Archive for Federal Government
Can We Really Trust Obama?
Posted by: | CommentsPublished on DickMorris.com on October 28, 2009
How can the government pretend that it can manage, overhaul, streamline, and reform the health care system in the United States when it can’t even deliver enough flu shots to prevent a pandemic?
We have seen the H1N1 virus coming for over a year. It is no surprise that much of America needs vaccination. It was no secret that the flu season was approaching. But, now that it is upon us, we find ourselves pathetically short of shots.
One year ago, the government told us that we would have hundreds of millions of vaccinations available. Then, over the summer, the prediction was that 40 million would be on hand by the end of October.
Last month, the estimate was scaled back to 28 million. And, as of late last week, only 11.5 million had been delivered, leaving tens of millions vulnerable and, tragically, likely leading to hundreds of preventable deaths. Given the tendency of the virus to strike the young, many of those deaths will be among children.
It should be a fairly simple task to produce and distribute a vaccine – as we do with regular flu shots each and every year. But it was apparently beyond the capacity of the Obama Administration to manage such a routine feat.
If it can’t run the epidemiological equivalent of a two-car funeral, how can Obama promise that the government will do an adequate job of managing the nation’s health care system? (To say nothing of two car companies and a trove of banks and insurance firms?)
In the debate over health care, the implicit assumption has been that the government can act with competence and timeliness. The discussion has largely centered on what powers to give the government – not on whether it had the ability to wield this new authority. The bill making its way through Congress empowers the federal government to decide on protocols of health care, penalize excessive costs, and moderate reimbursement fees. These are all difficult and delicate tasks and involve decision which must be made promptly and wisely for the system to have a chance of working. Otherwise, endless delays, bottlenecks, and snafus can eventuate. And these failures can have drastic consequences for the health of all Americans.
Do we really have confidence in government’s ability to make these decisions? Does its manifest inability to protect us from the Swine Flu do anything to inspire such confidence?
Not so far!
Congressman Cole Co-Sponsors Halt ACORN’s Funding
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Cole Co-Sponsors Legislation to Halt ACORN’s Federal Funding
WASHINGTON – Congressman Tom Cole (OK-04) recently co-sponsored the “Defund ACORN Act.” This legislation calls for the federal government to cut financial ties with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). Cole has consistently condemned the housing association’s abuses and wants the federal government to stop sending taxpayer dollars to ACORN and its affiliates.
”It defies common sense and common decency that an organization like ACORN receives any federal funding,” Congressman Cole said. “The numerous incidents of voter registration fraud should have been enough to stop funding this criminal enterprise, but the recent video tape of ACORN employees making suggestions to a couple as to how they could better conceal and profit from an underage prostitution ring is simply too much. Federal funding for ACORN must stop immediately and permanently.”
Liz Eddy
Press Secretary
Congressman Tom Cole (OK-04)
2458 Rayburn House Office Bldg.
Washington, D.C. 20515
V: 202.225.6165
F: 202.225.3512
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Dealing With The Federal Bureaucracy
Posted by: | CommentsBelow is a nice article by State Representative Jason Murphey in Logan County.
Last week, Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn made a point of exposing the horrendous misuse of our gas tax dollars. Each time you buy gas, you pay about 18 cents per gallon which is remitted to the federal government. This money is supposed to be used to build and repair roads. Coburn explained that a third of this money is being used for items such as scenic beautification, bike paths, pedestrian walkways, transportation museums and environmental concerns.
Coburn’s testimony matches with what our local officials experience on a regular basis. You can only imagine how frustrating it is for local leaders who are fighting a desperate battle to repair roads to see how money is siphoned off for these superfluous purposes — while the roads go unfunded.
Not only are our federal tax dollars inappropriately spent, but the funds that are allowed to come back to state and local government for paving roads do so with horrible, bureaucratic, one-size-fits-all controls that handicap local leaders.
An example of this is the upcoming re-pavement of Broadway Road. Logan County received funding for the road in part because it experiences an extremely heavy traffic count (6000 per day) which is wearing away the road surface. However, federal red tape won’t let the county use this money to pave the road where the heaviest traffic is located.
A federal rule requires that a road this busy cannot be paved with federal funds unless it is widened and shoulder space is added. The amount of funding does not come close to allowing these types of improvements to occur. This means the road will be repaved farther to the north where the widening is not necessary and the need for re-paving is not nearly as strong.
Because of this federal rule, well-meaning though it may be, the worst part of the road cannot be fixed while the part of the road that is not so needy will receive a very nice repaving job. This means the county must scramble to find a way to fix the heavily traveled part of the road with other funding sources.
Recently, county officials from the central Oklahoma region were called into a training session where they were coached on the rules they should abide by because they receive federal funds (money they took from us through the federal gas tax). An example of one of these rules is a Title VI rule requiring local governments to produce materials in multiple languages. You can only image how infuriating it is for county officials who want to make improvements such as paving roads to be told that instead of doing this, they have to spend money producing their documents in foreign languages.
Another point of contention between federal and county government is the fact that county government is required to produce an environmental impact study for events as simple as the placement of a road sign. What kind of world do we live in when taxpayers have to pay for an environmental study just to put up a sign?
In my view, Oklahoma would be far better off by refusing to participate in this ridiculous system and stop remitting gas tax money to the federal government. Those funds would be used much more efficiently if they were simply sent directly to ODOT and the local governments without the federal filter allowing the federal government to dictate their agenda.
