The Incredible Irony of Obamacare and Obama's Electability

This past week the Obama administration's Justice Department (yes, they are his guys), surprised many court watchers by choosing to bypass the appellate avenue available to them and allow Obamacare to proceed on its appointed path to the Supreme Court. This is the "sort of" expedited path many were advocating months ago to put to rest all the uncertainty associated with the individual mandate provision.

Here's what's at stake and the weird political calculus that goes into this latest calculation:

If the SCOTUS strikes down Obamacare as unconstitutional -- especially if the final vote ends up being yet another 5-4 split -- then President Obama can argue he should be re-elected. How? Say what? It's simple really. He would argue the next opening on the Supreme Court could be filled by him with a more Sotomayor/Kagan-kind of liberal who would have supported Obamacare. Forget what the public polling is telling him about the majority of Americans who hate the idea of Obamacare being rammed down their throats, Obama sees a win for him even in a resounding defeat at the SCOTUS.

Here's the judicial issue (among many others) at stake in this next election:

If a conservative Republican wins the presidency, the court is all but assured to retain its right of center with one swing vote make-up. If Obama is re-elected, he will surely move with his next nomination to move the court to a more liberal majority. If the Republicans control both houses of Congress the point is moot. That's how finely balanced we are as a country on the fulcrum.

The country really does hang in the balance between the two polar-opposite points of view.

On the one hand Obamacare is extraordinarily unpopular among a plurality of Americans who want to see it repealed. Mitt Romney and all the others on the Republican platform vying for your vote in 2012, have uniformly declared as POTUS they will kill it, Romney proposing to do it through an executive order on day one of his presidency with an executive order granting a waiver to all 50 states. Romney continues to be bashed by Romneycare in Massachusetts, and his successor who raised taxes to pay for it continues to praise it, as does Obama who claims he modeled his plan after Romney's. That issue just isn't going to gain much traction with the voters.

The thing that is so damnable about Obamacare is that it didn't pick up one single vote from the opposition party in the Senate. That puts it in a class all its own from other bi-partisan entitlement safety net programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Further, a majority (26) of state attorneys general either filed or joined lawsuits to overturn the mandate that requires practically all Americans to purchase health insurance.

Freedom-loving people HATE being told by a dictatorial government what to do with their lives. It's the reason America was founded -- to escape tyrannical dictators who wanted to control them through taxation without representation. Currently, we have representation, and we will continue to change that representation at the ballot box until we find a Congress and a President who will do our bidding. It's really what representative republics are all about.

Americans are finally awake and on task politically. I've been asked in recent weeks if I think all this pent-up anger will last until November, 2012. You betchyer bippy it will, especially if the economy continues to tank and there are further attempts like the "American Jobs Act" that are nothing else but more government debt and increased taxes as far as the eye can see.

It is remarkable how dismissive this President seems to be in the face of the expressed anger and frustration of the American people who elected him. His arrogance and his ideological intransigence are now on full display. He claims the Republicans are merely obstructionists who have no constructive ideas. He must have missed this memo, sent to his Republican caucus by Eric Cantor, the House Majority Leader.

So, Mr. President, please click on the link and get a clue. Your stump speech rhetoric has to change into action and you need to start doing the job people elected you to do. Start leading, stop whining.

Obama's "all-or-nothing" tendency to propose, then whine, then blame Congress, and his continuing refusal to even consider the points of agreement Cantor outlines where there might be constructive conversations in the halls of Congress, will do nothing to improve his chance for re-election among Americans with even a sliver of common sense when presented with the facts. Who's the real obstructionist here? Is it the tea party activists, the Republican-controlled House, the Democrat-controlled Senate or the POTUS?

All fingers will increasingly be pointing at the President if he doesn't soon take a more moderate view and learn to work with what he has in Congress. It's the very reason the Constitution assured divided and shared power. But he routinely goes on the campaign junkets and complains bitterly that if he weren't constrained by Congress he could really get things done. And this is a constitutional lawyer by training.

But all those considerations aside, let's get back to Obamacare and how it affects Obama's electability.

I saw a poll in Investors Business Daily stating two-thirds of all doctors "oppose" Obamacare and predict lower-quality health care. Another poll by McKinsey & Co. reveals nearly one-third of businesses plan to drop health insurance for their employees after 2014, when much of Obamacare goes into effect. Why? Because the costs will make it prohibitive for private enterprise to compete with the government-mandated overhaul. That is all by deliberate design to enthrone government as the ultimate sovereign, the end-all, be-all solution to all the ills society inflicts upon us.

It can be argued by many proponents of Obamacare that the American Medical Association supports it. However, only 17 percent of doctors in America today belong to the organization -- hardly a representation of the name of the organization. Many doctors have dropped their membership precisely because of the AMA's endorsement of Obamacare. Americans consistently rank physicians among the most respected of professionals.

But the President? He's a man with no private-sector experience, who arrogantly ignores doctors' objections. In almost every scenario, the President continues to isolate himself in his ideological cocoon, asserting he knows better than everyone else what is right for America and Americans.

If he's lucky, the American voter in 2012 will put Obama out to pasture like they did Jimmy Carter in 1980. By the way, today is Carter's birthday. He's 87 years old. I remain a great admirer of Carter's native intelligence, his passion for trying to do what was right from his Christian perspective, his initiatives to bring peace to the Middle East, and his passion for humanitarian doing-good since he left the White House. However, like his successor, Barack Obama, he was an ineffective president with his leftist liberal politics. Obama's fight to end Bush-era tax rates for the "rich," along with his misguided social engineering represented by Obamacare will all go down in flames. These policies are misguided and proven to be unsuccessful.

Here's the irony in a nutshell: I believe a Supreme Court rejection of the Obamacare individual mandate would immediately give a much-needed boost the economy and the American psyche. It would dramatically improve Obama's prospects for re-election. He could thank his lucky stars when it's struck down.

In his arrogance, however, he'll find a way to manipulate the SCOTUS outcome with his political spin calculus if he wins on Obamacare.

And whichever way that turns out, the American voters will reject him in November.

You heard it here first, Mr. President. We're on to you.

Political Quote of the Day

Today's winner is from Senator Mike Lee, as it appeared in the Washington Examiner:

Senator Mike Lee (R-UT)

From an op-ed, "Obama's Unserious Plans are Losing the Future,"  published in the Washington Examiner on Sept. 27, 2011:

In consecutive weeks, President Obama has presented two painfully unserious and economically misguided proposals. The first, his $450 billion "American Jobs Act," is another stimulus proposal, based on the ill-conceived notion that more government spending is the answer to what ails the economy. The second is the president's plan to raise taxes by $1.5 trillion on American job creators. Both plans are a far cry from "winning the future," as the president claims on the campaign trail.

Read more at the Washington Examiner

What Happened to the Middle Class?

An article caught my eye this morning that updates the statistical findings available to us back in the 90s when we wrote Power and Covenants: Men, Women and Priesthood.

In the post the author, Jeremy Egerer, asserts the emergence of families with dual incomes has all but assured two demographic realities in our American society -- 1) the middle class is not improving economically, and 2) the lower wage earner class is shrinking as jobs for which they might be suited are disappearing.

Egerer is a newly-minted Christian conservative writer, having defected from the self-described ranks of "radical liberalism," making his insights particularly valid, it would seem, having bridged the gap of logic at long last.

Egerer reminds us that when Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations, he noted the wages of the lowest classes were oftentimes determined by the lowest their employers could pay. Now, however, present population acknowledges that employers could not pay their workers less than would maintain a family of four (Book I, chapter VIII). Back in those days, if employers were to pay less that the minimum required for sustainability, then populations would shrink until competition over labor would force the wages of even the lowest classes higher. Western societies are generally monogamous in terms of marital structure, and historically the poorest working class was once able, even without minimum wage regulations, to afford families of five and greater. If this were not the case, then wealthy families would have been primarily responsible for the present population. However, that's not a likely scenario, considering even Smith acknowledged that wealthier women were less inclined toward childbearing.

Significantly, Smith noted wages could fall below this natural sustainability floor. If a household were to have a second source of income, the worker was likely to compete for employment at a lower price than his neighbors, bringing wages below standards of maintenance. Today, that second income is provided either when welfare payments are received from the state or when two breadwinners exist in the same home. The natural result of either circumstance is that the once-sustainable wages of the single employment are compromised, and though two breadwinners now occupy one household, their wealth is not greatly augmented.

The U.S. Census Bureau confirms this reality with its newly-released 2010 study on household income demographics. In the class warfare nonsense one hears from the left in an effort to protect the struggling lower classes who are oppressed (as they would have us believe), the lower class is least likely to be dual-income families, while those in wealthier middle-class categories are a minimum of close to four times more likely to have dual incomes. Compared with the bracket with the highest percentage of dual income households, the lowest quintile is somewhere around eleven times less likely to have a second income.  If this is the case, then poverty and the number of incomes are absolutely correlated.

Rejecting the mantra of the leftists and the socialists, Egerer concludes:

"The wise know another method of restoring household stability, and it is a restoration of the traditional, biblical nuclear family.  It will do little good to have both parents live in the same home if they refuse to subscribe to the natural roles provided by the God of nature. How the husband and wife manage themselves -- the man laboring as the breadwinner and the giver of law, the woman laboring with equal nobility to raise her children and ensure the propagation of heritage -- is as important as marriage itself. This is not to say that women should never seek maximum productivity, as even the Bible praises the woman who, above and beyond her duty to her household, operates a business from her home. But her income must remain in most cases a responsibility secondary to both the care of her children and the economic liberty of the family. This structure is intended by God. And if mankind is not wise enough to heed His call, as shown above, it will be enforced by the iron hand of nature." (Emphasis mine).

All Egerer has done here is affirm what Scott Strong and I were writing about twenty-five years ago:

"Recognizing the two parts [male and female] must be different, males and females should cherish our different natures to perform our unique tasks for the benefit and blessing of the whole. While the powers resident in the different natures and capacities of the sexes are not the same, neither are they superior or inferior to each other. They are equally necessary and valuable.

"Some fail to understand the term different does not imply the meaning unequal. Different does not mean unequal. Different capacities are not unequal capacities. Different roles and duties are not necessarily unequal roles and duties. Different missions and responsibilities are not necessarily unequal missions and responsibilities. Some do not comprehend this important principle with regard to the sexes.

"Total and absolute equality can and does exist within the dichotomy of the marriage covenant."

President Spencer W. Kimball

We cited President Spencer W. Kimball:

"Many of the social restraints which in the past have helped to reinforce and to shore up the family are dissolving and disappearing. The time will come when only those who believe deeply and actively in the family will be able to preserve their families in the midst of the gathering evil around us." (Ensign, October 1980, 4).

"We speak not by way of alarm but by way of gentle counsel. Let us go back to the basics and follow the fundamentals. Thus we will experience a spiritual resurgence in our lives which will help us through these tempestuous times." (Ensign, May 1981, 80).

As fallen mortals we have an innate desire to “want it all,” even when all the choices seem so “good.” The good news is we have more choices as men and women than ever before.

Sometimes forgotten from our pre-mortal experience is the reality we came to earth to make choices here, as we did there. If we will follow President Kimball’s counsel and go back to the basics, we will rediscover the truths about men and women, eternal marriage and the pure absolute equality of the sexes. Such truths will anchor our vision of becoming eternal couples dwelling in celestial glory and creating worlds without end. The realization of such lofty aims is only the result of today’s choices. Those eternal choices have everything to do with our respective but equal roles.

Only slightly off topic (bear with me), I heard many say this morning in our high priests' group, "Some people don't have a choice about whether or not they will work on Sunday, because that's what their jobs require them to do." Steve Young was cited as the example of a Mormon whose job (NFL football analyst) requires him to work on Sunday. Before that his job as quarterback required him to work on Sunday. Therefore, the reasoning proceeded among otherwise intelligent and seasoned high priests, he doesn't have a choice. REALLY?

No one even offered the obvious: Steve Young made a choice in his employment. No one forced him to take a job that required Sunday work. He made a choice. Don't condemn him for the choice he made. Similarly, no one compels you to do what you do.

Remember this, it is important: We all have moral agency to choose. It is a God-given endowment to each of us. The government of the United States of America is founded upon this key principle of freedom to pursue life, liberty and happiness. We do that by choosing from among the vast array of alternatives. A key purpose of mortality is to learn to make choices, and to accept gladly the consequences of those choices, knowing we are accountable before Almighty God. 

Is there no other way?

There is no other way.

Align your choices with "the natural roles provided by the God of nature."

It is statistically obvious our society has not chosen well, but just because they haven't and they don't is no excuse for you to follow them over the cliff, is it? Our alignment determines our trajectory when our choices take flight toward their intended target.

So choose well. The harvest will be worth all the sacrifice.

How Well Do You Understand the Constitution?

Think you've got a pretty good handle on the issues of the day as they relate to the Constitution of the United States of America?

Take this little quiz and get a free download to test your knowledge. . . it's only five questions.

Good luck!

Political Quote of the Day

Governor Mitch Daniels (R-IN)

Recently, Governor Mitch Daniels (R-IN), once thought to be a potential presidential contender and declined to run, was interviewed by CBS News. They were discussing his new book, Keeping the Republic (Sentinel). This quote from his interview caught my attention this morning, qualifying it for the political quote of the day:

"There is a long, clear history of nations rising to greatness and leadership, and then falling. And interestingly, I quote an historian who says, 'It always starts with the money.' You know, first they spend themselves into a corner, borrow themselves into a corner. And the rest of the fall, including military defeat sometimes, flows from that."

Daniels says we urgently need to balance our nation's books - as he did in Indiana, by taking big government OUT of the equation and letting free enterprise take over.

"The heart of American society is the private sector," he said. "Government should be there not to dominate it, to dictate to it, make all the decisions, but to do those things we have to do together to make private life flourish."

Well said, Governor. My thoughts exactly.