For Hillary's sake, Dems should withhold vote from Obama

Democrats need to imagine what the situation will be like for Hillary in 4 years if they vote to reelect Obama now.

Americans will have experienced 4 more years of a stagnant economy, high unemployment, massive deficits and ballooning debt, and government intrusion into our lives. Obamacare will be kicking in: people will be losing their current insurance and doctors, Medicare will be getting cut, and hospitals will be overloaded with tens of millions of new patients added to the insurance rolls by the ACA. States like Michigan and California, which have been dominated by the Democratic Party for decades, will have had 4 more years to deteriorate. (Can you imagine how much more devastation Democratic rule will wreak on California over the next 4 years?)

Hillary will have been an active member of Obama's Democratic administration. Obama's will be the record that Hillary will have to defend. The voter fatigue with the Democratic Party will be simply overwhelming. There is no way that Hillary will be able to be elected under such a scenario.

So, Democratic voters had better decide whether they want to hitch their wagon to Barack for another term and thereby guarantee defeat for Hillary 4 years from now or whether they would rather withhold their vote from Obama this November and at least give Hillary a fighting chance in 2016.

The Dems are toast on Medicare

The Dems' complete misunderstanding of the state of the argument over Medicare is simply stunning. In today's NYT, Roger Cohen writes:

[T]he line of Democrat attack against [Romney] and Ryan is so clear: They are the heartless would-be destroyers of Medicare, the health insurance program for retirees (who abound in battleground state Florida), and Medicaid.

The problem with this line of attack is that the biggest threat to Medicare is posed not by Romney and Ryan, but by Obamacare, which requires that Medicare be cut by $700B to pay for some of the cost of adding tens of millions of new people to the insurance rolls. For example, John McDonough writes in the Boston Globe:

[I]t is undeniable that Congressional Democrats and the Obama White House chose to pay for nearly half the cost of the ACA by reducing Medicare's expected rate of growth by about $450 billion between 2010 and 2019. The number, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), is now up to around $700B because three early no-or-little reduction years have been supplanted by three full impact years (2013-2022).

(By the way, as I pointed out in an earlier blog post, the rest of the cost of adding those tens of millions of people to the insurance rolls will be paid for by tax increases.)

To be fair, the Democrats will argue that the $700B in cuts will result from cost savings brought about by the wonderfully enlightened provisions of Obamacare. For example, Ezra Klein writes in WaPo:

[I]n Title III, you’ll find dozens of different efforts to achieve these [cost-cutting] goals. The most famous of them is Section 3403, which establishes the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB). ... . And then there are the subsequent reforms the administration has proposed to save more money. Those can be found on pages 33-37 of the president’s 2013 budget proposal.

In effect, the Democrats are telling seniors: Don't worry. Be happy. Yes, Obamacare does require us to cut $700B from Medicare, but wait until you see how much money IPAB and a couple of other enormous new bureaucracies are going to save us.

Here's where a little "senior" common sense will come in handy. Seniors will ask themselves: When was the last time the federal government created an enormous new bureaucracy and it saved $700B? And then they will say to themselves: And, if the savings don't materialize, real cuts will have to be made to Medicare (after all, those tens of millions of new insureds are definitely coming on board and will have to be paid for) and seniors will be screwed.

Yes, this is the "devastating" argument the Dems will be able to make to all those seniors who abound in battleground state Florida.

Coming out

After much soul searching, I have decided to follow the example of such noteworthy celebrities as news anchorperson Anderson Cooper and come out of the closet and publicly declare my sexual orientation to the whole world: I am a heterosexual. Yes, the fact is: I am a guy.

This was not an easy decision for me to make. Living as a guy in the Bay Area can be very trying at times, in particular, when one has the added pressure of being a socially conservative, white guy. There is so much intolerance for guys in Northern California. I have been subjected to so many hurtful and insensitive guy-bashing comments over the years. In spite of this, I have decided to stand up for my guy rights and let the world know who I really am.

It has been difficult for my family to accept my public declaration of my sexual orientation. Many family members have been ashamed of me for years. Some called me a butch jerk. Some said that my heterosexuality was just a bad choice or a passing phase; with adequate conversion therapy, they claimed, I would be able to overcome my guy impulses. But, when I stood my ground and made clear to them that guy is what I am by nature, little by little, they came around. After all, they only want what will make me happy. Over time I think I have gained their grudging respect. My dream is for all of us one day to be able to walk arm in arm down Market Street in San Francisco in a Guy Pride parade.

I just want everyone to know that I would not have been able to take the enormous step of coming out of the closet and declaring my open guyness without the loving support of my partner, Nancy. In spite of all the vilification that is heaped on heterosexual married couples these days, we have remained monogamous and devoted to each other for over 20 years, dispelling the common misconception that heterosexuals are unable to remain in stable, long-term relationships or raise children. I love, and I am loved.

So, yes, I have embarked on a new era in my life, an era where I shout to all the world unashamedly: I am a heterosexual! I am looking into taking classes in Guy Studies at my local community college to increase my guy awareness. I have also decided to become more politically involved and to dedicate my life to the struggle for guy rights. I call on the members of our government, and, in particular, on President and Mrs Obama, to announce their unqualified support for the guy life style. Only when our leaders are not afraid to step forward and defend all of us, including guys, will tolerance and diversity finally blossom.

I hope that by coming out of the closet and living as an open guy I will help to serve as a role model for other Bay Area heterosexual men and help them take the difficult, yet liberating, step of acknowledging publicly that they, too, are guys.

NYT's take on Paul Ryan

Here's what the NYT editorialized about Paul Ryan this morning:

As House Budget Committee chairman, Mr. Ryan has drawn a blueprint of a government that will be absent when people need it the most. It will not be there when the unemployed need job training, or when a struggling student needs help to get into college. It will not be there when a miner needs more than a hardhat for protection, or when a city is unable to replace a crumbling bridge.

And it will be silent when the elderly cannot keep up with the costs of M.R.I.’s or prescription medicines, or when the poor and uninsured become increasingly sick through lack of preventive care.

What's missing from the Times' diatribe, of course, is any discussion of how a government with $15 trillion of debt on balance sheet (and hundreds of trillions of dollars more off) might actually pay for any of these things. Liberals never seem to be able to understand that it doesn't matter how wonderful and compassionate their vision for social spending is if the government can't actually pay for those programs.

For example, it would also be a wonderful act of compassion, no doubt, if the government bought every US citizen a new car ("Cash for Clunkers" on steroids), but that would raise the question: How would the government pay for this? Or the government could buy us all a new house (that would certainly help underwater homeowners). But how would the government pay for this? Or the government could simply provide permanent unemployment benefits for everyone so that no one would ever have to work again. But how would the government pay for this?

In Democrat la la land all the wonderful benefits of compassionate social programs simply materialize for free. It's as simple as just taxing the rich more or borrowing more money from China. Does any sensible person really believe this is how the world works?

Democrats are children. The addition of Paul Ryan to the discussion brings another Republican adult voice to the table. As Chairman of the House Budget Committee, Ryan has actually grappled with the hard question of how to finance government spending. Senate Democrats have not proposed a budget in 1200 days. Mr Ryan, on the other hand, has introduced budget legislation to the House every year since President Obama took office. Mr Ryan's experience in government finance complements wonderfully Mr Romney's experience from the private business world.

Romney's choice of running mate sends a clear signal that Romney is going run his campaign this fall by wrapping himself in the mantle of fiscally responsible Republicans, like Ryan and Republican governors Scott Walker, Chris Christie, and Mitch Daniels. The contrast for the American people could not be more stark. Do they want to vote for the party of Romney, Ryan, Daniels, Christie, and Walker? Or do they want to vote for the party of Obama (with his trillion dollar deficits and 8.3% unemployment), Jerry Brown (with his bankrupt California government, and $100B train to nowhere), the Senate Democrats (who have not passed a budget in years), and the public service employee unions (whose extravagant pay, benefits, and pensions are bankrupting our municipalities)?

It remains to be seen whether Americans are the country of my parents' generation or whether they have become a bunch of spoiled, whining Greeks?