NPR had some academic on just a couple days ago saying the same thing. He was going on about how FDR was really the epitome of conservative values because he advocated having the government take money from one group of people and give it to another. It was a little hard to follow, honestly. And also, idiotic.

ok, off subject...

two things I didn't get about Barry O's speech last night

1) he talked about getting rid of the fraud and waste and medicare to help pay for healthcare....um, my question is, why do we need to pass a bill in order to get rid of waste and fraud?

2) he claims only 5% would go on the governemnt option...but if a company fails to provide employees healthcare; they will receive an 8% penalty on payrolls, I believe...but it would be cheaper to pay the fine then to provide healthcare....wouldn't many companies just pay the fine and let their employees go on the public option?

Clearly, Larry, you have no compassion for the oppressed proletariat, and you must be racist to boot. Off to the re-education camp, you bourgeoisie swine!

As I've been saying all along, the plan is specifically designed to destroy private insurance. Obama & Co. can't say this directly, of course, lest enough Americans realize they've been duped all along, but it's what will happen. The first principle of economics is, "People respond to incentives." This is unquestionable fact, and it shows that what you and others suspect is true: employers en masse will give up trying to offer health insurance, because a fine will be cheaper, and especially when they'll be taxed on what they spend for employees' insurance (easy enough to implement, they'll simply be barred from deducting it as an expense). You can safely bet that the 8% was calculated for that very reason.

And that sonofabitch Baucus is proposing a tax on the "best" insurance to pay for "the poor," which you can also safely bet will exempt union workers' policies.

In recent weeks I find myself often quoting a certain passage from Frédéric Bastiat's The Law:Do those worshippers of government believe that free persons will cease to act? Does it follow that if we receive no energy from the law, we shall receive no energy at all? Does it follow that if the law is restricted to the function of protecting the free use of our faculties, we will be unable to use our faculties? Suppose that the law does not force us to follow certain forms of religion, or systems of association, or methods of education, or regulations of labor, or regulations of trade, or plans for charity; does it then follow that we shall eagerly plunge into atheism, hermitary, ignorance, misery, and greed? If we are free, does it follow that we shall no longer recognize the power and goodness of God? Does it follow that we shall then cease to associate with each other, to help each other, to love and succor our unfortunate brothers, to study the secrets of nature, and to strive to improve ourselves to the best of our abilities?Like you asked, why is "a law" necessary to eliminate waste and fraud? Before SarbOx, fraud was already a punishable crime. But without passing laws for this and that, politicians wouldn't have jobs; heaven forbid they be like regular people and try to find honest jobs that do something, you know.

Once you start thinking "We don't need a law for this," you can move on to, "And we don't need the concept of law for this, either, or a whole lot of things." There is the beginning of freedom.