liberalism

Bill to Cut Abortion Funding Kneecapped by Tone-Deaf Ignorance of Left-Wing Playbook

Calvin Freiburger abortion, abortion funding, big government, Daily Beast, evil, GOP, House of Representatives, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Left, liberalism, Michelle Goldberg, politics, rape, spending, strategy, stupidity
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Good politicians need firm principles, the courage to stick with them, and the common sense not to kneecap their efforts right out of the gate. You’d think that last part would go without saying…but you’d be wrong.
Case in point: Republican Congressman Chris Smith and Democrat Congressman Daniel Lipinski have introduced H.R.3, which seeks to further restrict federal funding for abortion. Under existing law, public money may be used for abortions sought due to rape or incest, but the new bill would only cover cases of “forcible rape.” LifeNews.com reports that bill is meant to “roll into one permanent law all of the many provisions and riders attached to the various bills funding the federal government that are passed each year,” eliminating the need to re-fight the same battles annually.
This, predictably, has many leftists shrieking that conservatives are trying to define rape down. At the Daily Beast, pro-abortion zealot Michelle Goldberg hysterically condemns the “GOP Abortion Bill” (no mention of its Democrat co-sponsor):

Victims of statutory rape—say, a 13-year-old girl impregnated by a 30-year-old man—would be on their own. So would victims of incest if they’re over 18. And while “forcible rape” isn’t defined in the criminal code, the addition of the adjective seems certain to exclude acts of rape that don’t involve overt violence—say, cases where a woman is drugged or has a limited mental capacity. “It’s basically putting more restrictions on what was defined historically as rape,” says Keenan.
Beyond that, says Keenan, the bill would give states the option of refusing Medicaid coverage for all abortions, even in the most brutal of rape cases, or when a medical complication leaves a woman’s life at risk.
These effects are only horrendous to those who can’t envision people managing to do anything without the government subsidizing it (plus those who ignore the part about dead babies). But the bill manifestly does not bar anyone from getting an abortion for any reason; it simply restricts the circumstances under which you can make your fellow citizens fork over money for that abortion.

Because of other provisions of H.R. 3, the bill’s restrictions would also affect women who don’t qualify for Medicaid or work for the federal government. During the debate over health-care reform, Bart Stupak and Joseph Pitts put forward an amendment that would have banned health-insurance policies that cover abortion, as 87 percent do, from participating in the proposed health-insurance exchanges. The Stupak-Pitts amendment would have created an overwhelming incentive for private plans to drop abortion coverage in order to be eligible for government subsidies.
It was defeated, but the new bill, H.R. 3, goes far beyond it—NARAL calls it “Stupak on Steroids.” Under the new bill, policies that cover abortion would be ineligible for the tax breaks that individuals and small businesses get when they purchase insurance. It essentially imposes a new tax on the vast majority of health-care plans unless they drop abortion coverage, even for some victims of sexual assault.
Um, Michelle? This is one of the points conservatives were trying to get across to your side during the health care debate: the less you make health care dependent upon government subsidies and beholden to government dictates, the less need there is to argue over what should or shouldn’t be funded—in a truly free market, abortion coverage would be one of many things some companies would insure, others wouldn’t, and consumers could decide accordingly.
Goldberg concludes with a warning that H.R.3 indicates a “startling new extremism in the GOP,” a party “that is willing to go further than most people realize to force women to bear children against their will.” This is pretty pedestrian feminist garbage—right-wingers are going further right all the time, evil men want to control you, and pay no attention to that ultrasound behind the curtain—but what’s unique here is her accusation that the bill “will send a message to all women that certain kinds of sexual assault don’t count as rape at all.” And she’s not the only one.
On the merits, it’s obviously not true—the bill does nothing to change the way rape is investigated, prosecuted, or punished. Alleging that someone doesn’t care about rape is about as vicious and dishonorable as politics can get, yet this brand of defamation is apparently exempt from the new culture of civil discourse demanded of us in the wake of the Tucson shooting.   
The optics, though, are another matter. Targeting remaining tax subsidies for abortion is a worthy goal, but Smith and his colleagues should have expected that going after the rape exception was going to be met with a tough counteroffensive. That doesn’t mean you don’t do it, but it does mean that you either confront the issue head-on or you don’t—trying to split the difference and float new definitions for different kinds of rape, no matter how narrow or valid the legal purpose, was just asking for trouble, and should have been recognized as such right away.
Chris Smith is no rookie; he’s a fifteen-term Republican lawmaker who really has no excuse for not being more familiar with left-wing tactics. Let this be a lesson to the current Congress’s newly-elected Tea Party candidates: don’t be afraid to stick up for your principles, but pay attention to the other side. Learn to identify the openings they exploit. Most of their venom is unavoidable and can’t destroy those with the truth on their side; the true danger to conservative principles comes from self-inflicted wounds.

New on NewsReal – Al-Jazeera Is Basically Like Fox News, Right?

Calvin Freiburger Fox News, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Islamofascism, Left, liberalism, NewsReal, propaganda, War on Terror

My latest NewsRealBlog post:

The moral equivalency leftists are capable of never fails to sicken. Whether driven by intolerance of opposition or cluelessness about the real world, many think nothing of comparing those with whom they disagree—often unfavorably—to the most heinous monsters on the planet. Case in point: our old friend Ellen of the loser-packed Fox-hating blog NewsHounds is outrageously outraged that Bill O’Reilly would dare impugn the patriotism of left-wingers like Sam Donaldson and Alan Colmes for their defense of…er, Al-Jazeera:

It’s not as though Donaldson praised Al Jazeera for saying anything anti-American or attacking America. No, attacking an American or Americans is something that Fox News does every day whenever a Democrat or liberal is discussed.


Apparently, praising Al Jazeera for doing something right is completely wrong (and anti-American) because, according to O’Reilly, “Al Jazeera makes a living blaming most problems in the Middle East on the USA and Israel.”

That must be completely different from the way Fox News pundits like Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Sarah Palin and yes, Bill O’Reilly blame most problems on American liberals.

“Talking Points can provide hundreds, hundreds of examples of anti-Semitism and hate-America rhetoric displayed on Al Jazeera, the network Sam Donaldson admires,” O’Reilly sneered.

And we can provide just as many examples of anti-Semitism and hate-America rhetoric on Fox News. In addition to the hate mongering against Americans, there’s Sean Hannity’s friendly interview with anti-Semite Andy Martin (for which Hannity has never apologized), another lapdog interview with Mel Gibson and Glenn Beck’s anti-Semitic dogwhistles about George Soros. In fact, those dogwhistles were so offensive to so many Jews that 400 rabbis recently wrote to Rupert Murdoch asking him to rein in Beck. Fox News’ response? Calling the rabbis “a George Soros backed left-wing political organization.”
Colmes did not apologize or hedge or try to curry favor as so many other Democrats on Fox do. Noting that Egypt had shut down Al Jazeera, he said to O’Reilly, “I would think a populist like you would support Al Jazeera and freedom of the press… I would think that as a journalist, you would take the side of Al Jazeera.”

O’Reilly claimed that his beef with Al Jazeera was its lack of balance, that there was never anyone on to counter its anti-American message.

Oh, you mean the way there’s never anyone on to counter Glenn Beck’s attacks on President Obama, his former advisor Van Jones, George Soros or 78 year-old Frances Fox Piven?

First, let’s dispense with the usual stuff: the lack of balance at Fox News is a lie, and so is the anti-Semitism garbage.

No, what’s noteworthy is that Ellen doesn’t even try to argue that Al-Jazeera isn’t an anti-American, Jew-hating mouthpiece for Islamic radicalism, but says that Fox News is just as bad anyway.

Read the rest on NewsRealBlog.

When Victims Are Guilty (Updated)

Calvin Freiburger Coulter, crime, dishonesty, evil, extremism, hypocrisy, insanity, Left, liberalism, propaganda, Tucson

Aside from being contemptible for its sheer dishonesty, the Left’s blood libel campaign blaming conservatives for the shooting spree carried out by (anti-war, Christianity-hating) psychopath Jared Loughner is also a clear example/vindication of Ann Coulter’s most recent book, Guilty: Liberal “Victims” and Their Assault on America, which targets (if you’ll pardon the expression) the cherished leftist propaganda tactic of using real and perceived victims as props with which to browbeat critics of their policies into silence.

One of Loughner’s victims, Eric Fuller, has disgraced himself by blaming Republicans for his injury:

“It looks like Palin, Beck, Sharron Angle and the rest got their first target,” Eric Fuller said in an interview with Democracy NOW.

“Their wish for Second Amendment activism has been fulfilled — senseless hatred leading to murder, lunatic fringe anarchism, subscribed to by John Boehner, mainstream rebels with vengeance for all — even 9-year-old girls,” he added, referring to the death of Christina Taylor Green.

Fuller, a 63-year-old veteran, had campaigned for Giffords during her reelection and was at the supermarket for her Congress on Your Corner event.

“I would put Sarah Palin in first place there. I think, really, she should be incarcerated for treason for advocating assassinating public officials,” Fuller said in an interview with Media Matters. “That map I saw that she published on the Internet had crosshairs on it and one of them was meant for Gabrielle Giffords.”

Fuller’s status as both a shooting victim and a veteran will probably scare many away from discussing this honestly, but it shouldn’t. The simple fact is, nothing justifies telling vicious lies to, or about, your countrymen.

In an ironic twist of fate, Fuller has made a toxic contribution of his own to the public discourse:

When Tucson Tea Party founder Trent Humphries rose to suggest that any conversation about gun control should be put off until after the funerals for all the victims, witnesses say Fuller became agitated.  Two told KGUN9 News that finally, Fuller took a picture of Humphries, and said, “You’re dead.”

When State Rep. Terri Proud (R-Tucson) rose to explain and clarify current and proposed gun legislation in the state, several people groaned or booed her.  One of those booing, according to several witnesses, was Fuller.   Witnesses sitting near Fuller told KGUN9 News that Fuller was making them feel very uncomfortable.

The event wrapped up a short time later.  Deputies then escorted Fuller from the room.  As he was being led off, Fuller shouted loudly to the room at large.  Several witnesses said that what they thought they heard him shout was, “You’re all whores!”

A Pima County Sheriff’s spokesman told KGUN9 News that they charged Fuller with one count of threats and intimidation, and said they plan to charge him with at least one count of disorderly conduct.  Humphries told KGUN9 News that he does plan to press those charges.

Of course, because Eric Fuller’s hate is directed at the Right, there’s probably a root cause for it the rest of us to understand. There always is.

UPDATE: The Mental Recession has more – apparently it’s not really his fault; PTSD made him do it. Of course.

New on NewsReal – The Left’s Attack On Palin’s Response to the Tucson Tragedy Is All About Appeasement, Not Gun Imagery

Calvin Freiburger dishonesty, extremism, Gabrielle Giffords, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Left, liberalism, NewsReal, personal attacks, politics, rhetoric, Sarah Palin, violence

My latest NewsRealBlog post:

In the wake of this weekend’s shooting in Arizona, the opportunists of the Left barely waited for the bodies to cool or for confirmation of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ fate before pouncing on what simply had to be the atrocity’s root cause: Sarah Palin. Even though indications of culprit Jared Loughner’s true mindset started appearing on the very day of the shooting, agenda-driven vultures proceeded to lecture Palin on everything from what she needed to say to the proper level of remorse she needed to display.

On Wednesday, the former governor responded, in a stirring statement that mourns for the victims, defies her persecutors, and affirms the strength of American democracy:

If you don’t like a person’s vision for the country, you’re free to debate that vision. If you don’t like their ideas, you’re free to propose better ideas. But, especially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible.

There are those who claim political rhetoric is to blame for the despicable act of this deranged, apparently apolitical criminal. And they claim political debate has somehow gotten more heated just recently. But when was it less heated? Back in those “calm days” when political figures literally settled their differences with dueling pistols? In an ideal world all discourse would be civil and all disagreements cordial. But our Founding Fathers knew they weren’t designing a system for perfect men and women. If men and women were angels, there would be no need for government. Our Founders’ genius was to design a system that helped settle the inevitable conflicts caused by our imperfect passions in civil ways. So, we must condemn violence if our Republic is to endure.

As I said while campaigning for others last March in Arizona during a very heated primary race, “We know violence isn’t the answer. When we ‘take up our arms’, we’re talking about our vote.” Yes, our debates are full of passion, but we settle our political differences respectfully at the ballot box – as we did just two months ago, and as our Republic enables us to do again in the next election, and the next. That’s who we are as Americans and how we were meant to be. Public discourse and debate isn’t a sign of crisis, but of our enduring strength. It is part of why America is exceptional.

Of course, being Sarah Palin, she’s damned if she does and damned if she doesn’t, and so the Daily Beast’s Howard Kurtz (who admits the initial attacks against her were “unfair”) has panned the speech as not presidential enough:

Blood libel, for those who are not familiar, describes a false accusation that minorities—usually Jews—murder children to use their blood in religious rituals, and has been a historical theme in the persecution of the Jewish people.

Had Palin scoured a thesaurus, she could not have come up with a more inflammatory phrase.

Yes, because when you’ve been defamed as an instigator of multiple homicide by people who know better, the important thing to do is ensure you don’t rub anyone the wrong way.

Read the rest at NewsRealBlog.

One Liberal Who Retains Some Semblance of a Conscience

Calvin Freiburger dishonesty, evil, hypocrisy, Left, liberalism, Tucson, violence

Give credit where credit’s due – Kirsten Powers isn’t having any of her side’s sick exploitation of the Tucson massacre:

He did add to his prepared remarks that incivility did not cause this tragedy, but he stopped short of a full rebuke of the complete irresponsibility of those who have been stoking anger at conservatives who—as far as we know—had nothing to do with this.

When the president did lay blame, it was on Americans in general. Among the many odd assertions he made: suggesting that “what a tragedy like this requires” is that “we align our values with our actions.” We were told to “expand our moral imaginations.”

Huh?

A mentally ill gunman opened fire at a Safeway. A lack of “aligning” or “imagination” really wasn’t the problem. Obama chided Americans to “be better,” as if we somehow caused this shooting to happen. He said, “We may not be able to stop all evil in the world, but I know that how we treat one another is entirely up to us.”

Now if Obama isn’t talking about political discourse here, I don’t know what he’s talking about. Certainly he can’t be suggesting that how you treat the mailman or your mother is at issue.

Let’s be clear: How we “treat each other” also is not what caused this shooting. Mental illness combined with a gun and a 33-round high-capacity magazine collided to produce a tragedy. This may not have been the venue to discuss this in such pointed terms, but it also should not have been used as an opportunity to push further into the media bloodstream the lie that hostile rhetoric or incivility even played a role in this, let alone caused it.

Multiple polls have shown that Americans reject the assertion that political speech incited the shooter. Nothing has come up in the investigation to suggest it played a role. In fact, it’s been reported that a friend of gunman Jared Lee Loughner flatly rejected heated rhetoric as an issue, telling Good Morning America, “He did not watch TV. He disliked the news. He didn’t listen to political radio. He didn’t take sides. He wasn’t on the left. He wasn’t on the right.”

Liberal Lies About Political Violence – Another Needed Reminder

Calvin Freiburger dishonesty, evil, extremism, hypocrisy, Left, liberalism, lying, personal attacks, politics, violence

Hat tip to Eternity Matters for this post at Verum Serum, which reminds us that the Left’s evil, libelous exploitation of death is nothing new:

  • They couldn’t deny that Joe Stack (who flew his plane into an IRS bldg.) quoted the Communist manifesto favorably and disliked George Bush, but labeled him the “Tea Party terrorist” anyway.
  • They couldn’t deny that Richard Poplawski’s only connection to Glenn Beck was that he was disappointed in Beck’s debunking of a conspiracy theory he believed in. They continue to suggest Poplawski was a fan.
  • They couldn’t deny that Pentagon shooter J. Patrick Bedell was a registered Democrat and a 9/11 Truther who disliked Bush, but they wanted him to be a Tea Partier as well.
  • They couldn’t deny that Clay Duke was a leftist inspired by a left-wing movie produced during the Bush years, so they mostly said nothing at all.

I’m leaving out a bunch more. The census worker’s death who was blamed on the right, but which turned out to be suicide. The “right-wing” shooter at the Holocaust museum who turned out to hate Christianity and Fox News. And now the latest on the Giffords shooting is that Loughner may have been anti-Semitic and targeting her because she is Jewish. Generally speaking which party is more supportive of the Jews and Israel and which one is regularly accused of being beholden to Jewish interests? The group Loughner is believed to have been part of also supports SB1070, but Giffords was known to be tough on border control, so how would shooting her advance that agenda? Once again, we’re not supposed to look that closely or ask if any of it makes sense. We’re just supposed to feel outrage at the right targets.

With every new incident the left launches into a fresh public fury and then when the facts come in they never step back or apologize, they just move on to the next “fake but accurate” story. The meme they are pushing survives by leap-frogging from lie to lie, often stealing unearned outrage from cases that could more easily be called left-wing violence. I appreciate the calm voices on the right that want to avoid politicizing this or any tragedy, but frankly I don’t know how they do it in the face of this sort of endless propaganda effort by the left.

New on NewsReal – Looking for Hate in All the Wrong Places: Is Hollywood Homophobic?

Calvin Freiburger bigotry, Hollywood, homosexuality, Left, liberalism, NewsReal, political correctness, stupidity

My latest NewsRealBlog post:

By now it goes without saying that middle America is hopelessly homophobic, at least according to leftist dogma, the average American’s opposition to “marriage equality” sufficiently proving their ignorant prejudice. But the scourge of homophobia is apparently even more far-reaching than any of us could have guessed—according to Ramin Setoodeh at the Daily Beast, even Hollywood is caught in its grasp, as demonstrated by Tinseltown’s refusal to let gay actors play gay roles. Or something:

With the film industry swept up in the congratulatory swirl of awards season, not a single openly gay actor is up for an Oscar nomination. Of course, that’s probably because no openly gay actors even starred in any big films of 2010. The lovable lesbian wives in The Kids Are All Right were played by the heterosexual actresses Annette Bening and Julianne Moore. The quirky couple in I Love You Phillip Morris were portrayed by straight men Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor.

You could say that’s why it’s called “acting.” But that’s little comfort to gay actors, who are routinely shut out of the studio system, even though Hollywood is supposedly one of the most “gay-friendly” towns. Movies need to attract the broadest possible audience, and filmmakers worry that if they cast a gay person as a romantic lead, audiences will be too grossed out. Instead, straight actors get the roles, and everybody talks about how brave they are. Stanley Tucci has played gay so many times (The Devil Wears Prada, Burlesque) it’s like he’s switched teams. Eric Dane and Bradley Cooper were lovers in Valentine’s Day, and they follow a long tradition of straight actors who play gay and collect accolades: Jake Gyllenhaal (Brokeback Mountain), Sean Penn (Milk), Greg Kinnear (As Good As It Gets), Philip Seymour Hoffman (Capote), Hilary Swank (Boys Don’t Cry), Charlize Theron (Monster), Tom Hanks (Philadelphia) and Robin Williams (The Birdcage). The blog AfterElton.com could only name nine working gay TV actors, and they all hold minor or supporting roles. The new gay guy on 90210 is played by heterosexual hunk Trevor Donovan.


Somebody needs to explain to me why a moviegoer who would be grossed out by a gay romantic lead would be seeing a movie about gay characters to begin with. If anything, that there’s a “long tradition of straight actors who play gay” to begin with seems to undermine the theory that Hollywood’s consciously trying to avoid more traditional sensibilities. Indeed, Setoodeh’s list suggests that a lot of Hollywood’s heaviest hitters relish the thought of bringing positive and nuanced (though not always accurate) depictions of homosexuals to theaters.

You could argue that no one gay is on the A-list, so Hollywood has to hire straight people to fill those roles. But it also has to do with something else. Society still shows a prejudice against gay people, especially those who fit the stereotype: feminine men and masculine women.


Setoodeh too quickly dismisses the simplest explanation, that the number of gays in Hollywood is small to begin with, simply because the number of gays in the general population is so small.

Read the rest on NewsRealBlog.

New on NewsReal – Katie Couric: A Muslim "Cosby Show" Could Help Cure America’s Bigotry

Calvin Freiburger bigotry, culture, elitism, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Islam, Katie Couric, Left, liberalism, media, NewsReal, race, racism, TV

My latest NewsRealBlog post:

Sometimes outside-the-box thinking proves invaluable in solving the controversies that plague us, but sometimes it turns out to be a minefield of useless self-embarrassment. CBS anchor Katie Couric’s novel approach to combating alleged Islamophobia falls firmly in the latter camp. During a panel review of 2010’s biggest stories, Couric lamented the American people’s clueless intolerance:

“The bigotry expressed against Muslims in this country has been one of the most disturbing stories to surface,” Couris said. “Of course, a lot of noise was made about the Islamic Center, mosque, down near the World Trade Center, but I think there wasn’t enough sort of careful analysis and evaluation of where this bigotry toward 1.5 billion Muslims worldwide, and how this seething hatred many people feel for all Muslims, which I think is so misdirected, and so wrong — and so disappointing.”

One wonders how Couric is measuring this “seething hatred.” By what Americans say? Doubtful—Newsweek’s latest poll on the subject found that 67% of Americans believe that “only some” or “very few” American Muslims “support the goals of Al Qaeda and the Islamic fundamentalists,” and 62% believe “most” or “many” are “peaceable and do not condone violence.”

Is she judging by what Americans do? Equally dubious—according to the FBI’s most recent statistics, Muslims were the victims of 7.7% of all religiously-motivated “hate crimes in 2008,” as opposed to Jews, who were the victims of 65.7%.

Read the rest on NewsRealBlog.

The Democrats Hate Democracy

Calvin Freiburger Barack Obama, big government, bureaucracy, Congress, democracy, Democrats, health care, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Krauthammer, Left, liberalism
Exhibit A, courtesy of Charles Krauthammer:

A month ago, Medicare issued a regulation providing for end-of-life counseling during annual “wellness” visits. It was all nicely buried amid the simultaneous release of hundreds of new Medicare rules.


Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D.,Ore.), author of Section 1233, was delighted. “Mr. Blumenauer’s office celebrated ‘a quiet victory,’ but urged supporters not to crow about it,” reports the New York Times. Deathly quiet. In early November, his office sent an e-mail plea to supporters: “We would ask that you not broadcast this accomplishment out to any of your lists . . . e-mails can too easily be forwarded.” They had been lucky that “thus far, it seems that no press or blogs have discovered it. . . . The longer this regulation goes unnoticed, the better our chances of keeping it.”

So much for Democratic transparency — and for their repeated claim that the more people learn what is in the health-care law, the more they will like it. Turns out ignorance is the Democrats’ best hope.
And regulation is their perfect vehicle — so much quieter than legislation. Consider two other regulatory usurpations in just the last few days.
On December 23, the Interior Department issued Secretarial Order 3310, reversing a 2003 decision and giving itself the authority to designate public lands as “Wild Lands.” A clever twofer: (1) a bureaucratic power-grab — for seven years up through December 22, wilderness-designation had been the exclusive province of Congress, and (2) a leftward lurch — more land to be “protected” from such nefarious uses as domestic-oil exploration in a country disastrously dependent on foreign sources.
The very same day, the president’s Environmental Protection Agency declared that in 2011 it would begin drawing up anti-carbon regulations on oil refineries and power plants, another power grab effectively enacting what Congress had firmly rejected when presented as cap-and-trade legislation.

For an Obama bureaucrat, however, the will of Congress is a mere speed bump. Hence this regulatory trifecta, each one moving smartly left — and nicely clarifying what the spirit of bipartisan compromise that President Obama heralded in his post-lame-duck December 22 news conference was really about: a shift to the center for public consumption and political appearance only.

Read the rest. It’s an outrage that this country has gotten to a point where unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats can make de facto laws outside of the legislative process, contrary to the will of the people, and that a political party called Democratic of all names relies upon this sleazy, un-American, anti-democratic process to implement its agenda. Let’s hope the incoming Congress has at least a few Republicans who have the spine to call this out as the disgrace it is.

New on NewsReal – Yet Another Reason ObamaCare Is Even Worse Than You Think

Calvin Freiburger Barack Obama, big government, bureaucracy, Democrats, health care, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Left, liberalism, NewsReal, politics

My latest NewsRealBlog post:

I don’t think this is quite what outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wanted the American people thinking about when she said we needed to pass ObamaCare to “find out what’s in it,” but a new Daily Beast column by Shikha Dalmia of the Reason Foundation is a perfect example of why that statement rightfully scared people half to death. Dalmia takes a look at aspects of the “reform” that haven’t gotten much attention thus far, but threaten to transform American healthcare into “one big entrapment scheme”:

[I]n an effort to offset [the “doc fix’s”] $20 billion price tag, it has included a little twist to squeeze working families called “exchange recapture subsidy.” Under this provision, the government will go after low-wage families to return any excess subsidies they get under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

When the government hands out subsidies, it will use a household’s income in the previous year as the basis for guessing what the household is qualified to get in the current year. But if the household’s income grows midyear, the subsidy recapture provision will require it to repay anywhere from $600 to $3,500, compared to the $450 that the law originally called for.

This will make it very hazardous for poor working families to get ahead. In the original law, the loss of subsidy with rising income already meant absurdly high effective marginal tax rates—the implicit tax on every additional dollar of income earned. How high? The Cato Institute’s Michael Cannon puts them at 229 percent for families of four who increase their earnings by an amount equal to 5 percent of the federal poverty level or $1,100. In other words, a family that added this amount to an income of $44,700 would actually see its total income fall by $1,419 due to the loss of subsidies.

The subsidy recapture provision—essentially a tax collection scheme—means that low-wage, cash-strapped families will have no escape from these perverse tax rates. Many of them will find themselves owing the government thousands of dollars in back taxes. Since it is unlikely that they will have this kind of money sitting around, they will face a massive incentive to either fudge their returns or work for cash to avoid reporting additional income. Either way, Uncle Sam will come after them, just as it does with recipients of the Earned Income Tax Credit, the negative income tax scheme that is the inspiration behind Obamacare’s subsidies. In 2004, EITC recipients were 1.76 times more likely to be audited than others, no doubt because it is easier for the government to recover unpaid taxes from poor people than “lawyered up” rich people.

Read the rest at NewsRealBlog.