so-called "donut hole" in Medicare Part D prescription drug coverage, and prevent the scheduled cut in Medicare payments to physicians.

Wow a free wellness visit. I am sure that will cuts costs. Who pays for this freeness?  The bill will shrink the prescription drug donut hole, that too will increase costs to the taxpayers.

All of this is so neat, every thing he wants in the plan will make costs go up not down. It will either cost more directly to the consumer, or will transfer the cost to the taxpayer.  Pixie dust is another option.

The corner stone of progressive redistribution, Social Security is going broke. Their other progressive corner stone, Medicare is also going broke.  The country is seeing $1.5 Trillion deficits as far as the eye can see, and yet Democrat opponents to Michele Bachmann go nuts at the mere mention that maybe the country should take a different direction on these failed programs. OK they have been very successful in diverting peoples tax dollars from the working class to the seniors of America.  But that is now a big problem as more boomers are retiring, and the low birth rate now means fewer paying into the program.  Boy we sure could use those 40 million babies that were aborted as taxpayers right now.

I am a senior myself, and am on Social Security. But even I see the folly in this program.  Social Security is actually in the red this year, right now.  An article in USAToday on Feb 7^th said that net receipts for Social Security in 2009 dipped to $3.3 billion. It is expected to be in the red for both 2010 and 2011. Some how it will miraculously be in the black in 2012, to then fall back into the red once again sometime in the future when the Democrats now in power won't have to worry about it.

The so called trust fund nothing more than a promise of future tax increases. Social Security its self will likely need its tax rate also increased to sustain it for a few more years.  People often complain that Congress spent the money by robbing the trust fund. Well that is true, but let me ask you this what should the government done with the money, put it in a mattress?  Or would you rather had the government making investments in real cool securities like CDO's, or mortgage securities. Man that would have been fantastic.

The trust fund is a series of IOU's, special notes that pay interest.  Of course this is an extra special kind of interest, one of those accounting entries which has no backing. However these IOU's are not much different that treasury notes. Treasury notes also pay interest. But how do we pay for those when they mature. Just print new ones to sell to the Chinese. The full faith of the government is running kind of hollow these days with trillions and trillions of unfunded mandates looming in the near future.

Michele Bachmann said that we should wean everyone off of Social Security, and out come the long knives from the progressives like Terryl Clark.  But Congresswomen Bachmann is exactly right. Something needs to be done, and the current Ponzi scheme has nearly run its course. It is running out of other peoples money.  For Democrats the solution is always easy, tax the rich. Is that not the solution to all of worlds problems from there perspective. Talk about class envy.

Check out the custom e-cards :  GOP Valentine's Day Cards

The US Senate voted on and turned down the nomination of Craig Becker, of Illinois, to be a Member of the National Labor Relations Board for the term of five years. The vote failed on a bipartisan filibuster with a vote of 52 to 33 with 15 not voting.  This is very good news. Mr Becker is associate general counsel of the SEIU, and is a close associate of Andy Stern who is the SEIU president.

In other news Washington DC is being hit again with another bout of global warming.  The "warming" may produce another 20 inches of white stuff. Meanwhile Sen. Jim DeMint twittered: D.C. snow will continue 'until Al Gore cries uncle'

In Minnesota DFL legislator has created a little form you can fill out to recommend ideas for a "Minnesota Redesign".  Your ideas may or may not be used to help reduce the on going budgetary problems plaguing the easy spending of the MN legislature.  Check it out here. Whatever I sent in one idea.

The Constitutional Coalition is hosting the Educational Policy Conference 21 in St Louis. The three day conference runs from Feb 4th through the 6th. Michele is one of the featured speakers which also includes Glenn Beck, David Horowitz, Senator Jim Talent, and many others. 

The Constitutional Coalition's misson is "Educating others to understand and know our Constitution, acknowledging absolutes as the basis for our laws and God as the giver of freedom, and researching issues through the lens of the Constitution."

Additional information can be found here and here.

Here are the results from the gubernatorial straw poll sorted in order of total votes for each BPOU.  SD56 had the 5th highest vote total in the state. We had a great turnout in SD56A. Straw Poll Results

A video demonstration of Obama's budget freezing plan;

For more information visit  PoliticalMathBlog