Pro-Liberty Health Rally Draws Hundreds

Hundreds of people came to the state capitol in Denver today to protest the political takeover of medicine endorsed by Barack Obama. Slapstick has posted numerous photos and commentary. [Update: See also Slapstick's coverage of the Wednesday rallies in Fort Collins and Colorado Springs.] The Denver Post also published a decent story with photographs.

Face the State has added its collection of photos along with summaries of the talks.

The Denver Business Journal nicely summarizes Jon Caldara's remarks. It also quotes a press release from Regress Now's Michael Huttner, who, because he can't sustain any arguments for his side, resorts to projecting his astroturf green onto a large and obviously grass-roots movement.

The Colorado Springs Gazette summarizes the messages of the daytime rally as well as a smaller, leftist rally the same evening.

On Tuesday evening I joined Bob Glass's radio show to discuss the rally (during the second half of the first hour).

Interviews:


Speaker highlights:


My speech:

Hope and Change in Harry Potter

The following article originally was published by the July 22, 2009, Denver Daily News. It is also available through the Independence Institute website.

Hope and change in Harry Potter

by Ari Armstrong

With Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince breaking movie records, now is a great time to review the political themes of the series.

In the fifth book, Order of the Phoenix, the students of Hogwarts rebel against the Ministry of Magic's unjust exertion of power over the school.

In the final book, Deathly Hallows, the Ministry falls under the control of the evil Lord Voldemort. The fallen government censors the press, brutalizes wizards and Muggles (non-magical people) alike, and persecutes wizards born to the "wrong" parents through the Muggle-Born Registration Commission, echoing the vicious evils of the Nazi era. The Potter series thus features strong anti-totalitarian themes.

Between those two books rests Half-Blood Prince, which tones down the politics in favor of romance and backstory. Yet politics flows in the undercurrents.

In one important scene in the book (that unfortunately didn't make it into the film), the Minister of Magic visits Harry and tries to get him to feign support for the Ministry in order to comfort people.

The Minister says, "It's all perception, isn't it? It's what people believe that's important." He continues, "You are a symbol of hope for many, Harry. The idea that there is somebody out there who might be able... to destroy [Voldemort]... gives people a lift." The Minister urges Harry to "stand alongside the Ministry, and give everyone a boost."

The Minister asks Harry to pop "in and out of the Ministry" to "give the right impression." He offers Harry a payoff in the form of help getting a job. The Minister says, "It's all about giving people hope, the feeling that exciting things are happening."

Harry realizes that misguided "hope" isn't worth much. He retorts, "I don't like some of the things the Ministry's doing. Locking up Stan Shunpike [who is known to be innocent], for instance... You're making Stan a scapegoat, just like you want to make me a mascot."

The Minister condescends, "These are dangerous times, and certain measures need to be taken. You are sixteen years old..." In other words, shut up and do what you're told.

Half-Blood Prince was published in 2005. Four years later, I certainly have the feeling that exciting things are happening here in America. In the name of hope we are offered astronomically expensive new programs that forcibly transfer more wealth from some citizens to others and expand political control over our lives.

These are dangerous times, at least for economic prosperity, and "certain measures need to be taken." What measures? Not even those voting on the bills quite know. It's about perception, giving people a lift, not long-term consequences. At least the rivers of political payola are flowing.

I don't want to pretend that J. K. Rowling, author of the novels, would agree with any of my particular political views. Still, the Minister's words remind me of a lot of what I'm hearing from American politicians these days.

When Rahm Emanuel, President Obama's Chief of Staff, said politicians should "never let a serious crisis go to waste," what is that besides putting the politics of perception above the truth?

Vice President Joe Biden said, "We're going to go bankrupt as a nation. Now when I say that people look at me and say, 'What are you talking about, Joe? You're telling me we got to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt?' The answer is yes, I'm telling you."

The claim that the way to avoid bankruptcy is to rack up insane deficits insults the intelligence of every American family that has ever made a budget. Ah, but "certain measures need to be taken." And we are as children, awaiting the guidance of our political guardians.

I don't like some of the things our government is doing. All the hope in the world cannot compensate for misguided and unjust policies.


Ari Armstrong, a guest writer for the Independence Institute, is the author of Values of Harry Potter and the publisher of FreeColorado.com.

God Wants Political Takeover of Medicine

God wants Congress to take over medicine, at least according to the Colorado Catholic Conference (CCC).

In an "action alert," the CCC today called for legislatively guaranteed "health care coverage for all people from conception until natural death." (The CCC wants "inclusion for legal immigrants," so apparently illegal immigrants would not have access to tax-funded health care under the organization's desired system.)

Even though the CCC wants to use the force of the federal government to compel some people to finance the health care of others' fertilized eggs, the organization wants to forbid forced funding of abortion. The CCC calls on Catholics to demand federal politicians to "continue federal ban on funding for abortions and reject any mandate for abortion coverage or access to abortion."

There is no mention of whether the CCC favors tax funding of contraception, which Catholics regard as sinful.

The CCC also likewise endorses "including freedom of conscience for providers, health care workers and patients." For health care workers, presumably this means that tax-funded doctors and other health care providers may be free not to offer abortion and contraception to patients. Does it also mean that women should be left free to decide whether to get an abortion? (Somehow I doubt that is the CCC's intended meaning.)

Once force guides the process, such decisions will be determined by mob rule and bureaucratic influence. Whether politically-controlled medicine subsidizes or forbids things like abortion and contraception will necessarily become fundamentally a political matter.

The CCC made clear that, in its view, politically-controlled medicine is demanded by God's teachings in the Bible:

Catholic Social Teaching and Health Care: In our Catholic tradition, health care is a basic human right. Access to health care should not depend on where a person works, how much a family earns, or where a person lives. Instead, every person, created in the image and likeness of God, has a right to life and to those things necessary to sustain life, including affordable, quality health care. This teaching is rooted in the biblical call to heal the sick and to serve "the least of these," our concern for human life and dignity, and the principle of the common good. Unfortunately, tens of millions of Americans do not have health insurance. According to the Catholic bishops of the United States, the current health care system is in need of fundamental reform. To learn about Catholic teaching on health care in more detail, read the full statement by the United States Catholic Bishops, A Framework for Comprehensive Health Care Reform, at usccb.org/sdwp/national/comphealth.shtml

For excellent essays on why health care is not a right and why politically-run medicine is a disaster, see Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine.

For why the United States ought not impose religious faith by force of law, see the First Amendment and the material at the Coalition for Secular Government.

DeMint's Health Handouts Violate Liberty

The following article originally was published in the July 20, 2009, edition of Grand Junction's Free Press.

DeMint's health handouts violate liberty

by Linn and Ari Armstrong

Memo to Republican Senator Jim DeMint: tax-subsidized health welfare is not "free-market reform."

DeMint touts his "Health Care Freedom Plan" as an alternative to President Obama's political takeover of medicine. The plan contains some good ideas. It reduces political controls of insurance by allowing people to buy policies out of state. It limits frivolous lawsuits. And it allows people with Health Savings Accounts to use pre-tax money to purchase insurance.

Part of the plan, however, forces some people to finance other people's health care. That's not freedom, it's a threat to throw people in prison if they don't pay up.

Real freedom in medicine means that patients, doctors, and insurers have the right to voluntarily interact to mutual advantage, free from force, fraud, and political controls. Real freedom means that you may choose to pay for somebody else's health care if you want, but others may not force you to pay for their care.

The problem with American medicine is that over decades politicians have seized control of much of medicine, driven up costs, and largely destroyed the market for real health insurance by tying most people to expensive, non-portable, employer-paid insurance.

In order to "solve" the political failures of the past, today's Democrats want to extend their power over medicine by increasing tax subsidies, forcing people to buy politically-controlled insurance, and subjecting doctors to ever more controls.

Now that Lady Liberty needs her Knight in Shining Armor more than ever, some Republicans have busied themselves instead with stabbing freedom advocates in the back.

It was, after all, Republican Mitt Romney who advanced the political takeover of medicine in Massachusetts. That state forces people to buy insurance -- though many there continue to buy it only when they face expensive medical procedures, as a recent Wall Street Journal editorial points out -- and massively subsidizes health expenses with tax dollars.

Massachusetts suffers from exploding costs and doctor shortages, so naturally Democrats want to duplicate that failed experiment on a national scale.

To his credit, DeMint rejects insurance mandates. Yet a core part of DeMint's plan shares Obama's premises that some must be forced to pay for the medicine of others.

DeMint's bill 1324 creates a "refundable tax credit" for non-employer insurance of $2,000 for individuals and $5,000 for families. That's a great idea for those who would simply get a tax break, as it would offset the tax incentive to get overpriced insurance through employers.

The problem is that those who pay less income tax than that would get a subsidy or voucher, in other words a handout.

DeMint disingenuously claims that his vouchers will generate "no cost," as he would redirect "stimulus" money to fund the vouchers. But this is merely changing the recipients of the forced wealth transfers.

The "stimulus" special-interest spending should be stopped immediately, and the federal government should reduce its spending to match so that the real economy can direct those resources productively.

Given the better points of DeMint's bill, are we overly critical of the handouts? The problem is that, by granting the premise that some people should be forced to fund the health care of others, DeMint ultimately grants the entire case to his opponents.

Individuals have the right to their own labor and income. It is wrong to rob Peter to pay for Paul's health care. Forcing some to finance the health care of others violates the rights of those paying the bills and breeds abusiveness and irresponsibility among recipients. DeMint's handouts ignore those truths.

So long as Republicans play the handout game, they will correctly be seen as "me-tooing" the Democrats, and they will continue to lose, step by step, inch by inch, to those who would subject the entire economy to political controls.

DeMint's handouts also distract attention away from the fundamental problem: health insurance is too expensive because of political controls. You solve that problem by repealing the controls, not by hiding them behind another welfare scheme.

In a Fox interview, DeMint praises the market, says "Americans don't want more government in health care," and lauds competition. But a tax-funded free market is a contradiction in terms. If people buy insurance with tax dollars, politicians will continually seek to expand political control over insurance, rather than roll back those controls. Thus, DeMint's handouts will tend to diminish the free market for insurance, not augment it.

We applaud DeMint for looking seriously at ways to redress the problems of politically-manipulated health care. We especially like his reforms of Health Savings Accounts and lawsuits. We agree with DeMint when he says, "No American should be forced into a government-run system that limits their choices and rations their care."

To successfully restore free markets, though, DeMint needs to do something other than promise more handouts. He needs to unequivocally champion the individual's right to his own life, resources, and property.


Linn Armstrong is a local political activist and firearms instructor with the Grand Valley Training Club. His son, Ari, edits FreeColorado.com from the Denver area.

Why I'm Boycotting Wal-Mart

I doubt Wal-Mart notices, but I'm boycotting Wal-Mart because Wal-Mart endorses political control of health care. Forcing people to buy politically-controlled products against their will is a basic violation of individual rights. So long as Wal-Mart endorses this gross violation of rights, I'm certainly not going to contribute any money to the chain to help them do it. I complained to Wal-Mart, and the reply I got back from the store only turned my irritation to outrage. Here is the reply:

Dear Ari,

My name is Ruel. I am with the Walmart.com Customer Service Team. Thank you for allowing me to assist you today.

We appreciate your interest in Wal-Mart's views on the efforts in Congress to craft and pass legislation for Healthcare Reform. At Wal-Mart, we believe in a shared responsibility and support an employer mandate that is broad and fair for all parties involved. We believe this mandate should cover as many businesses as possible, part-time as well as full time employees.

We believe that a mandate must also be accompanied by strong provisions that will reduce health cost and improve the value we get for our health care dollar. Any mandate should guarantee savings for the federal government and for employers who provide health insurance.

Wal-Mart is committed to helping people save money so they can live better and will offer our support to any initiative that will improve the quality of life for our employees and patrons. Wal-Mart will remain consistent by continuing to implement our core beliefs; respect for the individual, service to our customers and striving for excellence.

We apologize for any inconvenience you may have experienced.

Thank you for visiting Walmart.com. We appreciate the opportunity to serve you and look forward to your next visit.

Sincerely,

Ruel
Customer Service at Walmart.com

For a more honest evaluation of Wal-Mart's motives, see the critique at FIRM.

May Wal-Mart be damned for selling out American rights and values.

Forty-Nine Reasons to Vote Ritter Out

On May 30, 2008, my vehicle registration cost $37.17. On July 13, 2009, my vehicle registration cost $86.48.

That's about a $49 difference. For me, that's forty-nine reasons to vote Bill Ritter out of office. State politicians are doing everything they can to squeeze residents at the exact time when many residents are suffering from the recession (my wife took a ten percent pay cut, for example).

And I drive a cheap clunker; most people will find that they have many more reasons to vote against Ritter.

I also had to pay $30 to the City and County of Denver for expired tags, but obviously I won't hold that against Ritter. (My only satisfaction in the matter was writing "Legalized Theft" in the "For" line of the check.) The reason my tags expired is that the DMV sent my notification form to my old address, so obviously I never got it. (My wife thinks we sent in change of address forms.) I didn't notice that the month tag was out of date, but the meter maid sure noticed. Because, you know, it's not enough that I pay taxes to pave Denver's roads or feed quarters into Denver's meters.

I should note that the registration fee seems to have covered an extra two months to cover the expiration, but still, that's a hefty "fee" increase.

Tomorrow I have to take my wife's car in for the same reason, and then I suspect I'll have about another hundred reasons to hate Ritter and his Democratic party. [Update: to my pleasant surprise, the tax on our second car actually went down substantially, apparently because the car hit its tenth year.]

Of course, my whole plan of helping to vote Ritter out of office depends upon Republicans running a candidate who's not even worse than Ritter, which was the problem last time around.

Dr. Schroeder Replies to Grand Junction Model

Dr. James Schroeder wrote an important article for Friday's Free Press of Grand Junction. He responds to media hype about the "Grand Junction Model" for health reform.

[A] large study done at Dartmouth University looking at variations in Medicare spending was released in April 2008.... The Dartmouth Atlas is being overstated. ... All the data showed is that some hospitals spent more than others. ... The death rate in this particular study was 100 percent. ... The only logical conclusion to be made is that Grand Junction is efficient at getting people to the point of death.

Hang on to your wallet, because the Dartmouth Atlas will now be touted as showing that some regions (Grand Junction being the shining example) are “more efficient” at delivering health care while saving money! This in turn will serve as the anvil upon which health care spending throughout the country will be hammered into line by a federally controlled health care system. ...

The current administration advocates a system that will take those difficult value judgments out of your hands and put them in the hands of a nice, caring, compassionate bureaucrat. ... The (barely) unspoken message is that you have a duty to die cheaply in order to save money for everybody else. ...

Please read the entire article for yourself.

I have but a couple of nits to pick. Schroeder writes, "Health care services are finite, just like any other commodity. At its core, the entire health care debate boils down to distributing a finite number of dollars for the purchase of health care services for a diverse population of 300 million. The only way to do that is by allocating expenditures and resources, or in other words rationing."

That paragraph is wrong for two reasons. First, while the availability of doctors, hospitals, drugs, etc. at any given time is limited, the amount of health care services can change dramatically over time. Today vastly more health care is available than was the case a century ago. One of the effects of socialized medicine would be to reduce the amount and quality of health care available, particularly as the better doctors left the field and the better students looked for careers elsewhere.

Second, "rationing" pertains only to political distribution of goods or services. For example, if you walk into a grocery store and purchase hamburger instead of steak, that's not "rationing;" that's a rational response to prices. If you choose to go to an urgent care office rather than an emergency room, that's not "rationing" the emergency care. A free market involves willing agreements among buyers and sellers, consumers and producers. That's not rationing. Rationing is when politicians and bureaucrats decide who gets what, and how much they get.

A free market in health care involves no rationing. The partly-socialized medicine we live under today involves considerable rationing. A completely socialized system involves nothing but rationing.

Politicians Caused Mortgage Meltdown

The following article originally was published July 6, 2009, by the Grand Junction Free Press.

Politicians caused mortgage meltdown

by Linn and Ari Armstrong

If you want to know the basics of how politicians caused the mortgage meltdown and the resulting recession, purchase and read Thomas Sowell's new book, The Housing Boom and Bust. In just 148 pages of text (plus notes and such), Sowell explains how political economic controls largely started in the 1970s gained force in the 1990s, initiating the housing bubble in the early 2000s and resulting in the bust of 2006.

Sowell begins his account with the 1970s, when various localities around the U.S. -- particularly in New York and coastal California -- imposed wide-ranging property controls that restricted building and sent housing prices through the roof.

Through such controls as government open space, zoning, "smart" growth, lot size controls, building height restrictions, preservation restrictions, building permit hassles and limits, and planning commissions, various localities forced up housing costs. Meanwhile, housing remained affordable where local governments left it relatively free.

The politically induced pain created the "misconception... that the free market failed to produce affordable housing, and that government intervention was therefore necessary... to enable ordinary people to find a place to live that was within their means," Sowell writes.

Enter the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). The legislation directed federal bureaucrats to "encourage" banks "to help meet the credit needs of the local communities in which they are chartered." Over time, this developed into federal policies to cajole and threaten banks into making risky loans.

Starting in the 1990s, activists such as ACORN (and, as reported elsewhere, Sonia Sotomayor), media outlets such as the New York Times, and politicians from George H. W. Bush to Bill Clinton pressured banks to make riskier loans, on the pretext of helping some minority applicants. (As Sowell points out, minorities were hurt worst in the resulting housing bust.)

Janet Reno, Bill Clinton's Attorney General, warned banks, "Do not wait for the Justice Department to come knocking."

In 1993, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) brought legal action against banks that failed to meet racial quotas in lending. In 1995, new controls under CRA imposed more stringent quotas. Nevermind whether the recipients of the risky loans were prepared to repay them.

In addition to legal action and threats thereof, bureaucrats threatened banks' ability to form mergers and branches unless they followed politically-correct lending practices, Sowell reviews.

Also during the 1990s, the politician-created Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac began lowering lending requirements, partly under pressure from HUD. These quasi-governmental entities purchased risky loans originated by others. Other investors rightly predicted that the federal government would not allow these organizations to bear the brunt of their irresponsible policies; they were later bailed out with tax dollars.

In 2002, George W. Bush advocated subsidies for down payments and zero-down loans. The Federal Housing Administration also promoted zero-down loans. Yet Bush's American Dream Downpayment Act and aligned measures helped create a financial nightmare.

Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve artificially held down interest rates in the early 2000s, encouraging many to buy houses who could not otherwise afford them.

The net effect of all these political controls was to encourage "creative" lending policies, causing an explosion of adjustable-rate and zero-down mortgages, Sowell reviews. When interest rates crept back up in 2004, the houses of cards began to crumble.

Particularly telling is the political reaction to the mortgage meltdown. Many of the same politicians and activists who previously encouraged risky lending quickly turned to blaming the "greed" of the free market. These quotes alone are worth the price of Sowell's book.

For example, in 2003, Congressman Barney Frank said, "Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have played a very useful role in helping making housing more affordable." In 2007 Frank blamed the mortgage meltdown on "too little regulation." In 2008 Frank blamed "a conservative philosophy that says the market knows best." So Frank first helped destroy the free market, then blamed the market for not working.

In 2004, Republican Senator Kit Bond threatened to cut the budget of an agency that raised alarms about Freddie and Fannie. Later, Bond complained that the same agency had failed to "look at the practices" of Freddie and Fannie.

In 2004, Senator Christopher Dodd praised Freddie and Fannie as "one of the great success stories of all time." In 2007, Dodd blamed others for the "adjustable-rate mortgages that today are defaulting and going into foreclosure at record rates."

In 2003, Congresswoman Maxine Waters said "we do not have a crisis at Freddie Mac" or Fannie Mae and advocated "affordable housing" through "desktop underwriting to 100 percent loans." In 2004, 76 House Democrats, including Nancy Pelosi, urged President Bush to sacrifice "an exclusive focus on safety and soundness" on the alter of "affordable housing."

Now that they have devastated the housing market and caused the worst recession since the Great Depression, these are the same clowns who want to seize control of energy and health care.

Don't let them get away with it again.

July 4 Tea Party Arvada Colorado

I interviewed a number of participants of the July 4 Tea Party in Arvada, Colorado. Hear what they have to say:



Jon Caldara gave the keynote speech:



Matt Arnold of Clear the Bench Colorado outlined his case for voting against retention of four Colorado Supreme Court Justices:



Here are a few additional photos:









See also reports for Castle Rock and Colorado Springs. Please send in information about other July 4 Tea Parties across Colorado!

Commentary

I've heard estimates of a thousand participants. I imagine attendance was lower than at the Tax Day Tea Party because more people were at local events and many were busy with family gatherings.

It was a fun time. I helped hand out a couple hundred Ayn Rand Samplers and a few hundred "Clear the Bench" flyers.

The most troubling aspect of the event is that various speakers really laid on the religion. It was almost as much of a church service as a political rally. I heard quite a lot of the same crazy talk that cost Republicans control of government in the first place. While we heard from Jefferson's Declaration, we heard nothing about Jefferson's wall of separation between church and state. But religious tyranny is hardly an improvement upon leftist tyranny. For example, those who endorse the "personhood" measure next year are as much the enemy of liberty as are those who advocate socialized medicine, for reasons stated.

Yet some of the speeches were great; see Jon Caldara's speech above. And the people who attended went for their own reasons. One lady told me she was "pro-life" (i.e., an advocate of abortion bans), and at least two people carried signs proclaiming that America is a Christian nation. Yet most people I talked with were there for the obvious reasons: federal politicians are spending our money like drunken sailors and seizing control of broad swaths of the economy.

The right obviously still suffers from the schism that resulted in its downfall; it is torn between those who would impose their sectarian dogmas by force of law and those who advocate individual rights and a government devoted to protecting those rights. That intellectual battle continues to rage.

Yet I see many signs that more and more citizens are taking up the banner of individual rights.

Support Clear the Bench

A couple days ago I gave Clear the Bench Colorado a little hell for defending Amendment 54. I want to emphasize here that this is a minor disagreement with the organization (as the issue, while important, is only tangentially related to its activities), and I support Clear the Bench.

Moreover, I recognize that Matt Arnold took on the project on his own initiative, and he is preparing to work doggedly on this issue for many months. He faces a difficult and often thankless uphill battle.

We have the ability in Colorado to vote for judges' retention. Next year four of Colorado's Supreme Court justices face a retention vote. Because of their prejudicial decisions, they deserve to be thrown off the court by Colorado voters. Clear the Bench is working to educate voters in order to make that happen. If you support judicial integrity, support Clear the Bench.

(Also, while I'm praising organizations, I'll point out that the Independence Institute hosted the wonderfully inspiring Daniel Hannan and posted his talk in four parts. Hannan, an English parliamentarian, sounds more like an American than most American politicians.)

Aurora Republicans Host Top Candidates

Micah Marmaro, president of the Aurora Republican Forum, did an outstanding job gathering top Republican candidates and elected officials at a barbeque June 27 at General's Park. Here I'll review what they had to say -- which in some cases was surprisingly little. (I, on the other hand, said too much, but I'll review my talk in a subsequent post.) I'll intersperse my comments with related photographs.



While I have previously criticized Congressman Mike Coffman on grounds of economic and personal freedom, Coffman gave by far the best speech at the Aurora event.

Coffman, who served in Iraq, offered an overview of the situation there. He said, "I think there's going to be an uptick in violence as we pull out of the urban areas." He added, "I'm confident we can stay on schedule" with a "phased withdrawal." He worried that President Obama is "not committing adequate resources to the war" in Afghanistan, risking unnecessary casualties. He also complained about Democratic pressure to "reduce funding for missile defense."

Coffman attacked directly the Democratic argument that "cap-and-trade" energy restrictions will help the U.S. become energy independent. "The fact is that we're dependent on imported oil because they've done everything they can to block our ability to do energy development, to do drilling of natural gas and oil," Coffman said.

What cap-and-trade "will do," Coffman continued, "is it will drive up the cost of energy. What it will do is drive jobs outside the United States... What manufacturing base we have left in America will push over to China."

Coffman said the political pace in Washington, DC, "has been incredible" because "this president has an agenda that is very aggressive... It is not a president of the general election, it is a president of the primary. He is a liberal through and through... This is far-left stuff."

Coffman said that the rapid pace of legislation is cutting short Congressional debate as well as public scrutiny, "so right behind cap-and-trade... we will be debating health care reform, and right on the heels of that we'll be debating immigration reform" (where I imagine I align closer with Obama's policies than with Coffman's, given that I support an employer's right to hire willing workers). Coffman also said he expects to see another move to push "card check," empowering unions by wiping out secret ballots for unionization.

However, given the close vote for cap-and-trade, Coffman said "I think it will have a difficult time in the Senate."

Coffman complained also that the $787 billion "stimulus" bill got minimal Congressional review before passage.

On health care, Coffman called the "public option" a "bait and switch for socialized medicine," a "single-payer system" that "will continue to drive the deficit."

Coffman said, "We have a deficit this year of $1.7 trillion. We will have a deficit for as far as I can see, at about a trillion dollars and rising. That's unsustainable... It got so bad that the Chinese publicly stated that they were worried about the U.S economy" in terms of inflation and interest rates.

Answering a question, Coffman said, "It's truly a European-style welfare state that this president and Congressional leadership are seeing." He noted that various Europeans are trying to get of such systems.

Coffman said 2010 will be a referendum "that will define the direction of America. It will define whether or not we are a European-style welfare state. It will define whether America is simply a country of large labor organizations, big business like Chrysler and GM where government has a stake in them or ownership in them -- big government, big business, and big labor. Or are we a country based on individual rights and responsibility, and anybody being able to start a small business with that entrepreneurial effort."

I also respected Coffman's answer regarding bringing military jobs to Colorado: "I like the fact that defense dollars come to Colorado, as long as we're competitive for those defense dollars. I will not lift a finger to compromise the ability of our military by forcing them into Colorado. And so what I want to do... is make sure... that they have the right tools to succeed in Colorado."

Concluding, Coffman said the central choice is "whether we have a free market economy or whether we have an economy that's managed by the government for its own interests."

All day (aside from my speech), Coffman's discussion of individual rights and a free market economy was the clearest expression of a guiding political philosophy.



Shown above from left to right: Mike Morison (volunteer with Bob LeGare), Adam Eidelberg (volunteer for Dan Maes and Bruce Peterson), Andrew Goad (candidate for state house district 32), and Brian Cambell (candidate for the Seventh Congressional). (Thanks also to Micah for filling in some of these names.)



Bruce Peterson is running for Arapahoe county commissioner.



Loraine Buck, Ken Buck (candidate for U.S. Senate), and Micah Marmaro.



Check back -- more to come!