Matt Reed: So this will win the White House? Republicans predicted hard-line conservatism would woo voters.- HAMmer thoughts

Patriots,

I read Matt’s piece this morning and wanted to follow-up with him and all of you too. I have found some of what Matt had to say “stimulating “to say the least. So anyhow, I said my piece in red.

If you wish to read the article without my comments, it is at the end of this piece.

Ham

….a Citizen..not a subject..
“SADLY, THE VERY ONES THAT ARE TO PROTECT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE WITH THE TRUTH, ARE TODAY, FUNDAMENTAL THREATS TO THE REPUBLIC AND THEREBY THE ENEMY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.”
C. Hamilton Boone

Come on, conservatives, own your shutdown.

For four years, you’ve told me Republicans will win back the Senate and White House if only your candidate refuses to compromise on conservative values.

You demanded full repeal of Obamacare — not mere revisions — in letters to the editor and speeches at the Republican National Convention.

You chortled on Facebook and talk radio that the budget sequesters, government shutdown and potential national default were overblown by the media as threats. Those are small risks, you told me by phone and email, for the sake of greater fiscal discipline.

Well, leaders, including Congressman Bill Posey, R-Rockledge, just did what you predicted would win voters while saving us all from socialism. (Way to go Bill ! Keep it up)

The press and public credit them for furloughing NASA workers and Air Force employees as part of an 11th-hour stand on Obamacare. (Not so fast Matt; the facts are that by a vast and overwhelming majority, the citizens blame the Democrats; i.e., Liberals for the furloughs. By the way, those poor folks on furlough are actually on VACATION. That is what it is called when someone does not come to work and will be paid for being away.)

You should be texting smiley faces to friends and breaking out the Electoral College map.

Instead, you blame the shutdown on Democrats who — am I reading this right? — stuck to their values and refused to negotiate. (So did Lenin, and other famous “socialist”.)
What to measure?

This is the result of a politics that doesn’t care about results. (Absolutely! With this regime, it is ALWAYS about politics.  You are describing what the president and the Democrat party represent today; total control over a free people, i.e. Socialism. For instance, consider some of  his communist allies like Van Jones (“in 1992 became a communist party member, and later founded the “socialist collective” called Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement (STORM); Anita Dunn, who, in a speech made at her son’s Lutheran HS graduation, where she compared Communist Chairman Mao to Mother Theresa of Calcutta as her favorite “political” philosophers. On and on and on…)
 

Today, insulting the opposition on YouTube or C-Span counts as leadership. (Good point, you must mean when recently, Reid, Pelosi and other Democrats and the president called Republicans,”extortionists, kidnappers and terrorists”.)
Floating an idea on a Sunday talk show counts as effective. (You must be talking about when Secretary Kerry used a line from a skit on Saturday Night Live and it became foreign policy? We have an absolute joke of a secretary of state making an incompetent comment that is so bad for us that the Russians and Assad glam on to it and say they accept it.)

Passing a bill in one chamber counts as results. (Yea, I know; those pesky old founders.)

“Effective” used to mean passing an important bill with some support from the opposition. (It never meant that. It used to mean what was the best for the American citizen, not the political parties or the elite in Washington.) Now that makes you a sell-out. Just ask Sen. Marco Rubio, R-West Miami, who engaged Democratic (Democrat) ideas as part of a Senate-passed immigration bill, (he betrayed his word to us) his only legislative success(not in the terms for doing what is right for US citizens; it would be right for getting more Democrat votes.). Ask Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Orlando, who still takes heat from the left because the Affordable Care Act didn’t start a “single-payer” system. (Look out, the liberal, socialist part of the Democrat party is showing in that statement).

I still remember when “results” were measured by a law’s effects on health, innovation or balanced budgets. Leaders who cared about results watched how life changed and amended laws if necessary. (Oh, you mean for instance, how Obama has cherry picked Obmacare to give special perks to his friends and unions, but not the US citizen? Case in point: a July letter to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, penned by James P. Hoffa, of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Joseph Hansen, international president of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union; and Donald “D.” Taylor, president of UNITE-HERE, a union representing hotel, airport, food service, gaming, and textile workers. They warning that Obamacare would “shatter not only our hard-earned health benefits, but destroy the foundation of the 40 hour work week that is the backbone of the American middle class”. “The unintended consequences of the ACA are severe,” they continue. “Perverse incentives are causing nightmare scenarios. First, the law creates an incentive for employers to keep employees’ work hours below 30 hours a week. Numerous employers have begun to cut workers’ hours to avoid this obligation, and many of them are doing so openly. The impact is two-fold: fewer hours means less pay while also losing our current health benefits.” Add to this that over 2500 subsidies or delays in the employer tax…er, I mean mandate.)  Rubio tried and was punished.

Now, we judge a bill based on how people feel about it in polls. Congress passes laws, then leaves it to college professors to figure out what, if anything, happened.

(Page 2 of 2)

On Obamacare, if Republicans and Democrats cared about results, they’d take a break from jihad and watch how a combination of their ideas are transforming the private insurance that will cover about 85 percent of people younger than 65. (if they choose to sign up! Oh, that’s right; they don’t have a choice, and the trustworthy IRS will make sure of that! Transforming..Transfiguring is more like it. The correct statement is putting Insurance Companies  out of business; which has been the aim of Obamacare all along. Why? So they could get to the Socialist nirvana of a “Single Payer System” and absolute control. Once they control healthcare, they have access to controlling every area of our lives. Here is how it works Matt; Obamacare forces insurance companies to cover everything, no matter the increased cost; like getting insurance after you injured or become ill, which is akin to buying homeowners insurance after your house burns to the ground and being covered.(Who picks up the extra costs…the insured) Since insurance companies stay in business for their stockholders (401K,etc ), they have no choice except to pass the increased costs on to the consumer in the form of increase premiums . Ultimately, the increased premiums becomes such a burden to the consumer that they are forced to leave their insurance company and into Obamacare. This will force them into the stated goal, as stated by president Obama in a 2007 campaign speech, of SINGLE PAYER SYSTEM.)

In 1997, Republicans passed a bill allowing a new form of “consumer-directed” insurance that combines a low premium, high deductible and an interest-bearing health savings account. It slashed costs for employers. It raised costs for workers, encouraging them to save and spend carefully.( lets see here, you say it provides for a “low premium” and in the same paragraph that it raised costs for the “workers”..while doing the dastardly deed of letting people choose to save and to shop for the best deal and earn interest while doing so. Mmmm.. let me see here; if I can pay a lower premium and save money and have  free market forces at work…yep, that’s what I want. Speaking of saving, how about president Obama promising that the average savings per year would be $2500 per family. If it is such a great deal, then, why must WE pay for 75% of their premium for the Congress and their staff? Especially considering that the average salary of a staffer is $75K/yr,with the top pay being about $170K/yr .It is even more infuriating because 3 of the 4 richest counties in America surround DC, and another special Obama carve out for special interest, (which is not in the ACA and therefore is illegal) is made by Obama on our backs.…yet we have to pay for their healthcare. Seems to me that the ones that passed this law, should have to live with the consequences…just like the rest of us. But there is Obama doing for his friends what they cannot do; while at the same time causing harm to us.)

Today, four out of five companies with 1,000 or more workers (including mine) have adopted the Republican-invented plans (Matt, it’s called Free Market, and the Republicans didn’t invent it. The concept began in Plymouth after the Pilgrims barely survived their first winter.  The leader of the colony and 5 time governor, Wm. Bradford realized that communal(socialist) living did not work. Some people did the majority of work while others did little or no work, knowing full well, they would receive an equal share of the fruits of labor of others. That spring, he gave each family a tract of land to do with as they wished (free market). the rest is history, (all tho it is not reported accurately in history books) in that Free Market proved to be very successful). They are the dominant form of insurance sold on the Obamacare exchanges the GOP tried to defund. (They are not the same, for with Obamacare..you lose free market; which in the last few decades has been declining due to federal intervention into healthcare) Employers insuring workers for the first time under Obamacare are expected to adopt the lower-premium plans, as are those trying to avoid new taxes on high-premium “Cadillac” plans.(Once again, here is Obama excluding the employer from the tax…er…mandate…but not doing so for the individual tax…er..mandate. if this is such a great plan, why so many “carve outs” and give always, especially with the “lower premium plans”?)
 
Results: Health care costs are growing at half the pace of the previous decade. Shifting expenses to workers accounts for one-fifth of the slowdown, with more to come. (So let me make sure I understand this one; you are saying that Obamacare, which not one Republican voted for, and that president Obama almost daily provides illegal subsides and special carve outs is saving money?)

“Obviously conservatives are very upset about Obamacare,” Drew Altman, CEO of the Kaiser Family Foundation, told Bloomberg Business Week. “But beneath the radar screen, the vision of insurance that they’ve always favored, with much more skin in the game, is the one that’s coming to dominate in the marketplace.”(Matt, “we” don’t have a problem with more skin in the game, just being skinned! As hard-working Americans, who follow the constitution and not a patriarch/King , we have a problem being told by a government, which does not have the constitutional authority and does not generate one cent except by taking from others, what and how we are to be covered, who gets special treatment(favors, carve outs, subsidies, etc), and who does not.  Btw,,conservatives will follow what is specifically outlined in Article 1 and the 10th amendment. Outside Article 1 and the 10th amendement, Conservatives have NEVER favored government-run anything, much less healthcare. We do not favor being told what to buy, how to buy it, when to buy it and then to have the criminals at IRS running the show and having access to all personal information, including our bank accounts.)
Change tactics. (Why should we, when it is the right thing to do.)

Instead, partisan media and their audiences reward tough talk and snapshot poll results.( I agree with that Matt. Like the  NY Times, Fl Today, Washington Post, AP, US Today, Huffington Post, etc)

Republicans cited poll results suggesting Americans were on their side. Fifty-two percent disapprove of the law, Gallup found.

That seemed to support their belief that more Americans would side with them for adhering to conservative dogma.( Better than adhering to Socialist dogma)

Except that a majority of voters (57 percent) also disapproved of cutting off funding for the Affordable Care Act to stop all or some of the law, a Kaiser foundation poll found (and that was before the shutdown). When polled on the separate provisions of the Affordable Care Act, strong majorities supported 10 out of 11 of them.(Really? A recent NBC News poll(your kind of people), found that, by a massive 45 percent to 23 percent margin, Americans believe the scheme(Obamacare) will have a negative impact on the nation’s healthcare system rather than a positive one. The survey also found that about three-fourths of respondents were already satisfied with their coverage, presenting further hurdles for proponents of so-called “healthcare reform.” A majority believes it will increase costs, too — a phenomenon that is already occurring.)

If Republicans want to run the country again, they should find another way to measure results.

I recommend the old way.( I am praying the Republicans stick to their guns and do use the “old way”…the Conservative way , which was outlined at the founding of our country.)

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