Grandview Area Republican Club

So much for change.

On Tuesday Morning, August 25, the Federal Office of Management and Budget announced that this recession is deeper than we all expected. How much deeper? Unemployment will hit 10% nationwide in the next year, and the Federal Budget Deficit will grow to over $1.5 Trillion Dollars.

From Bloomberg Business News:

U.S. unemployment will surge to 10 percent this year and the budget deficit will widen to $1.5 trillion next year, reflecting a “deeper recession” than previously expected, White House budget chief Peter Orszag said.

The Office of Management and Budget also forecasts that the U.S. economy will shrink 2.8 percent this year, worse than the 1.2 percent contraction the OMB projected in May. For next year, the budget office said the gross domestic product will grow 2.0 percent, less than the 3.2 percent expected in May. By 2011, the economy would be well on its way to recovery, growing at a 3.8 percent annual rate, according to the administration’s mid-year economic review, released this morning.

Read the full article here

GARC President Jennifer LuPiba’s letter to the editor about President Obama’s Health Care Reform suggestions was printed in the Friday, August 14, edition of the Columbus Dispatch! Congradulations to Jen on a well thought out argument being printed for consideration by Central Ohio!

Check out the letter here: http://www.columbusdispatch.com/live/content/editorials/stories/2009/08/14/LuPiba_ART_08-14-09_A10_5HEOJE7.html?sid=101

President Barack Obama proposes to have government run our health-care system, delving into the highly personal decisions of choice of provider as well as quality of care. His assurances that a government-run plan would strengthen our current system while driving down costs don’t hold up.

The president claims patients would be able to keep their choice of provider under his plan, but independent analyses have concluded that millions of Americans would lose their private coverage once a government-run plan is introduced to the marketplace. Recently the president himself admitted that there is nothing in his plan that would prevent employers from dropping the health coverage they currently offer when faced with unfair competition from a government-run plan.

Obama’s promise that care would be strengthened under his plan also is misleading. As more of the population is forced onto the government-run plan, bureaucrats in Washington would have no choice but to ration care and mandate what they consider “best practices” to try to keep costs down.

And the president’s plan would do nothing to lower costs. It would actually drive costs up. The initial price tag for the president’s plan is somewhere between $1 trillion and $2 trillion. The president and Democrats in Congress are considering proposals that would substantially increase taxes on small businesses and the middle class and implement cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. Everyone knows that interjecting government control never has led to lower costs.

Readers should carefully consider the implications of allowing the government to control this very personal part of our lives. A government takeover of our health-care system is the wrong answer.”

JENNIFER LuPIBA
Columbus

What do YOU think? Post your comments below!