The Credibility Gap in D.C. is Wide — and Getting Wider

“What we are witnessing in D.C. is a likely bloodbath at the polls in 2020.”

Let’s just step back, all take a deep breath, and for a moment reflect on where the United States really is politically. And we may be in a place that you don’t even realize we are. While we are reflecting, let’s forget about the great obvious and very visually good things that have occurred in the first 2 years of the Trump presidency: unemployment all-time records (on the low side), federal revenue all-time records, more jobs available than people to fill them, corporate expansion and new hiring exploding, tax cuts for corporations and the middle class, etc. Instead of going into the details of those accomplishments, let’s dig deeper and examine those things that have led to the path on which we find ourselves — the “foundation” that has been prepared on which those “good things” could be and have been based. Then we will look ahead to 2020 and look closely at how the current political climate will directly impact the election results in 2020. In doing this analysis, let’s look at these categories that are critical in the lives of all Americans:

• Healthcare
• Jobs and employment
• Taxes
• Immigration
• The American Political Atmosphere

Healthcare

In 1992, I started a Medical Reimbursement Management Company in the spare bedroom of my home. It was just me, a card file, and a telephone getting started. Without bragging, let me say it’s been a really good ride. I have transitioned ownership to a son-in-law who came aboard as IT Director about 15 years ago. I’m telling you this to say, we know Healthcare from the bottom up — from the perspective of what drives every successful business in America: the $$$.

The U.S. — in spite of what you hear every day — does NOT have a Healthcare problem. The U.S. has a Healthcare “Finance” problem.

American Healthcare is among the best healthcare systems in the World. The current political climate finds politicians clamoring for “Healthcare Overhaul.” That is a dangerous path for the nation to walk down. Medical Services provided under the current healthcare system are amazing. Costs and Healthcare Services are two vastly different things. And politicians are crying for the wrong things to happen — and in many cases, I think purposely so. We need to LEAVE healthcare itself alone, but fight for “healthcare finance reform.”

This administration has initiated a so-far successful plan to fight for an across-the-board reduction in the costs of prescription drugs. The same drugs we buy in the U.S. are bought in other countries. Yet we pay monumentally more for most of those prescription drugs than do those in other countries. Why is that? Legislative lobbying. Lobbyists give perks to members of Congress who then pass drug price legislation that favor American pharmaceutical companies and their American retail sales prices. Their reasoning: drug companies contend they MUST cover their costs for research, testing, and creation of bringing new drugs to the market by keeping drug prices high in the U.S. While that is happening, they contend they can sell the same products overseas for a “more reasonable price.” That certainly sounds good to folks in Canada! And there are Detroit residents who take advantage of that and drive across the border bridge to Windsor, Canada — just a couple of miles away — to buy American pharmaceuticals at MUCH lower prices! Fixing Healthcare starts there, and we’ve already made a good start.

Secondly, medical procedures and product charges need to be based totally on a fee schedule: the price allowed for every medical procedure and product available and used by healthcare professionals. There’s already such a schedule in place that has been used successfully in the U.S. for decades. It’s a “Medicare Part B” fee schedule. Retail prices are not considered in that schedule. It includes only “allowables:” the prices that providers will be paid by Medicare and secondary insurance companies. That schedule is adjusted based on zip codes for providers.

Obviously, a heart bypass operation costs a surgeon more to perform in Manhattan than in Arcadia, Louisiana. A Manhattan surgeon, therefore, will get paid more for the same bypass than does a surgeon rural in Louisiana. And they’re fair prices.

There are many on the provider side in healthcare who scream “Medicare fee schedule rates are too low. We can’t operate at those prices!” Here’s what I KNOW from managing this for so long: if EVERY provider (physician and/or hospital) knows that for EVERY service they provide they will receive whatever the exact amount allowed on that fee schedule within a certain amount of time — like 45 days — they’ll jump at that opportunity ONCE THE FACTS ARE PUT IN FRONT OF THEM. I am certain of that fact.

Why are medical prices so high now? Because so many medical bills NEVER get paid at all. Medical providers are forced to jack-up all their prices, hoping that insurance companies will pay those too-high prices that will offset their losses for the services they provide that go unpaid!

A fee schedule WILL work IF we try it.

Jobs and Employment

The facts speak for themselves: unemployment in various segments are at all-time lows; there are more jobs available than there are people to fill them; corporate expansions are sky-rocketing; wages have begun to rise steadily; there are more people employed than ever before in U.S. history; domestic companies are repatriating profits being held overseas back to the United States and putting that money into capital markets for corporate growth and expansion. It’s the capital market system of free market ideas. And it works! “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” And it ain’t broke.

Taxes

Much of the good economic news in America is a direct result of the tax reductions under the Trump Administration, both for corporations and Americans personally. It is important to note that federal tax revenues have increased dramatically in the past two years, even with these tax cuts. How could that possibly be?

That’s the way a free market system works. Liberals wrongly think that reducing taxes automatically reduces federal income. But the exact opposite is true. Here’s how the process works:

• In error, liberals think if taxes on corporations are lowered, those corporations will take that extra money and keep it as “profits.” That’s incorrect;
• Corporations typically take that extra income and expand their operations, buy new equipment, add new buildings, market more aggressively to get new business, give existing employees raises, and add new employees as they attract new clients;
• The same concept holds true for personal tax cuts. People who keep more of their own money buy new things, renovate their homes, buy NEW homes, buy NEW cars, travel more, etc. They seldom just stick that money in the bank;
• When corporations and individuals have more money, they put more money into the free market. That in itself impacts the atmosphere of business and stimulates positive feelings derived from positive things happening. Growth happens in part just because consumer confidence levels rise.

Immigration

The U.S. is a nation of immigrants. But the U.S. is also a nation of laws. That fact seems to be lost to America’s lawmakers today. But it has served the immigration process well for 200+ years — until today.

Each year the U.S. Rewards 1 million foreigners legal status — mostly full citizenship — in the United States. In comparison, that 1 million number equals the total number of legal immigrants accepted into every other country on Earth — COMBINED!

No one knows for certain how many illegals there are today in the U.S. nor how many are sneaking into the U.S. every week. What we DO know is that number is in the millions.

What else Americans do not know is why we have ANY illegals here for ANY reasons. There is NO good answer to that question. But there are answers — just no GOOD ones.

• There have been (and always will be) a number of illegals who find their way into the U.S. That though a criminal act occurs in every other country as well. But nowhere else has there been near the number of illegal entries as there are in the U.S. Many foreigners want to come here. But the current environment of there being so many here illegally is unsustainable. Yet politicians — mostly on the Left — continue to (as they have for decades) resist correcting the legal process to stop illegal immigration.
• There are immediate financial benefits for having illegals. Illegals primarily find manual labor, which often is handled outside the normal U.S. employment process. Illegals generally do not have social security status and therefore in large get paid without payroll deductions — social security, federal, state, and local taxes — which allows employers to Illegally skip reporting those as employees. Employers therefore can pay lower gross wages to illegals. That — no payroll deductions — in effect means illegals for the same jobs receive higher take-home pay than do their legal counterparts. And employers because of not paying the legal deductions save money with illegal workers.
• Illegals will often work in menial tasks that many Americans refuse.
• The primary reason for the continuation of massive illegal entries into the country is for political purposes. Those on the Left identify illegals as certain future Democrat voters. There are many who feel strongly that even right now, illegals in some states find ways to vote illegally in federal elections. Democrats feel certain that when they regain a strong majority in both Houses of Congress and the White House simultaneously, they will be successful at passing legislation to change voting laws to allow ALL illegals to vote in federal elections.
• Dems are certain the current class of illegals will certainly vote for Democrats, thus assuring the continuation of their party and its liberal policies.

It is important to note that the Democrat Party depends for its very existence on the perpetuation of a “Dependent Class” of Americans. Democrats must have in their control those who maintain government financial assistance to survive. Those peoples’ reliance on Democrats obligates their support of the Democrat Party and their candidates. Otherwise, Democrats have no policy offerings at all to counter the current good economic climate in the U.S. that was initiated under Trump.

The American Political Atmosphere

Here’s where the nation is in real trouble. Not in my lifetime has there existed a political atmosphere so negative, so vitriolic, so full of hate and so divided. Those on the Left blame this president and his followers. Those on the Right blame the Left for their quest to move voters in the nation so far away from conservative ideals.

There is little respect for diversity of thought and opinion anymore. I remember in the early to mid-70s when at my university in the South, there was a modicum of respect for the opinions of those who would stand and speak in the Quadrangle at noon expressing their political opinions. Yes, there were those with differing opinions. And, yes, there was sometimes arguing that escalated between some of those. But I never saw hatred and total disdain.

In American politics, we have devolved from “differing opinions” to outright “hatred” for those with opposing political views. When else in American history has any organized group that purports to protest against those who speak at a Free Speech rally show up at that rally to NOT support Free Speech speakers, but to attack them? That is exactly what ANTIFA has been doing for 2 years. And at those rallies, members of ANTIFA are seen physically attacking conservatives. “ANTIFA” stands for “anti-fascists.” Yet ANTIFA’s goal at these rallies is to demonize Free Speech and those who support it.

Do you know what’s odd about their doing so? Most Americans think ANTIFA really represents their namesake! Most Americans think those conservatives against who ANTIFA demonstrate are the bad guys in this whole thing.

It’s not much better elsewhere in politics. Congress — where conservative and liberal ideals are supposed to be turned into laws to govern every aspect of American life — has simply discovered the comfort in doing very little as part of the legislative process so as to not cause any heartburn regarding legislation — that instead of the process that should result in lawmaking. Instead, they are content to either investigate, hold press conferences in which their only agenda seems to be to demonize all those with differing opinions and to be careful in what and how they do the little they do to make only as few waves as possible.

Meanwhile, the electorate is steaming with partisanship they parrot from their Congressional counterparts. The rule of the day in politics instead of mandating peaceful discourse and discussion of ideas is to attack all ideas and all those who espouse such ideas that differ from your own. Even in the ’60s with the Vietnam War the anger and hatred for those with opposing ideas were not nearly as caustic as those today. Political opponents are not necessarily Democrats and Republicans. Those just represent opposing political parties. The hatred and animus run much deeper: Female against Male, Heterosexual against Homosexual, Black against White, American against non-American, Pro-Life against Pro-Choice, etc. And the vitriol between all of these is the type that can and does often turn into violence.

To complicate matters, the Left hates this president. Because of their hatred, everything they do in legislation or other parts of the federal government is colored by that disdain for him. Their angst for Donald Trump is primarily driven by the election trouncing of their certain 2016 White House victor: Hillary Clinton. None gave any chance to the New York billionaire. But enough Americans with differing opinions gave him a huge electoral college whipping over Ms. Clinton. And the Left have not forgiven Trump and will not do so.

That’s why we find ourselves where we are today: in pure political pandemonium. Don’t get me wrong: governing continues. Good things are happening, and the void between the two versions of political thinking get wider and wider with each passing day. And every Trump victory morphs immediately into another pointed finger in the eyes of the Left.

So what’s going to happen?

• The Trump victories that are heretofore numerous in as well are unexpected will continue. Americans love the fact that a candidate made promises which when elected keeps those promises.
• “It’s the economy, Stupid!” as first uttered by James Carville just before the Bill Clinton victory in re-election in 1996 is still the major contributing factor in Americans’ approval of President Trump. Based on what we know today and expect for the next 2 years, that will continue.
• “Take No Prisoners.” Donald Trump is bombastic. He always keeps his opponents wondering what he’s thinking and what is his next political step. One thing that is certain for all: when he takes action, it’s always decisive, quick, and widely seen. Those on the Left hate it, but there’s no way they can stop it short of impeachment or a 2020 victory in unseating this sitting President.

Summary

Prediction: Trump will NOT be impeached before the 2020 election. He will continue to fight hard against the Left in the same manner in which he has the first 2 years of his presidency. It will get uglier. More outlandish allegations will surface and be thrown against him. But in each, he will be vindicated.

Why is all of this so vile? There must be something to hide. The attackers must have things to hide.

Democrats really wanted President Trump to do something horrific during the Mueller investigation — so horrific that it would prove he is unfit to serve as President. Why else would Representatives Eric Swalwell (D-CA) and Adam Schiff (D-CA) continuously claim they had actual evidence proving that Donald Trump actually colluded with Russians who helped him win in 2016 and that he obstructed justice in doing so? That was the pair’s sharp stick. They expected the verbose billionaire from Queens to take their bait and do something — anything — to shut down the Mueller probe. Because they know Washington D.C. and the Swamp so well, they felt for certain that Mr. Trump had broken the law (like many who serve in Congress) and would be exposed for doing so during the probe. It didn’t happen. Why? THERE’S NO THERE THERE!

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