Earlier this month, LifeNews.com reported on a public vote House Republicans were taking, seeing input from American voters on which one of three ideas for saving taxpayer dollars was the most attractive and should become the next bill pushed in Congress. With thousands of pro-life advocates encouraged to vote, legislation cutting UNFPA funding won out and will now become the next piece of legislation Republicans will advance.
The vote at the popular YouCut web site makes it so the public will be able to track the progressof the legislation as it moves through the legislative process.
Rep. Renee Ellmers, of North Carolina, will be introducing legislation soon.
“This is going to save American taxpayers $400 million dollars over a 10 year period and it’s just another part of what we’re doing here in Washington to cut wasteful spending that we see happening,” she said in a new video introducing the bill. “And I am very excited to be part of this program and each week we will have more cuts coming forward.”
The legislation would result in cutting the funding President Barack Obama put in place for the UNFPA, an agency that promotes abortion and works hand-in-hand with family planning officials in China enforcing the one-child, forced-abortion policy.
[…]Steve Mosher, the head of the Population Research Institute and the leading campaigner exposing China and the one-child policy, says the UNFPA is the UN population control agency that is complicit in China’s brutal one-child policy, which is carried out through a program of coercive abortion and involuntary sterilization. He hopes the YouCut program receives enough votes to move the pro-life bill forward.
“With just a click of your mouse, you can cut funding to the United Nations Population Fund,’ he said in an email to LifeNews. “Defunding UNFPA could be considered by the House soon, but only if this option gets the most votes on the YouCut website. That’s where you come in. If you think the United States House of Representatives should cut funding to the UNFPA, then vote for that option on the YouCut web site, and urge everyone you know to do the same.”
Pro-life blogger Jill Stanek also encouraged people to vote in it.
“How many times have you been forwarded an email to vote on a meaningless opinion poll?” she asked. “Well, for once, here’s a poll that can really save the lives of preborn children. If you have friends who are solely fiscal conservatives, tell them that at $400 million, this choice will save taxpayers the most money of any of this week’s 3 options.
The YouCut web site talks about the history of UNFPA funding.
“In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan withheld all U.S. contributions to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) after determining that UNFPA participated in the support and co-management of China’s population control program,” it explains. “Under the Bush administration, the U.S. withheld funds for the UNFPA from America’s annual contributions to the United Nations due to UNFPA’s complicity in China’s one-child policy enforced through coercive abortion and involuntary sterilization, but the Obama administration and the 111th Congress resumed contributions to UNFPA.”
The budget House Republicans wanted sought to terminate UNFPA funding, which stood at $55 million in FY 2010. UNFPA funding was cut by $15 million, to $40 million in the final agreement over FY 2011 spending, but the remainder is sent to the pro-abortion agency.
After Obama restored the funding, Rep. Chris Smith tried to offer an amendment to revert the language back to the original ban on such funding, but House Democrats blocked him from doing so. Then, pro-life Sen. Roger Wicker offered a similar amendment but the Senate defeated it.
Republicans are opposed to funding coerced and sex-selection abortions in China. If Republicans can cut off the money to the United Nations, then maybe the coerced and sex-selection abortions in China will decrease. Regardless of that, we taxpayers can certainly use the money better on our own projects than the government of China can. For example, if I get my money back from the United Nations, I could give it to a crisis pregnancy center. Let me decide – it’s my money. I earned it.
Spain’s ruling Socialists suffered a crushing defeat to conservatives in local and regional elections Sunday, yielding power even in traditional strongholds against a backdrop of staggering unemployment and unprecedented sit-ins by Spaniards furious with what they see as politicians who don’t care about their plight.Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said the result was due punishment of his government for the state of the economy — the jobless rate is a eurozone high of 21.3 percent. But he said he had no plans to move up general elections, which must be held by March of next year, and pledged to press on with job-creating reforms despite the loud outcry of opposition to his party.
The win for the conservative opposition Popular Party puts it in even a stronger position to win the general elections and return to power after eight years of Socialist rule.
In what Spanish media said was the worst performance on record by the Socialist Party in local and regional elections, the numbers reflecting the loss were stunning: the conservative Popular Party won at the municipal level by about two million votes, compared to 150,000 in its win in 2007, and in 13 regional governments that were up for grabs, Zapatero’s party lost in virtually all of them.
One was Castilla-La Mancha in central Spain, where the Socialists have always held power. The Socialists also lost bastions like the town halls in Barcelona and Seville. The conservatives padded their majorities in Madrid and Valencia, in the latter even though the president is under investigation for corruption. Several other Socialist-controlled regional governments also fell. Spain’s electoral map turned largely blue — the color of the Popular Party.
I can see why Zapatero would want to avoid calling federal elections. Spain’s youth unemployment stands at 45% and he is very likely to be thrown out of power completely. I’m sure a lot of the young people voted for socialism, because socialism is so trendy in movies, music, in the universities, and on television . But the young people are finding out now that you cannot cover your nakedness with empty rhetoric, you cannot feed your stomach with feelings of self-congratulation, and you cannot coerce employers to hire you by demonizing capitalism.
As part of his liberal phase when governor of Massachusetts — political principles have been ever-flexible for Romney — he orchestrated passage of legislation with eerie similarities to ObamaCare. Massachusetts mandates purchase of insurance, decides what benefits must be offered, and maintains a complex system of subsidies and penalties. Declared Boston Globe columnist Adrian Walker, the two programs are “not identical, but they’re certainly close kin.” MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, who advised both Gov. Romney and President Obama on health care, asserted: “Basically, it’s the same thing.”[…]Alas, even the former governor’s constitutional scruples are suspect. In 1994 he backed a federal mandate. His concern about the overweening federal government apparently was not so finely developed then.
[…]However, paying for more benefits for more people inevitably makes medicine more expensive. Costs for Commonwealth Care, the Massachusetts government’s subsidized insurance program alone are up a fifth over initial projections. Last year State Treasurer Timothy P. Cahill wrote: “The universal insurance coverage we adopted in 2006 was projected to cost taxpayers $88 million a year. However, since this program was adopted in 2006, our health-care costs have in total exceeded $4 billion. The cost of Massachusetts’ plan has blown a hole in the Commonwealth’s budget.”
[…]State finances have not collapsed only because RomneyCare spread the costs widely, forcing virtually everyone in and out of the state to share the pain. Cahill cited federal subsidies as keeping the state afloat financially. Indeed, a June study from the Beacon Hill Institute concluded that “The state has been able to shift the majority of the costs to the federal government.” The Institute pointed to higher costs of $8.6 billion since the law was implemented. Just $414 million was paid by Massachusetts. Medicaid (federal payments) covered $2.4 billion. Medicare took care of $1.4 billion.
But even more costs, $4.3 billion, have been imposed on the private sector — employers, insurers, and residents. This estimate is in line with an earlier study by the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, which figured that 60% of the new costs fell on individuals and businesses.
As expenses have risen, so have premiums. Noted Kuttner, “because serious cost containment was not part of the original package, premium costs in the commonwealth have risen far faster than nationally — by 10.3%, the most recent year available.” Economists John F. Cogan, Glenn Hubbard, and Daniel Kessler figured that RomneyCare inflated premiums by 6% from 2006 to 2008. This at a time where the state-subsidized Commonwealth Care was displacing private insurance for many people, thereby reducing demand, which should have reduced cost pressures.
Unfortunately, noted the Beacon Hill Institute, “private companies have no choice but to pass the higher costs onto the insured. Some of these costs fall in the double-digit range.” That naturally displeased public officials, since it undercut their claim to have solved Massachusetts’ health care problems.
The Bay State’s controversial 2006 universal health-care plan — also known as “Romneycare” — has cost Massachusetts more than 18,000 jobs, according to an exclusive blockbuster study that could provide ammo to GOP rivals of former Gov. Mitt Romney as he touts his job-creating chops on the campaign trail.
“Mandating health insurance coverage and expanding the demand for health services without increasing supply drove up costs. Economics 101 tells us that,” said Paul Bachman, research director at Suffolk University’s Beacon Hill Institute, the conservative think tank that conducted the study. The Herald obtained an exclusive copy of the findings.
“The ‘shared sacrifice’ needed to provide universal health care includes a net loss of jobs, which is attributable to the higher costs that the measure imposed,” said David Tuerck, the institute’s executive director.
…Despite Romney’s vaunted business acumen as a successful venture capitalist, Bachman said the former governor “was a little naive about what would become of the law.”
The Beacon Hill Institute study found that, on average, Romneycare:
cost the Bay State 18,313 jobs;
drove up total health insurance costs in Massachusetts by $4.311 billion;
slowed the growth of disposable income per person by $376; and
reduced investment in Massachusetts by $25.06 million.
The 2006 reform jeopardized the solvency of private health plans in the Bay State. Unfortunately, insurers’ solvency is not something patients, physicians, and voters have reason to observe closely, so the political class suffers from perverse incentives once it starts micromanaging health insurance. As a result, higher costs have been passed on through higher per capita spending and premium growth.
According to the state’s 2010 annual report, today “per capita spending on health care in Massachusetts is 15 percent higher than the rest of the nation, even when accounting for wages and spending on medical research and education in Massachusetts.” Indeed, Professor John F. Cogan of Stanford University has concluded the 2006 reform led to premium growth 6 percent higher in Massachusetts than in the rest of the United States between 2006 and 2008.
Because it was politically intolerable to allow premiums to rise in line with the costs of Romneycare, the state’s insurance commissioner denied 235 of 276 rate increase requests in April 2010. For a short time, no new policies were offered, and plans suffered significant losses. The next month, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, the state’s largest carrier, announced a $55 million provision for anticipated losses in the second quarter alone.
Of the 12 largest carriers, five were already operating at a loss. At this point, even if the state allows Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts to increase rates in line with medical costs, my analysis concludes the carrier will become insolvent in the vicinity of 2017. Other carriers will soon follow.
Campaign speeches and debate zingers today don’t cancel out a liberal leftist record on policy yesterday.
He often claims to have balanced the Massachusetts budget without raising taxes. The first part of that claim is true, but the second part is a matter of semantics.
As Cato pointed out in a 2006 report, while Romney didn’t raise general tax revenues, he raised various fees by $500 million and then proposed $140 million in business tax hikes by closing “loopholes.” His health care plan also increased spending, prompting tax increases after he left office to cover cost overruns.
This time around, by sticking by his health care law, Romney is attempting to avoid the “flip flopper” label that dogged his last campaign. But this shift in tactics isn’t going to make the problem of his past positions suddenly disappear.
As governor, Romney was no friend of gun owners. In 2004, when the Clinton-era federal assault weapons ban expired, he signed a permanent one at the state level.
Despite his tough talk on immigration during his last campaign, in 2005 Romney told the Boston Globe that reform along the lines that McCain proposed was “reasonable.”
Romney also, at various times, supported campaign finance regulations far more sweeping than McCain-Feingold, even though he subsequently blasted that law as an attack on free speech.
Romney’s support for “No Child Left Behind,” President Bush’s expansion of the federal government’s role in education, not only puts him at odds with conservatives, but it also undercuts the federalist defense of his health care law. If a one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work for health care, why should it work for education?
Furthermore, there’s no reason to believe that social conservatives who were suspicious of Romney’s conveniently timed conversion from pro-choice to pro-life before his last presidential run will see him as any more authentic this time around.
“I don’t speak for the scientific community, of course,” Romney said, in response to the first question of the morning. “But I believe the world’s getting warmer. I can’t prove that, but I believe based on what I read that the world is getting warmer. And number two, I believe that humans contribute to that.”
He also said he wanted to wean the country from its dependence on foreign oil by seeking alternative sources of energy, and said that Americans should do more to conserve.
“I’m told that we use almost twice as much energy per person as does a European, and more like three times as much energy as does a Japanese citizen,” Romney said. “We can do a lot better.”
Mitt Romney position on abortion, gun control, gay marriage
(Image: H/T Robert)
Mitt Romney’s record on social issues
From the 1994 Massachusetts Senate debate between Mitt Romney and Edward Kennedy.
Here he is again in 2002 in his run for government of Massachusetts:
And again in May 2005, as governor of Massachusetts:
And on embryonic stem cell research in 2005:
And on gun control in 2002:
Mitt Romney is not a social conservative. He is a center-leftist who will say anything in order to get elected in 2012. Nothing he says can be trusted – he adapts himself to any environment when campaigning – he says what people want to hear, and it is not at all what his actual record shows.
Mitt Romney political views in 2012
What do conservatives think of Mitt Romney’s record?
8. Gov. Mitt Romney (Mass.)
Has said, “I believe that abortion should be safe and legal in this country.” Supports civil unions and stringent gun laws. After visiting Houston, he criticized the city’s aesthetics, saying, “This is what happens when you don’t have zoning.”
WINTERY KNIGHT 