Well, Blow Me Over With a Feather...

From The Corner:

NBC News has learned Charlie Rangel will voluntarily give up his Ways and Means chairmanship, possibly as early as tonight.

One More Word on Van Jones

One last word on Van Jones and then I'm going to let him slither off into whatever hole he crawled out of before he became newsworthy.

Carl Pope has a post on HuffPo (linked by Memeorandum - I don't spend time reading HuffPo if I can help it), in which he repeats a meme I've seen coming from the left on this whole story. Van Jones was attacked by the right because he and Obama are black. For crying out loud, people! You were supposed to be the party that puts this race debate to bed. Quit dragging it back out of the box! Race had NOTHING to do with the sacking of Van Jones.

Pope writes, "What we underestimated was the power of the fact that both Jones and the Barack Obama are black. Yes, the hysteria was about politics -- I don't think Fox News really cares about Jones's ethnicity -- but it was enabled by race. Calling Bush a "crack-head" is seen by a large part of America as worse than calling him "addict-in-chief" because crack is not just a drug -- it is a drug used largely by black people. It reminds those Americans who are still uncomfortable with Barack Obama that we have a black president."

How deep did you have to reach to come up with THAT one, Mr. Pope? Your paranoia is astounding.

Van Jones could be purple or blue for all I care; he was targeted because of what he said and because of the petitions he signed which indicated his belief that our government blew up its own World Trade Center and killed over 3,000 people. He is a self-avowed communist. He became a communist in prison. He supports cop killers. I don't care what color he is, he doesn't belong in the administration nor does he need to have oversight of billions of taxpayer dollars.

Pope isn't the only one perpetuating the race paranoia; Nadra Redding says that the only reason anyone is protesting Obama's speech to school kids tomorrow is because he's black.

Charlie Rangel continues to insist that opposition to ObamaCare is primarily because Obama is black.

It's well past time to move past all that. The folks that are making these claims are failing to look at the issues that invite the controversies in the first place. There are plenty of reasons to object to ObamaCare and the education speech was problematic because of the instructions that came with it, not the speech itself. Nobody even knows at this time what the speech is.

And Van Jones? Enough said.

Going Galt Over Obamacare

Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction and sometimes fiction becomes truth. Expect the phrase "going Galt" to become more common should the Obama administration continue with their soak the rich programs.

The latest installment in the Democratic plan, as reported by the New York Times, is to "ask the wealthiest Americans to help pay for overhauling the health care system." As Stop the ACLU points out, "There is no asking. There will be no check box on their tax forms asking if they would like to pay a slightly higher rate so that grasshoppers, illegals, and people who could afford health insurance but do not feel like paying for it, will get health insurance."

Team Obama has had trouble in the past nailing down exactly what "wealthy" is, but in this current form, "wealthy" defined as individuals earning at least $280,000 in adjusted gross income and couples earning more than $350,000. But it gets better. There's a rolling scale:

"The surtax would be increased for individuals earning more than $400,000 and couples earning more than $500,000, and step up again for individuals earning over $800,000 and couples earning above $1 million. The precise extent of these increases has not been announced. Mr. Rangel’s committee is also planning to insert language that would raise the surtax in 2013 if expected cost savings in the health care system do not materialize."

Read that part again - "Mr. Rangel's committee is also planning to insert language that would raise the surtax in 2013 if expected cost savings in the health care system do not materialize."

I don't expect that those savings WILL materialize, do you? This is the projected deficit for those years.

Fausta points out that "Countries like France that have enacted 'rich surtaxes' have found that the rich moved to friendlier environments, such as Lichtenstein. Any “rich surtax” generates a substantial flight of capital from the country issuing it. During a recession, the Dems generate proposal after proposal making the American economy less competitive in the world market."

But this is what Obama promised us, remember? "I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody" he said.

The laws of economics belie this, however. Nobody ever got a job from a poor person. So to punish the wealthy by draining them in order to pay for the others is not a good economic plan. And how many of them will, in fact, Go Galt? I would.

Not that it matters a whole lot, but the numbers the Democrats are using when they refer to the uninsured are misleading. Keep in mind, we already have Medicare for the elderly, Medicaid for the poor, and SCHIP for the children. Check these ACTUAL figures by Sally Pipes, the president of the Pacific Research Institute:

"Of the almost 46 million Americans counted as uninsured by the U.S. Census Bureau, 14 million of them are eligible for existing government programs but have not signed up. Another 17 million of them are earning over $50,000 a year but do not buy insurance because they feel it is too expensive. Two-thirds are young people between 18 and 31 who consider themselves “invincible.” They would buy insurance if it were cheaper and available to cover catastrophes, which is why one has insurance. Because 64 percent of Americans get their insurance through their employer and insurance is not portable, many of the uninsured are just between jobs and hence counted as uninsured, even if they are only uninsured for a short period of time. There are only about 8 million uninsured that need some assistance."

That's a lot different that 46 million. So the Democrat's plan is to further wreck the economy by soaking the rich to support basically 8 million people who need some assistance with health care. And keep in mind none of those 8 million people would be refused at a hospital in the case of emergency care. Many communities have "charity hospitals," most associated with a medical school.

The Blue Dog democrats and the Republicans are fighting against this nonsense. I hope they hold they line.