It’s already being called the “Second Louisiana Purchase,” but the sad truth is that a controversial payoff to U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu’s home state of Louisiana is among the smallest of the thinly-disguised bribes and kickbacks that are being offered in Washington D.C. to secure passage of President Barack Obama’s socialized medicine proposal.

In fact, at “only” $300 million, this disgustingly transparent (and yet transparently successful) effort by Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid to “negotiate” for Landrieu’s support on a key health care vote doesn’t hold a candle to the real graft that’s going on in our nation’s capital.

For example, you’d have to multiply that dollar amount dozens of times over to arrive at the $10 billion in so-called “reinsurance” money that has been tucked away for organized labor in the $2.6 trillion House bill.

What’s that “reinsurance” money for, exactly?

That’s simple – it’s a bailout for union leaders who have grossly “mismanaged” funds that were supposed to pay for their retirees’ insurance claims.

Of course in a bitterly ironic pill for taxpayers to swallow, at the same time Obama is hoping to shower money on these labor leaders for their ongoing corruption and incompetence, he has removed any accountability whatsoever over their future actions by rescinding Bush-era disclosure requirements on top union officials.

And you thought Capone’s Chicago was corrupt? Apparently it’s got nothing on Obama’s Washington, D.C.

Amazingly, though, both versions of Obamacare do something far worse than slipping billions of dollars into the pockets of organized labor leaders as a payoff for their support in the 2008 election: They actively seek the forced unionization of the entire health care industry.

In the $2.5 trillion Senate proposal, for example, a union-stacked “personal care attendants workforce advisory panel” would be established under the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). This panel would have the authority to compel union affiliation – and payment of union dues – in exchange for allowing “private” providers access to federal reimbursements for community care.

Similarly, the House proposal gives sweeping regulatory authority – including the approval of compulsory union dues – to DHHS in its role as the provider of public plans.

“The House resolution establishes a scenario that would effectively exclude non-union employers from eligibility to work on program-funded contracts,” a recent opinion-editorial published in the Houston Chronicle noted. “It also requires participating health care providers to pay wages and benefits that have been collectively bargained or that union-friendly appointees determine are competitive.”

The scam works like this: In order to become eligible for federal reimbursements, employees who provide home care must agree to be “reclassified” as federal employees, with the strings of compulsory union membership and dues attached, of course.

Pioneered by former California Gov. Gray Davis and disgraced Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich – both of whom also owed huge campaign debts to organized labor – this scam lies at the heart of both the House and Senate versions of Obamacare. In fact, it is being pushed most aggressively by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which like the rest of these declining organized labor behemoths is desperate for new dues-paying members.

This scam is also why Obama and the leadership of both the House and Senate refuse to consider passing a bill that doesn’t include a so-called “public option.”

Obama and Congressional leaders know that compulsory union membership – established within the framework of a government-administered health care system – is vital to organized labor’s long-term survival.

Bailout billions from the government may come and go, but the effective nationalization of hundreds of thousands of doctors, nurses and home care providers would provide the unions with a steady stream of billions of dollars in annual revenue for years to come.

That’s the “purchase” we should be keeping our eyes on as the health care debate moves forward.

From BusinessWeek.com

President Barack Obama wants a climate change bill that addresses his top priorities: energy independence, job creation and preventing pollution, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Thursday.

Salazar joined Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter, Democratic Rep. Betsy Markey and Nancy Sutley, chairwoman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, at a forum to talk about President Barack Obama’s clean-energy policies.

The Clean Energy Economy Forum in Fort Collins was one of the first to promote Obama’s vision for a comprehensive energy plan to jump-start the American clean energy sector.

“President Obama’s vision is that we need to address all of these issues. How we do that is the art of what’s possible in Congress. This is an issue where the very future of our children and planet are hanging in peril. Our goal is to get energy and climate change legislation that is workable,” Salazar said.

He said the administration doesn’t want to pick and choose over issues like carbon pollution.

The climate change bill, which narrowly passed the House earlier this summer, imposes the first limits on greenhouse gases. It eventually would lead to an 80 percent reduction by putting a price on each ton of climate-altering pollution.

However, the Democratic-controlled House approved the bill by a slim margin, and Senate Democrats say changes will be necessary to clear that chamber.

Salazar didn’t say exactly what administration officials want to see kept or changed in the House bill. But the former Democratic senator said the president is committed to getting it done.

Boulder County Commissioner Will Toor said the federal government needs to eliminate some of the barriers to developing renewable energy. He said the federal government needs to approve bonding that would allow lower interest rates and set up a federal loan program.

Toor said better financing would help move renewable energy from pilot projects “to a tool that is potentially a game changer.”

Sutley said climate change is “one of the big issues of our time” and renewable energy is a major part of the solution. She said the United States is now spending billions of dollars on research and development.

“The next step is to make sure America leads,” she said.

By Howard Rich

In an era of debt-exploding bailouts and deficit-busting expansions of government, it goes without saying that America cannot afford a $1.5 trillion government-run health care plan. Of course, the massive socialized medicine boondoggle proposed by President Barack Obama is much more than just another example of government pouring billions – now trillions – of taxpayer dollars down the drain.

If that were all “Obamacare” were, it would be bad enough.

But this program is much worse because it constitutes government not only wasting vast sums of taxpayer money, but imposing artificial conditions on the free market in a deliberate effort to nationalize the health care industry. In addition to costing millions of American jobs, the creation of a government-run health care monopoly will result in higher premiums, limited options, lower quality care and a lack of innovation in the one field of human endeavor where we should strive to be as innovative as possible – namely, saving lives and improving quality of life.

While Obama continues to mislead an increasingly skeptical public on this front, U.S. Rep. Barney Frank recently admitted that the real intention of the so-called “America’s Affordable Health Choices Act” was nationalization, saying that the new government-driven “public option” plan was the “best way … the only way” to achieve an eventual single payer monopoly.

The long-term costs of the plan are also much larger than anyone is willing to admit – particularly seeing as Obamacare (like nearly everything in Washington these days) is being “paid for” almost exclusively with money that doesn’t exist.

How much larger are these long-term costs?

Well, according to a recent report by the Congressional Joint Economic Committee, along with its imposing debt- and deficit-busting dimensions, Obamacare would add another $9.2 trillion to the massive pile of unfunded liabilities that politicians in Washington have forced upon the American taxpayers.

In other words, it’s yet another example of government writing a check that it can’t possible hope to cash – one which forces additional strain on the taxpayers and sucks more life out of our economy.

And for what result? A health plan that does more harm than good?

Federal unfunded liabilities currently total a whopping $58.8 trillion – or $191,000 for every man, woman and child in America. This total includes $39.6 trillion for Medicare and Medicaid, $10.6 trillion for Social Security and $8.5 trillion for Bush’s ill-conceived prescription drug benefit.

Add the unfunded liability of Obamacare to this pile and the total tab soars to a scarcely-comprehensible $68 trillion – or $226,000 for every man, woman and child in America.

Clearly, these are numbers that Obama and his allies don’t want to talk about. After all, they demonstrate conclusively the numerical impossibility of funding all of Obama’s new proposals simply by imposing new tax hikes on “the wealthy.”
“There is no way we can pay for health care and the rest of the Obama agenda, plus get our long-term deficits under control, simply by raising taxes on the wealthy,” former Clinton budget advisor Isabel V. Sawhill recently told The New York Times. “The middle class is going to have to contribute as well.”

Obama has promised that 95% of Americans won’t see their taxes increased “by one dime” during his administration. How, then, does he plan on bridging the short- and long-term gaps to pay for his health care plan?
Short answer? He doesn’t.

Obama isn’t planning on bridging these gaps, which is why you can add this to the stack of promises he probably never planned on keeping – right on top of the pledge that citizens would be able to keep their existing health care plans if that was their choice.

Whether in the immediate or distant future, America simply cannot afford Obamacare. And even if we could afford it, we should never put government in control of any industry – particularly one so vital to the pursuit of the first of our fundamental liberties, “life.”