October 7th, 2009

Dear Liberty Activist,

October 7th, 2009, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today condemned members of the House for voting to refer a resolution that would have removed Congressman Charlie Rangel as Chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee.

"Once again, the Democrat-controlled House has voted to sweep outright corruption under the rug on behalf of a fellow party member who failed to report more than $1 million in outside income as required by House rules," Wilson said.

"The least Congress can do is not have Rangel serving as Chairman of a committee that deals with taxes while an 'ongoing' ethics probe into his undisclosed income is taking place," Wilson added.

The Resolution, proposed by Congressman John Carter, called for Rangel to be removed as Ways and Means Chairman until the Ethics Committee concludes its probe.

Instead, the House voted 246 to 153 to refer the resolution to the Ethics Committee. "A vote to refer the Rangel resolution to the Ethics Committee was a vote against the resolution, plain and simple," said Wilson.

Rangel is currently under investigation by the House Ethics Committee, but Wilson stated that the committee may be deliberately stalling, writing in a letter last month to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, "[T]he Ethics Committee -- comprised of some of Mr. Rangel's most ardent apologists -- has clearly decided to turn its 'internal investigation' into an 'eternal investigation.' And justice delayed has long since become justice denied."

According CBS' Marcia Kramer, Rangel may have gone as far to "influence" members of the Ethics Committee to look the other way: "CBS 2 HD has discovered that since ethics probes began last year the 79-year-old congressman has given campaign donations to 119 members of Congress, including three of the five Democrats on the House Ethics Committee who are charged with investigating him.

The report continues, "Charlie's 'angels' on the committee include Congressmen Ben Chandler of Kentucky, G.K. Butterfield of North Carolina and Peter Welch of Vermont. All have received donations from Rangel."

"The House Ethics Committee is a joke. And despite months of inquiry into known and blatant infractions of law and House rules, no action has been taken," Wilson said, comparing the delay to the speed that Congressman Joe Wilson had a resolution brought against him for shouting "You lie!" at Barack Obama during a joint session of Congress. On September 15th, the House voted 240-179 in a resolution against Congressman Wilson, just six days after the speech.

Wilson cited several transgressions that he said could have already been acted upon by the House at large:

1) failure to report over $1 million in outside income and $3 million in business transactions as required by the House,

2) failure to disclose at least $650,000 in assets he had previously failed to list on his House financial disclosure forms,

3) failure to disclose to the IRS or on his financial disclosure forms $75,000 in rental income for a beach villa in the Dominican Republic,

4) violation of state laws by claiming three primary residences and broke municipal laws by maintaining four rent-controlled apartments,

5) violation of House rules by using congressional letterhead to solicit donations for an education center bearing his name at City College of New York, and

6) delinquency in paying his property taxes on two New Jersey parcels and failure to report the sale of a $1.3 million brownstone.

"There was no reason why these repeated violations could not have been addressed today by the House," said Wilson

Americans for Limited Government recently a petition website, RangelOutNow.org, to encourage Attorney General Eric Holder to immediately investigate Rangel's "repeated violation of public disclosure laws… [and] exactly how Mr. Rangel came into at least $650,000 in undisclosed income, and to audit the extent of his income."

Wilson also called upon Holder to "prosecute Mr. Rangel to the fullest extent of the law for any and all infractions of the law."

Said Wilson, "This is completely upside down. The Ethics Committee is supposed to act on a non-partisan basis. But instead, it is stonewalling the conclusion of the Rangel investigation. And now the House majority has made it clear that no matter what the ethics probe produces, they will do nothing to remove Rangel from his powerful chairmanship. Nancy Pelosi is encouraging the culture of corruption in Washington to blossom."

Enough is enough.

Let's get on CapWiz and tell the House to remove Rangel as the Ways and Means chairman, once and for all.

And, here's the Target 92 list on the House side to all vulnerable and Blue Dog Democrats.  (You can really use this on any issue, whether ObamaCare, defunding ACORN, etc.) Blue Dogs are in blue. Here's the .xls.pdf versions.  Of note, the first 40 on the list are the Blue Dogs that signed the "deficit-neutral" letter mentioned above.  Everything you need to email their staff, write letters, make phone calls and send faxes, both to their district and Capitol Hill offices.
and

And we can keep calling out to the House and to the Senate in general. Of course, you can also reach them via the Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121.

In today's Liberty Action Report, was UCMC patient-dumping at the direction of Valerie Jarret and Michelle Obama? Plus, we reprint the popular "How Washington Politicians See the World," and the Barstool Economist returns analyzing how government disincentives work.  And, the results for "cash-for-clunkers" is in.

Please send your letters to the editor at Robert@getliberty.org. We publish all points of view! Today, Jim Higginbotham writes in part, "That so-called health care bill needs a damn stake driven right through it's evil heart."

Boy, you can say that again! That's why we have to keep the pressure on: Keep fighting!

For Liberty,

Robert Romano
ALG Senior News Editor
www.getliberty.org

P.S. Want to help us keep fighting? Help us out with a small donation today! Or mail it to: Americans for Limited Government, 9900 Main Street, Suite 303, Fairfax, VA 22031.

Open Source & Copyright Free

Away Goes Trouble Down the Drain
A controversial program at UCMC that Michelle Obama and Valerie Jarret helped to implement has resulted in numerous poor people having been denied care.

How Washington Politicians View the World
Back by popular demand and find out how you could bring a William Warren poster into your home.

The Barstool Economist: The Disincentive to Work
When a recession hits, the first number everyone keeps a close eye on is the unemployment rate, but what the government does to try to combat this invariably fails on every level.

Too Hot Not To Note: Clunkers in Practice
The latest Wall Street Journal editorial shows why the "Cash for Clunkers" was one of the worst ideas ever from Washington.

Away Goes Trouble Down the Drain

By Richard McCarthy and Carter Clews

Several years ago a wealthy, well-respected Chicago hospital realized that it had a problem: Too many poor, black, Medicare and Medicaid patients were "seeping" into the hospital's emergency room. Since it has been illegal for two decades to just drop indigent patients off at competitors' hospitals, what could the University of Chicago Medical Center do?

Enter Michelle Obama.

To solve this problem, Susan Sher, Vice President for Legal and Government Affairs, hired her friend Michelle Obama in 2002. Mrs. Obama was hired as Executive Director for Community Affairs. Michelle Obama immediately understood the problem. She declared, "The world is seeping in, and our salvation will be the success of our partners" (i.e., alternative, less hoity-toity medical facilities).

To deal with the "seepage" problem, Mrs. Obama helped create the so-called "South Side Health Collaborative" (later known as the "Urban Health Initiative"). This program aimed to reduce the number of non-paying patients utilizing UCMC's emergency room. And it did so by instituting a highly selective program that redirects poor patients to other medical facilities with decidedly less advanced technology – not to mention, less prestigious clientele -- than UCMC.

And the Obama seepage-control program is leaving nothing up to chance.

Upon entrance to the UCMC emergency room, patients are now greeted by a "patient advocate" whose job it is to convince them to seep over to some other, less exclusive medical facility. Free short-bus shuttles are even provided to haul the willing off. To add insult to injury, this program was started with a grant from the Department of Health and Human Services. Which means the working poor are helping to finance their own neglect.

How well has the seepage system worked. Well, that depends upon whether you are the seepage sweeper or the seepee?

Last year, the local alderman, Toni Preckwinkle, told the story of a relative whose mother took him to the emergency room at UCMC. Although the patient was vomiting and unable to stand or walk, "they [hospital staff] spent the entire time in the emergency room trying to discourage him from entering and telling her to take him home."

In another instance, Dontae Adams was denied admission to the hospital after a pit bull tore off the boy's lip. After a three hour wait, he received only Tylenol, antibiotics, and a tetanus shot. "They doped my boy up and told us to move on," his mother said. The two then had to take an hour-long bus ride to another facility that would perform the needed reconstructive surgery.

The efforts by UCMC to deny treatment to poor patients have been roundly criticized. The local Democrat congressman, Bobby Rush, has called for a congressional investigation of UCMC. Unfortunately, Mr. Rush's call for action came in a letter to Congressman Edolphus Towns (D-NY) who as chairman of the House Government Oversight Committeee would have to conduct the investigation. He has not yet deigned to respond to Mr. Rush's letter. It has been more than four months.

Senator Chuck Grassley stated that the medical center "appears to be culling the least profitable patients from its emergency room." Edward Novak, president of Chicago's Sacred Heart Hospital said, "What they're really saying is, 'Don't use our emergency room because it will cost us money and we don't want the public-aid population.'" The American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) stated that the hospital's policy "is dangerously close to 'patient dumping.'" ACEP further asserted that the hospital's policy "reflected an effort to 'cherry pick' wealthy patients over poor."

Interestingly, in 2005, after Michelle Obama had help initiate her seepage control scheme – and (perhaps not so coincidentally) after Barack Obama had been elected to the U.S. Senate – Susan Sher promoted Mrs. Obama was promoted to the position of Vice President of External Community Affairs. Along with the promotion came a staggering salary increase from $121,000 to $300,000 a year. But not to worry – for Sen. Obama immediately asked for a $1 million earmark for the medical center.

Determined to both spread the gospel of the Urban Health Initiative -- and lucrative remuneration around to their friends -- Michelle Obama, Susan Sher, and Valerie Jarret (then, chairman of the UCMC board) hired David Axelrod's public relations firm, ASK. The purpose of hiring ASK was to promote Michelle Obama's Urban Health Initiative. ASK suggested a name change for the program ("urban" sounded too much like a codeword for black) and designed an Astroturf campaign to sell it to the community.

Mrs. Obama, along with her friends Susan Sher and Valerie Jarret, all resigned from UCMC early this year to take up their roles in the White House. Ms. Sher is Michelle Obama's Chief of Staff. Valerie Jarret has become one of Barack Obama's most influential advisors, often compared to the legendary Lady MacBeth. After the firestorm over UCMC's reluctance to treat poor emergency room patients became public, the CEO, James Madara, also resigned.

Although criticisms have been sharp and numerous poor people have been denied treatment at UCMC, Michelle Obama's program has been a shining success: UCMC is now free to cater to wealthier patients. UCMC's finances are in the black. And unwanted seepage has stopped clogging up the elite hospital's emergency room.

Now, having solved the UCMC detritus problem, Mrs. Obama (along with the ever-present Susan and Valerie), is helping her husband solve his medical treatment problems by dumping over-sixty-seepage into Soylent Green Rationing Rooms. And like the jingle says, "away goes trouble down the drain."

Richard McCarty is an associate director of research for Americans for Limited Government. Carter Clews is the Executive Editor of ALG News.

http://blog.getliberty.org/default.asp?Display=1633

How Washington Politicians View the World

ALG Editor's Note: Due to popular demand for this cartoon, we have printed posters. If you would like to get a copy of this poster mailed to you please email us at justin@getliberty.org. And as always, William Warren's award-winning cartoons published at GetLiberty.org are a free service of ALG News Bureau. They may be reused and redistributed free of charge.

http://blog.getliberty.org/default.asp?Display=1632

The Disincentive to Work

By Justin Williams

When a recession hits, the first number everyone keeps a close eye on is the unemployment rate. Every American can relate with those who lose their jobs since it puts both their family and their career in jeopardy.

But what the government does to try to combat this invariably fails on pretty much every level. Not to mention, it was largely the government intervention that artificially created a false market, propped up inefficient industries, and spawned the inevitable unemployment in the first place.

And now what the recession is doing in the economy is shifting capital and resources to more efficient uses. That means those people who left their jobs to go pursue this false market (that the government calls "booming" industry) must now be laid off. And that also means fixing the problems that government first created.

For example, that is exactly what was seen in the recent housing bubble. People left their jobs to become real estate agents or building contractors. And now that the housing market was flooded with supply under the government-created guise of a false demand, some of those people must return to find efficient jobs in limited growth sectors.

So how does the government respond? Do the politicians whose errant policies spawned a recession admit their malfeasance and let the private sector correct its course? No, they pen H.R. 3548 the "Unemployment Compensation Extension Act of 2009."

This act would extend unemployment benefits to "50 percent of the total amount of regular compensation" or "13 times the individual's average weekly benefit amount" for the year in the 29 states that have unemployment 8.5% or higher. And Congress has decided to pay for this by raising the IRS surtax on the employers that will, in turn, either raise prices or lower wages for all states.

And that's not all.

Economists R. Mark Gritz and Thomas MaCurdy found in their paper "Measuring the Influence of Unemployment Insurance on Unemployment Experiences" that "an individual who collects UI [Unemployment Insurance] is likely to experience a longer spell of nonemployment, at least to the exhaustion of UI benefits."

In other words, unemployment insurance does not help alleviate unemployment. It exacerbates it. And that is simply because when people get paid to not work they do not try to find a job as that would result into a loss in benefits.

Once again this is a case where government means do not achieve the required (and often falsely touted ends. The politicians claim they are attempting to lower unemployment, which in turns increases production but what they end up doing is redistributing money from those who are employed (or in some case consumers, which includes unemployed) and incentivize the unemployed to stay that way through a direct redistribution of wealth.

A better plan would be to give businesses permanent tax cuts so that they can expand production and hire more people. That is the real plan that would reduce unemployment, increase productivity, and not create yet another large government program adding even more red tape to already overburdened businesses.

But don't hold your breath: after all, creating and extending government programs is how politicians keep their jobs!

Justin Williams is the Senior Commentary Editor of ALG News Bureau and, as always, he accepts questions and comments at jwilliams@libertyfeatures.com

http://blog.getliberty.org/default.asp?Display=1631

ALG Editor's Note: In the following featured commentary from the Wall Street Journal, the editorial board shows that Cash for Clunkers was one of the worst ideas to come from Washington.

Clunkers in Practice

One of Washington's all-time dumb ideas.

Remember "cash for clunkers," the program that subsidized Americans to the tune of nearly $3 billion to buy a new car and destroy an old one? Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood declared in August that, "This is the one stimulus program that seems to be working better than just about any other program."

If that's true, heaven help the other programs. Last week U.S. automakers reported that new car sales for September, the first month since the clunker program expired, sank by 25% from a year earlier. Sales at GM and Chrysler fell by 45% and 42%, respectively. Ford was down about 5%. Some 700,000 cars were sold in the summer under the program as buyers received up to $4,500 to buy a new car they would probably have purchased anyway, so all the program seems to have done is steal those sales from the future. Exactly as critics predicted.

Cash for clunkers had two objectives: help the environment by increasing fuel efficiency, and boost car sales to help Detroit and the economy. It achieved neither. According to Hudson Institute economist Irwin Stelzer, at best "the reduction in gasoline consumption will cut our oil consumption by 0.2 percent per year, or less than a single day's gasoline use." Burton Abrams and George Parsons of the University of Delaware added up the total benefits from reduced gas consumption, environmental improvements and the benefit to car buyers and companies, minus the overall cost of cash for clunkers, and found a net cost of roughly $2,000 per vehicle. Rather than stimulating the economy, the program made the nation as a whole $1.4 billion poorer.

The basic fallacy of cash for clunkers is that you can somehow create wealth by destroying existing assets that are still productive, in this case cars that still work. Under the program, auto dealers were required to destroy the car engines of trade-ins with a sodium silicate solution, then smash them and send them to the junk yard. As the journalist Henry Hazlitt wrote in his classic, "Economics in One Lesson," you can't raise living standards by breaking windows so some people can get jobs repairing them.

In the category of all-time dumb ideas, cash for clunkers rivals the New Deal brainstorm to slaughter pigs to raise pork prices. The people who really belong in the junk yard are the wizards in Washington who peddled this economic malarkey.

http://blog.getliberty.org/default.asp?Display=1630

Americans for Limited Government
9900 Main Street, Suite 303
Fairfax, VA 22033