Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee released a startling report yesterday that every American should know about in advance of the Sunday ‘showdown’ vote on health care in the U.S. House. 

The report focuses on the Individual Mandate Tax (IMT) proposed in the Democrats’ health care legislation. Under this provision, Democrats make the IRS the chief enforcer for a new government-run health insurance system.

According to the report:

“Disturbingly, the IRS would be in charge of verifying that every American taxpayer has obtained acceptable health coverage for every month of the year. If the IRS determines that a taxpayer lacks acceptable insurance for even a single month, then the IRS would impose a new tax on that taxpayer, even auditing the taxpayer and could assess interest and penalties on top of the tax. This is an unprecedented new role for the IRS – one that will inject the IRS even further into the lives of American families.”

The report also shows that, if ... more

Earlier in the health care debate, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi gave Republicans in Congress just hours to read a thousand page, trillion dollar health care bill before voting on it. 

Now, according to news reports yesterday, she is laying plans to skip the trouble of voting on the bill altogether.  By using a procedural trick called ‘deem and pass,’ Nancy Pelosi is setting the stage to pass a massive health care overhaul without ever having a vote on it in the U.S. House. 

Constitutional scholars are understandably wary of the idea.  In a Politico story on Tuesday, George Washington University law professor Alan Morrisson said, “If I were advising somebody," on whether deem and pass would run into constitutional trouble, "I would say to them, ‘Don’t do it.’”

These last, desperate moves by Nancy Pelosi to pass the health care bill by any means necessary illustrate the depth of the public’s disapproval of the proposed Democratic health reforms.  The American people want control ... more

On the Sunday news shows yesterday, Congressional leaders and aides to President Obama took to the airwaves to declare that they would push their deeply flawed health care proposal into law this week.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is floating plans to bend the rules in an attempt to avoid voting for the Senate Democrats’ government-run health care experiment.  The Democratic leadership is trying to round up a majority of votes in the House, even though it lacks the support of the American people.

These plans to skirt the will of the American public must not be allowed to succeed.  If you believe in the need to protect and preserve your ability to choose your own doctors and make your own health care decisions, please call Nancy Pelosi today and tell her so.  Just dial (202) 224-3121 to reach the Capitol Switchboard and ask to be connected.  The time to speak out is now. 

President Obama kicked this week off with the beginning of a road show to push his health care takeover.  On Monday he traveled to Pennsylvania to sell his health plan, and the White House has another stop scheduled for this afternoon in Saint Louis.

Yet in the very states President Obama is visiting to push health care, it is jobs and the economy that the people are most concerned about.  This public relations blitz is yet another illustration of the tone deafness of the Obama Administration.  While the president takes to the road to push a health care bill that lacks the support of the American people, thousands of folks in the very states he’s visiting find themselves out of work.  The American people want the president and Congress to focus on job creation – not a massive takeover of health care. 

While President Obama visited the Philadelphia area to push health care, new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that unemployment grew another 2 percent over the ... more

Last Friday, upon the release of the latest monthly jobs report, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said, “Only 36,000 people lost their jobs today, which is really good." Harry Reid made these comments because he is simply out of touch with the American people and his constituents in Nevada, which doesn’t speak well of Senator Reid’s leadership. 

Senator Reid deserves to be voted out of office if he is so out of touch with his constituents that he truly believes it is good news that 36,000 more Americans have lost their jobs.  Yet even if we give Senator Reid the benefit of the doubt on his speech on Friday, what do his comments show about his previous promises on job creation?  After all, it was Senator Reid, along with President Obama, who promised that last year’s stimulus package would “save or create” millions of jobs.  Is Senator Reid out of touch with his constituents or with reality? 

Harry Reid’s words failed him last Friday.  But it is his leadership that has failed ... more