Our last national generic ballot poll found the Republicans ahead 45-42 despite the fact that Congressional Republicans had a 24/61 approval rating. Even among respondents who said they were going to vote Republican the Congressional GOP could muster only a 44/35 approval.

John Boehner and Mitch McConnell are going to claim a mandate when their party does well at the polls this fall but they don’t even have much of one with the people who are going to vote Republican this fall, much less with the population at large. If they keep on doing what they’re doing the GOP may well take control of the House this fall and then lose it right back in 2012.

To be honest I’m not at all surprised by PPP’s findings, first American’s aren’t terribly happy with of Congress in general. Second grassroots conservatives still haven’t forgiven the Congressional Republicans for their big spending, big government bender during the Bush years.  And third I suspect if you asked American’s what they really think of Congress they’d say both parties pretty much suck… The current generation of Congressional Democrats only seem to care about expanding the size and intrusiveness of government while spending us into bankruptcy. While Congressional Republicans only seem to care about… To be blunt I don’t know the hell Congressional Republicans care about these days.

Yeah, sure, they’re paying lip service about returning to commonsense conservative principles of limited government, fiscal responsibility, a strong national defense and vibrant free markets, but given their big spending, big government bender during the Bush years they don’t have much credibility there…

Anyway, despite their credibility problems Republicans appear to be headed for significant gains November’s mid-term elections… The question will they hold true to commonsense conservative principles or will they go another big spending, big government bender?

I think that there are very few constitutional limits that would prevent the federal government from rules that could affect your private life. Now, the basis for that would be, how does it affect other people. In other words… The federal government, yes, can do most anything in this country.

His answer is rather chilling, but it seems to reflect the broader attitude of many in Congress… Screw the Constitution we can do whatever we want and you rubes had better get used to it.

Every member of Congress swears an oath to defend the Constitution of United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic:

“I, [State your Name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”

Frankly, I don’t see how Rep. Stark can bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution when he so clearly has no respect for it or the limits it places on the powers of the Federal Government. Ronald Reagan said it best, The federal government has taken too much tax money from the people, too much authority from the states, and too much liberty with the Constitution.

I should note that while the woman questioning Rep. Stark argues very effectively against health care reform on 13th Amendment grounds, as Ed Morrissey notes, Fifth Amendment protections against the confiscation of private property and the Article I, Section 8 mandate that Congress protect ownership ones “exclusive right to their Writings and Discoveries” for those in the sciences and arts also apply.

Update (Wednesday, August 4, 2010): Michelle Malkin has more on Pete Stark’s remarks at last weekend’s town hall… Rep. Stark apparently didn’t know what the Government’s E-Verify program is and mockingly told his constituents that denying jobs to illegal aliens could be “unconstitutional.”

Wow, Pete Stark is another great example of why we need Congressional Term limits. Never mind his convoluted views on the Constitution, he’s openly contemptuous of the people he was elected to represent. Rep. Stark seems to have forgotten that he is an elected representative who serves at the will of the people, it’s time for the people of California’s 13th congressional district to send into retirement.

Related

• Judge lets Virginia healthcare challenge proceed – Reuters
• ObamaCare and the Constitution—An Update – Betsy McCaughey, The Wall Street Journal

Voter unhappiness with Congress has reached the highest level ever recorded by Rasmussen Reports as 71% now say the legislature is doing a poor job.

That’s up ten points from the previous high of 61% reached a month ago.

Only 10% of voters say Congress is doing a good or excellent job.

Nearly half of Democratic voters (48%) now give Congress a poor rating, up 17 points since January. The vast majority of Republicans and voters not affiliated with either party also give Congress poor ratings.

Seventy percent (70%) of voters say Congress has not passed any legislation that would significantly improve life for Americans, up 10 points over the past month and the highest level of dissatisfaction measured in regular tracking in over three years. Only 15% say Congress has passed such legislation.

Forty percent (40%) of voters nationwide now say it is at least somewhat likely Congress will seriously address the most important issues facing the nation. That’s down from 59% last March. Only 9% say it is Very Likely Congress will address these issues.

Heh, heck of a job there Harry, Nancy… Keep doing what you’re doing.

The latest calculation of the National Debt as posted by the Treasury Department has – at least numerically – exceeded the statutory Debt Limit approved by Congress last February as part of the Recovery Act stimulus bill.

The ceiling was set at $12.104 trillion dollars. The latest posting by Treasury shows the National Debt at nearly $12.135 trillion.

A senior Treasury official told CBS News that the department has some “extraordinary accounting tools” it can use to give the government breathing room in the range of $150-billion when the Debt exceeds the Debt Ceiling.

Were it not for those “tools,” the U.S. Government would not have the statutory authority to borrow any more money. It might block issuance of Social Security checks and require a shutdown of some parts of the federal government.

Right, we’re already in debt up to our eyeballs and what’s the Democrats plan?

Keep spending… Look folks, you can’t spend your way to prosperity. Anyone who tells you you can probably thinks an alcoholic can drink his way to sobriety.

Related

• The Audacity of Debt – Wall Street Journal

A new value-added tax (VAT) is “on the table” to help the U.S. address its fiscal liabilities, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Monday night.

Pelosi, appearing on PBS’s “The Charlie Rose Show” asserted that “it’s fair to look at” the VAT as part of an overhaul of the nation’s tax code.

“I would say, Put everything on the table and subject it to the scrutiny that it deserves,” Pelosi told Rose when asked if the VAT has any appeal to her.

The VAT is a tax on manufacturers at each stage of production on the amount of value an additional producer adds to a product.

Pelosi argued that the VAT would level the playing field between U.S. and foreign manufacturers, the latter of which do not have pension and healthcare costs included in the price of their goods because their governments provide those services, financed by similar taxes.

The sad reality is the Federal Government now borrows roughly 50 cents of every dollar it spends, that’s simply unsustainable over the long term… The Obama Administration and Democrats in Congress are either going to have to radically scale back their agenda (something they won’t do) or raise taxes on broad swath of Americans… Something they’re only too happy to do while saying with a straight face “the deficit made us do it.”

Make no mistake a Value Added Tax added on top of our current income tax system will be an economy killer that hits those who can least afford it the the hardest.

One of the problems with any proposed law that’s over 1,000 pages long and constantly changing is that much deviltry can lie in the details. Take the Democrats’ proposal to rewrite health care policy, better known as H.R. 3200 or by opponents as “Obamacare.” (Here’s our CBS News television coverage.)

Section 431(a) of the bill says that the IRS must divulge taxpayer identity information, including the filing status, the modified adjusted gross income, the number of dependents, and “other information as is prescribed by” regulation. That information will be provided to the new Health Choices Commissioner and state health programs and used to determine who qualifies for “affordability credits.”

Section 245(b)(2)(A) says the IRS must divulge tax return details — there’s no specified limit on what’s available or unavailable — to the Health Choices Commissioner. The purpose, again, is to verify “affordability credits.”

Section 1801(a) says that the Social Security Administration can obtain tax return data on anyone who may be eligible for a “low-income prescription drug subsidy” but has not applied for it.

Yikes, sec. 1801 is probably the most disturbing. Sections 245 and 431, at least require someone to apply for “affordability credits” before their tax information is shared with health care bureaucrats. Sec. 1801on the other hand gives the government the authority to simply grab everyone’s records and start searching through them, looking for Americans who may not realize they qualify for a “low-income prescription drug subsidy.”

Amazing, simply amazing… Democrats spent much of the last 8 years complaining about the Bush Administration’s alleged trampling of privacy rights and yet here they are proposing a far more direct trampling taxpayer’s privacy rights.

Ed Morrissey’s right, “… if they’re this cavalier about your privacy on tax records, just imagine what they’ll do with your health records.”

Related

• Obama’s Health Rationer-in-Chief – Wall Street Journal
• ‘Cruel and neglectful’ care of one million NHS patients exposed – Telegraph
• Markey: Medicare will take hit – The Coloradoan

Rep. Massa met with an intimate group of Netroots activists during their annual Netroots Nation gathering in Pittsburgh this past weekend reiterated his support and promised the he would  “… vote adamantly against the interests of my district if I actually think what I am doing is going to be helpful.” In a broad sense I don’t have a problem with that, politicians aren’t supposedly to be automatons who blindly follow public opinion. George W. Bush, for example, ignored broad public opposition to order implementation of the surge strategy in Iraq. And it appears he was right to do so.

The problem here is that when you take Rep. Massa’s remarks in context with remarks by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid calling opponents of health care reform “un-American” and/or an “Evil mob” you’re left with a very frightening impression… You’re left with the impression that our elected leaders have forgotten that they were elected to represent we the people, you are left with the impression that they have forgotten they are our  representatives  not are rulers.

Thomas Jefferson said “When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.” We have come to a point were a broad swath of Americans have lost faith in their government… Remarks like those of Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Reid and Rep. Massa’s only serve to reinforce the belief that our elected leaders no longer respect we the people, and instead consider us a bunch of ignorant rubes who need to be told to shut up and stand quietly by while their betters rule the nation.

A day after formally delaying a vote on a healthcare bill and having to accept a further weakening of a public option to compete with private insurers, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) lashed out at the health insurance industry and urged her members to do the same during the August recess.

“They are the villains in this,” Pelosi said of private insurers. “They have been part of the problem in a major way. They are doing everything in their power to stop a public option from happening. And the public has to know that. They can disguise their arguments any way they want, but the fact is that they don’t want the competition.”

As she prepares to send her members home for the month of August having not voted on a healthcare bill — a deadline the Speaker said she would meet for President Obama — Pelosi said she was urging those members to go on the attack against the private insurance industry to try to rally support for the strongest public option possible when negotiations resume in September.

“The more the public knows about what we’re doing, the more they support it, and especially if you’re talking about a public option, because that’s where the insurance companies are making their attack,” Pelosi said. “Our members have to go out there ready to take on a big special interest that has not made our country healthier, has made costs spiral upward, and for whom that is coming to an end.

“It’s almost immoral what they are doing,” added Pelosi, who stood outside her office long after her press conference ended to continue speaking to reporters, even as aides tried in vain to usher her inside. “Of course they’ve been immoral all along in how they have treated the people that they insure with pre-existing conditions, you know, the litany of it all.”

Not to be out done Harry Reid Had the following to say about insurance companies:

“I don’t think we should be crying great big tears about  the insurance industry,” Reid said at a Capitol Hill press conference when asked whether insurance companies should be allowed to charge higher premiums for people with preexisting conditions.

“There is no business in America that makes more money than the insurance industry–over the last 10 years their profits have been increased by 450 percent,” Reid said. “So I’m not really in very much of a mood to worry about the insurance industry.”

The health insurance industry is so wealthy because it is exempt from anti-trust laws, Reid said: “The insurance industry, my friends, is the only industry other than baseball that is exempt from the anti-trust act, and that’s the reason they have 450 percent profit over the last ten years.”

Whew, talk about winning strategy… Take the least popular politicians in American and have them go off on half baked rants about evil insurance companies. They’re comments are nothing more than a blatant attempt to satisfy Democratic demands for a villain to demagogue in selling health care reform.

For all their talk about “competition, they’re pushing one most anti-competitive measures  in American History… With all due respect to Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid, Democrats control the White House, have filibuster proof 60 majority in the Senate and 256 seat Majority in the House… You don’t need Republican support to pass a health care reform bill.

The fact that Speaker Pelosi and Majority Reid can’t get a reform bill through Congress has nothing to with insurance companies or Republican opposition. The simple truth is they are unwilling to work with centrists, the “Blue Dog” Democrats,  in their own caucus who are apparently getting an earful from constituents who are vehemently opposed to Obamacare.

Oh, and by the way Harry, Nancy, you might want to read Stephen Carter’s Washington Post Op Ed on why corporate profits are good thing… I’m sure it’ll be lost on you, but read it just the same. You might learn something.

Update (7:35 p.m.): I’m shocked, shocked I tell you… Jonathan Allen at CQ Politics is reporting that while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi may think health insurance companies are “villains” she’s prefect willing to keep their money. Most ethical Congress ever, heh.

Related

• Senate Dems blame media for August health deadline – The Hill
• Police called on retirees at senator’s LA office – San Francisco Chronicle
• Barney Frank: Yes, a public plan will lead to a government takeover of health care – Hot Air

Senate Democratic leaders on Thursday abandoned plans for a vote on health care before Congress’ August recess, dealing a blow to President Barack Obama’s ambitious timetable to revamp the nation’s $2.4 trillion system of medical care.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., delivered the official pronouncement, saying, “It’s better to have a product based on quality and thoughtfulness rather than try to jam something through.”

His words were a near-echo of Republicans who have criticized what they have called a rush to act on complex legislation that affects every American.

Reid’s announcement isn’t particularly surprising, he doesn’t have the votes in Senate and despite her claims to the contrary I doubt Speaker Pelosi has them in the House either… If they did there’s nothing the Republicans could do to stop them from passing the bills. The Democrats have sufficient majorities in the House and Senate to pass their Health care reform bill without a single Republican vote.

The fact that they can’t get it down says more about the popularity of this bill and leadership abilities of Pres. Obama, Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid than it does about Republican opposition.

The fight isn’t over though, the just got a lot longer and bumpier but the Democrats aren’t going to give up on this. As Marc Armbinder points out Sen. Reid is more than likely going to spend his summer recess trying to reconcile what the Seante Finance Committee is willing to pay for with what the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee wants.

As an aside, that oft quoted “47 million uninsured Americans” statistic is at best misleading… As CNSNews.com points then number comes from a Census Bureau report published in August 2008. The actual number given in the report is 45.65 million people without health insurance, of them 9.73 million are foreigners, leaving only 35.92 million Americans who were uninsured. Of that 36 million roughly 12 million are eligible for Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program–but haven’t signed up.

Once you drill down through all the numbers you’re left with roughly 10-12 million uninsured Americans who would prefer to have insurance but can’t afford it. Politicians and pundits who continually cite that 46, 47 or 48 million uninsured number without providing the full context are doing a great disservice to their constituents or readers.

Bottom line if our elected leaders were really interested in addressing the uninsured they’d focus their efforts on increasing participation in existing programs like Medicaid or SCHIP and providing a safety net for those how want insurance but either don’t qualify for existing programs or who are excluded because pre-existing conditions.

Related

• Pelosi backs off recess healthcare deadline – The Hill
• Obama Accepts Health Won’t Be Done by Recess – Wall Street Journal
• Stocks Surge as Obamacare Implodes – Larry Kudlow
• Breaking: Reid caves on August deadline for ObamaCare – Hot Air
• Fox “Hannity” tonight – “Hawaii’s Universal Health Plan” – Wizbang
• President Obama Failed To Calm The Nation’s Health Care Fears – The Strata-Sphere
• Why Obama might have just killed Obamacare – James Pethokoukis