Apparently our politicans’ behavior is rubbing off on us. Last week, The Wall Street Journal featured an article titled “American Dream 2: Default, Then Rent,” featuring Americans who had decided to stop paying on their mortgages and instead rent a house. This is a trend that is rapidly increasing in frequency across the nation as homeowners are realizing that their house wasn’t a particularly great investment. According to the article, analysts at Deutsche Bank Securities expect 21 million households in the U.S. to owe more than their mortgages are worth by the end of 2010.

With the collapse of American International Group last year, the government has worked feverishly to point their fingers at corporations and executives. Let’s clarify – AIG sold mortgage-backed securities, or investments which relied on the value of mortgages to stay afloat. As homeowners defaulting on their mortgages started to spike, the value of the securities plummeted. AIG suddenly owed far more than it could pay. Ultimately, foreclosed-upon homeowners lost. AIG and its employees and shareholders lost. Innocent American taxpayers lost.

Tragically, from taking out a loan to paying our taxes, we are all funding this behavior. Interest rates in part provide insurance for the lender. There will always be people defaulting on loans – the interest rate then builds in a little extra pad to compensate for those losses, and so we pay more to borrow. Additionally, many loans have been insured by the federal government, and that number is steeply increasing. The Federal Housing Administration now insures tens of millions of mortgages. If a homeowner defaults on an FHA loan, the American taxpayers foot the bill.

Here’s the kicker – AIG used part of its government bailout to award its executives multi-million-dollar bonuses, a luxury that, thanks to our representatives in Washington, was even specifically afforded to them in the bailout deal. We as a people are somehow furious with AIG but much less vocal about the politicians and other individuals who assisted in precipitating this disaster. Schoolteacher Shana Richey’s home in Palmdale, California, is now worth $200,000. Her monthly payment on her $430,000 mortgage was $3,700. Since deciding to default on her home and rent, Ms. Richey has used the extra money to buy season tickets for the family to Disneyland, plan a Carnival Cruise to Mexico, and purchase an $1,800 dining set [1].

Capitalism is a system built on risk-taking. Anyone who believes a commodity can inflate but not deflate is lying to himself. This has been noted by many other pundits, but privatizing reward while socializing risk only encourages more reckless behavior, leaving behind those of us forced to cover those losses. Our founders envisioned a nation based on personal responsibility.

1. “American Dream 2: Default, Then Rent,” The Wall Street Journal, December 10, 2009.

Our President can’t be serious. Really, this must be some sort of sick joke. On Monday, President Obama met with financial leaders from around the country in an effort to promote economic growth. The plan involved re-regulating banks and encouraging lenders to refinance mortgages and open credit to more businesses [1]. Certainly, the plan does have some advantages. However, there are still many concerns which still exist.

The mortgage bubble really began in 1977 with the Community Reinvestment Act which allowed the government to veto bank mergers and other major banking decisions. In the 1990s, Attorney General Janet Reno harassed banks into making more “community investments” through the use of studies aimed at proving racism in the lending market. However, the studies managed to only judge loans based on the borrower’s race, failing to factor credit scores as a part of the equation. Ultimately, banks were pressed to either make risky loans or be labeled as racists.

Then-President Clinton later began the bank-bail-out culture, from which Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, formerly just housing assistance companies, were now free to make risky loans insured by you and me. As the government pushed creditors to lend through the 1990s and into the next millennium, more and more persons with poor credit were given high-value loans on low-value properties. Sadly, we all know what happened next – the market bubbled and collapsed and the taxpayers were left with the financial burden.

Yesterday, I talked about President Obama’s recent interview aired on CBS’s “60 Minutes” on Sunday night. The President aggressively blamed the banks for the financial mess, saying “[n]othing has been more frustrating to me this year than having to salvage a financial system at great expense to taxpayers that was precipitated, that was caused in part by completely irresponsible actions on Wall Street” [2]. While Wall Street did make some stupid moves, our government is the last institution which should be pointing fingers. It’s like Bernie Madoff calling someone unethical.

Unfortunately, beyond all comprehension, the President is – again – telling creditors to lend beyond their comfort level. Riddle me this: if the market bubbles – again – and we bail out creditors – again – will Obama – again – blame the lenders? Creditors don’t just sit on money if they could be lending it; lending is how they make their money. There’s a natural balance between risk and reward, and when that balance is disturbed, well, you know the rest of the story.

Moreover, no government has the right to force creditors to lend. President Obama certainly couldn’t walk up to your front door and say, “Hey there, Bob across the street needs help. He’s having financial problems, and I noticed you have $2,000 in your savings account. I know that amounts to your entire savings and that you have it set aside as a reserve in case you lose your job or have an accident, but you really need to think about Bob’s needs, too.” That would be silly, right? Banks are merely organized groups of people, and when they fail, real people (investors and employees) fail, and thanks to the government’s reckless actions, so do the taxpayers of the United States.

The writing is on the wall. When will we bother to read it?

1. “Obama to Banks: ‘Rebuild Our Economy’,” money.cnn.com, November 14, 2009.
2. “Transcript: President Barack Obama,” cbsnews.com, November 13, 2009.

Our President reminds me of Santa Claus, who always knows when you’re sleeping or awake, or whether you’ve been bad or good. Apparently he’s keenly aware of our political opinions. Mr. Obama is constantly complaining about the American people’s frustrations with his policies, decrying all such complaints as a simple lack of knowledge about what his plan really is. In speech after speech, the President readdresses the need to correct people’s understanding.

In his September 9 speech to Congress, Mr. Obama claimed that “[i]nstead of honest debate, we have seen scare tactics… [a]nd out of this blizzard of charges and counter-charges, confusion has reigned” [1]. He tells us that the only reason we don’t like his programs is because we are uninformed. But wait – only 37.7 percent of Americans approve of his plan [2]. In our President’s eyes, the majority of Americans are thus clueless.

If, and only if, the majority of Americans are truly lacking understanding, it can only be because we are stupid or the President has not clearly communicated his plan. Considering that Mr. Obama has given more speeches during his presidency than days he has served, and because we do have access to the health care bill, we certainly aren’t missing his message. We aren’t stupid. We understand clearly.

In his interview with CBS’s Steve Kroft aired on “60 Minutes” last night, the President got very upset when Mr. Kroft suggested that Mr. Obama’s West Point speech “was greeted with a great deal of confusion.” The President immediately quipped that indeed Americans did understand and dismissed claims of contradiction, saying, “I don’t think [those claims are] a fair criticism” [3]. When he finished recapping his December 1 speech, he ended by saying that “[t]here shouldn’t be anything confusing about that” [3]. I was simply flabbergasted – and embarrassed – by the President’s rush to judge Americans as somehow maliciously incompetent.

Our President seems to have some wild and crazy belief that he knows exactly why each and every one of us is either for or against his plans. Unfortunately the only explanation I see is that either the President doesn’t care to listen or he has a team of pollsters about as capable at reading people’s reactions as Tom Green; I simply cannot fathom any other way he could misinterpret our message. Ask yourselves: what kind of person could only believe that any person with an oppositing opinion is uninformed?

1. “Transcript of Obama’s address to Congress,” msnbc.com, September 9, 2009.
2. Obama and Democrats’ Health Care Plan Polling Data, realclearpolitics.com, December 14, 2009.
3. “Transcript: President Barack Obama,” cbsnews.com, November 13, 2009.

“Clear!” yells the President as he presses the defibrillator paddles to hundreds of thousands of bad loans. The button is pressed, the loans jump, but then slump back down. “Someone get me another $38 billion!” he yells in exasperation. The nurses – they know he needs to move on to the next patient, one who has a chance of being saved. But these bad loans got him elected, and he’s not about to give up. Unfortunately, we know how this story will end. The bad loans will never be revived and the opportunity to save the others will pass.

As the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, proceeds through his reconfirmation hearings, one must wonder how people get into office with no real comprehension of how free markets work. There seems to be some great disconnect; few people seem to understand that a market that can go up, outpacing real output, can also go down. Even fewer understand that when a market sector does go down, it must be allowed to do so, lest it start dragging everything else down with it.

Refinancing overpriced mortgages isn’t a solution. Buying toxic assets at the cost of taxpayers isn’t a solution. There’s no point in shoring up a $440,000 mortgage on a 498 square foot house [1]. Economies are viewed the same way civilizations, ecosystems, and other systems are – cyclic environments through which there is always input and output. Waste must always exit or be broken down to provide for new growth. Forest fires are often seen as healthy, clearing the dead undergrowth which would normally choke out new trees, clearing the way for new life.

Strangely enough, though, our politicians and government officials have decided to detach the economy’s large intestine at the end and reconnect it at the esophagus. Such practices force these bad loans to be digested again as we wait for them to lose their toxicity. Recirculating all that waste, though, is sure to give anyone a terrible case of stomach rot. Let’s get real – who thinks that we’re going to start seeing 2-bedroom, 1-bathroom houses selling for $700,000 again any time soon?

We need to let go; we need to let the forest burn down to make way for new growth. We need to stop punishing the whole of America for the misguided actions of a few? Historically, recessions have been followed by dramatic recoveries. Do we really need any other explanation for why our recovery is ‘slow and fragile’ [2]? And maybe it’s just me, but I don’t believe that anyone who is either too corrupt or too incompetent to file his own taxes properly, even after being warned, should be governing our recovery tax policy, either [3].

1. “Real Homes of Genius: Today we Salute you Santa Ana. 498 Square Feet for $440,000, What a Deal!,” drhousingbubble.com, March 26, 2007.
2. “OECD: ‘Slow and Fragile’ Economic Recovery in Sight,” cnn.com, June 24, 2009.
3. “Geithner Tax Woes Examined,” npr.org, January 14, 2009.

Common sense apparently isn’t all that common. It’s been a while since we’ve posted, but we’ve returned from our Thanksgivings and we’re back in action. It’s amazing how so much can change in a week and yet, strangely, things seem to remain the same. To keep things short and sweet today, I’d like to ask a couple quick questions.

Firstly, we are undoubtedly experiencing very tough economic times. The dollar’s value has plunged. Unemployment has skyrocketed. Little credit is available. Businesses and individuals are bracing for upcoming tax hikes. And somewhere in the middle of this mess, our government is trying to pass a health care bill that starts collecting money now but doesn’t start to take effect for another four years. What kind of malicious person siphons billions of dollars out of a struggling economy and then waits four years to use it?

Secondly, right now, 106,000 International Security Assistance Forces are stationed in Afghanistan [1]. In a speech in West Point, New York on Tuesday night, President Obama told the nation that he would be sending an additional 30,000 troops to fight the war. Additionally, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said that the European nations would be adding at least 5,000 more soldiers to the conflict [2].

We applaud the President’s decision to strengthen our presence in Afghanistan. The troop surge in Iraq came late but ultimately paved the way for the transition of power to the Iraqi people. Undoubtedly, if we are to participate in any armed conflict, we must be prepared to throw everything we have into it. Fighting a war without full commitment is like trying to eat a steak without a knife; you’ll most likely get the job done, but it will take forever and you’ll end up with it all over your face.

What concerns us, as it does many congresspersons and other Americans, is the incredibly short timetable for withdrawal of the surge forces. President Obama, trying to rally support from his antiwar loyalists, declared that the United States would begin to draw down the surge forces beginning in July 2011 [1]. Believing you can get in and get out quickly, though, is a fallacy. We’re still in Germany and Japan after 64 years. If we’ve concluded that 106,000 troops are losing control of Afghanistan, how can we expect that 140,000 troops can take control of some 251,770 square miles of extremely rugged terrain in just 18 months?

I think we all know that these two questions are unanswerable. No person who honestly cares about the American people tries to bankrupt them at the bottom of an economic downturn. No person who honestly cares about the safety of our American troops and the Afghani people sets such a short timetable. The only explanation is political gain. Bankrupting the very people who provide jobs panders to the lower class who more often than not vote for progressives. Setting ridiculous withdrawal timetables panders to the antiwar populace who more often than not vote for progressives.

There’s an agenda here, and it’s not the satisfaction of the needs of the American people.

1. “Lawmakers Challenge Gates,” The Wall Street Journal, December 3, 2009.
2. “Time Limit on Surge Draws Fire,” The Wall Street Journal, December 3, 2009.

I honestly don’t know what bothers me more: reading story after story of perversion of the government in Washington, or struggling to come up with a way we can fix things. Exacting change in our government is tough, and most attempts are often frustratingly futile. The time for complacency, though, is over; it’s time we examine how we can make a difference. Come, join in the discussion; let’s get something going.

Before we can hope to speak intelligently on a subject, we owe it to ourselves to have a solid understanding of the situation, preferably from multiple angles. There is a wealth of neat books and other media materials out there – almost too much; my bookcase is filled with more unread books than I could ever hope to get through in the next 12 months. We can read about George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and the Revolutionary War, and the fight between Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton over the size of the federal government. Most importantly, everyone should have a copy of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, which costs no more than a few dollars at any bookstore.

A quicker and more exciting way to learn more is to discuss and debate politics, such as in our forums (though the information isn’t always right and should be double-checked). It’s a great way to get access to immediate information and to hear a wide range dissenting opinions on a host of topics. In discussion, we must always remember that other people have just as much conviction about their beliefs as we do about ours. No one can ever win a political fight; one can only hope to inspire thought in others (and themselves).

Once we have an understanding of our own beliefs, things start to get tricky. Some people protest on the street, which more often than not merely serves to polarize people, not unite them. How often do you drive by picketers and roll your eyes? Additionally, there’s little point protesting Washington’s behavior on a street corner in Iowa. We also used to write our congresspersons, but many have made it clear that they’re not listening. Some people blog, but many such sites are inflammatory and, again, polarizing. We could responsibly cast our votes, but there are not enough educated voters and even fewer qualified candidates.

So what can we really do to make a difference? Start a political society. Start it in your area and use it to build a sense of community, involving people of all political beliefs, not just your own. Your local Democratic or Republican party can’t serve that interest; they are too busy serving their own interests and fighting the other party to really care about you or the opinions of others. Get together once a week to debate current political topics, discuss assigned reading material, and to organize politics in your area. Find a candidate in your locality who you can trust and work together to get him or her elected to your city or state government. Keep expanding the group and help get the right candidate elected to the US Congress. No matter what you do, focus on the Constitution and on making this country a welcome home for every person, not just the party in power and the special interests who support them.

America has a great tradition of harboring active political societies. Sadly, this tradition has been in severe decline with the rise of the opposition-crushing Democratic and Republican parties. In the meantime, however, those parties have become so very out of touch with the average American, who often has no desire to game the system or lie to their friends or make life miserable for those who don’t share their opinions. Each and every one of us bears the responsibility of keeping our great nation afloat. You may not generally agree with her, but you can definitely agree with Hillary Rodham Clinton when she said, “[t]he challenges of change are always hard. It is important that we begin to unpack those challenges that confront this nation and realize that we each have a role that requires us to change and become more responsible for shaping our own future.”

Today’s call to action: Tomorrow is Thanksgiving; express your thanks to your coworkers and employees. Let them know that their work is in great part responsible for your success. We’ll talk more about political societies next week.

Interpretation of the Constitution can be tricky, especially considering the language used over 200 years ago. Reading the writings of our founders is exciting and inspiring – that is, of course, once you can get past the sentence structures that are eerily reminiscent of the rambling messes in German literature. Anyway, let’s split the first part of the Amendment into digestible clauses:

• Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.
• Congress shall make no law prohibiting the free exercise of religion.

The wording is pretty clear. Amazingly, though, many people miss the first word, Congress. The First Amendment does not refer to the government as a whole, but merely the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate. When combined with the rest of the Constitution, the Amendment states that Congress cannot mandate an official religion, nor can it prohibit anyone from practicing their religion, and in addition, the Supreme Court and lower courts must decide cases in which Congress established an official religion or prohibited the free exercise of religion. No more, no less.

Our courts, as a result of the First Amendment, have no power regarding religion beyond operating as checks and balances to Congress. Moreover, the law clearly allows government to practice religion as long as Congress does not mandate the practice thereof or prohibit others’ practice of religion. As the Amendment is written, the free exercise of religion may not be prohibited This can be proven widely – Congress opens its sessions with prayer. The United States Supreme Court opens with prayer and the crier says, “God save the United States and this honorable court.” But who better to trust than the men who wrote and inspired our founding documents themselves? Thomas Jefferson, who drafted the Declaration of Independence, and James Madison, the “Father of the Constitution,” regularly attended voluntary church services in the House of Representatives [1].

Recently, the United States Supreme Court heard arguments regarding the display of a cross originally erected by the Veterans of Foreign Wars on government land in the 1930s in southeastern California. A retired National Park Service employee had objected to its display, and in 2002 a federal judge in California ordered the government to stop displaying the cross, a decision upheld in 2004 by the Ninth Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals [2]. However, the Supreme Court is specifically restricted from deciding cases outside of the Constitutional jurisdiction – in this case, it is prohibited from ruling on a case regarding religion for which Congress took no part.

I’m blown away that the federal courts are even looking at this case. We’ve already established that the courts can only decide cases in which the federal Congress has violated the First Amendment. The plaintiffs argue that the cross violates the establishment clause, but I’m still trying to find that law that Congress made which established or mandated an official religion. That would be a pretty grand leap of logic, akin to concluding that, if I were to agree with President Obama on an issue, that I fully and unquestioningly support him for President in 2012 and will force everyone else to support him. The connection doesn’t exist. The same goes with the display of the Ten Commandments outside a federal courthouse – in that case as well, Congress had made no establishing law, but the frivolous courts were certainly happy to stamp out the free exercise of religion.

The beauty of the original Amendment, like the rest of the Constitution, is that it caters to persons of all beliefs. A nation which mandates no religion (or lack thereof) and openly permits exercise of all forms of religion is truly free. A nation which forces atheism upon the people, in whole or in part, is certainly not free. This is ultimately the direct result of corruption in the courts, a system caught in the stranglehold of my-way-or-the-highway egoists.

Our nation is so incredible due to the wide variety of people of whom it is comprised and two whom its laws grant freedom. I still struggle to comprehend the progressive agenda which at once praises inclusiveness and diversity while in the background silently snuffs out the voices of dissenters. Furthermore, I fail to understand the conservative idea that the Constitution is of utmost importance yet they ignore the right of people to live life as they would. Ultimately, neither group wants unity among diverse peoples, instead desiring your rank-and-file uniformity and subservience.

In the end, who do you trust more – the men who wrote the Constitution or a power-tripping federal judge in California some 215 years removed, wholly incapable of reading plain English?

Today’s call to action: We’ve been putting together some material on what we can do about this mess. Forward this website to a friend and stop back tomorrow as we talk about returning to our principles and making this nation a land of free men and women, acting without the burden of an overzealous, greedy, and unsustainable government.

1. “Religion and the Founding of the American Public,” loc.gov, November 24, 2009.
2. “Religion Largely Absent in Argument About Cross,” nytimes.com, October 7, 2009.

Quick, grab your pitchforks and broomsticks – the witch hunt is back in full swing. Sarah Palin’s widely-publicized new book, “Going Rogue,” was just released this week and will be #1 on the New York Times best-seller list when it’s next published. In the meantime, though, her critics are back at it, attacking anything and anyone they view as a threat to the “Washington Way.” Tragically, the attacks on Sarah Palin from both the left and right reinforce the idea that America still has a problem with xenophobia. That’s a tough pill to swallow considering how long we’ve been fighting and dying for equality. Americans should be ashamed by the treatment Ms. Palin has received.

The former Alaska governor never ran a malicious campaign, remarkably remaining above the fray despite the unending avalanche of mudslinging aimed in her direction. And outside of the over-edited, over-analyzed interviews with Katie Couric and Charles Gibson, she’s shown that she’s a moderately intelligent person with more guts and gusto than most politicians could ever hope to squander. But because she holds fast to beliefs which don’t align with those of the pundits, including at times even Republicans, she’s somehow portrayed as stupid and unfit to lead. The proof is in the pudding – the Associated Press dedicated 11 people to fact-checking Palin’s book but didn’t bother to check any facts in recent books by Vice President Biden, President Obama, or Bill or Hillary Clinton [1].

Even more despicable, though, are those who wish to repeatedly attack her character out of a seeming lack of decency or absence of facts with which to develop a substantive argument. We should know by now that the character of a person doesn’t make his or her opinion or actions any more or less relevant. Former President Carter may be a terrorist and a Marxist but that doesn’t keep me from being active with Habitat for Humanity. Even more fundamentally, someone who has so graciously dealt with an overly-aggressive media, the birth and care of a special needs child, and other over-publicized family issues should be the last person to have his or her character questioned.

Unfortunately for the politicians and pundits and fortunately for Sarah Palin, her opponent’s plan has backfired. The more baseless attacks are thrown at her, the more upset and polarized her supporters and sympathizers become. One could apply the analogy that the hotter the fire, the more refined the product. Ms. Palin has remained in the limelight in great part due to continued criticism from the media.

In all honestly, I don’t love Sarah Palin, but I do respect her attitude and opinions. What I do love is that the attempts of her critics to demean her and take her out of the spotlight have failed. I suggest that they take the hint and focus on the issues – lobbing baseless, off-topic attacks at people is immature and have been proven ineffective.

Today’s call to action: Let’s make it really simple today – don’t let someone else tell you what opinion to have. Watch an interview or two in which Sarah Palin has participated over the last two weeks and judge for yourself.

1. “AP Turns Heads for Devoting 11 Reporters to Palin Book ‘Fact Check’,” foxnews.com, November 18, 2009. DGCYPUH4YTC5

We must be clinically insane. Albert Einstein once suggested insanity to be the act of “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Democratic leaders are discussing yet another massive government expenditure in reaction to our economic problems, and this time, it’s focused on job creation [1].

Wait, what?

I’m sorry, but I could have sworn that job creation was a major component of the $787 stimulus bill that was passed earlier this year. Of course, I could be wrong; maybe the real purpose of that bill was a vehicle to which politicians could attach over 9000 earmarks [2]. President Obama had initially promised that earmarks wouldn’t be included in the stimulus bill [3], but we know by now that our commander in chief and congress have no problem reneging on their word or worse, outright lying to us.

Sarcasm and cynicism aside, the first stimulus was intended to save jobs, create jobs, and provide a “jolt” to the economy [4]. According to the government’s recovery.gov,, $159 billion has been awarded, but not even $37 billion has been paid out. It’s panned out such that the spending is trickling in, unemployment is still spiking, 2.2% higher than the highest level they promised it would go, and we have spent billions of dollars on thousands of earmarks which have resulted in no net assistance to employment. Why would anyone in their right mind believe that this time the government will make good on their promises?

Furthermore, methods of funding being considered for this next bill include use of TARP repayments and a tax on internet gaming [1]. The TARP repayments were originally intended to go back to the taxpayers as the program was a loan, not an expenditure. And the internet tax amazingly flies in the face of the administration’s push for net neutrality, a policy which aims to keep companies from restricting or charging extra for access to any site or sector of the internet [5].

Ultimately, in the case of the TARP payments, the government is taking money it promised to return. In the case of an internet gaming tax, the government is trying to tell private business not to control customer internet behavior while pushing to do it themselves. Washington may as well ask for scuba equipment for Christmas for fear of drowning in their own hypocrisy.

1. “House Leaders Push for Jobs Bill,” The Wall Street Journal, November 18, 2009.
2. “Earmark Reform? Stimulus Bill Contains 9000,” cleveland.com, February 22, 2009.
3. “Obama Will Ban Earmarks from Stimulus Bill,” cnn.com, January 6, 2009.
4. “Obama Presses for Quick Jolt to the Economy,” nytimes.com, January 23, 2009.
5. “Fed Mulls Rules, Fees to Spur Net Access,” The Wall Street Journal, November 18, 2009.

And so it begins. Yesterday, the government-funded, government-appointed U.S. Preventive Services Task Force [1] released new guidelines for breast cancer screening, suggesting widespread cuts in tests aimed at reducing the 40,000 American lives lost each year to the disease. To make its decision, according to Diana Petitti, vice-chairman of the task force, the group compared the benefits of screening to the “harms of false positive, such as anxiety and unnecessary additional tests and biopsies, which are expensive and time-consuming” [2].

There are several things wrong with this scenario.

First, the report assumes that the “harms” of a false positive could ever outweigh non-identification of the disease. Really? I don’t know about you, but I’d rather I find out I have treatable, early-stage cancer just to find out that it was a false positive a week later than wait another 3 years to suddenly find out that I have six weeks to live. It’s akin to avoiding going to the dentist for fear that you might have a killer cavity. It doesn’t make sense.

Secondly, this report suggests against routine screening for women aged 40 to 49, although it is commonly known that survival rates for younger women are lower than for older women as the cancer tends to be more aggressive at an earlier age [3]. The report even recommends against teaching self-examinations. Why would anyone in their right mind want people to be less aware of methods for preventing a disease killing tens of thousands of Americans every year?

The most obvious reason is worrisome. The government already controls screening for persons on Medicare, Medicaid, and VA programs. It is about to control screening for even more insureds, like those covered under the new public option and any plans in the government-created health care co-op, especially with assistance from the newly-created Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research [4]. These bodies rely on the recommendations of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force to define their levels of coverage, instead of the doctors who actually treat the patients.

We don’t want to jump to conclusions. But we also don’t want to sit back, blindfolded, waiting until it’s too late. The government is now realizing a forthcoming dramatic rise in health care costs; it is oddly convenient that they just sponsored a new recommendation to stymie efforts to prevent breast cancer. And while self-serving elitists like Representative Alan Grayson (D, GA) complain that the Republicans’ plan is to hope people die quickly [5], the liberal plan suddenly scores wildly high marks in this category. Waiting until cancer is terminal before identification makes it a breeze for the government to deny spending money on cancer treatments at the cost of American lives. Friends, the stakes have just been raised.

Today’s call to action: Forward this article to a friend who may be on the fence about government-controlled health care.

1. “About USPSTF,” ahrq.gov, November 17, 2009.
2. “Breast-Screening Advice is Upended,” The Wall Street Journal, November 17, 2009.
3. “Breast Cancer Survival Rates,” cancersurvivalrates.net, November 18, 2009.
4. “Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research Membership,” hhs.gov, November 17, 2009.
5. “Alan Grayson ‘Die Quickly’ Comment Prompts Uproar,” cbsnews.com, September 30, 2009.