The High Cost of Forcing the Future: Why Green Subsidies Are a Flawed Ideology

 

The High Cost of Forcing the Future: Why Green Subsidies Are a Flawed Ideology

Democrat programs need your money and Government subsidies. Most, if not all of the solar panel companies that were started are belly up, and the EV products had to be subsidized.

If your ideology needs OPM (Other People's Money) it's bad ideology.

The High Cost of Forcing the Future: Why Green Subsidies Are a Flawed Ideology

In the grand tapestry of American economic philosophy, a central thread has long been the principle of self-reliance and the power of the free market. It is a principle built on a simple, yet profound truth: if a product or service is valuable, efficient, and desired by the public, it will succeed on its own merits. If it is not, no amount of government engineering can make it otherwise. This core tenet is what makes the current progressive push for a subsidized green transition so deeply concerning. As the critical observation goes, “Democrat programs need your money and Government subsidies. Most, if not all, of the solar panel companies that were started are belly up, and the EV products had to be subsidized.” This is not merely a critique of specific policy failures; it is a powerful indictment of an entire ideology that is fundamentally dependent on OPM—Other People’s Money.

The track record of government-backed green ventures reads like a chronicle of caution. In the last decade and a half, the landscape is littered with the ghosts of solar companies like Solyndra, which collapsed in 2011 after receiving a $535 million federal loan guarantee. They were not an anomaly. Abound Solar, Beacon Power, and a host of others followed a similar trajectory: a flash of hype, a river of taxpayer cash, and a quiet descent into bankruptcy. These were not companies out-competed in a vigorous marketplace; they were creatures of the state, propped up by a political agenda rather than sound business fundamentals.

The same story is unfolding, in slow motion, with the electric vehicle (EV) market. For years, purchasing an EV came with a significant check from the U.S. Treasury—a direct subsidy of up to $7,500 per vehicle, a clear signal that the market price was not one consumers were willing to bear on their own. Even with this artificial incentive, bolstered by state-level perks and a media narrative bordering on evangelism, EVs have struggled to achieve mainstream adoption without coercion. Automakers are now scaling back multi-billion-dollar investments as demand fails to meet politically-driven forecasts. The reality is that when the true cost of a product—from its premium sticker price to the logistical challenges of charging and range anxiety—is laid bare, consumers, left to their own devices, often choose the superior, market-tested alternative.

This relentless subsidization reveals a flawed ideology at its core. A sound idea, whether in technology or any other field, should be able to attract private investment based on its potential for profit and success. Venture capitalists and angel investors are not shy about funding innovation; they seek it out. The fact that the green energy transition requires such a massive, continuous infusion of taxpayer dollars is a glaring red flag. It indicates that the venture is not economically viable. The ideology behind it is one that distrusts the collective wisdom of millions of individual consumers and investors, instead placing its faith in the centralized planning of a bureaucratic elite. When your vision for the future cannot survive without mandating its adoption and confiscating wealth to pay for it, it is not a vision—it is a dictate.

The use of OPM is not a neutral act; it is a form of central planning that distorts the market and has real-world consequences. Every dollar taken from a taxpayer and funneled into a failing solar panel company or an unsold EV is a dollar that was not invested elsewhere. It is a dollar that could have been spent on groceries, saved for a child’s education, or invested in a small business with genuine growth potential. This misallocation of capital is an invisible tax on prosperity. It stifles the organic, bottom-up innovation that has always been the true engine of American progress. Instead of allowing the market to gradually develop better, cheaper, and more reliable technologies that people actually want to buy, the government picks winners and losers based on political favoritism and ideological fervor. The result is not innovation, but waste.

Furthermore, this model creates a dangerous cycle of dependency. Companies that become addicted to government subsidies have little incentive to become efficient, cut costs, or innovate in ways that truly serve the consumer. Their primary customer becomes the state, and their most important skill is lobbying, not engineering. This cronyism corrupts the relationship between business and government, eroding the trust in both institutions. It creates a class of corporate welfare queens who preach free markets while their hands are in the public till.

A conservative approach to energy and environmental progress stands in stark contrast. It is not an opposition to a cleaner environment or new technologies; conservatives, like all people, desire clean air and water and embrace genuine innovation. The difference lies in the method. The conservative philosophy advocates for an "all-of-the-above" energy strategy that harnesses America's abundant natural resources—from oil and natural gas to nuclear and, yes, where it makes economic sense, renewables. It trusts that as technology improves, the most efficient and cleanest sources will naturally gain market share without the need for heavy-handed intervention.

This philosophy also places its faith in American ingenuity, not government mandates. Breakthroughs in carbon capture, next-generation nuclear reactors, and advancements in battery technology are far more likely to come from the competitive pressure of the free market than from a government grant. The role of government should be to fund basic research, create a stable regulatory environment, and then get out of the way—not to bet the retirement savings of taxpayers on specific, politically-favored companies.

The ultimate question we must ask is: what kind of nation do we want to be? Do we want to be a nation where our economic landscape is shaped by the voluntary choices of free individuals, or by the decrees of a planning committee? The ideology that runs on OPM is inherently coercive. It is an admission that the people cannot be trusted to choose their own cars, power their own homes, or spend their own money. It replaces liberty with a soft tyranny of "we know best."

The graveyard of subsidized solar companies and the lots full of unsold, subsidized EVs are not just examples of government waste. They are monuments to a failed ideology. They stand as testament to the timeless principle that no government, no matter how well-intentioned, can decree prosperity or engineer a future that its citizens are unwilling to build for themselves. A vision that requires the constant confiscation and redistribution of Other People's Money is not a vision of progress, but a pathway to national decline. True and lasting advancement has always, and will always, be built on the foundation of freedom, not force.

#GreenNewDeal #Subsidies #Climatechange 

How Did Nancy Pelosi Get So Rich?

 

How Did Nancy Pelosi Get So Rich?

Nancy Pelosi is retiring. She owns a Vinyard. Her district is trashed. She got 14 Million from the Government to study grapes. Then she also received  Millions in PPP money and had it all forgiven.

She only made 175K/Yr as a Congresswoman. How did she become worth 450 Million?

#NancyPelosi #Congress

The Unspoken Washington Algorithm: Public Service, Public Money, and Private Fortune

The question, often posed as a rhetorical jab on social media and conservative talk shows, cuts to the heart of the American public’s deep-seated distrust of its ruling class: “How did Nancy Pelosi get so rich?” The figures are indeed staggering. A congressional salary, while comfortable, has been $174,000 for years. Yet, former Speaker Pelosi and her husband, Paul, have amassed a fortune estimated to be well over $100 million, with some reports placing their net worth closer to the $450 million figure often cited by critics. To the average American, the math doesn’t add up. The answer, from a conservative perspective, is not found in a single scandalous revelation, but in a sophisticated and perfectly legal system—an unspoken algorithm of Washington—that seamlessly translates political power and insider access into vast personal wealth. It is a system where public service and private enrichment are no longer seen as a conflict, but as a predictable career path.

The foundation of this wealth accumulation is, as the post notes, the fundamental disconnect between a public salary and the investment opportunities available to those at the pinnacle of power. A congressperson’s $174,000 salary is a matter of public record. What is less transparent, yet far more lucrative, is the financial activity of their portfolio. The Pelosis have become legendary in the world of political finance for their exceptionally well-timed stock trades, particularly in the technology sector. Mrs. Pelosi, as Speaker of the House, was privy to the most sensitive, market-moving information imaginable. She was in closed-door briefings on antitrust legislation, national security reviews of tech companies, and massive upcoming government subsidies for specific industries.

Time and again, trades made by her husband’s portfolio seemed to anticipate major policy shifts. The most famous example is a series of massive purchases of call options in tech giants like Google, Apple, and Microsoft just before a pivotal House judiciary committee voted to advance landmark antitrust legislation that was widely expected to impact those very companies. The trade, worth millions, was a bet that these stocks would rise. When the market interpreted the committee's actions as less threatening than feared, the stocks did indeed surge, netting the Pelosi portfolio a monumental gain. To the observer on Main Street, this is indistinguishable from insider trading. In Washington, it is defended as the independent, astute work of a savvy financier husband. The conservative critique here is not one of jealousy, but of fundamental fairness. The average investor is flying blind, making decisions based on public news. The political class, however, gets to play with a marked deck, making bets with foreknowledge of how the government itself will reshuffle the market.

This brings us to the second, and perhaps more galling, element of the wealth-building strategy: the masterful navigation of government subsidies. The post’s mention of the vineyard and the $14 million for grapes is a perfect microcosm of this process. While the specific figure may be debated, the underlying principle is sound. The Pelosi family owns a vineyard and estate in California’s Napa Valley. Over the years, various federal programs, often supported by legislation Pelosi herself championed, have allocated millions in grants and subsidies to the wine and agricultural industries for research, sustainability, and marketing.

From a conservative viewpoint, this is the very definition of cronyism. It is not that the Pelosis broke any laws by operating a business that qualifies for government programs. The problem is the systemic incestuousness. A powerful politician votes for, and often spearheads, massive spending bills that create pools of grant money. Then, businesses and industries with which that politician is intimately connected—whether through direct ownership, campaign contributions, or geographic constituency—become the beneficiaries of that state-directed capital. The government, in effect, becomes a venture capital fund for the well-connected. The vineyard is not just a vineyard; it is a node in a network that efficiently captures and funnels taxpayer money into private hands. The same principle applies to the now-infamous Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans. While the Pelosi-owned businesses that received and had these loans forgiven were likely eligible on paper, their ability to navigate the complex application process and secure funds highlights a system where those with proximity to power benefit first and most reliably from the state’s largesse.

How Nancy Pelosi’s Net Worth Changed Dramatically in Congress

Check Out Her Worth Here

This points to a deeper philosophical schism. Conservatism is built on the ideal of a limited government whose powers are carefully constrained to avoid precisely this kind of corruption. The Founders feared the concentration of power precisely because they understood it would inevitably be used for private gain. The modern progressive project, however, is built on an ever-expanding state. It champions a government that is large, activist, and involved in picking winners and losers in the economy through regulation, taxation, and massive spending programs. But a government powerful enough to give you everything you want is also powerful enough to take everything you have—and to decide who gets the spoils.

The Pelosi fortune is the logical endpoint of this progressive vision. When the government controls trillions of dollars in spending and can reshape entire industries with a single piece of legislation, the incentive to influence that government becomes astronomical. Lobbying explodes. Campaign donations become investments. And for those *inside* the government, the temptation to leverage their position for personal gain becomes overwhelming. The line between crafting policy for the “public good” and crafting policy that benefits one’s own portfolio becomes blurry to the point of invisibility. The system ceases to be about public service and becomes a sophisticated mechanism for wealth transfer—from the taxpayer to the political class and their connected allies.

Finally, we must address the poignant observation in the post: “Her district is trashed.” This is not merely an aesthetic critique; it is a moral one. While the Pelosi family accumulated hundreds of millions of dollars and vacationed in Napa, parts of San Francisco, the district she has represented for decades, have descended into a state of profound disorder. Streets are plagued with open drug use, homelessness is rampant, and property crime is endemic. The contrast could not be more stark. The priorities of the ruling elite are laid bare. The focus is not on the foundational, unglamorous work of local governance—ensuring public safety, sanitation, and a functional business environment. The focus is on national power, on shaping macro-economic policy, and on engaging in the theatrical politics of the Capitol. The condition of San Francisco is a testament to the fact that the skills required to build a private fortune in Washington are entirely different from those required to foster health, safety, and prosperity in a community.

In conclusion, the question “How did Nancy Pelosi get so rich?” is the wrong one. The right question is, “What system have we built that allows this to happen?” The conservative answer is that we have built a system where power is not a burden to be borne, but an asset to be leveraged. It is a system that rewards political cunning over entrepreneurial risk, insider access over market innovation, and the capture of public funds over the creation of genuine value. The Pelosi fortune is not an anomaly; it is the archetype. It is the model for success in a Washington that has turned its back on the principles of limited government and equal justice under the law. Until the system is fundamentally reformed—with strict, transparent bans on stock trading for members of Congress and their immediate families, a radical reduction in the scope of government handouts, and a return to the ideal of public service as a sacrifice, not an investment—the algorithm will continue to run. And the gap between the fortunes of the rulers and the struggles of the ruled will only grow wider.

Democrat Policies Need Your Money

 

The Morality of the Market: Why Sustainable Ideologies Don't Run on Other People's Money

Democrat programs need your money and Government subsidies. Most, if not all of the solar panel companies that were started are belly up, and the EV products had to be subsidized.

If your ideology needs OPM (Other People's Money) it's bad ideology.

The Morality of the Market: Why Sustainable Ideologies Don't Run on Other People's Money

A fundamental truth, often dismissed in the lofty halls of academia and the passionate rhetoric of political rallies, is that sustainability is the ultimate test of any enterprise. This applies not just to businesses, but to ideologies themselves. A system of thought that cannot stand on its own merits, that cannot persuade free people to voluntarily support it with their own capital and effort, is an ideology built on a foundation of sand. As the social media post succinctly puts it, “If your ideology needs OPM (Other People's Money) it's bad ideology.” This simple, powerful statement cuts to the heart of the conservative critique of the modern progressive project, particularly its forays into industrial policy and social engineering. From the graveyard of subsidized solar panel companies to the struggling electric vehicle market propped up by massive taxpayer incentives, we see a consistent pattern: a vision of the future that the present is unwilling to fund voluntarily, and thus must be mandated and subsidized through state power.

The poster’s observation that “most, if not all, of the solar panel companies that were started are belly up” is not an exaggeration. It points directly to the Solyndra scandal of the Obama era, which became a potent symbol of green energy folly. Solyndra, a solar panel manufacturer, received a $535 million federal loan guarantee, hailed by the administration as a beacon of the “green jobs” future. Two years later, the company was bankrupt, and taxpayers were left holding the bag. But Solyndra was not an anomaly; it was the archetype. A wave of companies like Abound Solar, Beacon Power, and Fisker Automotive followed a similar trajectory: lavish government support, glowing press, followed by bankruptcy and liquidation. The common thread was not a lack of political will, but a fundamental disregard for market realities.

These companies failed for a simple reason: they were solving problems the market had not asked them to solve in an economically unviable way. Their business models were not built on creating a product that was better, cheaper, or more efficient than existing alternatives. Their primary customer was not the consumer, but the U.S. Department of Energy. Their success was not measured by profitability, but by their alignment with a political agenda. This inversion of the natural economic order is fatal. In a true free market, businesses succeed by serving others. They must convince voluntary customers that the value of their product or service is worth the price. This daily plebiscite of the marketplace is a brutal but honest arbiter of quality and efficiency. Government subsidies short-circuit this essential process, creating “zombie” companies that consume resources without producing real value, all while being shielded from the consequences of their own inefficiency.

The same dynamic is now playing out in the electric vehicle (EV) market, which the poster correctly identifies as being dependent on subsidies. The EV push is a case study in top-down social engineering. Instead of allowing automotive technology to evolve naturally, driven by consumer demand and engineering breakthroughs, the government has chosen a winner. Through a complex web of policies—including multi-billion dollar tax credits for purchasers, massive grants and loan guarantees for manufacturers, and aggressive emissions regulations that effectively penalize the production of internal combustion engines—the state is attempting to force a technological transition for which the market is not yet ready.

The results are telling. Despite billions in subsidies, EVs remain significantly more expensive than their gasoline-powered counterparts, suffer from well-documented range anxiety and charging infrastructure problems, and their environmental benefits are deeply questionable when factoring in the mining for rare earth minerals and the source of the electricity that powers them. Major automakers are now scaling back multi-billion-dollar EV investments as inventory piles up on lots. The ideology of the “green transition” is colliding with the reality of consumer preference and economic practicality. Once again, the solution from the left is not to re-evaluate the policy, but to double down on the subsidies, to pour more OPM into a hole the market has already rejected.

This leads to the core philosophical principle: the morality of using “Other People’s Money.” Conservatism is rooted in the concepts of individual liberty, personal responsibility, and property rights. From this perspective, taxation is not a benevolent tool for social good, but a necessary evil for funding the government’s core, constitutionally-enumerated functions: national defense, a functioning judiciary, and the protection of individual rights. When the government moves beyond these roles and begins using its taxing power to pick winners and losers in the economy, it engages in a form of legalized plunder. It takes money from waitresses, truck drivers, and small business owners—people who have earned it through their own labor and risk—and transfers it to politically connected corporations and projects.

This process is profoundly immoral for two reasons. First, it is a violation of the individual’s right to the fruits of their own labor. The government does not create wealth; it can only redistribute it. Every dollar spent on an EV tax credit for an upper-middle-class homeowner is a dollar that was taken from another citizen who had no say in its use. Second, it corrupts the political process itself. When the government controls vast pools of capital for industrial subsidies, the focus of business shifts from innovating and serving customers to lobbying and currying favor with bureaucrats. Cronyism replaces competition. The system no longer rewards the most efficient producer, but the most politically adept.

The conservative alternative is not a heartless, unregulated dystopia, but a system built on empowerment, competition, and genuine innovation. Instead of subsidizing specific technologies like solar or EVs, we should pursue a true “all-of-the-above” energy strategy that removes government-imposed barriers and lets all energy sources compete on a level playing field. This means unleashing American oil, natural gas, and nuclear power, while also streamlining regulations for emerging technologies. When the market, not the state, determines the winners, we get robust, sustainable progress, not fragile, politically-connected boondoggles.

Instead of creating complex welfare programs that foster dependency, the conservative vision is to create a thriving economy where government assistance is a temporary, localized hand up, not a permanent way of life. This means lowering taxes for all, reducing the regulatory burden on small businesses, and championing work requirements for able-bodied adults receiving benefits. The goal is to create a society of owners and earners, not one of dependents and beneficiaries. An ideology that fosters self-reliance is a moral one; an ideology that cultivates dependency is, as the post states, a “bad ideology.”

In the end, the test is simple. If your vision for society is so compelling, if your product is so superior, if your moral case is so airtight, then you should be able to convince your fellow citizens to support it voluntarily. You should be able to build a company that thrives without crippling your competitors through regulation. You should be able to sell your car without making gasoline-powered cars unaffordable through taxation. You should be able to champion a social program that people are willing to fund through their own charity and community spirit.

The relentless reliance on OPM is an admission of failure. It is the clearest signal that the ideology cannot survive the gentle, persistent scrutiny of free people making free choices. The graveyards of Solyndra and the struggling EV mandates are not monuments to a future that almost was; they are tombstones for bad ideas, reminding us that any vision for the future built on coercion and the confiscation of wealth is destined to collapse under the weight of its own unsustainability. A truly good and powerful ideology, like the principles of liberty and free enterprise, needs only the consent of the governed, not the contents of their wallets.

#Democrats #Governor #Waste ##Fraud #Abuse

Calls From Medicare, Ads from Medicare Companies, Obamacare, Shutdowns, ... They are all related

 

Calls From Medicare, Ads from Medicare Companies, Obamacare, Shutdowns, ... They are all related:

The Bureaucrat’s Scalpel: How Data and Central Planning Killed American Health Choice

I sold Medical and Health Insurance after I left the Army in 1993. I was the 'Valedictorian' of my class of 21, So TRUST ME ON THIS. I also spent time in medical billing and coding ... so I have seen the money go in and the money chased. [So What]. Anyway, then we had choice. Now we don't. Now it is ONE SIZE FITS ALL and we are not A ONE SIZE FITS ALL SOCIETY.

The reason why you are bombarded with all those commercials is because the Medical Industrial Complex looks at DATA on an annual basis, and Doctors submit a FEE SCHEDULE and those FEES are based on GEOGRAPHY. [They teach you that in Medical Billing School. Also, this explains why the Medical industry changes annually, the DATA changes based on demographics. Medical Insurance is a BUSINESS. DATA COUNTS. 

Now you know why this is the SEASON for choosing Medicare Plans.

There is a specific, hard-won knowledge that comes not from theory, but from practice. It is the understanding of a system gained not by reading about it in a legislative brief, but by navigating its gears and levers from the inside. The voice in the provided post carries this very authority—a former military member turned insurance professional who saw the machinery of American healthcare before and after a fundamental shift. His testimony points to a truth that conservatives have long argued: we have moved from a system of individual choice and market dynamics to a top-down, one-size-fits-all model that is fundamentally at odds with the nature of a free and diverse people. The annual bombardment of Medicare commercials is not merely a marketing season; it is the symptom of a complex, data-obsessed, and geographically-manipulated medical-industrial complex that has been empowered by the state, a far cry from the simple, patient-driven choices of the past.

The post makes a critical distinction: “then we had choice. Now we don't.” This is the conservative critique in a nutshell. For decades, the guiding principle of the left’s approach to healthcare has been standardization in the name of equity. The Affordable Care Act (ACA), or ObamaCare, was the ultimate expression of this, layering a mountain of federal regulations and mandates onto the insurance market. The result was not the expanded choice we were promised, but a drastic constriction. Policies were homogenized into federally-designed “metal tiers” (Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum). A dizzying array of plans that once catered to individual needs and budgets were wiped away, replaced by a limited menu of options that all had to cover the same “Essential Health Benefits,” whether a 60-year-old marathon runner needed pediatric dental coverage or not.

This is the “one-size-fits-all” society imposed by bureaucratic fiat. It operates on the arrogant assumption that a panel of experts in Washington, D.C. knows better than you and your doctor what kind of health coverage you require. It ignores the vast diversity of the American populace—the young and healthy who may prefer a catastrophic plan with a lower premium, the small business owner who wants a high-deductible plan paired with a Health Savings Account (HSA), the senior who has specific needs for their chronic condition. This forced standardization is the antithesis of freedom. It replaces the power of the consumer with the wisdom of the planner, and as the great conservative economist Thomas Sowell has tirelessly documented, the track record of central planners is one of catastrophic failure. They substitute their limited, aggregated data for the localized, tacit knowledge of millions of individuals making choices for themselves.

This leads directly to the post’s second crucial insight: “Medical Insurance is a BUSINESS. DATA COUNTS.” The conservative does not recoil from this statement; we embrace it as a reality that, when properly channeled, serves the consumer. In a truly competitive, free-market for healthcare, data would be used by insurers to compete for your business by offering better services, more efficient networks, and lower prices. Companies would vie to create the most attractive plans for different demographics, driving innovation and cost-effectiveness. The problem today is not that data is used, but that the *type* of competition has been perverted by government intervention.

As the author notes, the system now revolves around “FEE SCHEDULES” based on “GEOGRAPHY.” This is a complex way of describing a system of centralized price-fixing that distorts the entire market. Through the massive, bureaucratic leviathan of Medicare and its influence on private insurance, the government effectively sets reimbursement rates for thousands of procedures and services. These rates are not discovered through the voluntary interaction of buyers and sellers; they are dictated, negotiated, and manipulated by lobbyists, administrators, and politicians. This creates wild inefficiencies and perverse incentives. A doctor in New York City is paid a different rate for the same procedure as a doctor in rural Kansas, not necessarily because of real differences in cost, but because of political and demographic calculations.

This government-directed system is what empowers the “Medical Industrial Complex” the author references. This complex is not a natural free-market phenomenon; it is a creature of the state. Large hospital systems and insurance corporations are not competing primarily for *your* patronage; they are competing for favor, contracts, and favorable reimbursement rates from the government. They grow large and bloated not because they are efficient, but because they are adept at navigating the byzantine regulatory and payment structure that Washington has created. The annual “SEASON for choosing Medicare Plans” is a perfect example. It is not a celebration of market dynamism, but a mandatory, confusing ritual where seniors, overwhelmed by complexity, are forced to make high-stakes decisions in a system they did not design and cannot control. The billions spent on advertising during this period are a testament not to healthy competition, but to a rent-seeking economy where businesses fight over a slice of a government-defined pie.

The conservative vision for healthcare stands in stark contrast to this centralized, data-obsessed, one-size-fits-all model. It is a vision that returns power, choice, and dignity to the individual patient.

First and foremost, we believe in restoring true competition across state lines. The current system balkanizes the nation into 50 separate insurance markets, stifling competition and choice. Allowing Americans to purchase health insurance from any state would create a national marketplace, forcing insurers to compete for millions of new customers and driving down prices through innovation and efficiency.

Second, we champion the expansion of Health Savings Accounts (HSAs). HSAs are a profoundly conservative tool because they re-empower the individual. They allow people to save and spend their own money for routine medical care, making them conscious consumers of healthcare. When you are spending your own money, you have an incentive to ask about the cost of an MRI, to shop for generic drugs, and to question unnecessary procedures. This creates bottom-up pressure on prices, a far more effective mechanism than top-down price controls from a federal bureaucracy.

Third, we must reform the tort system. The constant threat of frivolous lawsuits forces doctors to practice “defensive medicine,” ordering unnecessary tests and procedures solely to insulate themselves from litigation. This drives up costs for everyone. Common-sense tort reform would reduce this massive, hidden tax on our healthcare system.

Finally, we must move toward a system of price transparency. In no other industry do consumers purchase a service without knowing the cost. The current opacity in healthcare pricing is a direct result of a third-party payer system, where the patient is insulated from the true cost of care. By mandating transparency—requiring hospitals and providers to post their prices clearly—we can reintroduce the market forces that control costs everywhere else.

The individual who shared his experience saw the shift from a system that trusted citizens to one that manages subjects. He saw the transition from a model where your unique health needs could be met with a tailored plan, to one where you are a data point in a demographic geography, slotted into a pre-approved plan designed by a distant regulator. The annual Medicare Season is not a symbol of choice, but a monument to complexity. The conservative mission is to dismantle this bureaucratic labyrinth and restore a simple, yet powerful, principle: that the American people, in consultation with their doctors, are infinitely more capable of managing their own health than a room full of central planners in Washington. The goal is not a system that works on paper for a statistical average, but one that works in practice for a free and unique individual.

#Obamacare #Medicare #Medical #Medicaid #Obama 

Life expectancy is 7 years less since ObamaCare passed.

 

Correlation or Causation? The Misleading Simplicity of Blaming ObamaCare for Life Expectancy Decline

A potent and recurring claim has surfaced in the political arena, one that carries the weight of a devastating indictment: "Life expectancy is 7 years less since ObamaCare passed." On its face, this statement is designed to be a knockout blow. It suggests a direct, causal relationship between the signature legislative achievement of the Obama administration and a catastrophic decline in the nation's health. For those already skeptical of government overreach, it confirms their deepest suspicions. For those who measure policy by its real-world outcomes, it demands a serious inquiry. However, a responsible examination of this claim reveals a narrative built not on evidence, but on a profound and likely intentional misuse of stm.atistics—a classic case of post hoc ergo propter hoc, where the mere sequence of events is mistaken for causation.

The first and most critical task is to verify the factual premise. Has American life expectancy declined since the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was signed into law in March 2010? The answer is yes, but the timeline and magnitude are immediately revealing. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), life expectancy at birth in the United States was 78.8 years in 2010. As of the most recent data from 2022, it stands at approximately 77.5 years. This represents a decline of about 1.3 years from the 2014 peak of 78.9, not the seven years claimed. The seven-year figure is a dramatic exaggeration, but even the real decline is cause for grave concern. The essential question remains: what forces are truly responsible for this troubling backward slide?

To attribute this decline to the ACA is to ignore the most significant and disruptive public health event in a century: the COVID-19 pandemic. The most precipitous drops in life expectancy occurred precisely in 2020 and 2021. CDC data shows life expectancy fell from 78.8 in 2019 to 77.0 in 2020 and further to 76.4 in 2021, before a partial rebound to 77.5 in 2022. The pandemic was a global phenomenon that ravaged life expectancy figures worldwide, particularly in nations with aging populations and, arguably, in those with specific public health vulnerabilities. To lay the mortality catastrophe of a novel coronavirus at the feet of a healthcare law passed a decade prior is a logical absurdity that deliberately obscures the true nature of the crisis. It would be akin to blaming a building's fire code for the damage caused by a meteor strike.

Furthermore, to properly assess the ACA's impact, one must consider the counterfactual: what would have happened to the nation's health *without* the law? The primary objectives of the ACA were to expand access to health insurance, protect consumers from the worst insurance industry practices, and incentivize preventive care. By these metrics, the law had significant, measurable effects. Over 20 million Americans gained health insurance coverage through the ACA’s Medicaid expansion and marketplace subsidies. Provisions like allowing young adults to stay on their parents' plans until age 26 and prohibiting denials for pre-existing conditions provided a crucial safety net for millions.

The argument that this expansion of access somehow *shortened* lives is counter-intuitive and requires extraordinary evidence. Is the contention that having insurance leads to worse health outcomes? A vast body of public health research suggests the opposite: that insurance coverage is associated with earlier diagnosis of serious conditions, better management of chronic diseases, and increased utilization of preventive services like cancer screenings and vaccinations. While the ACA is far from a perfect piece of legislation, and its impact on healthcare costs remains a valid subject of debate, the idea that it single-handedly engineered a decline in longevity is not supported by the mechanisms of how healthcare works. If anything, its effects should have provided a modest buffer against other, more powerful negative trends.

So, if not the ACA, what are the real, deep-seated drivers eroding American life expectancy? A clear-eyed analysis points to a set of complex and intertwined crises that long predate 2010 and have been intensifying for decades. These are the true culprits, and shifting the blame to the ACA is a political diversion from addressing them.

First and foremost are the "Deaths of Despair"—a term coined by economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton to describe the epidemic of fatalities from suicide, drug overdose, and alcohol-related liver disease. These deaths have been climbing steeply since the late 1990s, concentrated among Americans without a college degree. They are symptoms of a profound social and economic malaise: the collapse of manufacturing, the erosion of communities, declining real wages for the working class, and a pervasive sense of hopelessness. The opioid crisis, fueled first by pharmaceutical companies and later by illicit fentanyl, has been a primary agent of this despair. This is not a healthcare policy failure in the narrow sense of insurance design; it is a failure of economic policy, regulatory oversight, and the social fabric.

Second is the nation's ongoing battle with obesity and related metabolic diseases. The United States has one of the highest obesity rates in the developed world, a trend that has been worsening for forty years. Obesity is a major risk factor for heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, and certain types of cancer—all leading causes of death. The roots of this crisis are tangled in the nation's food system, agricultural subsidies, food deserts, and cultural habits. No healthcare law passed in 2010 can be held responsible for this decades-long, systemic problem.

Third, the nation's mental health crisis is taking a severe toll. Rates of anxiety, depression, and social isolation have been rising, particularly among younger generations. The healthcare system's inability to provide adequate and accessible mental health care is a genuine policy failure, but it is a failure that spans both sides of the political aisle and long predates the ACA. In fact, the ACA designated mental health and substance use disorder services as one of the ten "Essential Health Benefits" that all plans must cover, a provision that expanded access to treatment for millions.

Finally, one must consider the persistent and pernicious health disparities rooted in socioeconomic inequality and structural racism. Life expectancy can vary by as much as 20 years between the wealthiest and poorest ZIP codes in America. These gaps are driven by differences in nutrition, environmental hazards, stress, educational attainment, and access to quality medical care—all functions of deep-seated social determinants of health that no single piece of legislation, however ambitious, could quickly reverse.

In conclusion, the claim that "life expectancy is 7 years less since ObamaCare passed" is a weaponized statistic, designed not to inform but to inflame. It exploits a real and deeply worrying trend in American health to score political points, all while ignoring the complex, multifaceted reality behind that trend. The decline in life expectancy is a national tragedy, but its causes are the pandemic, the ongoing epidemic of despair, chronic disease, and systemic inequality. To blame the ACA is to misunderstand the problem entirely. It is a convenient scapegoat that lets the true culprits—a fractured society, a poisoned drug supply, a broken food system, and a once-in-a-century plague—off the hook. A serious nation committed to improving the health and longevity of its citizens would stop chasing the phantom of a single-policy cause and begin the hard, unglamorous work of addressing the real, root causes of our collective decline. The first step in that process is to reject simplistic and politically motivated narratives that confuse correlation with causation.

#Obamacare # Living #Life

Selective Outrage: The Political Amnesia of the Affordability Crisis

 

Selective Outrage: The Political Amnesia of the Affordability Crisis

The people complaining about 'Affordability' are the same people who said NOTHING when prices jumped up under Biden's policies [Or whoever was in charge - AUTO PEN] and his/their policies gave us 9% inflation. Now they have selective memories. If they wanna play dumb[ass], fine. I don't forget because the stupid plays with GAS to LITE YOU UP.

There is a particular flavor of political discourse that has become impossible to ignore. It echoes from cable news panels, headlines in legacy media, and the talking points of progressive politicians: a relentless, grim litany on “affordability.” The cost of groceries, the price at the pump, the burden of a mortgage—all are cited as evidence of a system in collapse, demanding immediate and radical government intervention. For any conservative listening, this chorus rings with a profound and galling hypocrisy. It is not the concern itself that is offensive; every American feels the squeeze of rising prices. It is the breathtakingly selective memory, the willful political amnesia, that defines this new wave of complaint. The very people who now rend their garments over the cost of living are, with few exceptions, the same voices who were conspicuously silent when the foundations of this crisis were being poured by the policies they championed. To watch this performance is to witness a political class attempt to light a match in a room they themselves doused in gasoline.

Let us be blunt about the origin of the inflationary fire. The spark was a fundamental rejection of conservative economic principles. For decades, the pillars of a stable and prosperous economy were understood: fiscal discipline, sound monetary policy, deregulation, and energy independence. The Biden administration, upon taking office, systematically attacked each one. The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, passed in March 2021 with no Republican support and touted as essential relief, was a classic case of pouring gasoline on a smoldering fire. The economy was already reopening; the demand shock was imminent. Yet, the administration chose to inject a massive, debt-financed stimulus into the system, putting thousands of dollars directly into bank accounts at a moment when supply chains were fragile and unable to meet the surge in demand. Every conservative economist worth their salt sounded the alarm. This was not relief; it was a recipe for inflation. The response from the left was a collective eye-roll, dismissing these concerns as the outdated grumblings of deficit scolds who lacked compassion.

The gasoline kept coming. The Federal Reserve, which had maintained an emergency-level, near-zero interest rate policy for far too long, was slow to react, its leadership initially insisting inflation was “transitory.” This was not an act of God; it was a failure of policy. Meanwhile, the administration launched a regulatory assault on American energy from day one. Canceling the Keystone XL pipeline, freezing new oil and gas leases on federal lands, and issuing a stream of regulations designed to hamstring fossil fuel production sent a clear, chilling signal to the markets: American energy dominance was no longer a priority. The price of oil and gas is not set in a vacuum; it is a bet on future supply and demand. When the world’s most powerful economy declares war on its own energy production, the market responds accordingly. The cost of fuel began its inexorable climb, acting as a tax on every single good that must be transported—which is to say, on everything.

And what was the reaction from the left during this period, as inflation ticked up from 2% to 5%, then 7%, and finally peaked at a 40-year high of 9.1%? It was a symphony of silence, deflection, and blame-shifting. The talking points were as predictable as they were dishonest. It was “Putin’s Price Hike,” a transparent attempt to pin a Made-in-America problem on a foreign dictator’s invasion that occurred a full year after inflation began its steep ascent. It was “greedy corporations” and “price gouging,” a childish economic theory that assumes corporations only discovered greed in 2021. They blamed “supply chain issues,” as if global supply chains are a force of nature like the weather, rather than a system deeply sensitive to domestic policy on spending, regulation, and energy. The people now crying loudest about affordability were, at that critical juncture, either actively cheerleading the policies that caused the crisis or offering feeble excuses for them. Their silence was complicity.

This is where the conservative perspective parts ways, not just on policy, but on a fundamental understanding of accountability. Conservatism is built on the principle of cause and effect. You cannot spend trillions of dollars you do not have, strangle your own productive industries, and flood the economy with cheap money without consequences. The consequence is inflation. It is that simple. The left, however, operates in a realm of moral posturing where intentions are everything and outcomes are someone else’s fault. Their intention was to “build back better,” to deliver “relief,” to “transition” to a green utopia. The fact that these intentions resulted in a historic erosion of American living standards is, in their view, an unfortunate side effect, never a direct and predictable result of their ideology.

This brings us to the present moment. Inflation has cooled from its terrifying peak, thanks almost entirely to the Federal Reserve’s belated but aggressive interest rate hikes—a painful but necessary medicine that itself slows economic growth. But the damage is done. The price level is permanently higher. The “affordability crisis” is not about the *rate* of increase anymore; it is about the new, elevated plateau that Biden-era policies built. The family that could once afford a weekly grocery cart of $150 now pays $220 for the same items. That $70 gap is the direct cost of the policies the left advocated. The mortgage rate that was 3% is now 7%, pricing an entire generation out of the housing market. This is the legacy.

So, when the very architects and defenders of this disaster now posture as the champions of the struggling consumer, it is not just political opportunism—it is an insult to the intelligence of the American people. It is a strategy reliant on a short national memory. They are betting that you will not connect the dots. They are hoping you will forget the months of 9% inflation and accept their newfound concern as genuine. They want to “play dumb,” to use the parlance of the original post, pretending that this affordability crisis emerged from nowhere, a mysterious plague for which they have all the solutions—solutions that invariably involve more government spending, more regulation, and more central control.

The conservative duty, therefore, is to be the nation’s memory. We cannot forget. We cannot let the narrative be severed from its cause. When a politician stands up and bemoans the price of milk, the conservative response must be: “Yes, and why is it high? Who shut down the pipelines? Who passed the multi-trillion-dollar spending bills?” When they lament the unaffordability of a new car, we must ask: “Who flooded the economy with cash and disrupted the supply chains?” This is not about relitigating the past; it is about establishing accountability for the present.

The American people are not dumb. They feel the disconnect in their wallets every single day. They know that their paychecks buy less than they did four years ago. The left’s strategy is to light a new match of outrage over this pain, hoping you won’t notice they are the ones who doused you in gasoline. But we remember. And we will not let you forget that the heat you feel is the consequence of your own policies. The road to affordability is not through more of the same big-government solutions that created this mess. It is through a return to the conservative principles of fiscal sanity, deregulation, and unleashing American energy—the very antidote to the poison they served.

#Biden #Hypocrisy #Democrats #Politics

No More Brown Money

A Penny for Your Thoughts: Common Sense or the Cancellation of "Brown Money"?

For years, a simple and seemingly irrefutable fact has been trotted out in the halls of Congress and in op-eds to argue for a radical change in American currency: it costs more to make a penny than a penny is worth. The figure fluctuates, but the U.S. Mint consistently reports that the production cost for a one-cent piece hovers around 2.5 to 3 cents, and has indeed spiked as high as four cents in the recent past. To the efficiency expert, the budget hawk, or the modern technocrat, the conclusion is obvious: the penny is a wasteful anachronism that must be retired. But from a conservative perspective, this purely utilitarian argument is dangerously simplistic. It ignores tradition, dismisses tangible human-scale economics, and, for many, raises a more profound question: Is this really about fiscal responsibility, or is it a subtle form of disdain for the symbols of our heritage—what some might call "Brown Money"?

Let’s first address the common-sense argument, which holds a surface-level appeal. Conservatism rightly champions fiscal responsibility and eliminating government waste. Spending $4 million to produce $1 million in currency is, on a sterile spreadsheet, an indefensible loss. Proponents of elimination, often from both sides of the aisle, argue that we are literally throwing millions of taxpayer dollars down the drain to produce a coin that most Americans let gather dust in jars. They point to successful transitions in countries like Canada and Australia, which abolished their lowest-denomination coins with minimal disruption. The modern economy, they contend, is digital and cashless; the penny is a relic that complicates transactions and costs businesses time in handling.

This is the voice of cold, technocratic logic. It is the same voice that advocates for centralizing control, for streamlining humanity into data points, and for prioritizing efficiency over all else. The conservative, however, understands that society is not merely an economy—it is an ecosystem. It is built on habits, traditions, and tangible connections that, while sometimes inefficient, provide stability and meaning. The call to eliminate the penny is not just about removing a coin; it is about altering the fundamental psychological pricing structure that has underpinned American commerce for over a century.

The most immediate consequence of elimination would be the effective mandate for cash transactions to be rounded to the nearest nickel. While proponents claim this would be a "rounding tax" that evens out over time, conservatives are inherently skeptical of such centralized planning. Who benefits from this rounding? The large corporation processing millions of transactions, where the rounding would statistically favor the business? Or the small, family-owned corner store where a handful of cash purchases could consistently round up, effectively imposing a small, regressive tax on the customer? The conservative principle is to be wary of any top-down change that disproportionately impacts small businesses and individual consumers, favoring the scale and data-crunching power of large corporations. Defending the "little guy" isn't just about heart; it's about the brains to understand how seemingly small regulations can tilt the playing field.

This leads to the most potent, if often unspoken, counter-argument to elimination: the charge of "hating on 'Brown Money.'" This phrase cuts to the heart of the modern cultural schism. On one side of the penny debate stands Abraham Lincoln, one of America's most revered presidents. His profile on the coin is a daily reminder of the preservation of the Union and the end of slavery. It is a tangible piece of history, a "bronze" (and later, zinc with copper plating) monument to a man who defined American greatness through unity and freedom.

In today's climate, where there is a fervent push to re-evaluate, contextualize, and even tear down historical monuments, the penny stands as a ubiquitous, pocket-sized memorial. To those who see a relentless campaign to sanitize American history of its figures and symbols, the move to eliminate the penny feels like part of the same pattern. It is not a giant leap to see the removal of the most common physical representation of a founding father from the party of Lincoln as a symbolic erasure. The argument becomes: "They came for the statues, and now they're coming for our currency." Whether this is the primary motivation of every penny-elimination advocate is irrelevant; in the broader culture war, the perception is powerful and real. The penny is "Brown Money"—a humble, traditional, widely circulated symbol of a foundational American hero, and its elimination is seen by many as an act of cultural contempt disguised as fiscal prudence.

Furthermore, the conservative disposition values incrementalism and is deeply suspicious of the "throw it out and start over" mentality. The penny works. It has worked for generations. The system of pricing, charity, and personal savings that incorporates it is a complex, evolved order. Tinkering with this system in the name of a minor budget line item (in the context of a multi-trillion-dollar federal budget, the losses from the penny are a rounding error) is a risky solution in search of a problem. It prioritizes the abstract efficiency of the system over the lived experience of the people within it.

In conclusion, the debate over the penny is a microcosm of a much larger political and philosophical conflict. It pits the technocrat against the traditionalist, the efficiency expert against the small-business owner, and the modern reformer against the guardian of historical memory. The "common sense" argument, while appealing on a spreadsheet, fails to account for the practical realities of rounding, the symbolic importance of our national icons, and the conservative principle of "first, do no harm" to the intricate web of civil society.

The conservative position is not necessarily to advocate for perpetual loss-making at the Mint. It is to approach the issue with caution, respect for tradition, and a keen eye for unintended consequences. It is to ask not just "how much does it cost?" but also "what does it mean?" and "who will this truly help or hurt?" Until the case for elimination can convincingly answer those deeper questions, the prudent, conservative course of action is clear: a penny saved, in its current and historical form, is a penny that keeps a piece of our common heritage firmly in hand.

#Pennies #Penny #Money #USMint

"If you are young and Liberal you have no heart. If you are old and Liberal you have no brains."

 

"If you are young and Liberal you have no heart. If you are old and Liberal you have no brains." ~ My Version

The Uncomfortable Truth: How Age and Experience Forge a Conservative Mindset

The political aphorism, “If you are young and Liberal you have no heart. If you are old and Liberal you have no brains,” has long been a source of both irritation and grudging acknowledgment. Dismissed by its detractors as a simplistic partisan jab, it nonetheless endures because it captures a profound truth about the human journey and its relationship to political philosophy. From a conservative perspective, this saying is not merely an insult but a concise observation of a natural and necessary maturation process—one where the untempered idealism of youth is rightly tempered by the hard-won wisdom of experience, fiscal reality, and a deeper appreciation for the fragile institutions that undergird a free and prosperous society.

To understand the first half of the maxim—“If you are young and Liberal you have no heart”—is to recognize that it is not the condemnation it appears to be. Conservatism, at its best, does not scorn compassion but questions the efficacy of government coercion as its primary vehicle. The youthful heart is a magnificent thing: it beats with a passion for justice, it aches at the sight of suffering, and it believes with every fiber that a better world is not only possible but easily within reach. This is a natural and even admirable stage of life. The young person looks at poverty and thinks, “Let us give everyone money.” They look at inequality and declare, “Let us legislate equity.” They see conflict and believe that if we simply talk, all malice will evaporate.

This impulse comes from a place of goodness, a heart that has not yet been calloused by the complexities of human nature and the law of unintended consequences. The conservative does not look upon this youthful ardor with contempt, but with a sense of poignancy. They see in it their own younger selves, full of grand designs to remake the world. The problem, from the conservative view, is not the desire for a better world, but the naive belief that such a world can be engineered from the top down by a disinterested and all-powerful state, using other people’s money and trampling on individual liberties in the process. The young liberal has a heart, and a large one, but it is a heart that has not yet been schooled by reality.

This schooling is precisely what the second half of the aphorism addresses: “If you are old and Liberal you have no brains.” This is the sharper edge of the saying, and it is where the conservative case finds its firmest footing. It posits that to have lived a significant portion of one’s life—to have worked, paid taxes, raised a family, managed a budget, and witnessed the cyclical nature of history—and to still cling to the untested theories of one’s youth is not a sign of virtuous consistency, but of a willful intellectual blindness.

The first and most potent teacher is economics. A young person may advocate for vast, multi-trillion-dollar social programs with little thought to their cost. An older person, however, has felt the weight of the tax burden. They have seen the sweat and toil that goes into earning a paycheck, and they understand the moral difference between voluntary charity and state-mandated redistribution. They have witnessed how endless deficit spending mortgages the future of their children and grandchildren, creating a mountain of debt that represents not compassion, but intergenerational theft. To be old and liberal, in this light, is to ignore the basic arithmetic of scarcity. It is to believe, against all evidence, that there is a limitless supply of other people’s money, and that government bureaucracies are efficient allocators of resources, despite a lifetime of evidence to the contrary.

Furthermore, age brings a sobering education in human nature. The youthful belief in the perfectibility of mankind inevitably collides with the reality of fallen human nature. The older conservative has seen that power corrupts, that incentives matter more than intentions, and that utopian schemes, when implemented, often lead not to heaven on earth but to new forms of tyranny and misery. They have studied the 20th century and seen the ghastly fruits of collectivist ideologies, all of which were sold as compassionate advances for humanity. They understand that the world is not a blank slate to be redesigned by social engineers, but a complex, organic ecosystem of traditions, habits, and institutions that have evolved over centuries for a reason. To be old and still advocate for concentrating more power in the state is to ignore the timeless lessons of history—a truly brainless endeavor.

This leads to the third pillar of the conservative critique: a reverence for tradition and civil society. As one ages, one begins to see the value in the things that are passed down—the cultural norms, the ethical frameworks, and the institutions like family, church, and community that form the bedrock of a stable society. The liberal project, particularly in its modern, progressive form, is often inherently radical and disruptive. It seeks to deconstruct these traditional pillars in the name of liberation, failing to recognize that these very structures are what provide meaning, order, and support for individuals. The older conservative has seen the devastating social consequences of the breakdown of the family. They have witnessed how the decline of community cohesion leads to isolation and despair. They understand that these “mediating institutions” are the true engines of compassion and human flourishing, far more effective than any distant, impersonal government agency. To be old and liberal is to have failed to learn that tearing down the old without understanding its purpose is an act of profound foolishness.

Of course, the conservative perspective is not without its own nuances. The saying is a generalization, and there are thoughtful liberals of all ages, just as there are unthinking conservatives. The core of the argument is not that all liberal ideas are devoid of merit, but that a comprehensive liberal worldview becomes intellectually indefensible after a certain point of lived experience. It is the difference between a temporary phase of idealism and a permanent state of ideological rigidity.

Ultimately, the journey from a “liberal heart” to a “conservative brain” is not a betrayal of one’s better angels, but an evolution toward a more mature, responsible, and sustainable form of compassion. It is the recognition that true caring means wanting people to be self-reliant and free, not dependent and managed. It is the understanding that justice is achieved through the equal application of the rule of law, not through unequal distribution based on identity. It is the wisdom to build upon the past rather than obliterate it.

The aphorism endures because it speaks to a universal truth: life has a way of teaching lessons that theory cannot. The heart provides the moral compass, but it is the brain, seasoned by time and trial, that must be trusted to navigate the complex and often unforgiving terrain of the real world. To ignore those lessons is not to remain pure-hearted; it is to choose a comforting fantasy over a challenging reality—and that, from the conservative view, is the definition of having no brains.

#Capitalism #Socialism #Liberal #Conservative