A Young Margaret Thatcher

The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.”

—Margaret Thatcher

John Mackey of Whole Foods makes a case for an the Free Market Health Care Reform.  There are others. Pat Toomey offers three specific changes in tax code.

The Free Market depends on Voluntary  Cooperation of Individual Members of Social Network,  that is, it is individuals, cooperating for mutual benefit, that creates goods and services that raise our standard of living. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and Trillion Dollars Deficits and Debts are draining the creative and financial resources of this country by misallocating resources. Philadelphia is not paying its bills because it can’t. It is time for a change.

Every Republican voted against weakening the reform rules passed last year by the Democrats with much posturing. Not a single Democrat voted to retain Reform Rules. Very, very disappointing The Democrat-controlled House rules passed tonight take the three most important changes of Rules Reform Commission and either eliminate or weaken them:

1) Prohibition against gut and run amendments (amending in Rules) – eliminated

2) 24 Hour wait before voting after amending – in my view eviscerated.  Democrats  will say no, but there is a GIANT loophole the Democrats can, and I predict will, use

3) 11 pm limit on voting – weakened.

Dave Pidgeon at LancasterOnline has some additional information.

Here’s the bill HR 39.

Eric Epstein, a Righteous Democrat, hammers Democratic Leadership. On the Republican side, John Perzel was defeated for Republican House Majority Leader. While Sam Smith is hardly a reformer, keeping Perzel out of leadership was key step toward reform. Mario Civera is Republican Chair of Appropriations and major porker. Representative Mike Turzai offers a glimmer of hope. The Democrats have a four person majority in House so do not look for any real reform in this two year session.

From Eric Epstein at Capitol Domes   

In times of revenue shortfalls, it is even more necessary to focus on competitive bidding for services that State needs rather than politically directed process. And independent oversight. The Founders understood that power corrupts and that greed corrupts. Combining the nefarious tendencies of humans towards both in one person or one entity is planning for failure.  See also, Chris Freind’s four articles in The Bulletin 14 November 2008 

Following is a brief synopsis of each house bill (HB):

* HB 2805 (Turzai) – Would remove legal “services” from the definition of those contracts which can be awarded under the emergency provisions of the Procurement Code.

* HB 2804 (Grell) – Would require any contract to be awarded as an extension of a currently existing contract to be posted on the DGS Web site for 10 business days before the contract is submitted to the attorney general for review of form and content.

* HB 2397 (Godshall) – Would ban any contract from being awarded to any person, partnership or corporation which donated to the campaign of a candidate for local or state office within one year of the date a contract is posted for public bidding.

* HB 2803 (Reichley) – Would require that any contract to be let by the executive, legislative, or judicial branch, or any legislative caucus, with an initial value over $100,000 be subject to the requirements of the procurement code.

The representatives said that changes in the Procurement Code are needed “to help restore the integrity of state government against contract abuses.”