The apparent Schizophrenia outbreak among the the Democrats regarding healthcare has been comical, if not confusing over the last week.  As a result of the Massachusetts election, the Administration and most of the Democrats could be heard lamenting that "healthcare may die in the house" in one instance, while in others the Democrats could be heard saying:  "We will continue to fight for Healthcare and the American people," leaving us all scratching our heads in bewilderment.  To reconcile or not to reconcile seems to be the question when "just letting it be" seems to be the most obvious answer.

Also this past week, one of our favorite Senators, Judd Gregg, had a rather entertaining smackdown session with OMB (Office of Management and Budget) Director Peter Orszag.  In a televised Congressional meeting, Orszag, whose squeaky voice and manner sounds as if he has yet to fully transition out of puberty, could be heard trying to verbally evade Senator Gregg's pointed questions concerning a "possible" new political slush fund that is a formidable slice of the Tarp repayments.

The Administration has indicated that $ 30 Billion of these funds should go to the banks for "loans to hurting small business organizations" (like ACORN perhaps?).  Senator Gregg, who signatured the bill, raised his voice and indicated forcefully to Orszag that the bill repayment provisions to pay down deficits was "the law" and that, further, only Congress could change the terms of repayment via a new law.  To this Orszag "honked" that they would then change the law (while no doubt nervously toying with a  recently discovered  pimple).  Among several revelations to this exchange was my now newly discerned knowledge of where the word "Honky" actually comes from.

A Singular Wit...

In other comical interludes this past week, the President, while often considered erudite and elitely educated by the Media, was served a long overdue dish of  "inspired contrition."  During a speech, the President continually referred to an heroic Navy Corpsman as a "Corpse Man" making us all wonder if the President's praise for the active-duty member was perhaps being delivered posthumously.  Some conspiracy theorists probably even wondered if maybe Government Mad-Scientists had finally found a way to reanimate the deceased, branding them as "Corpse-men"--no doubt as a way to reduce the Federal budget costs for the military.

We personally prefer "Zombie-Med-Techs" in order to avoid tripping over those pesky silent letters; however, to my 13 year old blonde-tressed daughter's credit, she felt that the President was being berated unfairly due to the fact that she was also understandably unaware of the correct pronunciation.  The Media has been largely silent, no doubt still exhausted from their eight-year-long journalistic mission of constantly documenting President Bush's penchant for occasional verbal slips.

Meanwhile, the Nation's Capital and much of the east coast has been virtually paralyzed by the frigid embrace of a two foot  scourge of  "Global Warming" ice for the past week--even FEMA has been closed, for Heaven's sake.  However, a number of people's thoughts have surely dwelled on this brief weather-enforced respite from more damaging, if not ineffective, legislation from Washington.   In that vein, and further wounding the oft now considered waste of time and money by the world's Governments on anthropogenic Global Warming fiction, the President of India has come out in strident criticism of the Global Warming scientists calling them "Evangelists for Global Warming," which only strengthened the message of one of our earlier articles, which  compared the Global Warming rage to world religious cults.  In fact, the country of India has now pulled away from the International Global Warming Research Community because of the new stories of obvious fraud.

Wrestling with Crib-Notes and the Toddling Obama Phenomenon

While the UK Media and populace has been awash in ever more increasingly damaging revelations regarding the WWF and the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)--in that regard we sat in astonished but mystified wonder--that a Wrestling Federation such as the WWF was heavily involved in Global Warming research.  We later noted that apparently WWF means World Wide Fund for Nature and yet, it just felt...right... somehow.  Regardless, the US Media has been characteristically, if not predictably, silent for the most part on this soured point--yet again busy, no doubt, worrying over Sarah Palin's crib notes.  However, the Administration has not been silent but rather has apparently embraced Osama Bin Laden's warning last week concerning the US and Global Warming.

The President, in fact, has just announced that there will now be a brand new Federal Commission in order to study Global Warming--the Administration, ironically, had to delay its announcement--along with the setting-up of the new office--for several days due to the extreme week-long blizzard conditions in Washington.  The  Obama Administration, it would seem, never fails to go toddling off on some new, if not totally worthless mission of futility that--in fact--never seems to strike at the truly difficult problems that we face as a nation.  The Global Warming escapades (that concern a veritable few) are easy fodder to "look busy" while actually accomplishing nothing--but more profligate spending in the wrong area, yet again.

This "Obama Phenomena" of expending effort in vain has also been seen with his sudden, if not transparent, interest in bringing the Republicans to the table (finally) for their ideas concerning healthcare and jobs and to work on a bill that not even the Democrats wish to pass.  Never mind the extreme whirlwind of financial problems that actually do exist with regard to Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare which remain unresolved.

Dr.Fleming  and the Zombie/Corpse-man Healthcare Bill

Congressman John Fleming of Louisiana states that he now has had more than 100 members of Congress to sign onto his H.R. 615 measure that would force both members of the Congress and the Senate into whatever healthcare measures might pass as "forced beneficents" of any new plan.

The fact that Dr. Fleming has had so many to now sign on to his measure jadedly convinces us that the measure might, indeed, be (thankfully) dead regarding our past observations of Congress in general--not withstanding the fact that this has been a long and hard-fought battle by The People and many of our Conservative and otherwise friends to stop it thusly.  We have estimated that the articles here at Conservative Refocus alone over the past six months have had better than 75,000 or more words exhaustively dedicated to the bills defeat, which, in essence, would equal many books in print.

However, as with the undead "zombie," the dreaded healthcare issue still might be alive after being dead, according to an aid to the Democrats.  In fact the aid states that the President would have to first sign the Senate Bill and then a second reconciled bill which would require only 51 votes for passage in an artful and tenuous play at legislation.  Not withstanding the fact that the Democrats would then be considered an endangered species as a political party come November as a result. The Federal Budget shocker--in tandem with healthcare--along with a continually suffering world economy and proliferating Government shortfalls has made the Left-leaning parties of the world look clueless at best.

Interestingly, and with regard to "Government financial problems," we also find news of import to the US (especially) and the world that the Eurozone countries are in an extreme measure of worrisome disarray as the European stock markets lost as much as 10% of their value last week.  The  "burgeoning debt" of several Eurozone countries (Greece, Portugal, Italy and Spain) has caused talk of even booting out countries whose annual deficits exceed 8.7% of their GDP.  This would mean that the participating countries would have to, therefore, begin printing their own currency and go it alone rather than continue with the Euro.  This would seem to be a very strong argument against "Globalism" in its disdain for countries whom may be pulling the value of the other countries down.  In relation to this report, using the same figures, the US for 2009 had a budget to GDP ratio of 12.3%, which would also place it into the Red Zone of government spending, perhaps making us ineligible to join, no doubt, horribly disappointing the Media.

Paul's Pee Wee Playhouse

Liberal Columnist Paul Krugman has come out defending the massive deficits the government has been running as being good for America--as long as a Liberal is doing it, apparently.  We expect Krugman's future articles to continue this line of reasoning and have thoughtfully provided a few titles for his consideration:

• The Great Thing about Being in a Head-on Collision
• Getting Shot in the Head Can Be Fun If Not Forgettable
• How to Induce  and Prolong a Pit-bull Attack
• Playing Nude Hide and Seek with the Brown Recluse
• How to Increase Your Chances of Being in a Plane Crash

The budget, as it currently stands, would most likely launch the United States into the dubious denizen of countries who cannot afford their own debt.  When looking at the endless parade of  budget deficits that the US has produced over the past five years, it tends to become clearer that perhaps part of the reason for America's fiscal decline is due to our deficits.  The President and the Democrats are always quick to point the finger at former President Bush whenever the subject comes up, and yet it is always prudent to remember that "Congress holds the purse strings," as the old saying goes.  In other words:  They authorize all spending.

The Massive Federal Budget Increases

When looking at the budgets of the past 10 years, we have noted a startling increase.  In fact, the annual budgets have effectively doubled since the year 2000.  When noting these massive increases in annual outlays, we must also ask the question, "has my household income effectively doubled over the past 10 years "?  If the average American's answer to this question is an emphatic NO, then we can begin to see where our leaders are wrongfully heading.

When looking at the numbers, the operative figure that comes into play is the "Total Expenditure " (or budget) column and its corresponding Revenue or "income" figure--especially for 2010.  As with any household, when one spends out more than one takes in, the deficit must be borrowed from somewhere, and that somewhere--in the Government's case--is more often than not from the private markets or commercial banks and also from other countries in the form of Treasury Bonds, etc.  The Total Debit in the far right column represents the collective debt totaled up from each previous year, because it has yet to be paid back--or the Total US Budgetary Deficit.  We have all heard about the problems which we may face from the Chinese Government of late with regard to the amount of debt and dollars that the Chinese hold; however, there is more at work here than might initially meet the eye.

In fact, the size and scope of the compared economies of the US and China is often misrepresented as being comparable when in fact they are not.  China's GDP totals about $ 4.45 Trillion dollars compared to a gargantuan US GDP of $ 14.25 Trillion dollars.  This means that the total US economy is well over 3 times the size of China's total economy.  Another distortion concerns the amount of our debt that the Chinese hold as if they are doing us a favor by buying our investment vehicles.  In fact, the Chinese hold about $ 800 Billion in various US investment vehicles--or just think of it as "stock."  This amount actually represents only about 5.7% of our total GDP, while conversely occupying  nearly 1/5th of their entire economy.  Another misrepresentation often implied by the hyperventilating Media is that the Chinese are somehow doing us a favor by investing their money in our economy, when in fact, the Chinese are simply placing their bet on what they would consider to be their best investment as a country in need of a stable world currency investment.

Chinese Chest -Thumping

The Chinese came out with all manner of dire warnings,  as usual, when the US sold a shipment of arms to Taiwan, as is our usual practice with our Allies.  The Chinese stated that they might begin dumping dollars (which could possibly destabilize our currency) or perform other financial countermeasures which might prove harmful to our economy, when in fact the reverse is actually true.  The United States is China's "number one" customer with a proverbial bullet to the tune of nearly $ 300 Million in goods sold to the US.  In fact China's second largest trading partner is nowhere close to the volume of goods that the US imports from China.  In contrast, the US sells or exports to China only about $ 69.5 Million, which represents only about 1/4th of what we buy from them.

The Chinese are most likely posturing and would actually be quite foolish to deliberately damage the economy of their largest trading partner or upset the massive trade imbalance that is overwhelmingly in their favor...at this point.   The Chinese have warned the President about meeting with the Dali Llama, as if the President is a Ward of Their State and will actually take commands from them, while having totally ignored the American people and their combined voice in opposition to the mandated healthcare coverage attempts.

But as the American people become fully cognizant of the implications of the President's massive Budget Plan for 2010, the Democrats now seem to be wondering if they want to go along with another one of the President's zany ideas as it regards this country after their enduring the extreme damage of the Healthcare Bill as mandated by the Administration.  In fact, the Presidents sudden interest and moderating tone in bringing the Republicans in, whether artifice or not, is far too little and a bit too late.

The American people, in an anger still little understood by the Media and Congress, have simply had enough of this version of Washington and its current Liberal inhabitants.  In fact, the President and the Democrats have sown their own seeds of contempt over this past year, and the American people will be reaping a whirlwind of anger in November.

Barry Secrest