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Arguments for Delay in Enactment of a Health Care Bill
Enclosure to August 24, 1994, Letters
The main constraint on constructive actions, that may be taken by the United States, in foreign and domestic affairs, now and over at least the next two generations, is the horrendous national debt, and its debilitating and ever-burgeoning interest burden. Presidents Reagan, Bush, and Clinton; and members of the 97th through 103rd Congresses; even in the relatively "normal" years of 1981 through mid 1994; have failed the American people, by not governing to balanced budgets, and limited national debts. They have thereby placed the nation in greater peril, than any Administrations and Congresses in our past history, who failed to maintain our military preparedness between wars.
Notwithstanding the enactment (by the 103rd Congress and President Clinton) of the economic plan, which seeks to achieve a $500 billion reduction, in the growth of deficit spending over the next 5 years; and, if we are blessed with a continuation of these relatively "normal" years; sooner or later, the effects of the interest burden, and the size of the national debt, will bring the nation to its knees. Draconian measures, exceeding those of the 1930s, will be required to keep the nation alive and out of anarchy.
Infrequently heralded by the media, and not appreciated by the man on the street, is the fact that the economic defenses of the nation are down on a second front. The federal government is above its eyeballs in risks, due to explicit and implicit guarantees, on which the Presidents and the Congresses have failed to put any limits. Any mishandling of the economy can cause these guarantees to be called (as in the savings and loans', and banks', failures of the 1980s). Such an event, piled on top of the continued ballooning of the interest burden, and size of the national debt, would send the nation (not to its knees but) flat on its face.
Some years ago, these explicit guarantees exceeded $6 trillion; by now, they may exceed twice the national debt of $4.6 trillion. These are the bank (and surviving savings and loan) deposits, and the various federal government backed loans (FHA and VA home, farm, student, small business, other Government Sponsored Enterprise, et al). Perhaps more implicit, rather than explicit, are the federal government's commitments to bail out failing insurance companies, and private company and union employee's defined benefit pension plans. Outside of these guarantees are the unfunded obligations of the federal government, to pay retirement and health care costs for its own (current and retired) military and civilian employees.
From the above, it is clear that the nation can ill afford to enact a Health Care bill, that will in any way add to its deficits, national debt, guarantees, or obligations. Certainly, before a Health Care bill is enacted, there must be complete confidence that the out-of-control costs, mistakes, and injustices of Social Security, Supplemental Security Income, Medicare, and Medicaid, will be avoided. That confidence is not there in the political machinations of the Presidency, and the Congress, that Americans are witnessing.
If this (the cacophony of Health Care bills on Capitol Hill) were a proposed weapon system, the President or the Congress would bad-mouth the military service, and send the system reeling back to the earliest definition stage (mission requirements). The message would be loud and clear: "Don't come back until you know what you are doing!"
For over forty years, in two "hot" wars and a continuous "cold" war, the United States disputed socialistic/communistic type societies. At great cost in lives and national resources, we finally won the debate. The essence of socialism/communism is, that personal and family responsibility are replaced by state responsibility; that through the state, the earnings and wealth of the one, is taken and given to the other. Do we really want to introduce yet another (Health Care) system based on socialistic/communistic principles; rather than the "justice" and "property rights" called for in our Constitution?
The Secretary of Defense would be booted in the rear, were he to permit a military service to propose to the President, and the Congress, a weapon system that had not taken into account the interrelationships with weapon systems of the other services, the consistency with the nation's foreign policy, and the effects on the domestic economy. In like manner, a Health Care bill cannot be sufficiently definitive, until the federal government decides what it is going to do in the areas of crime (witness the indecision and incompleteness of the recent bill), guns (will the NRA continue to reign supreme?), drugs, immorality, poverty, and immigration. All of these have a severe effect, on our Health Care System. There can be no confidence in the cost projections and controls, until these interfaces (interrelationships) are sufficiently defined.
For all of its wars, the United States has recognized the conscientious objector, not requiring him to participate in the killing of its enemies. In conscience those, who believe that the developing human being in the womb is indeed a human being, what ever the stage of his or her development, cannot participate in any manner in abortion. Any Health Care enactment must not compel these conscientious objectors, to aid and abet abortion, through direct or indirect services, fees, taxes, or premiums.
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