Tag Archives: Wealth Redistribution

News

Bush spent $622B on Iraq, Obama spends $888B on welfare in 2010 alone

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Story from CNS News. (H/T Weasel Zippers via ECM)

Excerpt:

During the entire administration of George W. Bush, the Iraq war cost a total of $622 billion, according to the Congressional Research Service.

President Obama’s welfare spending will reach $888 billion in a single fiscal year–2010–more than the Bush administration spent on war in Iraq from the first “shock and awe” attack in 2003 until Bush left office in January.

Obama’s spending proposals call for the largest increases in welfare benefits in U.S. history, according to a report by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. This will lead to a spending total of $10.3 trillion over the next decade on various welfare programs. These include cash payments, food, housing, Medicaid and various social services for low-income Americans and those at 200 percent of the poverty level, or $44,000 for a family of four. Among that total, $7.5 trillion will be federal money and $2.8 trillion will be federally mandated state expenditures.

I personally know a lot of people who voted for Obama because we were spending too much on the war. The government’s job is to fight against the enemies of the United States. The government’s job is not to equalize life outcomes regardless of lifestyle choices. But I guess Obama has to buy votes somehow! How else will he be able to get re-elected unless he takes from the productive minority to pay for the votes of the irresponsible majority?

Don’t forget my previous post on the CBO’s projections about Social Security running cash deficits in starting in 2010.

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News

Obama’s green czar explains how environmentalism is a front for communism

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The audio is up at Powerline blog. (H/T ECM)

Listen to Van Jones, Obama’s green czar, explain how the green movement’s goal is nothing less than total redistribution of wealth in a communist system.

Scott Johnson writes:

We’ve written about Obama administration green jobs commissar Van Jones as a Communist in the White House. Jim Hoft posts the video of Jones unburdening himself before a friendly audience without inhibition. Jones gives new meaning to the term vulgar Marxist.

Now courtesy of Breitbart.tv and Naked Emperor News we have Jones explaining the deep meaning of the Obama administration’s devotion to “green jobs.” The goal of green jobs is complete revolution step by step away from gray capitalism until the forces of oppression are overcome. The video concludes with a tribute to Jones from Obama alter ego Valerie Jarrett.

Thank you for the explanation, Comrade Jones.

UPDATE: Jim Hoft also notes that Comrade Jones appears to be a 9/11 Truther. He’s the kind of guy Bill Clinton has previously said should be ashamed of himself (“how dare you?”), on that ground alone.

But don’t call Obama a communist. Oh no no no no.

The White House responds:

Asked if controversial White House official Van Jones continues to enjoy the confidence of President Obama given recent revelations about his involvement with those who suggest the Bush administration knew about the 9/11 attacks and allowed them to happen in order to justify a war for oil, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs Friday morning would only say “he continues to work in this administration.”

More on Van Jones:

Van Jones says “When somebody had taken the American flag and turned it into a war flag and used it to beat and whip and lynch anybody who didn’t agree that we should be bombing people and torturing people…”

Van Jones rallies for cop-killer

Van Jones says that the US is an “aparteid regime”

Van Jones says only white kids shoot up schools

Sounds like a pretty typical Democrat.

News

Ontario Human Rights Tribunal says that in vitro fertilization is a right

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Story from the Globe and Mail. (H/T Scaramouche via Blazing Cat Fur)

Excerpt:

Six months ago, Ana Ilha knew her biological clock was ticking. She just didn’t know it was ticking so fast.

But when the Ontario Health Insurance Plan would not cover fertility treatments because of the source of her problems – at 37, her eggs were running out abnormally fast, a condition called a low ovarian reserve – she decided to take action.

She and her husband, University of Ottawa professor Amir Attaran, filed a complaint with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario on Monday. They argue OHIP’s policy is discriminatory, since it covers in vitro fertilization only in limited circumstances.

“It’s a medical condition like any other,” Ms. Ilha said. “Couples like us should not have to suffer financially in addition to suffering emotionally.”

Their case is part of a debate in Canada’s two largest provinces, and it could soon spread across the country.

In Quebec, high-profile TV personality Julie Snyder, the wife of Quebecor CEO Pierre-Karl Péladeau, urged the province to cover IVF treatments. She made a documentary about infertility and put pressure on politicians.

In April, Premier Jean Charest’s government announced that it will fund three IVF cycles for couples, making Quebec the only province to do so.

Seang Lin Tan, a fertility expert at the McGill University Health Centre in Montreal, said one in eight Canadian couples struggles with infertility.

“What’s frustrating, is that people who would be good candidates are routinely told they have to dig into their pockets,” Prof. Attaran said. “I’m fortunate, law professors get paid decently. But that’s not true for everyone.”

After a year of trying to conceive, the couple paid $6,300 for one IVF treatment at an Ottawa fertility clinic. A further $6,500 in drugs was covered by private insurance…

What this means is that ordinary working families will pay for the fertitlity treatments of aging, infertile women who put their careers before children. So what if they made that decision themselves based on their own ideology? They didn’t do anything wrong, and no harm done. Except the tens of thousands of dollars that must be taken from ordinary Canadians dying while waiting for critical care on a waiting list.

Meanwhile, men who get prostate cancer in Canada are 184% more likely to die than in the USA. But women are much better off in a single-payer system – breast cancer mortality is only 9% higher in Canada than in the USA. Everyone is equal – but some people are more equal than others.