when is a book not a book

When is a Book not a Book

Sarah Palin has a book out on politics. So what? Obama wrote a book also. Again, so what? Politicians, actors (sorry about the redundancy), journalists, commentators, and dozens of others write books. And again, so what?

If you buy one looking for an epiphany of some sort, all you’ll discover is the same old garbage rehashed from that individual’s point of view.

I haven’t read any of them, but I’ll wager you half the facts in each are questionable with some being outright lies. Sorry, I mean ‘fabrications’. Our present administration is big on political correctness. We don’t have a ‘war on terror’ any longer. No, it’s something like ‘overseas contingency’ or some such nonsense.

Skewing the truth, which appears to be a prerequisite for political office at the state and federal level, is a means to confuse and mislead citizens, a ploy that has proven quite successful.

I did watch Palin on TV the other night. I don’t know if I would vote for her or not, but one thing that caught my attention was the remark that in the proposed health bill, people will have to buy policies that "will cost a minimum of about $15,000 per family per year." That’s when I sat up and took notice.

Doing some research on her comment, of which I admit I was very skeptical, I ran across the following details on PolitiFact, an impartial project of the ‘St. Petersburg Times’.

The article cast a fairly understanding light on that fifteen thousand dollar remark. You might want to pay attention, especially, if you buy your own insurance.

Currently, the bill more or less won’t tinker with those who get insurance through work, VA, Medicare, or Medicaid. (nobody can say what it will do tomorrow)

The poor souls it lambasts are those who buy it on their own or who are uninsured. Folks of modest means will get a credit to help buy it, and the poorest will be put on Medicaid.

The $15,000 is not something Palin created as a political ploy. The figure came from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which found that when all the reforms are enacted by 2016, a basic family policy will cost $15,000.

What about the tax credits? Well, right now, it is on a sliding scale up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level, which means for a family of four making under $88,200 or a single under $43,320, there will be some relief. How much? Beats me. That’s another one of those ‘reforms’ left up to a panel of bureaucrats, so guess what?

She was wrong when she made the comment that Reagan inherited a recession much worse than this one. Lou Jacobson of the ‘St. Petersburg News’ talked with economists and compared statistics of the current recession with the one from the early 1980s. The consensus was that this recession is worse.

Why? Well, from what he wrote, economists (not bureaucrats) believe short and long-term employment will continue to rise; industrial production will continue to fall; more banks will fail; and more foreclosures will take place.

On the other hand, she was right when she stated that Obama admitted that “under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket."

In fairness to him, he went on to say, "Coal-powered plants, you know, natural gas, you name it, whatever the plants were, whatever the industry was, they would have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money. They will pass that money on to consumers."

All I can say is that joker is mighty anxious to spend my money.
If you’ve been paying any attention, you’ve seen the press Palin is getting about her book.

Perhaps it’s my imagination, but it seems to me the last time I witnessed such a groundswell of adoration was prior to the 2008 election when the majority of Americans swept up in Obamamania.

Remember the old saying, ‘fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.”

Let’s don’t let emotion cause us to make another big mistake like the one we have now. Let’s start asking hard questions and demanding straight answers for all of the politicians. We can’t afford more of the same.