Is there a cure for VA’s disease?

Posted on September 17, 2008 by Steve Mac Donald

In the interest of showing interest in the troops when they are no longer troops, politicians have invested at least vocally, in promoting their efforts to improving VA care.   I’m all for improving this care, but I question the need to take a bureaucratic system that is already a poster child against government run health care of any sort, and simply making it bigger—and then calling that progress.  How that actually helps vets is beyond me.

It’s obvious that every vet (and their immediate family) deserves benefits, but instead of investing them into the running of the VA, invest them in the vets themselves. What they deserve is the kind of freedom they fought for.  Freedom to pick the types of services they want or need, in the places of their choosing, when it is convenient for them and their doctor.  They deserve the flexibility to access their benefits without navigating a byzantine administration process in advance, or for years after.

Step 1. It looks like the 2009 VA budget is estimated at 36 billion dollars.  Most of that will probably not end up as actual care or services so dismantle the VA as it currently exists and privatize any assets.  Pare it down to an administrative minimum and use the resulting  budgetary surplus to fund accounts for eligible vets.

Step2. Issue qualified veterans an HSA or similar health savings account, funded primarily from the new cash rich VA budget.  The HSA card should allow vets to use their available funds at any doctor or hospital of their choosing for covered care; allow them to use it for dental care, eyeglasses, band aids, mental health care, prescriptions, any relevant approved medical expense.

Step 3. Offer incentives to private insurance plans that support, or supplement the VA/HSA and its funding for Vets and family members.

Step 4. All transactions appear on one statement, traceable to the Vets HAS card.  This allows us to limit the role of the VA to defining what the card and its funds can be used for, and administering the aid to approved accounts-with some activity reserved for follow up to ensure compliance at both ends of transactions if that can’t be done by any other existing agency.

Step 5. Get out of the way.

I didn’t do any research for this except to get the budget numbers—I’m just editorializing so please add or challenge any assumptions that I would not otherwise be aware of.  While I admit I am attacking big government policies, and democrats favor these kinds of mechanisms, I’d much rather have a healthy discussion about what plagues the VA now, and how we can simplify the process to make it work better.

I can’t see why some form of what I have outlined wouldn’t work better than whatever we have now.  If vets need a 36 Billion dollar budget for care, most of that should be funding the Vets and their care, (Or a housing benefit, or job training, or a college fund, or supplemental life insurance, or tuition assistance or trade skills training for them or their kids) not the administration of the massive bureaucracy you must first navigate to find the leftover scraps that they call your VA ‘benefits.’

Adding an approved VA hospital in Manchester sounds nice, but lengthening the VA’s tentacles isn’t the best way to help the vets .  Politicians need to stop thinking about how to make more government, and start thinking about how very often, less is significantly more.  That would be a service worthy of the sacrifice of our soldiers and their families, for our freedom.

Posted in Local NH Politics, National Politics & Policy, taxes | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Misleadership – Shaheen

Posted on September 13, 2008 by Steve Mac Donald

One of my favorite pieces of the Shaheen-Hypocrisy pie, of which there are many, is her evolving stance on the war in Iraq.  She was for it before she was against it.  This of course means she is party to the “we were misled crowd,” the excuse we get from invertebrate politicians, about why they overwhelmingly voted to go to war, (or publicly announced they were in favor of it) but later changed their position.

 

A thoughtful legislator (or legislator in waiting) should be more than willing to acknowledge that there were plenty of good reasons to take out the dictator, and we all felt that had to happen.  And Shaheen was only one of many people who spoke out in favor, appearing to have a grasp on the important issues, supported sending soldiers into harms way.

 

But far fewer had the character or courage to acknowledge after the fact that we didn’t or couldn’t have anticipated all the problems that would result from deposing Saddam in that environment, at that time, in that manner.  When these problems created instability, when it was clear we had a serious problem—one that might leave Iraq worse off than it was before we showed up, instead of engaging in the  effort to plumb the potential benefits or consequences of every option,  the democ-rats jumped ship.

Continue reading →

Posted in National Politics & Policy | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Excuse me, but your Bias is (still) showing.

Posted on September 7, 2008 by Steve Mac Donald

Wouldn’t it seem odd if a town that tends to vote Republican had a local paper whose letters page overwhelmingly printed endorsements from and for democrat candidates?  Would it seem stranger if it printed letters from “citizens” questioning republican candidates and their policies, but not those of democrats?

Welcome to Merrimack New Hampshire and the Merrimack Journal.

The Journals web portal and print editions provide the foremost in commentary from people who overwhelmingly favor democrat candidates and their polices.  Rarely will you find references  to Republicans in the letters section unless they are being questioned for their ideas, or are an actual Republican writing to the paper to seek support from citizens for their own candidacy, in which case they are clearly identified by their affiliation.

In my one month unofficial sample of letters written by “non-candidates” endorsing policies or politicians, they all favored democrats or democrat policies over Republicans.  In fact the only positive letters from any source on the right came from Jeanine Notter  who was inviting residents to hear John McManus, the president of the John Birch Society, speak, and he is actually a bit farther right than most.  Maybe that was meant to demonstrate some balance?

I think it is important to point out that the letters they are printing are not just from average “concerned Merrimack residents.”  These endorsements are coming (mostly) from people with connections to the candidates themselves, or active Democrat party members who have run for public office in the state.  These are not casual opinions from the guy with the gnomes on his lawn, or the neighbor with the broken sprinkler head that floods the street every other day from 7-8 pm.  These are very often people actively connected to the democrat party machine in New Hampshire.

Ann McCann, Peter Flood, Don Botsch, and perenial Republican basher Fred Morse.

Is it the policy of the Cabernet press to advance such an obvious bias, or do they expect me to beleive that they just don’t get letters endorsing republicans and their policies from a traditionally Republican town,  in the four weeks leading up to a major State primary?   

In this weeks edition–which is no longer delivered to my home for some reason–the Journal sells itself out again.  This time allotting its “two letters,” to writers who are endorsing…wait for it…. democrats.

Continue reading →

Posted in New Hampshire News | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

Experience this!

Posted on September 4, 2008 by Steve Mac Donald

I have not gone looking but I can bet that if I swing over to Blue Hampshire, or some other local Left wing blog, I’ll find shadows of the grasped straws, passed along from a blinkered media, and the nut-roots, that are meant to make us ask if we can possibly believe that Sarah Palin is ready to be the Vice President.

 

Barack Obama

“Well, my understanding is that Governor Palin’s town of Wasilla has, I think, 50 employees. We’ve got 2,500 in this campaign. I think their budget is maybe $12 million a year. You know, we have a budget of about three times that just for the month. So I think that our ability to manage large systems and to execute I think has been made clear over the last couple of years,” Obama said.

 

First of all, why is Obama comparing himself, the presidential candidate, to Palin the Vice Presidential candidate?  Just how insecure must one be about their own lack of experience to stoop down to take even this pathetic shot?  Why can’t the Chosen One compare himself—on matters of experience–to Senator McCain, his actual opponent?  And ask yourself why Obama, the media, and the left wing blogosphere, has focused on the Wasilla comparison, which alone provides evidence of experience Obama himself lacks, when she has had a significantly more relevant executive post, which blows away his pathetic example, and which she still currently holds as Governor of Alaska?

 

She’s a “heart beat away” with more executive experience than the Democrat,s man himself, and Obama–and perhaps his whole party–may not even be experienced enough (or simply too enamoured) to realize just how true that is.  And to be honest, she has more experience than Biden, who has lived the lavish life of a Senator since  Obama was around 12 years old.  He’s had the same non-committal political career as Obama, able to shirk responsibility at his convenience, and sell it as discretion.

 

They chose Wasilla because it’s small and tangible, but that’s just another lie.  Wasilla is like most of America, and they are either afraid of this truth, or too stupid to know better.  Neither is a ringing endorsement.

Continue reading →

Posted in Local NH Politics | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Dr. Lynch-ensteins Revenue Monster Madness

Posted on September 3, 2008 by Steve Mac Donald

Go ahead, act surprised.  Raising taxes and fees cost us revenue.

 

The State is reporting that over the past two months revenue came in 11.6 Million under forecast.   This clearly means that the people raising the taxes, and making the forecast, have some explaining to do, particularly when we are already paying off our Visa with our MasterCard on a bloated budget that is the fiscal equivalent of spousal abuse on the tax payers. 

 

It’s time for another theoretical phone call to the creditors to let them know that New Hampshire is going to be another month late on their payments.  Funny thing is, that will only make the bonds Lynch wants’ to sell to pay for his debt even less valuable for that task. (Shaheen is using that “digging a hole” ad against  the wrong John —of course she and Lynch are budgetary twins, and neither understands why this is actually “Bad.”)

 

So what’s the other bad news?  Since we are living in a state run by democrats, the answer to any funding problem begins with more taxes.  The State will now have to reconsider its scheduled—unscheduled—and now rescheduled cigarette tax increase in an effort to stem the bleeding.  I don;t know what makes them think raising taxes some more will work better than last time, but I’m not a democrat so that’s probably why I just don’t see it.  I can hear them patting themselves on the back–“It’s smart move, good for New Hampshire, after all, Massachusetts has a higher tax on cigarettes,” ..and they are losing more money than we are!  But since Lynch has already started cloning his Concord office with one in Beacon Hill, why stop now?

 

New Hampshire did earn 1.6 million more from the business tax increase over last year, but that’s small peanuts when your State overspent by 17%.  Note to lawmakers; disgruntled citizens are more apt to avoid sundry fee increases by changing behavior more quickly than disgruntled businesses can pack up and move elsewhere.  What that means is, that on this trajectory, I expect that next year business taxes will be flat or even down, as will employment opportunities, average income, and possibly even growth as people realize that New Hampshire isn’t all that special any more. 

 

Raising taxes and fees was supposed to bring in more money, but it failed miserably, as any first year economist will tell you when you mess with cost and price structure in a free market—more responsible people with a more immediate link to their own sources of the income will alter their behavior to meet their needs.  Most democrats answer that problem by looking for more ways to stifle the free market, ignoring the maxim,  “A sinking tide beaches all boats.”   Raising more taxes will simply make matters worse.  Until Lynch and the democrats learn this simple lesson, and write budgets suitable for the household they are living in, as opposed to the utopian one they envision upon rising from their drool-stained pillows each morning, we are going to follow Massachusetts, and Michigan into the money pit of economic and social despair.   

 

Lynch either can’t or won’t stop his overspending State government, and last minute appeals to cut budgets is a too little too late election year nostrum; a band-aid hastily constructed from wood-chips and tree sap, designed to hide the gaping wound in our State budget.  It’s mismanagement at its finest, wholly lacking in backbone or leadership, and it demonstrates once again how badly we have been lead, and where we can expect to go, if a change in government is not enacted promptly.

Posted in Local NH Politics, taxes | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Shaheen, Hypocrite for senate.

Posted on September 2, 2008 by Steve Mac Donald

Jeanne Shaheen’s team has been making a campaign issue of out-of-state funding, but I wonder if they are ever going to bring up the fact that candidate Shaheen gets 75% of her own campaign money from out of state?  SEVENTY FIVE PERCENT!!  There’s a 2% difference between the candidates. 

 

They also like to point out that Senator Sununu has received money from ‘special interests’ like oil companies.  But every candidate receives money from some special interest. Shaheen’s biggest contributors are Trial Lawyers, unions, and abortion groups.  In fact, ideological single issue groups are her biggest contributors.   

 

So while it’s clear that most candidates at this level get plenty of money from other places, many of them with specific interests, if we have to then identify at least one difference between these candidates based on this information, it has to be that Jeanne Shaheen has chosen to use it as a campaign issue, and John Sununu has not.  The important point there being that Shaheen is a hypocrite. 

Posted in NH Senate race | Tagged , | Leave a comment

You want the truth? You can’t handle the truth!

Posted on August 28, 2008 by Steve Mac Donald

 

Shaheen has launched a four person committee whose sole purpose is to combat what PR gal Kate Bedingfield calls “distortions of Sununu’s record coming from the Republican side.”    But her Truth team for justice and the Non-Republican Way™ is a non-starter from go because this very announcement, coming from the Democrat side, is loaded with distortions of its own.  The two republicans (there are also two “democrats”) may be registered as such, but if you had to point them out in a field manual based on their behavior, you’d be at a total loss.  Republicans?  Where?

So who are Shaheen’s heroes for truth and justice?

Steve Walter is a member of Republicans for Lynch and Republicans for Clinton.  And if that isn’t the stupidest thing you have ever heard of, Mr. Walter even introduced Hillary at a campaign rally during the primaries.  Steve also voted for Kerry based on public statements he’s made.  But in Steve’s defense, his son has juvenile diabetes, and he seems to be voting for anyone who will heavily fund embryonic stem cell research.  My heart goes out to him, his son and his family, but I have yet to see any evidence that embryonic research is the more viable path, particularly given the tremendous success of Adult stem cell research and the complete lack of results even from privately funded embryonic research.  While I understand his motivation, and don’t begrudge him his priorities, I can’t share his current vision for a cure, or support the people he believes will help him find it; mostly because the cost to the rest of us is too great.  These people might fund his research for good or bad, but they are also in favor of so many other things I abhor that any victory in my mind would be pyrrhic.

Having said that it is ideologically impossible to support the policies of Clinton, Lynch, or Shaheen, even casually (because when you vote for one policy you get them all), and still call yourself a Republican.  And when you are trolled out as one of two token republicans for the purpose of demonstrating an attempt at balance in a political “truth” experiment, when you are clearly voting and supporting democrats in high places (and don’t question any other consequences from the rest of their agenda) I have a problem.   Steve, I want badly for you and your son to find a cure, but in New Hampshire we have people just like you who call themselves independents because of these kinds of policy conflicts.

Rick Russman is also a big Lynch supporter and votes green above all else.   Like Steve Walter he appears to have something of a single focus, but in this case it is on what democrats can do for the environment without much concern for what they will do to us in the process.  He’s Chairman of the Granite State Conservation voter’s alliance (GSCVA), which just happens to endorse Peter Burling for NH State Senate, one of Shaheen’s two Truth Team democrats. Russman’s GSCVA currently endorses three democrats, two for State Senate (Peter Burling and Sylvia Larson)  and one for Executive council (Deb Pignatelli).   And don’t forget he also endorses Lynch and now Shaheen.

 

Russman and his green warriors can endorse anyone they want, and I appreciate their efforts because I happen to be a big fan of the great outdoors, but I happen to think we can do the same thing without growing more government.  And claiming to be a republican on these grounds will only get you so far with other Republicans, when you insist on endorsing liberal democrats whose other policy notions are a Republicans worst nightmare.  Russman, like Walter, is not a fan of Sununu, but has an overwhelming interest in Shaheen’s left wing Green agenda, and whether they are both in step with the entire agenda or want the candidates despite it, their endorsement results in the same outcome.  Another tax and spend big government democrat in the senate.

 

Kathy Sullivan, a well known NH Dem, has some problems that need to be resolved before we can rely on her to tell the truth about anyone else.  She willfully housed a student from out of state who was illegally registered to vote in New Hampshire as a resident.  This student was also busted with a trunk full of Republican campaign signs he had been collecting, and while we cannot say for sure if Kathy has plausible deniability, given the fact that the student was doing this while residing in her home, and was registered illegally to vote, you are free to speculate amongst yourselves.  She has not admitted any wrongdoing up to this point but speculation alone should have sunk her ship, yet here we have her assigned the duty of truant officer for ‘Truth’ in Republican policy statements.

 

Peter Burling is a straight line true-blue liberal democrat from Cornish.  He appears to be exactly what he claims to be, though I heard a rumor that he can’t even make a right hand turn without making three lefts in succession. (Just a rumor)

 

So Truth be told, if ever it can be, Shaheen’s little task force is likely to keel over to port with so many left leaning ‘observers’ in the boat no matter what they call themselves.  But this should work well for the press when it comes to objectivity.  Many of them are already crowded around the left side of the policy lake so it should be that much easier for them to catch whatever the ‘Truth Team’ has to throw out.  And they can easily toss them a line if they should fall out themselves.  

 

So keep your eyes and ears open because Shaheen’s fearsome-foursome, the Truth Team for Justice is here, secret identities and all.  I don’t know if we can expect to get any truth out of them, but at this point I’m just waiting for the action figures to show up in my kids happy meals.

 

Posted in Local NH Politics, New Hampshire News, NH Senate race | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Inequaliy of outcomes.

Posted on August 26, 2008 by Steve Mac Donald

Equality of outcomes (the focus of every democrat policy) is the single greatest threat to liberty in America.  As long as we allow the federal government and our representatives to obsess over how they can and should use government incentives or government largess to accommodatete every human weakness, or every public whim, we shall continue to see our liberties reduced and our freedoms eroded, each and every one hidden beneath a label that reads “For the common good.”

But it is almost impossible for the government to act for the common good.  Everything it does favors someone or something, by deciding first who should pay for it, and then who should benefit from it.  Any policy that does not somehow draw equally from all quarters favors one party over another.  Any benefit that cannot be shared equally by all citizens, selects some group for special treatment at the expense of others.  And even if we imagine a policy that took evenly from all, and gave back to all in equal measure, would it not be a waste of resources for the government to pay for the administration of such a program–when the people could easily make such choices on their own without the middle-man of a government bureaucracy–unless it was to protect everyone equally from some outside force that might jeopardize the playing field?

It is apparent that our own government is the biggest threat to equality, for it is the single biggest player on the field, and growing every day.

Our government was meant to establish and secure an environment with a simple system of predictable and understandable laws that would keep the playing field fair so that the people each could choose where, how, when, or even if they will succeed.   The government was never supposed to enter the game, for it at once has a significant and unfair advantage–one it cannot exercise without favoring one side or the other.  The only cure for that is less of what we already have. 

More government can therefore never equal more equality.  It can never equate to more freedom. Government must contract to allow the people, for good or bad, the freedom to hose for themselves, and to allow them to then learn  from their own mistakes.  Only then can they take responsibility for their own success and their own freedom.

Posted in Political Thought | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Donkey Economics

Posted on August 26, 2008 by Steve Mac Donald

Shaheen has been ragging on Sununu’s economic plan, comparing it to Bush.  She likes to emphasize big oil subsidies on top of that, but of course by subsidies she means less taxation, which means letting them keep what they legally earned.   I mention it (again) because it reveals the stark reality about how Shaheen and most democrats view your income; it’s theirs for the taking, and the amount you get to keep is just one more choice you are not qualified to make.  And when someone tries to give you back what you legally earned, particularly if you represent something in opposition to the democrat party plan of the day, it’s OK to call it a subsidy.

Look, the simple truth is that you or your company worked to earn the money, and the only economic plan Jeanne has can’t work without first separating you from it. So we are forced to believe that growth and presumably wealth and hence economic prosperity for all, and “For The Middle Class™,” cannot be achieved without growing the federal government?  This is so alien to our founding concept of freedom and liberty that for a candidate to be able to suggest it–and be taken seriously–is frightening.

So based on this elitist “takings” position on income, and the issues and statements she’s made to date, we can make the following factual observations about a Shaheen economic policy.

Jeanne assumes that only with more government can we grow the economy.

Shaheen believes that new or existing government agencies are better positioned to make decisions about how to spend your money to improve the economy.

She believes the government and not private investment will find, promote, or simply create the best research and industry to serve every and all our sundry needs.

Jeanne does not–of course–want you to realize that none of these things has ever done what she claims they will do, not even under her caring Senatorial administration.  She will never acknowledge that her obsession with federal planning is socialism.  Well, it is!  But you don’t have to believe me; I challenge you to prove that long term human prosperity is possible under such a system.  Go ahead.

While we wait for that response, let’s sum up the Shaheen plan based on what we know.

More Government bureaucracy; More Taxes; More federal spending; Less control of personal income; Less choice; Higher prices.

I’m having a hard time seeing how that is better.

Posted in Local NH Politics, National Politics & Policy, taxes | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Joe Biden’s got ideas…

Posted on August 25, 2008 by Steve Mac Donald

 (The YouTube link is broken everywhere I go.  My apologies if you are unable to view the video at this time)

Posted in Local NH Politics | Tagged | Leave a comment