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Nov. 20, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: How to make every second of your life come first
Caroline B. Glick: Whither American Jewry
Nov. 19, 2009
Binyamin L. Jolkovsky: Please Listen to this Godcast (5 minutes)
Jonathan Tobin: ADL Crosses the Line with Report Bashing Obama Critics
Nov. 18, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: What Judaism has to say about the secret of the Mona Lisa's smile
JWisdom.com: The (Jewish) Dating Game with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
Nov. 17, 2009
Steven Emerson: How Does the 4th Amendment Impact Terror Finance Investigations?
JWisdom.com: If Frank Sinatra married Edith Piaf with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein (2 minutes) Life lessons from what would be regarded as the most inappropriate lyrics ever sung
Nov. 16, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : When borrowing is stealing
JWisdom.com: Deconstructing faith with Rabbi Warren Goldstein (9 minutes)
Nov. 13, 2009
JWisdom.com Sarah's subjective reality with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 6 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: Obama's failure, Netanyahu's opportunity
Nov. 12, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet By Marialisa Calta : A sweet sweet potato treat
JWisdom.com Does God get tired? with Rabbi Harvey Belovski ( 5 minutes)
Nov. 11, 2009
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Jews and money: When anti-Semitism isn't
JWisdom.com Marriages are not made in Heaven with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (VERY fast 15 minutes)
Nov. 10, 2009
Michael Doyle: Author of book exposing CAIR ordered to remove supporting documents from Web
JWisdom.com If the creation so loudly shouts the existence of the Creator, why aren't more people believers? with Rabbi Naftali Brawer (9 minutes)
Nov. 9, 2009
Mark Steyn: Shooter exposes hole in U.S. terror strategy
JWisdom.com It's never too late to have a happy childhood with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review June 17, 2009 / 25 Sivan 5769

Health Care — Obama's Waterloo?

By Dick Morris & Eileen Mc Gann


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | To quote the esteemed Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the chickens that were hatched in the stimulus package are coming home to roost in the health care proposal. The budget deficit that Obama racked up paying for the massive federal spending passed in January is now having a real economic and political impact, which is forcing the president and his congressional allies into hard choices as they face his health care legislation.


Of course, the prudent thing to do is postpone health care changes until the economy generates some revenues and trims the deficit. But the socialist in the White House can't do that. He's got to strike while his congressional majority is hot. So he is forcing his administration and his party to choose among unpalatable choices to finance his program. His demand may be a bridge too far, endangering his popularity with the American people.


First of all, the very fact of a focus on health care reform inevitably stirs discussion of the deficit. Americans are allergic to deficit spending and worry the more the deficit grows. As interest rates rise and the government finds it more and more difficult to borrow enough to cover Obama's massive spending, the economy is likely to show the negative effects.


It is a matter of a few months, certainly no more, before voters start to realize that it is the deficit, not the pre-existing conditions Obama inherited, that is causing the prolongation of the recession. Already the jump in mortgage rates has slowed home refinancing, which was the only aspect of the Obama economic program that was working well.


But the foreign and domestic focus on the deficit has a harsher political impact: It forces the Democrats to come up with money to fund health care reform. In other words, it makes them raise taxes. The Democratic Party is good at fooling itself that tax increases don't matter and are politically palatable, but they do and they are not.


The massive spending health care will require goes beyond the capacity for the rich alone to pay the bill, no matter how confiscatory Obama chooses to become. Only broader taxes will do the job. Obama faces two practical choices: a value added tax or taxing health insurance benefits.


The political harm either way will be enormous. Not only will Obama be breaking his pledge not to tax the middle class, but he will be doing so in a particularly pernicious way. If Obama opts for the value added tax (VAT), Democrats will hope to cloak the increase in the price of the product. They reason that the consumer won't know how much the tax is since it will be added on throughout the sale and resale of the product, rather than at the cash register at the end as the sales tax is.


But it will work the other way. As inflation sets in, triggered by Obama's deficit spending, consumers will blame the whole thing on Obama. His VAT will be much magnified in the voters' minds to include all of the inflation going on. Just as voters blamed Clinton's gas tax increase of five cents in 1993 for the entire run-up in gasoline prices at the pump, so they will place all the blame for inflation on Obama's VAT.


Or Obama could tax health care benefits, a direct reversal of his campaign pledge. He would be adopting a policy for which he overtly and loudly criticized McCain. And his popularity will wilt as taxpayers suddenly have to add on to their tax liability the money their employer has always paid for their health insurance. Obama will probably have his own separate line on the 1040 and even on the short form for his new tax. That's not the way to stay popular.


Obama's only good option is not to move so quickly on health care reform to give himself some wiggle room. But, as the song says, "We're knee deep in the big muddy, but the damn fool says to push on!"

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.


JWR contributor Dick Morris is author, most recently, of "Fleeced: How Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, Media Mockery of Terrorist Threats, Liberals Who Want to Kill Talk Radio, the Do-Nothing Congress, Companies ... Are Scamming Us ... and What to Do About It". (Click HERE to purchase. Sales help fund JWR.) Comment by clicking here.



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