The critics of Health Care Reform have a point – its expensive. At least $940 Billion worth of expensive over a 10 year period, maybe more. Sure, almost all of it is off-set by taxes and fees.

  But what if I was to tell you that I knew of a way to pay for it, and more, without raising taxes or making any cuts at all?

 It sounds too good to be true, right?

And yet its still true. The trick is hidden in a GAO report from three weeks ago that didn’t get any media attention.

 Improper Payments: Federal entities reported estimates of improper payment amounts that totaled $98.7 billion for fiscal year 2009, which represented about 5 percent of $1.9 trillion of reported outlays for the related programs.

That’s nearly $100 Billion in payments that should not have been made, and $26.2 Billion more than last year. Or to put it another way, that’s more than one year of the cost of health care reform right there.

  Mark Twain once said, “History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme.”

I wonder what Twain would think if he looked around America today?

 When unemployment rates hit crisis levels during the early 1930’s, the unemployed took to the streets and demanded relief aid from the government.

 Today the unemployed are again taking to the streets, but their demands are somewhat different.

 At rallies, gatherings and training sessions in recent months, activists often tell a similar story in interviews: they had lost their jobs, or perhaps watched their homes plummet in value, and they found common cause in the Tea Party’s fight for lower taxes and smaller government.

  The Great Depression, too, mobilized many middle-class people who had fallen on hard times. Though, as Michael Kazin, the author of “The Populist Persuasion,” notes, they tended to push for more government involvement. The Tea Party vehemently wants less – though a number of its members acknowledge that they are relying on government programs for help.

  When a government plans to do something unpopular, they try to hide it.

For instance, when the Democrats decided last month to renew the draconian Patriot Act, they hid it in a medicare reform bill. They originally tried to hide it in a Pentagon funding bill.

  It turned out to be a very successful strategy because it was almost totally ignored by the major media. In fact, it was so successful that last week Congress slipped in what might be the most ominous law of the year.

  There is no stopping it this time.

Last month Senator Jim Bunning created a stir with his stand against extending unemployment benefits to the long-term unemployed through borrowing. After a lot of political grandstanding, it ended after a couple days when both sides agreed to a temporary 30-day extension.

 The 30-days are almost over and nothing has been accomplished. D-Day is approaching for the unlucky millions of long-term unemployed.

 As many as 130,000 Californians are expected to exhaust their unemployment benefits within the next three weeks, based on estimates from the state Employment Development Department. About 3,300 already have fallen off the unemployment rolls.

 That’s 130,000 in just one state. The effects over the entire country will be catastrophic.

  Most people are under the false assumption that the taxpayer bailout of Wall Street banks began and ended with TARP. They couldn’t be more wrong.

  The Wall Street bank bailout began with Federal Reserve subsidies in December 2007, and has continued in one form or another right up to now.

 J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. is nearing a deal that would allow it to benefit from a tax refund of as much as $1.4 billion, becoming the latest company to tap a little-noticed plank in an economic stimulus bill.

  That law let companies apply losses from 2008 or 2009 against taxes paid in the previous five years, instead of the previous two years.

  While the Senate and House have debated the health care reform endlessly, fighting tooth and nail at every step, all the while being broadcast on network television, the financial reform bill is quietly moving along under the radar. On the same day that Senator Dodd proposed his sweeping reform bill, it passed committee.

 “The bill that finally passes on the floor will be a much more business-friendly bill,” Miller said today. “They won’t get a bill done until Dodd and Shelby agree on the compromise, but Republicans do want to get a bill done this year. So there’s incentive for both sides to come to agreement.”

 The fact that the bill is going to be watered down even more is a sad statement to an on-going tragedy.

  Along with “socialism”, “fascism” has become one of the right-wing’s favorite scare word to describe President Obama.

  They use the word fascism with an assortment of other scary adjectives. For instance, we have “liberal fascist”, “fascist socialist”, “socialist fascist”, “socialist/fascist/communist”, and my personal favorite, “national socialist fascist communist”.

  According to one unscientific, online poll, 91% of conservatives were lumping Obama in with “Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin”.

 The problem for the right-wing is their complete and total ignorance of not only the meaning of the word “fascism”, but also of the history surrounding this political and economic movement.

Less than two weeks after the well-publicized capture by Pakistani security forces of the Taliban’s 2nd in command, Pakistan scored an even bigger coup by assisting in the capture of the leader and founder of the notorious terrorist group Jundallah, Abdolmalek Rigi.

Unlike the capture of the Taliban leader, Rigi’s capture has received very little press attention in America. There is an obvious reason for it.

Moslehi said Rigi had been in a US military base 24 hours before his arrest and was carrying an Afghan passport supplied by the US.

Since then Rigi has confessed to one of the most open secrets in southern Asia.

In the tape, Mr Rigi alleged that the US had promised to provide his group with military equipment and a base in Afghanistan, near the Iranian border.

He says he was on his way to a meeting with a “high-ranking person” at the Manas US military base in Kyrgyzstan when he was captured.

  It may be the one-year anniversary of an amazing stock market rally, but economists are sounding rather pessimistic these days.

 A growing expectation of a double-dip recession is evident in a new poll of financial executives…the poll found more than half of financial executives predicting another downturn, and most expecting jobs recovery to lag into 2011.

 The predictions don’t end with just this poll. Nouriel Roubini is also warning of a second leg down, and even more disturbing is this report.

  It’s interesting to read the news on today’s unemployment numbers with a first line of WORST OVER? It then goes on to explain how the numbers were “better than expected” even though the economy continues to bleed jobs.

  Sure, not everything in the report was bad news…just most of it. The media was quick to report that temporary jobs were increasing, but failed to mention that the U-6 was also increasing, that the number of people on permanent layoff was increasing, and that people not in the labor force but still want a job was increasing.

  Let me take you back to Christmas Eve, 2009. It was a time to wrap gifts for loved-ones. That’s how the Obama Administration felt about the financial industry when it lifted all caps in emergency bailout money to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. That means the taxpayer was on the hook for all losses at these two mortgage giants no matter how big the losses are.

   The move caused a slight stir, but never got the attention of the American public because the announcement was timed to coincide with the peak season of distraction. And so it was forgotten…but not by Fannie and Freddie.

  This may be the only time in my life I will ever utter these words: “We could learn a lot from Indonesia.”

 Indonesian police have used tear gas and water canon to disperse about 2,000 anti-government protesters who tried to enter the parliament building in the capital, Jakarta.

  The scuffles broke out on Tuesday as members of parliament began a debate over the possible impeachment of the country’s vice-president and finance minister.

…

  His vice president, Boediono, and finance minister, Sri Mulyani Indrawati, approved the bailout and opposition leaders have demanded their resignation saying they must be held accountable for losses to the state.

 What an amazing concept!

 Imagine holding politicians accountable for the loss of public funds from controversial bank bailouts in 2008. Imagine the citizens of the nation taking the time off from watching TV to protest the funneling of taxpayer money to wealthy, politically-connected investors.

  I wonder if such wacky ideas could catch on in America?