Visualize World Peace - Through Firepower!

America, If We Want Peace, We Must Prepare for War... Now

James P. Pinkerton

FoxNews.com

August 12, 2010

If we really want peace, we must prepare for war. A new conservative group aims to remind America that we need to do just that.

A new conservative group, the Coalition for Peace Through Strength, is reviving the stern wisdom of the ancients: If you want peace, prepare for war.

More recently, that same wisdom guided Ronald Reagan, who, as president in the 1980s, ordered a major defense buildup, as part of an overall strategy for subduing the Soviet Union. As commander in chief, Reagan prepared for war so well, in fact, that he won a great victory over the Soviets without firing a shot.

We need that sort of vision today, and while the Gipper himself is gone, we are seeing the same wisdom in the work of some old Reagan hands. But first, a little history.

In the mid-70s, two well-meaning presidents, Republican Gerald Ford and then Democrat Jimmy Carter, were both optimistic that the Cold War with the Soviet Union could be managed into something like permanent co-existence.

As Carter said in a 1977 commencement speech at Notre Dame University, “We are now free of that inordinate fear of communism.” And so he set about preparing for peace, while the Soviets not only prepared for war, but made war--in Angola, in Ethiopia, and, most notably, in Afghanistan, which the Red Army invaded in 1979.

The result of this Soviet aggression was a political revolt in America. If Carter couldn’t deal with the Russians--and with new threats, such as Iran--Americans would find someone who could: Reagan.

The 40th President didn’t fear communism--he hated communism. He had seen it up close in Hollywood in the 40s and 50s, when, as president of the Screen Actors Guild, he dealt with communist-front labor unions.

All through the Cold War, Reagan was a consistent advocate of “peace through strength,” supporting presidents of both parties who were willing to stand strong.

When he reached the White House in 1981, Reagan didn’t hesitate to describe the Soviet Union for what it was: “the focus of evil in the modern world.” He zeroed in on those who claimed to see moral equivalence between the free world and the Soviet bloc, jibing at “the temptation of blithely declaring yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil.”

That was Reagan--calling ‘em as he saw ‘em. But of course, he did much more than that. Behind the scenes, he was working closely with fellow anti-communists around the world, from British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to Pope John Paul II to a shipyard worker in Gdansk, Poland, by the name of Lech Walesa.

The result of this peace through strength policy can be summed up in one word: victory. In 1987, Reagan spoke in front of Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate, standing in the shadow of Soviet concrete and barbed wire, declaring, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” And two years later, that’s what happened. Two years after that, the Soviet Union itself collapsed.

Peace through strength works. It requires patience and fortitude, but peace is better than war, and strength is better than weakness.

Today, one of the great leaders of the Reagan-era, Edwin Meese III, who loyally served Reagan for more than two decades--in California as a gubernatorial aide, then in Washington as White House Counsellor and as Attorney General--is now spearheading an effort to revive those powerful Reaganite words: “peace through strength.”

Meese is the lead signatory on the Peace Through Strength Platform, along with many others, including such Reagan defense officials as Frank Gaffney, of the Center for Security Policy, and Elaine Donnelly, of the Center for Military Readiness. Even more encouragingly, a growing number of incumbent politicians and political candidates, too, have signed on to the Peace Through Strength Platform.

10-Point Freedom Manifesto

1. Renewed adherence to the national security philosophy of President Ronald Reagan: “Peace Through Strength.”American security is most reliably assured by having military forces that are fully trained, equipped and ready to deter or defeat the nation’s adversaries.

2. A robust defense posture including: A safe, reliable effective nuclear deterrent, which requires its modernization and testing; the deployment of comprehensive defenses against missile attack; and national protection against unconventional forms of warfare – including biological, electro-magnetic pulse (EMP) and cyber attacks.

3. Preservation of U.S. sovereignty against international treaties, judicial rulings and other measures that would have the effect of supplanting or otherwise diminishing the U.S. Constitution and the representative, accountable form of government it guarantees.

4. A nation free of Shariah, the brutally repressive and anti-Constitutional totalitarian program that governs in Saudi Arabia, Iran and other Islamic states and that terrorists are fighting to impose worldwide.

5. Protection from unlawful enemy combatants. Enemies who refuse to wear uniforms, use civilians as shields and employ terrorism as weapons are not entitled to U.S. constitutional rights or trials in our civilian courts. Those captured overseas should be incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay, which should remain open, or in other prisons outside the United States.

6. Energy security, realized by exploiting to the fullest the natural resources and technologies available in this country. We Americans must reduce our dependence for energy upon – and transfers of national wealth to – enemies of this country.

7. Borders secure against penetration by terrorists, narco-traffickers or others seeking to enter the United States illegally. Aliens who have violated immigration laws should not be rewarded with the privileges of citizenship.

8. High standards that protect the military culture essential to the All-Volunteer Force. The Pentagon should implement sound priorities, policies and laws that strengthen recruiting, retention, and readiness.

9. A foreign policy that supports our allies and opposes our adversaries. It should be clearly preferable to be a friend of the United States, not its enemy.

10. Judicial and educational institutions that uphold the constitutional responsibility of elected officials to make policy for our military and convey to future generations accurate portrayals of American history, including the necessity of defending freedom.

That’s an expansive agenda, covering much more than ships and missiles, important as military hardware might be. And while the Platform is a strong rebuke to President Obama--whose Carter-ish administration acts as if it agrees only vaguely, at best, with these ten points--the document could raise hackles on the right, too.

Border security, for example, is not welcomed by every libertarian. Similarly, energy independence is also controversial in some free-market circles, because the goal of energy independence presupposes government activism to achieve that end.

However, it seems clear that if America is at war, then we must take prudent steps to defend ourselves: We need to police the frontier of our homeland, and we should pull back from funding our enemies through oil and gas imports.

Moreover, the Peace Through Strength Platform is also notable for its omissions: The document makes no mention of the “liberty century” that President George W. Bush declared in his 2005 inaugural address, when the 43rd president emphasized the importance of internationalizing freedom and democracy.

Similarly, the words “Islam is peace,” spoken by Bush just days after 9/11, do not appear. Instead, the document focuses on Muslim extremism and jihadism, labeling such “isms,” quite rightly, as a mortal threat to America and its allies.

The critical issue facing America is not whether we can make friends with Muslims and bring them around to our democratic values; the issue, instead, is the survival of freedom for Americans and for their allies. One is reminded of the motto of the U.S. Army: “This we’ll defend.”

And that’s what the Peace Through Strength Platform does: It calls for the energetic and comprehensive defense of America, which Ronald Reagan described as “the last best hope for mankind.” That should be a cause to rally all Americans--although we will need an election or two before we get back on the right track.

James P. Pinkerton is a writer, Fox News contributor and the editor/founder of SeriousMedicineStrategy.

Let's Do the Economic Math!

U.S. Is Bankrupt and We Don't Even Know It: Laurence Kotlikoff

By Laurence Kotlikoff - Aug 10, 2010

Bloomberg Opinion

Let’s get real. The U.S. is bankrupt. Neither spending more nor taxing less will help the country pay its bills.

What it can and must do is radically simplify its tax, health-care, retirement and financial systems, each of which is a complete mess. But this is the good news. It means they can each be redesigned to achieve their legitimate purposes at much lower cost and, in the process, revitalize the economy.

Last month, the International Monetary Fund released its annual review of U.S. economic policy. Its summary contained these bland words about U.S. fiscal policy: “Directors welcomed the authorities’ commitment to fiscal stabilization, but noted that a larger than budgeted adjustment would be required to stabilize debt-to-GDP.”

But delve deeper, and you will find that the IMF has effectively pronounced the U.S. bankrupt. Section 6 of the July 2010 Selected Issues Papersays: “The U.S. fiscal gap associated with today’s federal fiscal policy is huge for plausible discount rates.” It adds that “closing the fiscal gap requires a permanent annual fiscal adjustment equal to about 14 percent of U.S. GDP.”

The fiscal gap is the value today (the present value) of the difference between projected spending (including servicing official debt) and projected revenue in all future years.

Double Our Taxes

To put 14 percent of gross domestic product in perspective, current federal revenue totals 14.9 percent of GDP. So the IMF is saying that closing the U.S. fiscal gap, from the revenue side, requires, roughly speaking, an immediate and permanent doubling of our personal-income, corporate and federal taxes as well as the payroll levy set down in the Federal Insurance Contribution Act.

Such a tax hike would leave the U.S. running a surplus equal to 5 percent of GDP this year, rather than a 9 percent deficit. So the IMF is really saying the U.S. needs to run a huge surplus now and for many years to come to pay for the spending that is scheduled. It’s also saying the longer the country waits to make tough fiscal adjustments, the more painful they will be.

Is the IMF bonkers?

No. It has done its homework. So has the Congressional Budget Office whose Long-Term Budget Outlook, released in June, shows an even larger problem.

‘Unofficial’ Liabilities

Based on the CBO’s data, I calculate a fiscal gap of $202 trillion, which is more than 15 times the official debt. This gargantuan discrepancy between our “official” debt and our actual net indebtedness isn’t surprising. It reflects what economists call the labeling problem. Congress has been very careful over the years to label most of its liabilities “unofficial” to keep them off the books and far in the future.

For example, our Social Security FICA contributions are called taxes and our future Social Security benefits are called transfer payments. The government could equally well have labeled our contributions “loans” and called our future benefits “repayment of these loans less an old age tax,” with the old age tax making up for any difference between the benefits promised and principal plus interest on the contributions.

The fiscal gap isn’t affected by fiscal labeling. It’s the only theoretically correct measure of our long-run fiscal condition because it considers all spending, no matter how labeled, and incorporates long-term and short-term policy.

$4 Trillion Bill

How can the fiscal gap be so enormous?

Simple. We have 78 million baby boomers who, when fully retired, will collect benefits from Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid that, on average, exceed per-capita GDP. The annual costs of these entitlements will total about $4 trillion in today’s dollars. Yes, our economy will be bigger in 20 years, but not big enough to handle this size load year after year.

This is what happens when you run a massive Ponzi scheme for six decades straight, taking ever larger resources from the young and giving them to the old while promising the young their eventual turn at passing the generational buck.

Herb Stein, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under U.S. President Richard Nixon, coined an oft-repeated phrase: “Something that can’t go on, will stop.” True enough. Uncle Sam’s Ponzi scheme will stop. But it will stop too late.

And it will stop in a very nasty manner. The first possibility is massive benefit cuts visited on the baby boomers in retirement. The second is astronomical tax increases that leave the young with little incentive to work and save. And the third is the government simply printing vast quantities of money to cover its bills.

Worse Than Greece

Most likely we will see a combination of all three responses with dramatic increases in poverty, tax, interest rates and consumer prices. This is an awful, downhill road to follow, but it’s the one we are on. And bond traders will kick us miles down our road once they wake up and realize the U.S. is in worse fiscal shape than Greece.

Some doctrinaire Keynesian economists would say any stimulus over the next few years won’t affect our ability to deal with deficits in the long run.

This is wrong as a simple matter of arithmetic. The fiscal gap is the government’s credit-card bill and each year’s 14 percent of GDP is the interest on that bill. If it doesn’t pay this year’s interest, it will be added to the balance.

Demand-siders say forgoing this year’s 14 percent fiscal tightening, and spending even more, will pay for itself, in present value, by expanding the economy and tax revenue.

My reaction? Get real, or go hang out with equally deluded supply-siders. Our country is broke and can no longer afford no- pain, all-gain “solutions.”

(Laurence J. Kotlikoff is a professor of economics at Boston University and author of “Jimmy Stewart Is Dead: Ending the World’s Ongoing Financial Plague with Limited Purpose Banking.” The opinions expressed are his own.)

America Under Sharia Law

Advocates of Anti-Shariah Measures Alarmed by Judge's Ruling

A New Jersey judge's decision not to grant a restraining order to a woman who was sexually abused by her Moroccan husband and forced repeatedly to have sex with him is sounding the alarm for advocates of laws designed to ban Shariah in America.

A New Jersey family court judge's decision not to grant a restraining order to a woman who was sexually abused by her Moroccan husband and forced repeatedly to have sex with him is sounding the alarm for advocates of laws designed to ban Shariah in America.

Judge Joseph Charles, in denying the restraining order to the woman after her divorce, ruled that her ex-husband felt he had behaved according to his Muslim beliefs -- and that he did not have "criminal desire to or intent to sexually assault" his wife.

According to the court record, the man's wife -- a Moroccan woman who had recently immigrated to the U.S. at the time of the attacks -- alleged:

"Defendant forced plaintiff to have sex with him while she cried. Plaintiff testified that defendant always told her "this is according to our religion. You are my wife, I c[an] do anything to you. The woman, she should submit and do anything I ask her to do."

In considering the woman's plea for a restraining order after the couple divorced, Charles ruled in June 2009 that a preponderance of the evidence showed the defendant had harassed and assaulted her, but "The court believes that [defendant] was operating under his belief that it is, as the husband, his desire to have sex when and whether he wanted to, was something that was consistent with his practices and it was something that was not prohibited."

Charles' ruling was overturned last month by New Jersey's Appellate Court, which ruled that the husband's religious beliefs were irrelevant and that the judge, in taking them into consideration, "was mistaken."

The woman's lawyer, Jennifer Donnelly of New Jersey Legal Services, told FoxNews.com that Charles' ruling should add to the case for a proposed Oklahoma law, which will be on the ballot in November, which would ban judges from considering "international law or Shariah Law" in their rulings.

"Those who don't want the bill to pass say, 'there's really no need for it because why would a judge walk down that road of religion?'" Donnelly said.

"Clearly here, this judge did walk down that road. He may not have said 'Shariah law.' But I think it's indicative that, in trying to be respectful of religion, judges venture into a very slippery slope."

Donnelly said she was surprised when Charles refused to issue a restraining order, adding that the only tipoffs that it might happen were questions he put to the husband's imam when he testified in the case.

The Appeals Court ruling notes, "The imam testified regarding Islamic law as it relates to sexual behavior. The imam confirmed that a wife must comply with her husband's sexual demands, because the husband is prohibited from obtaining sexual satisfaction elsewhere.

"However, a husband was forbidden to approach his wife 'like any animal.' ... he acknowledged that New Jersey law considered coerced sex between married people to be rape."

Charles, a former New Jersey state senator, declined to comment on his ruling. The husband, who represented himself in court, remains unnamed, as does his ex-wife.

While the judge in the case did not specifically mention Islamic or Shariah law, Robert Spencer, director of JihadWatch.com, said he might as well have.

"This is a ruling that is strictly in line with Islamic law, which does indeed declare that a wife may not refuse her husband sex under virtually any circumstances," Spencer said. "The only legal framework that would not consider marital rape to be sexual assault is Shariah."

But Ibrahim Hooper, national communications director for the Council for American Islamic Relations, said claims about Shariah law in the U.S. play into irrational fears about Muslims.

"It fits into the whole extremist Muslim-basher theme that Muslims are somehow trying to replace the Constitution with Islamic law," he said.

"That is absolute fantasy, and hateful. Islamic beliefs don't permit rape of any kind," he said, speaking of the New Jersey case.

Asked whether the imam's testimony contradicted that, Hooper replied, "It's just clear that a Muslim husband shouldn't do anything of this sort to his wife. It's just common sense. You don't need a religious figure to tell you that's wrong."

First Amendment expert Eugene Volokh, a professor at UCLA, said, "The Shariah law debate is a total distraction," and he noted that in the U.S., two people may sign a contract and give an Islamic court the power to determine if the contract is breached. In a 2003 case, for instance, a Texas district court ruled that the private "Texas Islamic Court" should decide the amount a husband owed his wife in a divorce proceeding -- because when they got married, they had signed a contract specifying that was what they wanted.

But assault is illegal, regardless of any contract, Volokh said, and the Appellate Court in New Jersey ruled correctly.

"The claimed religious practice of non-consensual sex involved in this case is so heinous that almost everybody thinks that you shouldn't have the right to do that, no matter what your religious beliefs are."

The husband in the case has been indicted on criminal charges and is expected to face trial in the fall.

Donnelly said that, as far as she knew, her client had not had trouble with her ex-husband since they divorced. She added that she hoped the Appeals Court ruling for her client would set a precedent.

"This ruling will really help people coming behind her," she said.

State Governments Collapse

THE COMING CATASTROPHE: STATE GOVERNMENTS

By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN

Published on DickMorris.com on August 5, 2010

As Congress reconvenes next week to pass a $26 billion bailout of state and local governments entombed in their own deficits, we witness a foretaste of the crisis that will be the central event of the first half of next year: the collapse of state governments.        

As long as the Democrats control Congress, they will continue to rubber-stamp Obama's requests for bailouts of profligate states.  But when the Republicans take control, they will be less than forthcoming.  Republicans will ask the central question: Why should taxpayers from states that have cut their budgets and observed spending restraint, pay for the extravagances of the other states?   Why should forty-seven states have to pay for California, New York, and Michigan?

State government employment has risen by 16 percent since 1995 and overly generous Medicaid and other spending has climbed alongside it.  Pension obligations, initially incurred as a cheap alternative to pay raises for public workers, are increasingly driving state budgets over the brink.           

State and local governments and school boards are hostages to the public employee labor unions that control their finances through their contracts and their politics with their donations and votes.  These nominally democratic government bodies are as much under the sway of their union captors as the auto companies are of the UAW.         

When a Republican Congress turns off the spigot of federal bailouts, the municipal and state bond markets are going to take the hint and stop buying state paper at any interest rate.  California will find its debt has become unmarketable and will come begging Congress for relief.  First it will seek federal money and then its demands will escalate into a federal guarantee of its state debt.          

The Greek financial crisis will come to our shores in the form of state bankruptcies.  

Hopefully, Republicans will not be so weak-kneed as they are in the face of the current shortfall and next week's demand for aid.  With two Senators caving in, the Democrats were able to pass their aid bill and send it to the House next week.           

The Republican solution to state financial distress should be simple:  The Party should insist on a change in the federal bankruptcy law providing for a procedure for state bankruptcy (none now exists).  This process must call for abrogation of all state and local public employee union contracts as is usually done in private sector bankruptcies.  By freeing states and local governments (including school boards) of their union obligations on wages, work rules, staffing, and pensions, they have a chance to survive and, indeed, to prosper.  But merely subsidizing these massive expenditures just prolongs the misery of the states in question.   

The collapse of overspending state governments must trigger the diminution of the power unions hold over their budgets and their politics.  Their coming bankruptcies offer an opportunity for reform and the Republican Congress - backed by newly elected Republican state governments - give us precisely the opportunity we need to effectuate it. 

Obamacare - Change We Can Die With! - Part 2

AMERICA'S NEW HEALTH CARE SYSTEM REVEALED

UPDATED CHART SHOWS OBAMACARE'S BEWILDERING COMPLEXITY

Washington, D.C. - Four months after U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi famously declared "We have to pass the bill so you can find out what’s in it," a congressional panel has released the first chart illustrating the 2,801 page health care law President Obama signed into law in March.

Developed by the Joint Economic Committee minority, led by U.S. Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas and Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas, the detailed organization chart displays a bewildering array of new government agencies, regulations and mandates.

"For Americans, as well as Congressional Democrats who didn’t bother to read the bill, this first look at the final health care law confirms what many fear, that reform morphed into a monstrosity of new bureaucracies, mandates, taxes and rationing that will drive up health care costs, hurt seniors and force our most intimate health care choices into the hands of Washington bureaucrats," said Brady, the committee’s senior House Republican. "If this is what passes for health care reform in America, then God help us all."

Brownback, the committee’s ranking member, added, "This updated chart illustrates the overwhelming expansion of government control over health choices and the bewildering complexity facing everyone affected by this law. It doesn’t take long to see how the recently signed health care bill causes a hugely expensive and explosive expansion of federal control over health care. Personal choices that should be between a doctor and a patient will quickly be strangled in a never ending web of bureaucracy."

Senate Steering Committee Chairman Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina) called Obamacare "a bureaucratic nightmare. The Democrats’ takeover of health care creates a byzantine network of 159 new federal programs and bureaucracies to make decisions that should be between just the patient and their doctor. It should concern everyone that at the center of this regulatory web is the new CMS chief, Donald Berwick, who has championed rationing and European socialized medicine. Americans were rightly outraged that this big government bill was rushed through Congress before anyone read or fully understood the bill’s consequences. Republicans will fight to repeal this reckless takeover and to ensure health care freedom to American families."

In addition to capturing the massive expansion of government and the overwhelming complexity of new regulations and taxes, the chart portrays:

1. $569 billion in higher taxes;

2. $529 billion in cuts to Medicare;

3. Swelling of the ranks of Medicaid by 16 million;

4. 17 major insurance mandates; and

5. The creation of two new bureaucracies with powers to impose future rationing: the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute and the Independent Payments Advisory Board.

Brady admits committee analysts could not fit the entire health care bill on one chart. "This portrays only about one-third of the complexity of the final bill. It’s actually worse than this."

Download Chart (PDF format)

Obamacare - Change We Can Die With! - Part 1

Obamacare Looks Only Worse Upon Further Review: Kevin Hassett

Aug. 2 (Bloomberg) -- One of the more illuminating remarks during the health-care debate in Congress came when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told an audience that Democrats would “pass the bill so you can find out what’s in it, away from the fog of controversy.”

That remark captured the truth that, while many Americans have a vague sense that something bad is happening to their health care, few if any understand exactly what the law does.

To fill this vacuum, Representative Kevin Brady of Texas, the top House Republican on the Joint Economic Committee, asked his staff to prepare a study of the law, including a flow chart that illustrates how the major provisions will work.

The result, made public July 28, provides citizens with a preview of the impact the health-care overhaul will have on their lives. It’s a terrifying road map that shows Democrats have launched America on the most reckless policy experiment in its history, the economic equivalent of the Bay of Pigs invasion.

Before discussing what the law means for you, we have to look at what it does to government. That’s where the chart comes in handy. It includes the new fees, bureaucracies and programs and connects them into an organizational chart that accounts for the existing structure. It’s so carefully documented that a line connecting two structures cites the legislative language that created the link.

Ornate System

This clearly is a candidate for most disorganized organizational chart ever. It shows that the health system is complex, yes, but also ornate. The new law creates 68 grant programs, 47 bureaucratic entities, 29 demonstration or pilot programs, six regulatory systems, six compliance standards and two entitlements.

Getting that massive enterprise up and running will be next to impossible. So Democrats streamlined the process by granting Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius the authority to make judgments that can’t be challenged either administratively or through the courts.

This monarchical protection from challenges is extended as well to the development of new patient-care models under Obama’s controversial recess appointment, Donald Berwick, whom Republicans are calling the rationer-in-chief. Berwick will run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, where he can experiment with ways to use administrative fiat to move our system toward the socialized medicine of Europe, which he has at times embraced.

Closer to Home

A sprawling, complex bureaucracy has been set up that will have almost absolute power to dictate terms for participating in the health-care system. That’s what the law does to government. What it does to you is worse.

Based on the administration’s own numbers, as many as 117 million people might have to change their health plans by 2013 as their employer-provided coverage loses its grandfathered status and becomes subject to the new Obamacare mandates.

Those mandates also might make your health care more expensive. The Congressional Budget Office predicts that premiums for a small number of families who buy their insurance privately will rise by as much as $2,100.

The central Obamacare mechanism for increasing insurance coverage is an expansion of the Medicaid program. Of the 30 million new people covered, 16 million will be enrolled in Medicaid. And you could end up in the program whether you want it or not. The bill states that people who apply for coverage through the new exchanges or who apply for premium-subsidy credits will automatically be enrolled in Medicaid if they qualify.

Hurting the Elderly

To pay for this expansion, the bill takes $529 billion from Medicare, with roughly 39 percent of the cut coming from the Medicare Advantage program. This represents a large transfer of resources, sacrificing the care of the elderly in order to increase the Medicaid rolls.

For all this supposed reform, you, the American taxpayer, can expect a bill to the tune of $569 billion.

Front and center among the new taxes is the 40 percent excise tax on those lucky people with so-called Cadillac health plans. The higher insurance costs that are driven by the government mandates will push many more ordinary plans into Cadillac territory.

If the idea of taxing people with coverage deemed too good doesn’t bother you, maybe the new 3.8 percent tax on investment income will. That will apply even to a small number of home sales, those that generate $250,000 in profit for an individual or $500,000 for a married couple.

In vivid color and detail, Congressman Brady’s chart captures the huge expansion of government coming under Obamacare. Harder to show on paper is the pain it will cause.

(Kevin Hassett, director of economic-policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, is a Bloomberg News columnist. He was an adviser to Republican Senator John McCain in the 2008 presidential election. The opinions expressed are his own.)