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September 10, 2009 09:49 PM UTC

Tom Tancredo, Mr. Consistency

  • 28 Comments
  • by: BobMoore

( – promoted by Colorado Pols)

South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson’s shout-out to President Obama Wednesday night has been denounced as inappropriate by Republicans and Democrats alike. Even Wilson apologized.

Cue Tom Tancredo, via press release from his Rocky Mountain Foundation:

Former U.S. Representative Tom Tancredo issued the following statement in response to Rep. Joe Wilson’s objection to President Obama’s questionable claims about his the Democrat health care plan last night.

“Joe is right,” Tancredo said, “Obama is a liar.”  

“Republicans attempted to attach language to the Democrat health care bill in committee that would have required the government to verify the legal status of anyone receiving benefits under the plan and imposed enforcement mechanisms for violations of that requirement.  Unfortunately, the Democrats voted that amendment down.” Tancredo said.  “If the Democrats and the President truly wanted to prevent illegal immigrants from obtaining publicly funded health care benefits, they would have approved that amendment.”

Tancredo and Wilson are not alone in questioning the President’s claims.  In a June 15 letter to Congress, CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf wrote ‘once the [Democrat health care] proposal was fully implemented, the number of people who are uninsured would decline to about 36 million or 37 million…Roughly a third of those [receiving coverage] would be unauthorized immigrants…”

Tancredo also questioned the factual basis for many other claims made by the President.

“The President expects us to believe that he can provide health insurance free of charge to those who can’t afford it, the care will not be rationed, premiums cannot go up, risk factors cannot be considered, no one will be excluded, taxes will not increase, and that none of this will cost the taxpayers a dime.  In fact, he expects us to believe this huge federal program will actually save the taxpayer money,” said Tancredo, “How dumb does the President think the American people are?”

“First the President tells America that we are facing imminent national bankruptcy because of Medicare’s spiraling costs – then in the next breath he tells us that his solution to this problem is to basically expand Medicare to cover every person in America, and that this will result in a reduction in the deficit. In essence – he is arguing that the best way to reduce spending is to spend more. This makes no sense,” Tancredo continued.

“It’s as if Democrats in Washington have become so drunk with power that they now believe they can repeal the basic laws of economics with a simple majority vote of Congress,” Tancredo concluded.  

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28 thoughts on “Tom Tancredo, Mr. Consistency”

  1. As I have to remind some of the right-leaning posters here, politics swing in pretty large cycles; those of you who were overconfidently looking forward to 2010 and 2012 need to keep that in mind, because the conservative hegemony that lasted from 1980 to the mid 2000’s isn’t coming back any time soon, health care reform or no.

    I don’t think you guys will be swaggering as much now; in part because Obama has seized the momentum on the debate, but also because your leaders are really scaring the hell out of the swing voters. If you guys think that greatly exaggerated scare tactics about “socialism” play with middle of the road Americans, you’ve forgotten the lesson of Pat Buchanan’s speech to the 1992 GOP convention.

    Judging from all the shenanigans ‘pubs are up to, from bringing loaded rifles to rallies and town hall meetings to making that Obama “joker” poster, from shouting “you lie” to the president in the middle of his speech to Congress to backing up the offender even as he backpedals faster than Lance Armstrong in a time trial, you’re just assuring Democratic/liberal hegemony for decades more to come. If this keeps up, then expect to lose even more seats in both chambers next year, and get used to the idea that our 44th president will be there for seven more years.

    Again, keep it up.

  2. for opponent Miller:

    Joe Wilson’s (R-S.C.) untoward outburst Wednesday night has had a positive effect for at least one person. Rob Miller, a Democrat planning to run against Wilson in 2010, has taken in more than $350,000 from over 5,000 people through the website ActBlue.com since his opponent heckled the president.

    A sizable chunk of the money has come from Daily Kos readers through a group called “Defeating the man who yelled ‘liar’ at Obama.”

    Miller ran against Wilson in 2008; National Journal called it the congressman’s “first serious challenge.” A retired Marine and an Iraq veteran, Miller ran without any help from national Democrats as a social conservative and critic of the Bush administration. During that campaign, he blogged for the Huffington Post about his reasons for running:

    You can go to Huffington Post for more.

  3. The President is right to assume that at least some of you are dumb.  Because even after he explained the reform package to you, you continue to lie about it.

    Hint #1: The public option isn’t Medicare – it’s paid for by option enrollees through premiums.

    Hint #2: The best way to save Medicare right now is to reign in costs across the board.  That means lowering drug prices, and it means making sure that private insurers can’t just pawn off bad risks on to government plans, artificially inflating Medicare/Medicaid/VA costs.

    Tom Tancredo: repealing the basic laws of reality since (at least) 1977.

  4. Because he’s a has-been who runs a dot.org?

    Because he’s a former lawmaker who will never be a future lawmaker?

    Because he’s a nutjob and the media loves nutjobs so he’s relevant because he will get his name in the papers occasionally?

  5. From Tancredo’s statement:

    Tancredo and Wilson are not alone in questioning the President’s claims.  In a June 15 letter to Congress, CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf wrote ‘once the [Democrat health care] proposal was fully implemented, the number of people who are uninsured would decline to about 36 million or 37 million…Roughly a third of those [receiving coverage] would be unauthorized immigrants…”

    The actual letter from Elmendorf:

    According to the preliminary analysis, once the proposal was fully

    implemented, the number of people who are uninsured would decline to

    about 36 million or 37 million, representing about 13 percent of the

    nonelderly population. (Roughly a third of those would be unauthorized

    immigrants or individuals who are eligible for Medicaid but not enrolled in

    that program.)

    I’ve heard of using ellipsis to change the meaning of a quote, but it takes a lot of audacity to just insert some brackets into a quote that completely changes the meaning of a sentence. At no point did Elmendorf claim anything about illegal immigrants receiving any coverage at all.

    1. Doesn’t the quote say EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE of how Tancredo’s spinning it. I could be reading this incorrectly, but it seems Elmendorf’s saying that of the 36 or 37 million people NOT receiving coverage under the Democratic proposal, one-third would be illegal immigrants.

      As in, not one-third of those getting coverage but one-third of those NOT getting coverage.

      What a way to lend credibility to your cause…

        1. Note how his buddy Hannity did the same regarding Obamas’ comment about insurance company execs.

          Obama: “They don’t do it because they are bad people, they do it because it is profitable.”

          Hannity: “Obama said insurance company execs are bad people.”

          As Bugs Bunny would say, “Sheesh, what a maroon!”  

  6. And maybe I’m misunderstanding the whole firefight over the public option and immigration. But if the public option becomes law, won’t participants have to pay premiums to cover the program’s costs?

    If so, then wouldn’t it make sense to allow illegal immigrants to participate in the program and pay premiums into the system? After all, the idea behind insurance is to get as many premium payers into the pool as possible so that funds will be available to pay benefits to those who need them.

    I can understand not extending any public subsidies or tax credits to illegal immigrants who participate in the plan. But it would seem to make good business sense to have them paying premiums along with everyone else if they sign up for coverage.

    After all, illegal immigrants with little money seek treatment in U.S. emergency rooms and medical facilities all the time. Most health professionals do not turn away sick or injured immigrants when they seek treatment, and the cost of such treatment ends up buried in the costs the rest of us pay for our own medical care.

    Maybe I’m confused about the whole issue, and maybe there’s no connection between the public option and immigration. But if anyone can elighten me, I would appreciate it. And if it turns out that I’m completely confused and off-base, I’ll do my best Emily Latella impression and plead, “Never mind.”

      1. In the public option it makes economic or actuarial sense to enroll any and everyone who might seek treatment that cannot (will not) be denied.

        But only if the public option is not subsidized, i.e., it really is self funded through premiums.

        And it makes less sense to subsidize premiums for those who could afford coverage or shouldn’t be eligible.

        But either way, liver and blasphemy is about right.

        1. Medicare is a combination of recipient paid premiums and government subsidy.  It is going broke because the premiums do not cover the cost of the care.  

          It costs a Medicare recipient about $100 a month to cover 80% of medical care.  Hospital care is free. Drugs cost another premium.  Plus, private insurance provides a “gap” policy to cover the 20% not covered by Medicare.  An individual on Medicare pays between $100 to $200 a month for health care coverage, depending on the “boutique” private policies.  There is no group coverage. So a couple spends about $200-$300 a month.  If this strategy were to be extended to everyone…premiums, for example, for a family of five would be $1000-$1500 a month.

          1. Where does the % paid as payroll tax fit in?

            And actuarially Medicare is a tough comaprison control group. They’re either disabled or older or both.  A different premium model would work for all America.

            1. It is a good question. I do not know if the tax plus the premium is still not sufficient to fund the current recipients. I trust that it probably is not enough and that even more money has to come from the general fund.

              Even tho, we all pay into ss and medicare, there is not an individual medicare account, such as there is with social security.  Everyone on medicare gets the same deal from the goverment regardless of how much you paid in or what your current assets are….there is no “means” testing.  

    1. so Wilson is a member of the “sons of confederate veterans”, an ugly bigoted, white supremacist redneck shit hate group.  No wonder he saw it fit to interrupt a black man during his address to congress, even though he’s the goddamned President.

      Oh, jeez.  All I can say is, South Carolina.

    2. embedded in that story:

      “John Wilkes Booth members have been known to put pennies in urinals, making sure to leave the Lincoln side face-up.”

      Gaw’damn JimBob!!  Not that there’s a durn brilliant idear!  That’ll sure show those yankee pansies a thing or three!  Piss on Lincoln and they won’t screw with us much longer!

      F’ing morons.  

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