Sunday the Senate passed the $447 billion spending bill with a number of earmarks (5,224 special spending requests) totaling $3.9 billion.  The Peterson-Pew panel calls for immediate action to stabilize our GDP to debt ratio at 60%, according to the San Francisco Gate.  Our GDP to debt ratio is estimated to be over 90% by the end of this year.  Soon, more than 100% of our gross domestic product will be used to service our national debt.

Pelosi has opposed the idea, and so has the powerful retiree group AARP. But Pelosi now would agree to it as long as a “pay-as-you-go” budget rule favored by conservative “Blue Dog” House Democrats is included.

That would require new spending to be offset by spending cuts or tax increases.

[...]

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has railed about stimulus pork, singling out for ridicule $54 million going to Napa Valley’s “wine train.”

“Wine train”?  Conflict of interest anyone?  If you’re unaware, Pelosi and her husband own a vineyard worth up to $25 million in Napa Valley.

John Boehner represents Ohio’s 8th district in the House.  He strongly criticizes Pelosi’s actions in the Hillsboro Times-Gazette.

On Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) completed the latest chapter in this lengthy story by ramming a massive $447 billion spending bill through Congress that contains double-digit funding increases to Washington agencies.

In addition to these excessive increases, the bill includes more than 5,200 earmarks, including $300,000 for music and education programs at New York City’s Carnegie Hall, where they pay the employee who oversees the props more than $530,000 in salary and benefits.  Regardless of whether these are worthy projects, are they really more important than our children and grandchildren, who will have to repay the debt we’re piling up to do all this stuff?

[...]

This is just another ploy to increase spending at a time when our national debt hit a record $12 trillion last month.  Before the end of the year, Democrats plan to raise the debt limit by another $1.8 trillion dollars.

The bill levies a 5 percent tax on elective cosmetic surgery. The provision raises $5 billion and was needed to make the numbers work, according to a Democratic Senate aide.  Politico

Protesters outside the Wortham Center before the Nancy Pelosi event June 12, 2009. (www.flickr.com)

Between the recently passed healthcare reform bill (in the House) and the cap-and-trade bill (HR 2454, House passed June 2009), I really hope the Senate takes their time with the hefty legislation on their agenda, and that’s a rare thing for me to hope.  Both of these policies will overtax the poor; indirectly, it may be argued, but they will feel the tax nonetheless.

“This historic legislation is the product of months of consensus building to achieve an effective and affordable transition to a clean energy future,” Pelosi says, who supported and voted for the bill.  The bill is nearly 1,500 pages and was part of a global effort to regulate industry.  As usual, I should offer this disclaimer: no one likes pollution, we all wish to address the issue.  The solutions provided however disrupt our freedoms, to be concise, and have potentially dangerous ulterior motives.

The following is taken from the Senate Republican Policy Committee website entitled:

Pelosi’s Cap-and-Trade Energy Tax:
Skyrocketing Costs, Disappearing Jobs, Struggling Economy
All for Nothing?

Skyrocketing Costs to Families and Farms
• Under Obama and Pelosi’s proposed energy tax – known as “cap and trade” – every American
family would pay more when they turn on the lights, set their thermostat, or fill up with gasoline.
• As a candidate for president, then-Senator Obama admitted, “Under my plan of a cap-and-trade
system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.”1
• Since energy is used to make and provide other goods and services, Americans would see higher
costs across the board. Recent studies show that these “indirect” energy costs are nearly as high
as “direct” energy costs of gasoline, electricity, and home heating fuel.2 The director of the
Congressional Budget Office testified it was unlikely any product’s price would stay the same.3
• In testimony before Congress in April 2008 Peter Orszag said: “Under a cap-and-trade program,
firms would not ultimately bear most of the costs of the allowances but instead would pass them
along to their customers in the form of higher prices…price increases would be essential to the
success of a cap and trade program.”4
• The CBO has projected that gross costs of compliance would go up an average of $890 per
household (some will go up by $1,380) in 2020, one of the lowest cost years in the program.5
And that figure did not include any costs from a slowing economy or transition costs.
• A report by the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute found that a typical 1,900 acre
corn, soybean and wheat farm in Missouri could see increased costs of $11,649 in 2015 and
$30,152 in 2050.6
Bottom line: Skyrocketing costs of energy and everything else due to cap-and-trade.

Read the rest here; job loss, struggling economy and environmental issues…

Pelosi’s HR 3962 is 1,990 pages long.  Due to the exhaustive length it has become necessary for most to resort to summaries.  One decent summary you may want to look over was posted the day the bill passed in the House by New American, written by Joe Wolverton, II (11/07/09).

With ample page references, you can check the sources easily.  I’m sure there are far more worrisome aspects of the bill that he fails to point out, due to time hopefully rather than censorship, but certainly the hefty fines and jail time for those who cannot afford a $15,000 policy are reason enough for most to be concerned.

“Misdemeanor willful failure to pay is punishable by a fine of up to $25,000 and/or imprisonment for up to one year.” For those really hardcore healthcare criminals, the punishment is a fine up to $250,000 and/or five years in jail. You’ve read it right. If the Health Care Commissioner decides your policy isn’t Pelosi-friendly and you don’t make the appropriate changes to it, then you may do time.

Pelosi’s Bill was passed last weekend (11/07/09) and many are wondering what exactly this means for America.  Have we just demonstrated our humanitarian nature regarding one another, or have we just been duped once again into supporting policy which is against our best interest?

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s healthcare plan presumes that about 8-14 million American workers will pay fines rather than buy health insurance. Unless they do, there’s a $167-billion hole in her financing plan and everything falls apart.

Former Congressman Ernest Istook continues, saying:

For this group of uninsured, the Pelosi plan makes them pay a lot and get little or nothing.

This is not a “millionaire’s tax.” It’s a tax on the uninsured. According to The New York Times, these tend to be “the working poor.”

Read News Max Article

Due to the massive amount of pages in the Pelosi Bill (HR 3963), which passed the House last weekend (11/07), it has become necessary for those with the time (and the legislative interpretation skills) to summarize the lengthy bills we here so much opinion about on the news today.  Let’s go back to July of this year and glance over some key points in the original Obama (HR 3200) proposed healthcare reform bill.

A U.S. Army translator, who was nice enough to interpret some of the original Obama healthcare reform bill (1,017 pages), lay’s out the following summary:

• Page 50: All non-US citizens, illegal or not, will be provided with free healthcare services.

• Page 58: Every person will be issued a National ID Healthcard.

• Page 59: The federal government will have direct, real-time access to all individual bank accounts for electronic funds transfer.

• Page 149: Any employer with a payroll of $400K or more, who does not offer the public option, pays an 8% tax on payroll

• Page 150: Any employer with a payroll of $250K-400K or more, who does not offer the public option, pays a 2 to 6% tax on payroll

• Page 167: Any individual who doesnt’ have acceptable healthcare (according to the government) will be taxed 2.5% of income.

• Page 170: Any NON-RESIDENT alien is exempt from individual taxes (Americans will pay for them).

• Page 195: Officers and employees of Government Healthcare Bureaucracy will have access to ALL American financial and personal records.

• Page 203: “The tax imposed under this section shall not be treated as tax.” Yes, it really says that.

• Page 427: Government mandates program that orders end-of-life treatment; government dictates how your life ends.

• Page 429: Advance Care Planning Consult will be used to dictate treatment as patient’s health deteriorates. This can include an ORDER for end-of-life plans. An ORDER from the GOVERNMENT.

Read at Free Republic

Recently, however, she has proven to be the one practicing the methods she was warning Congress about nearly five years ago.  House Speaker Pelosi has successfully campaigned for and passed a nearly 2,000 page healthcare reform bill with all kinds of sneaky legislation written in; the exact practice she condemned years ago before her fellow members.  She also failed to post her healthcare reform bill online 72-hours before the vote.

In December 2003 she said (reiterating another House Member’s comment in agreement): “if you have to twist people’s arms over and over to vote for you on issue after issue, then you would be wise to reevaluate your positions.” Interesting, considering (6 years later) that she’s the first one to come to mind regarding congress members persuading and lobbying one another.  A practice some regard as modern horse-trading.