The health care “reform” bill drafted by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid adds new tax increases, and costs twice as much as its promised $849 billion price tag.

The tax increases (in billions) include:

1. 40% excise tax on health coverage in excess of $8,500 (individuals) / $23,000 (families). . .
2. Additional 0.5% Medicare (Hospital Insurance) tax on wages in excess of $200,000 ($250,000 for joint filers) – begins in 2013 – $54 B tax increase
3. Impose annual fee on manufacturers and importers…

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The Dean of Harvard Medical School just gave the Obama health care plan a “failing grade,” saying it will harm America’s health and finances, and hamper the medical innovation needed to save patients’ lives. Dean Jeffrey S. Flier writes,

In discussions with dozens of health-care leaders and economists, I find near unanimity of opinion that, whatever its shape, the final legislation that will emerge from Congress will markedly accelerate national health-care spending rather than restrain it. Likewise, nearly all agree that the…

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The healthcare “reform” bill backed by Obama “would reduce senior care,” and “could jeopardize access to care for millions,” report healthcare experts at the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The bill also “increases medical costs” through inflation, increasing health-care costs to 21.1 percent of GDP by 2019.

The House of Representatives recently passed the bill by a vote of 220 to 215.

According to the federal experts, the bill would likely either cost much more than projected, or result in some “hospitals and nursing homes” deciding to ”stop taking Medicare…

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Unemployment is now higher in the U.S. than in Europe,  reports the Washington Post.  “The official U.S. unemployment rate, reported last Friday, now stands at 10.2 percent,” compared to “9.7 percent” in Europe.   This is the highest rate in more than 26 years, and marks a huge change from the recent past, in which unemployment was double the American rate in much of Europe, such as in France.

Unemployment is at 10 percent in France, which refused to adopt a U.S.-style stimulus…

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In the Washington Post, Robert J. Samuelson explains in the “Public Plan Mirage” how the so-called “public option” contained in congressional health-care reform bills is just a gimmick: “It pretends to control costs and improve access to quality care when it doesn’t.” Steve Chapman wrote earlier about the “‘Public Option’ Health Care Scam.”

In other news, a study by PriceWaterhouseCoopers found that the provisions in the Senate health care “reform” bill sponsored by Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) would add $1,700 a year…

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When the Senate Finance Committee votes on President Obama’s health care plan, it won’t even have the text of the bill in existence.  It will just be voting on a summary of what the bill will supposedly contain. Senate Democrats voted down Republican proposals that the bill’s text be made available to Senators and the public 72 hours before the vote.

And the bill itself is likely to be changed by Senate leaders at the last minute, right before the Senate…

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The middle class is facing big tax increases thanks to Obama and liberal congressional leaders.

Even the trimmed-down version of Obama’s health-care plan recently announced by a ranking Senator contains lots of tax increases for the middle class (see below).

And the costly cap-and-trade energy legislation passed by the House and supported by Obama would lead to big tax increases in the name of fighting global warming, Administration officials privately have conceded, even though they publicly claim otherwise.  “Officials at the Treasury Department think…

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ObamaCare won’t just raise taxes on the rich, and impose tax penalties on people without approved health-insurance plans. It will also dramatically change tax laws so that “taxpayers will be fined for honest mistakes,” explains prominent New York tax lawyer James M. Peaslee. That’s true even if the mistake resulted from a confusing tax rule, and the taxpayer “tried in good faith to comply with the law.”

(Keep in mind that the health-care bill backed by Obama is over 1,000 pages long, and some…

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“ObamaCare is all about rationing,” says one of Obama’s own advisers, Martin Feldstein. Feldstein earlier noted that Obama’s health-care plan would harm people with insurance, and massively raise taxes.

Civil-libertarian and former ACLU board member Nat Hentoff says that after reading Obama’s health-care plan, he was more scared of the Obama Administration than any other Administration he’s lived under. (In 1995, Hentoff received the National Press Foundation’s Award for lifetime distinguished contributions to journalism).

Legal experts and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights have questioned the…

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An excellent article in the June issue of Commentary Magazine, taking to task President Obama’s broad attacks on the wealth-producers in American society in the name of fairness.  Author Francis Cianfrocca in “Wealth creation under attack”  points out the flaws in this reasoning:

The United States is organized on the principle of the consent of the governed. Power and legitimacy do not flow from the state to the people, but the other way around. In this respect, what individuals do is…

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The $800 billion stimulus package pushed through by Obama has ignited a trade war with Canada, reports the Washington Post. In response to vague “buy American” provisions in the stimulus, “A number of Ontario towns, with a collective population of nearly 500,000, retaliated with measures effectively barring U.S. companies from their municipal contracts — the first shot in a larger campaign that could shut U.S. companies out of billions of dollars worth of Canadian projects.”

A trade war is also underway…

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Harvard economist Martin Feldstein, who has advised Obama, warns that “the barrage of tax increases proposed in President Barack Obama’s budget could, if enacted by Congress, kill any chance of an early and sustained recovery.” He compares Obama’s tax increases to the ones that contributed to the Great Depression and the “Lost Decade” of economic stagnation and decay in Japan.

Feldstein, who serves on Obama’s economic advisory board, has also “warned of serious inflation and higher taxes down the road” as a result of Obama’s policies.

Feldstein singles…

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Federal bailouts and related spending proposed by the Obama Administration now total 8 trillion dollars, according to the American Institute for Economic Research.

To pay for exploding federal spending, Obama’s Congressional allies are mulling huge tax increases. Rep. Jerry McNerney (D-Cal.) wants a 90 percent tax rate. Obama has spent more in his first 50 days, by far, than George Bush spent on the entire Iraq War. That includes a pork-filled $800 billion stimulus package that deceptively repealed welfare reform, and that the…

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The candidates in the recent presidential election argued about whether one of them was advocating socialism.  Actually, it looks like we’re already there.  An ever-growing share of economic activity is ending up under government control.  Reports USA Today:

The government’s spending surge to ease the financial crisis and a worsening recession is increasing the federal share of the nation’s economic activity close to $1 out of every $4, the highest level since World War II, an analysis of current and projected…

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