Don

In the important election on March 11, 2014, I will be voting for Joe Kenney for Executive Councilor for District 1.  You should vote for Joe too.  As he demonstrated when serving as a Selectman, Representative and State Senator, Joe Kenney’s priority is what is best for the people of New Hampshire, not what’s good for the special interests.

Part of the Executive Councilor’s job is to oversee spending on contracts over $10,000.  Joe’s habit and commitment is to ensure that the taxpayer’s get the best value for the money that government takes and spends.  Joe’s focus is whether a project is really needed and, if so, to ensure it is done most efficiently.

If you think taxpayer money should be used to benefit special interest groups or friends, then Joe is not your guy.  Joe thinks it is more important to reject unnecessary projects than to bring them in “under budget”.

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It is amusing to see Democrats trying to claim to support Veterans and claiming that Republicans don’t.  Democrats cut military retirement benefits, over strong Republican objections, that they now claim to want to restore.  In fact Democrats specifically intended to hurt the military, cutting military pensions for current service personnel, while only cutting civilian pensions for future employees.

This latest fake claim of wanting to help veterans is only a political move to put Republicans in a box, either they agree to restore the benefits which further increase  our irresponsible deficit spending (to benefit Democrat constituencies), or they charge Republicans with being anti-veteran.  Republicans opposed these cuts and they want pensions restored, but they want them restored without increasing our irresponsible deficit.

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It should come as no surprise to anyone that politicians and bureaucrats want to increase their power and the amount of money they can control.  These are the true purposes of the World Health Organization’s ranking of nation’s healthcare systems.

When people hear complaints about the US healthcare system based on the World Health Organization (WHO) rankings, they should understand that the WHO rankings are not what most Americans assume.

The WHO rankings are based on criteria which is intended to justify big-government controlled, essentially socialist, healthcare so that politicians and bureaucrats can justify increasing taxes, allocating healthcare, and controlling citizens’ everyday lives.

The complainers don’t mention it, but in the one WHO criteria that most Americans would consider most relevant, “Responsiveness”, the US healthcare system is rated best.  Responsiveness measures how quickly the healthcare system responds to your problem, i.e., how quickly you can see a doctor and get treated.

So many false claims have been made for Obamacare that I did some research about medically caused bankruptcies.  What I found indicates that Obamacare will probably INCREASE, not decrease, medically caused bankruptcies.  

“Bankruptcy facts”: “63% of filers blamed credit card bills.  50% blamed mismanagement.  37% blamed pay cuts or job loss, and 28% blamed medical bills.” And, “89% of filers still get credit card offers on a regular basis.”  (see: http://goo.gl/vH12Fw).

 In her book ”The Fragile Middle Class…”, (now Senator) Elizabeth Warren claims that two out of three bankruptcy filers have lost a job and 40% of bankruptcies result from medical crises, unemployment or divorces.  (http://goo.gl/vH12Fw) 

“The primary cause of personal bankruptcy is a high level of consumer debt often coupled with an unexpected insolvency event such as the loss of a job, a major medical expense not covered by insurance, divorce, or death of a spouse (Groupp, Scholz, and White, 1997, Buckley and Brinig, 1998 and Nelson, 1999.)

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We have heard from all the special interests.  It’s unanimous, the organizations that would receive more of the money that hardworking Americans pay in taxes want Medicaid Expansion.  Is that a legitimate reason for Medicaid Expansion?  No.

If someone doesn’t have health insurance, is that a reason why taxpayers should have to pay for that person’s insurance?  No.  However, we find it reasonable to provide Medicaid for certain poor people who cannot provide for themselves: children, disabled, blind, pregnant women, and low income families.

One question is, what percent of the population should be considered “poor” enough to burden taxpayers?  5%?  (One in twenty)  10%? (One in ten)  33 1/3%? (One in three)

More than one out of every ten New Hampshire residents is already covered by Medicaid, paid for by their fellow citizens.  With Medicaid Expansion, about one of every seven NH residents would be covered…that would be very excessive.

A better question is, why add more people to Medicaid when Obamacare subsidizes low income people who buy their own insurance?  Private insurance is more widely accepted than Medicaid and patients get better medical results.

The best question is why are we talking about Medicaid Expansion when we should be talking about JOBS?

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The recourse of people without facts or principles is to make false charges, often calling opponents liars and users of hate speech.  An example is Denise Doyle’s letter of October 29, 2013 in the Laconia Daily Sun. (Alternate link)

Ms. Doyle’s letter was published just after NBC documented (and Marilyn Tavenner, the head of federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, confirmed, that since July 2010, President Obama has been falsely claiming “If (you) already have health insurance, you will keep your health insurance.”

July, 2010 administration documentation indicates that new Obamacare regulations and requirements will force insurance companies to cancel as many as 12 million policies that individual purchasers choose today.

Replacement insurance policies usually cost hundreds of dollars more per month for what many people consider worse insurance, e.g., current deductibles of around $1500-3500 generally increase to $5000 for individuals and $10000 for families.

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The radical leftists that believe politicians should control how you live and spend your hard earned money are rejoicing.  The “adults”, President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, other elected Democrats and Republicans who forgot their campaign promises, have “won” and can force Obamacare down our throats.

But not everyone has to comply with Obamacare.  President Obama exempts groups, like Congress, when it is politically expedient.  Big business is exempted to delay the massive layoffs and/or losses of employee health insurance that get nation-wide publicity.

Senators Cruz and Lee, the “wacko birds”, and Conservative House Republicans were unsuccessful in saving Americans from Obamacare.

Did you, a family member, or friend lose your/their health insurance?  Did premiums increase?  Have you lost access to, or insurance for, your doctor or hospital?  Thank the adults!     

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The government is closed, but Obamacare is open.  President Obama correctly said that defunding Obamacare wouldn’t stop it, so why is the government shut down?

House Republicans funded all the government except for two minor (disputed) Obamacare related items providing fairness to individuals, small businesses and taxpayers.  Democrats shut down the government rather than compromise.

Fairness requires that individuals and small businesses get the same one-year reprieve from Obamacare requirements that President Obama gave to big business.  This reprieve would allow people to sign up for Obamacare, but not be forced to sign up or pay a penalty.

If the people who sign up for Obamacare get the benefits that President Obama promised, won’t everyone rush to sign up voluntarily?  How can disagreement over this justify shutting down the government?

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The Zimmerman-Martin incident and aftermath is sad on many levels.   Martin is dead.  Facing death threats, Zimmerman lives in hiding.  Both families are devastated.  People “getting justice for Trayvon” create other victims.  The media demonstrated its corruption.  Political pressure forced an indictment when one may not have been warranted, raising questions whether any of us can be assured of getting fair treatment by the law.  The usual race-baiters did their best with the help of the media and President Obama to roll back our progress to a colorblind society.

People make claims without any evidence.  A recent headline declares, “Would Zimmerman have picked a fight if he hadn’t been armed?”  There is no evidence that that Zimmerman either confronted or started any physical interaction with Martin.  Others say Martin would be alive if he were white, yet who considers race, or anything besides survival, when someone is killing us?  The prosecution, the defense, and FBI investigators indicated that race was not a factor.  If you spent many lonely hours trying to protect your neighbors from further harm, would the race of a suspiciously acting person change your actions?  No.

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Jim Rubens spoke to the Pemi Baker Valley Republican Committee dinner this evening, Saturday July 27, 2013.  He spoke of his political experience which interested people can review at his web site, http://jimrubens.com/.   Below are my notes and commentary.

He supports replacing Federal Income taxes with the FAIR Tax.  He opposes the Senate Immigration bill because it depresses wages.  He likes the approach taken by the House to have multiple immigration related bills including border security, and he understands that the children of illegals are rightly citizens.  He opposes energy subsidies and corporate welfare.  He supports the Second Amendment and would not restrict gun rights any more than NH currently does.  He is concerned about our national debt and unfunded liabilities (I’m fairly happy with these positions except for citizenship for the children of illegals and questions on the details of his immigration bills) and believes he can work with others in the Senate to address healthcare, Medicare and social security problems (naïve).

He opposes Senator Lee’s proposal to pass a continuing resolution that funds all of government except Obamacare, he feels we have many healthcare problems to solve and apparently we should do it within Obamacare.  He thinks the Federal Government’s share of GDP is appropriately about 19%.  He is not sure about Senator Lee’s proposed Balanced Budget Amendment although I think he believes we should not spend more than we take in.  He wants to impose a cap and trade system to restrict carbon emissions, so apparently he believes in man-made global warming (I didn’t get a chance to ask).  (He lost my support when he admitted opposition to Senator Lee’s proposal and things didn’t get any better.)

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Lets be frank, our politicians are trying to force Comprehensive Immigration Reform down our throats because it benefits the politicians themselves even though it hurts most Americans.

With 20 million unemployed or underemployed Americans, we don’t need the low skilled, poorly educated immigrant workers who flood this labor pool driving down wages and taking jobs Americans desperately need.

They tell us this cheap immigrant labor keeps prices down, for example, that immigrants provide us with cheap lettuce and apples because Americans won’t pick fruits and vegetables for the average farm worker pay of about $8.65 per hour.

But many Americans already work at the current wages, so many more unemployed or underemployed Americans would take jobs held by illegals if the jobs paid more.  Employers would have to pay more if the labor market was not flooded with low skilled (immigrant) workers.  Labor is only about ten percent of the produce cost so doubling farm labor pay would provide a decent income to workers at only a minor cost to consumers.  (Small compared to the food stamp program cost for each net income tax payer of about $1066/year.)

The worst cost of illegal immigration is that many Americans are victims of accidents and violent crimes committed by people who shouldn’t even be here.  The next worst cost is probably to the poverty, depression and dependency that harms so many low skilled Americans because of illegal aliens.  But, let’s consider the financial cost of this “cheap” labor.

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As I read the Commentary titled, “Why Republicans should support immigration reform”, by five former New Hampshire Republican Party Chairman (see The Citizen of Laconia on June 11 and the Union Leader on June 6, 2013), I couldn’t help feeling that I was seeing why Republicans have lost so many elections lately.  No matter what these men have done before, on the illegal immigration issue, they are out of touch with grassroots Republicans, Democrats and Independents.

An overwhelmingly majority of Americans have repeatedly told politicians, “no amnesty” and “no comprehensive immigration reform”, just fulfill past promises, build the border fence and enforce current immigration laws.  The American people don’t trust our politicians who created today’s illegal alien problem by, for nearly 30 years, breaking their promises to enforce our immigration laws.

The 1000 plus page Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill is crammed with bribes and payoffs.  Despite months of promises that there would be enforcement before any benefits, we just found out that is not true, legalization happens immediately to be followed by more promises of enforcement.  Only someone wanting to be deceived would believe new enforcement promises.

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Since illegal aliens essentially have to confess to being here illegally in order to get amnesty and since it is Constitutional to collect DNA from citizens who are not even convicted of crimes, it seems that it would be appropriate as part of the application process for applicants to be required to submit a DNA sample.  Law enforcement can then use the DNA sample as part of the background check that we are told will be done before anyone gets amnesty (OK, we know that is a lie).

Does anyone think this is in the current bill?  Do you think it is a good idea?  

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