Here is a must-read article from my friend Matt Palumbo at the American Thinker. It’s extremely high quality. (I removed the links in my excerpt – but he linked all the sources in his post)
Excerpt:
The oft-cited “46 million uninsured” is breathtakingly easy to break down to size. Keep in mind that there is overlap in the following statistics, as many people listed in them belong to multiple categories. Around 10 million of the uninsured aren’t even citizens. Another 8 million are aged 18-24, which is the group least prone to medical problems. The average salary of a person in this age group is $31,790, so affording health care would not be a problem. Seventeen million of the uninsured make over $50,000 a year, and within that group, 8 million make over $75,000. These people are usually referred to as the “voluntarily uninsured.” Another large group of these 46 million are uninsured in name only, as they are eligible for government programs that they haven’t signed up for. Estimates on how large this group is vary, the range being from 5.4 million as estimated by the Kaiser Family Foundation to as large as one third of all the uninsured, as estimated by BlueCross BlueShield. The number of people without care because they cannot afford it is around 6 million — still a large number, but a fraction of 46 million, and no reason to restructure the entire health care system.
Then comes the issue of lifespan. Of all attempts to discredit the American system, lifespan has been the worst. Although lifespan gives a good indicator of a nation’s health at a glance, it does have its problems under analysis. We get a strange paradox when examining two statistics: life expectancy and cancer survival rates. Estimates vary on how we rank exactly; the World Fact Book showing that we rank as poorly as 50th worldwide. Even the best estimates in our favor place us far behind most developed nations. Despite this, the United States excels at cancer survival. Of the 16 most common cancers, the United States has the highest survival rate for 13 of them. Overall, the five-year cancer survival rate for men in the States is 66.3%, and 47.3% in Europe. Women have an advantage too, with a survival rate of 62.9% in the States, and 55.8% in Europe. So that said, how is it that our system takes better care of us, and doesn’t grant added lifespan to boot? Quite simply, the lifespan measurement commonly cited doesn’t factor in many variables which shorten lifespan, many of which medical care cannot prevent. Among these factors are murders, suicides, obesity, and accidents.
He looks at the uninsured number, the infant mortality rate, and other interesting things in the article, showing how the statistics that impugn the US health care system have been misused. There are some good articles linked, like this post from Commentary magazine by Scott Atlas, entitled “The Worst Study Ever?”. Atlas is the same guy who listed out how the US health care system compares to others, which I blogged about before.
You can check out Matt’s blog “The Conscience of a Young Conservative“. Not sure how scalable that blog name is. Because of the “young” part, not because of the conscience or conservative part.
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced Sunday the government will scrap 70 tariff items to save Canadian businesses about $32 million a year.
“This builds on our government’s commitment in Budget 2010 to make Canada a tariff-free zone for industrial manufacturers,” Flaherty said in a statement. “By lowering costs for these businesses, we are enhancing their ability to compete in domestic and foreign markets and helping them invest and create jobs here at home.”
Various sectors — including food processing, apparel, electrical equipment and furniture — will benefit from the move.
The Conservatives had previously eliminated the duty on imported machinery and equipment in an attempt to make Canada a tariff-free zone for industrial manufacturers by 2015.
The Tories say that since 2009 they have eliminated more than 1,800 tariff items and have provided more than $435 million in annual tariff relief to Canadian businesses.
The study released Wednesday by KPMG International found Canada’s corporate tax rate has dropped by more than 16 per cent over the last 11 years.
Canadian companies are actually paying less than their American counterparts.
On average, Canadian companies pay 28 per cent of their income in federal and provincial tax, well below the 40 per cent paid by American companies.
But Canada’s corporate tax rate is higher than Europe’s 20 per cent and the OECD average of 26 per cent.
Canadian corporate taxes fell three per cent in 2011, from 31 per cent in 2010.
“Canada’s corporate tax rate falls around the middle of the pack among the OECD countries,” said Elio Luongo, KPMG’s Canadian Managing Partner for Tax.
“But Canada’s general corporate tax rate is anticipated to continue to fall in 2012, when the federal tax rate will be 15 per cent, versus 16.5 per cent in 2011.”
I’ve written before about how Democrats oppose the job creation that would occur if the United States developed energy in Alaska, the Gulf of Mexico and the Ohio shale. Additionally, Obama has also opposed building the Keystone XL pipeline, which would have created 20,000 jobs paid for by a Canadian company. But Canada has no problems with developing their own energy resources, because their government operates independently of the environmentalist left.
Excerpt:
As world leaders gather in South Africa to discuss climate change this week and next, Canada’s environment minister says he plans to defend Alberta’s oilsands and is willing to argue they are an “ethical” and reliable energy source.
Heading into the 17th Conference of the Parties meeting, Environment Minister Peter Kent says he will not sign on to any deals that mandate some countries reduce greenhouse gas emissions while others don’t — as his government argues was the case under the Kyoto Protocol. He is also unequivocal in his defence of northern Alberta’s bitumen production, a position he expects will be supported by Alberta Environment Minister Diana McQueen when she joins him at the end of the week.
“We still need to — and the industry needs to and our provincial partners need to — be aggressive in ensuring international friends and neighbours and customers recognize Alberta’s heavy oil is no different from heavy oil produced in any number of other countries which don’t receive nearly the negative attention or criticism,” he says. “It is a legitimate resource.”
Kent has made headlines in the last year by arguing that Alberta’s oil is “ethical.”
“We talk about this on quite a regular basis,” Kent says. “I think it’s important we correct where we find … misunderstanding, misinformation or deliberate ignorance to demonize, to criticize and to attempt … to create a boycott.”
In January, on his second day as environment minister, Kent referred to Alberta’s oilsands product as “ethical oil” during an interview with a newspaper reporter.
Reports immediately linked Kent’s comments to the title of conservative activist Ezra Levant’s recent book, Ethical Oil: The Case for Canada’s Oil Sands.
The book essentially compares Canada’s human rights record to those of other oil-producing countries, and argues Canada’s “ethical oil” is preferable to “conflict oil” produced in countries with poor human rights records, such as Sudan, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia or Iran. The argument removes environmental issues, such as greenhouse gas emissions, from the equation, though Levant notes Alberta’s data on environmental issues is more transparent than information shared by other countries.
So in total I’ve presented three reasons why the Canadian economy is booming, while the American economy is stuck in neutral. Obama opposes free trade, lower corporate taxes and domestic energy production. When you elect a socialist lawyer, you get a Greece/Spain economy. When you elect a capitalist economist, you get Canada’s booming economy, and consequently, a lower unemployment rate. Recall that our recession began exactly when we elected Nancy Pelosi to the House leadership and Harry Reid to the Senate leadership in 2007. Democrats wreck economies. There is no reason why America cannot be more prosperous than Canada, but we have to not elect an abject buffoons as our leaders.
And so, if defining the proper role of government was one of the central issues of the Reagan era, it remains that now. The truth is that people are going around saying that, well, we’re worried about – let me just add something to this because I think this is an important forum for candor.
I know that it is popular in my party to blame the president, the current president. But the truth is the only thing this president has done is accelerate policies that were already in place and were doomed to fail. All he is doing through his policies is making the day of reckoning come faster, but it was coming nonetheless.
What we have now is not sustainable. The role of government and the role that government plays now in America cannot be sustained the way it is. Now some are worried about how it has to change, we have to change it. The good news is it is going to change. It has to change. That’s not the issue.
The issue is not whether the role that government now plays in America will change. The question is how will it change. Will it change because we make the changes necessary? Or, will it change because our creditors force us to make these changes?
And over the next few moments I hope to advocate to you –- I don’t think that I have to given the make up of the crowd –- but I hope to advocate to you that, in fact, what we have before us is a golden opportunity afforded to few Americans.
We have the opportunity –- within our lifetime –- to actually craft a proper role for government in our nation that will allow us to come closer than any Americans have ever come to our collective vision of a nation where both prosperity and compassion exist side-by-side.
To do that, we must begin by embracing certain principles that are absolutely true. Number one: the free enterprise system does not create poverty. The free enterprise system does not leave people behind.
People are poor and people are left behind because they do not have access to the free enterprise system because something in their lives or in their community has denied them access to the free enterprise system. All over the world this truism is expressing itself every single day. Every nation on the Earth that embraces market economics and the free enterprise system is pulling millions of its people out of poverty. The free enterprise system creates prosperity, not denies it.
The second truism that we must understand is that poverty does not create our social problems, our social problems create our poverty. Let me give you an example. All across this country, at this very moment, there are children who are born into and are living with five strikes against them, already, through no fault of their own.
They’re born into substandard housing in dangerous neighborhoods, to broken families, being raised by their grandmothers because they never knew their father and their mom is either working two jobs to make ends meet or just not home. These kids are going to struggle to succeed unless something dramatic happens in their life.
These truisms are important because they lead the public policies that define the proper role of government. On the prosperity side, the number one objective of our economic policy, in fact the singular objective of our economic policy from a government perspective is simple — it’s growth. It’s not distribution of wealth; it’s not picking winners and losers.
The goal of our public policy should be growth. Growth in our economy, the creation of jobs and of opportunity, of equality of opportunity through our governmental policies.
And the most gripping part of the speech:
To me, this is extremely special, and I’ll tell you why. During the ’80s, politically especially, there were two people that deeply influenced me. One clearly was Ronald Reagan, the other was my grandfather, who lived with us most of the time in our home.
We lived part of our life, especially the key years, ’80-’84, in Las Vegas, Nev. And my grandfather loved to sit on the porch of our home and smoke cigars. He was Cuban. Three cigars a day, he lived to be 84. This is not an advertisement for cigar smoking, I’m just saying to you that …
He loved to talk about politics. My grandfather was born in 1899. He was born to an agricultural family in Cuba. He was stricken with polio when he was a very young man, he couldn’t work the fields, so they sent him to school. He was the only member of his family that could read. And because he could read, he got a job at the local cigar rolling factory.
They didn’t have radio or television, so they would hire someone to sit at the front of the cigar factory and read to the workers while they worked. So, the first thing he would read every day, of course, was the daily newspaper. Then he would read some novel to entertain them.
And then, when he was done reading things he actually went out and rolled the cigars because he needed the extra money. But through all of those years of reading, he became extremely knowledgeable about history, not to mention all the classics.
He loved to talk about history. My grandfather loved being Cuban. He loved being from Cuba. He never would have left Cuba if he didn’t have to. But he knew America was special. He knew that without America, Cuba would still be a Spanish colony. He knew that without America, the Nazis and Imperial Japan would have won World War II. When he was born in 1899 there weren’t even airplanes. By the time I was born, an American had walked on the surface of the moon.
And he knew something else. He knew that he had lost his country. And that the only thing from preventing other people in the world from losing theirs to communism was this country – this nation.
It is easy for us who are born here –- like me –- and so many of you, to take for granted how special and unique this place is. But when you come from somewhere else, when what you always knew and loved, you lost, you don’t have that luxury.
My grandfather didn’t know America was exceptional because he read about it in a book. He knew about it because he lived it and saw it with his eyes. That powerful lesson is the story of Ronald Reagan’s presidency. It’s our legacy as a people. And it’s who we have a chance to be again. And I think that’s important for all of us because being an American is not just a blessing, it’s a responsibility.
As we were commanded to do long ago, “Let your light shine before men” …
[PAUSE – he is overcome by emotion]
…“that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.”
Well, as we gather here today in this place, that pays homage and tribute to the greatest American of the twentieth century, we are reminded that for him and for our nation, being a light to the world, that’s not just our common history, it remains our common destiny.
I cried at the part in bold above.
Here’s the verse he cited – Matthew 5:16 – in context: [NASB]
13 “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men.
14 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden;
15 nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house.
16 Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.
I notice that he cites the NASB, which is my favorite translation – the translation closest to the original Greek.
On my Facebook page, I have Matthew 5:13, which is the verse that comforts me when things look bad in my life – when my plans haven’t worked out the way I hoped they would. Things look bad for us right now as a nation. Maybe we need to reconsider these words.
This speech is being well-received everywhere. Permit me just one reaction from the UK Telegraph, which is still punch-drunk from socialism-induced rioting caused by the anti-marriage, anti-family, anti-father policies of the secular left Labour Party.
Excerpt:
Two of the brightest rising young stars in American conservatism today are Paul Ryan and Marco Rubio. Neither are running for president in 2012, but both will be strong contenders for the vice presidential running mate slot, whoever wins the Republican nomination. And I wouldn’t be surprised to see Ryan or Rubio eventually sitting in the Oval Office itself at some stage in the future. After all, Congressman Ryan of Wisconsin is only 41, and Senator Rubio of Florida is just 40; they have decades of public life ahead of them. They are both deeply principled politicians in the Reagan mould who grew up during the late Cold War years, and share a profound belief in American exceptionalism and the need for the United States to maintain its position as the world’s leading power.
A few weeks ago, I wrote about Congressman’s Ryan’s superb speech on foreign policy to the Alexander Hamilton Society in Washington, remarks which outlined in stark terms the challenges the United States faces if it is to avoid decline. Ryan’s address, which I attended, was probably one of the most important statements by a US politician on American leadership this year.
Senator Rubio’s speech yesterday at the Reagan Presidential Library in the presence of Nancy Reagan, was another key address by a Member of Congress that deserves to be widely read, both at home and abroad. Like Ryan, Rubio offers a powerful rejection of the Big Government approach that has crippled America’s economy, and outlines a firm defence of the free market, championed by Ronald Reagan.
There is something very different and special about America. And Marco Rubio reminds us all what it is in this speech. A speech heard ’round the world! A reminder of our principles – of our role – and of our responsibility to the world.
WINTERY KNIGHT 