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THE WEIRS TIMES, Thursday, March 25, 2010

TALKING POINTS VS. REALTY

by Thomas Sowell

Syndicated Columnist

In a swindle that would

make Bernie Madoff look like an amateur, Barack Obama has gotten a sub- stantial segment of the population to believe that he can add millions of people to the government- insured rol ls without increasing the already record-breaking federal deficit. Those who think in

terms of talking points, instead of realities, can point to the fact that the Congressional Budget Of-

fice has concurred with budget numbers that the Obama administration has presented. Anyone who is so old- fashioned as to stop and think, instead of being swept along by rhetoric, can understand that a budget-- any budget-- is not a record of hard facts but a projection of future financial plans. A budget tells us what will happen if everything works out ac- cording to plan. The Congressional Bud-

get Office can only deal with the numbers that Congress supplies. Those numbers may well be con- sistent with each other, even if they are wholly in- consistent with anything that is likely to happen in the real world. The Obama health care

plan can be financed with- out increasing the federal

deficit-- if the administra- tion takes hundreds of bil- lions of dollars from Medi- care. But Medicare itself does not have enough money to pay its own way over time. However money is jug-

gled in the short run, the government’s financial liabilities are increased by adding this huge new entitlement of govern- ment-provided insurance. The fact that these new financial liabilities can be kept out of the official fed- eral deficit projection, by claiming that they will be paid for with money taken from Medicare, changes nothing in the real world. I can say that I can af-

ford to buy a Rolls Royce, without going into debt, by using my inheritance from a rich uncle. But, in the real world, the question would arise immediately

whether I in fact have a rich uncle, not to mention whether this hypothetical rich uncle would be likely to leave me enough money to buy a Rolls Royce. In politics, however, you

can say all sorts of things that have no relationship with reality. If you have a mainstream media that sees no evil, hears no evil and speaks no evil-- when it comes to Barack Obama-- you can say that you will pay for a vast expansion of government- provided insurance by taking money from the Medicare budget and us- ing other gimmicks. Whether this admin-

istration, or any future administration, will in fact take enough money from Medicare to pay for this new massive entitlement is a question that only the future can answer,

regardless of what today’s budget projection says. On paper, you can treat

Medicare like the hypo- thetical rich uncle who is going to leave me enough money to buy a Rolls Royce. But only on paper. In real life, you can’t get blood from a turnip, and you can’t keep on getting money from a Medicare program that is itself run- ning out of money. An even more transpar-

ent gimmick is collecting money for the new Obama health care program for the first ten years but delaying the payments of its benefits for four years. By collecting money for 10 years and spending it for only 6 years, you can make the program look self-supporting, but only on paper and only in the short run.

See SOWELL on 10

“STATE OF FEAR” DECRIED BY UN ENVOY ON NORTH KOREA

by John J. Metzler

Syndicated Columnist

UNITED NATIONS—Decrying

what it calls a “State of Fear” a UN Human Rights Report on the situation in North Korea, describes conditions in that commu- nist country as “bleak.” Describing the often “har-

rowing and horrific human rights violations” in the quaintly titled Democratic People’s Republic of Ko- rea (DPRK) the report was tabled during hearings of the Geneva-based Human Rights Council. UN Special Rapporteur

on human rights in the DPRK, Vitit Muntarbhors, a Thai lawyer, presented

his findings; “the abuses against the general popula- tion for which the authori- ties should be responsible, are both egregious and endemic.”

Importantly Mr. Mun-

tarbhors stressed that the government should coop- erate with international aid agencies as to allow the long overdue and often blocked delivery of food and humanitarian assis- tance. He added that the regime’s recently imposed currency reevaluations had in fact caused “huge infla- tion” and “wider suffer- ing.” Food shortages are commonplace and pledged international aid was not flowing freely to the needy. Muntarbhorn noted

that while the government claimed that human rights were respected in the coun- try, “different sources had indicated the existence of

a conglomeration of huge camps for political prison- ers and their families, often held there in perpetuity.” He added that the justice system was subservient to the State, and there was a systemic issue of human rights violations caused by the power base in the name of the State. Needless to say that dur-

ing his six year tenure monitoring human rights, the independent expert was not allowed access into North Korea. Following his presentation in Geneva, a North Korean diplomat stated bitterly, “The anach- ronistic Special Rappor- teur had to be eliminated once and for all.” Given the source, such a threat should perhaps be taken literally. Robert King, an American delegate, “found it lamen- table that the Government

of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea had not allowed the Special Rap- porteur to visit the country. The United States agreed with the Special Rappor- teur that the people of that country suffered under a pervasive state of fear, im- posed by the State through its extensive surveillance and informant system.” Canadian delegate Alison

Leclaire Christe stressed that the human rights situ- ation in North Korea “re- mained a matter of grave concern for Canada. It was particularly disturbed by continuing reports of col- lective punishments, pub- lic executions, torture and arbitrary detentions, as well as by the harsh treat- ment of those who had left the country and had subsequently been repatri- ated.” To say the least, Kim

Jong-Il’s neo-Stalinist state, presents one of the worlds most pressing human rights concerns. Evoking the Soviet Union during the 1930’s or Mainland China during the height of the terror of Chairman Mao Tse-tung in the 1960’s, the DPRK goes even beyond the traditional totalitarian dictatorship. North Korea remains a

self- imposed Hermit King- dom ruled by the elusive Kim dynasty. During the deliberations,

Lee Sung-joo of South Ko- rea stressed, “The Republic of Korea shared the Rap- porteur’s deep concern over the human rights con- ditions in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, which showed no particu- lar signs of improvement.” He added , “The human rights situation in that

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