Understanding McCain’s Health Plan

John McCain’s plan to reform the American health care system has been getting ripped a new one by Barack Obama and his surrogates. Joe Biden described a laughable distortion of the plan during his debate with Sarah Palin last Thursday, and the Obama campaign followed up with an equally dishonest ad to ensure the fabricated details would linger in the minds of voters.

Part of the problem is that even McCain supporters don’t seem to understand his health care plan well enough to defend it adequately. Even the official campaign Web site doesn’t do a great job of laying out the nitty gritty.

That’s why this concrete example of how the plan would work is required reading.

Suppose a worker gets $50,000 in cash wages and $12,000 in health insurance.

Right now, he pays federal income taxes on the wages but not the health insurance. Let’s assume, for reasons of simplicity, that the tax rate he is paying is a flat 25% on his wages. He therefore pays $12,500 in federal income taxes. His after-tax, after-health-care income is $37,500.

Now, under the McCain plan, his employer keeps paying the premium, which is now counted as income to the worker. He therefore pays federal income taxes on $62,000, or $15,500.

But he also gets a tax credit of $5,000 for health insurance, which means that, all in all, he owes $10,500 in federal taxes, or $2,000 less than he does today. His after-tax, after-health-care income is $39,500.

Continue reading at The New Atlantis to understand how McCain’s plan would work if this same employee opted to buy his insurance directly from an insurer in the open market. The McCain campaign would be well advised to add similar examples to the official Web site.

October 6, 2008 · Filed Under Election 2008, Health care, John McCain

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Jim DeMint: A Voice of Reason on the Bailout

Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) opposes the bailout and voted his conscience in the Senate on Wednesday. DeMint has a solid history of fiscal conservatism that includes leading the charge against pork barrel spending in the Senate. His speech on the Senate floor was a welcome voice of reason amidst the pervasive fear mongering:

I don’t agree with Jim DeMint on some social issues, but on this he’s spot on. Let’s hope he’s working the phones to convince his colleagues in the House that the bailout bill can’t go forward in its current iteration.

Deliberations continue in the House today. Contact as many Representatives as you can to let them know that Americans of all political persuasions oppose the bailout. Michelle Malkin has contact info for every House GOP member who voted “No” on Monday.

October 2, 2008 · Filed Under Economy, Jim DeMint

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Free to Be Sarah P.

Ronald Reagan’s 11th Commandment, Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican, is out of favor with some conservatives when it comes to Sarah Palin.

But Bill Kristol remembers the Sarah Palin that invigorated the Party not so long ago:

Some in the McCain camp are nervous about Gov. Palin, but they shouldn’t be. They’ve totally mishandled her for the last week or two. Free Sarah Palin! Free Sarah Palin, that’s what I say! They have surrounded her — look, McCain picked her because she is a good governor, a good politician, a good communicator. Let her be a politician! Let her communicate. Put her on TV, put her on radio. Let her relax. Let her go into the debate and try to win the debate!

Mona Charen, Jonah Goldberg, Kathryn Jean Lopez, and Mark Steyn agree that the McCain campaign needs to free Sarah Palin to be herself, particularly at the debate on Thursday.  I don’t believe she’s done a bad job with her interviews, but there’s certainly something overly packaged about many of her responses, and we’ve had enough with the stump speech lines.

Sarah Palin isn’t just the latest interchangeable kid to be swapped into Menudo because the average age of band members was creeping up.  She’s a bright and gifted politician who dazzles voters with the rarest of political assets: her authenticity.

Bring back Sarah, unleashed, unbound, and authentic.

September 29, 2008 · Filed Under Election 2008, Sarah Palin

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The Deep Childishness of Contemporary Liberalism

A 700 billion dollar bailout looms ominously on the horizon, and Barack Obama wants to make sure he can still increase early childhood education funding? Here’s the relevant line from the first presidential debate:

The problem with a spending freeze is you’re using a hatchet where you need a scalpel. There are some programs that are very important that are under-funded. I want to increase early childhood education….

Bill Kristol’s analysis of that gem is spot on, and contains my new favorite description of liberalism (in bold):

We’re in a major financial crisis, and Barack Obama wants to increase spending in an area where there’s notoriously little evidence that spending has paid off, an area that in any case isn’t a primary responsibility of the federal government (or perhaps of any level of government). Obama’s ritualistic invocation of early childhood education as deserving ever more funding is a reminder, one might say, of the deep childishness of contemporary liberalism.

I love that line. It does a superb job of capturing what I’ve discovered as my views have moved rightward. Full acceptance of doctrinaire liberalism requires a childlike shallowness of thought, almost a suspension of disbelief.

As one’s depth of thought about politics, governance, and law increases, there arises a stunning cognitive dissonance. Those who successfully cross the expansive chasm between contemporary liberalism and reality have shed that deep childishness of liberal thought.

Unfortunately, they’re few and far between.

September 27, 2008 · Filed Under Barack Obama, Election 2008, Liberal Absurdity

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McCain/Palin Smears, Now in Two Delicious Flavors

How do you prefer your smears? Overt or covert? Team Obama is playing it both ways now, and in all likelihood has been for some time.

So which is worse, the Obama campaign smearing Sarah Palin via a clan of astroturfing sockpuppets or Obama’s latest radio smear campaign against John McCain? And will it matter to voters?

Just askin’.

September 24, 2008 · Filed Under Barack Obama, Corruption, Election 2008, John McCain, Sarah Palin

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Vicious Palin Smears Traced Back to Obama Campaign?

My nomination for blog post of the year goes to The Jawa Report for their meticulous research on the source of the Sarah Palin smears.  This story is huge.

Their findings suggest that at least some of the smears were orchestrated by Winner & Associates, one of the world’s largest PR firms.  The research also indicates a likely link to David Axelrod, Obama’s chief media strategist.  They weave quite a convincing narrative and it’s imperative that the news organizations and the rest of the blogosphere pick this up and take it as far as it can go.

A mere summary doesn’t do their work justice – read it yourself.

September 22, 2008 · Filed Under Barack Obama, Corruption, Election 2008, Sarah Palin

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