Generally speaking, three votes isn't the margin by which a massive transformation of the economy and society should be imposed by the central government.

But that's exactly what the House Democrats did tonight when they voted 220-215 to pass a bill they ill-comprehend, that would impose an authoritarian, $1.5 trillion plan to reorganize American's health care under the auspices of the oh-so-efficient federal government.

Rep. Loretta Sanchez voted "aye" on the Obama-Pelosi plan, continuing her lock-step support of every element of Obama's left-wing policy agenda. It would be refreshing if she would drop the charade, demonstrate some intellectual honesty and resign from the Blue Dog caucus, because there is nothing moderate or fiscally responsible about her.

The next battle ground in this war between liberty and collectivism will take place in the Senate. In the meantime, maybe Loretta will be willing to have a real town hall meeting in which she deals with her constituents face-to-face, rather than shielding herself with clergy or taking pre-screened questions in a tele-townhall. I would very much like to see her explain to her constituents why she voted to impose an individual federal mandate to purchase health insurance -- or else face civil and criminal penalties of up to $250,000 and 5 years in jail. I'm not holding my breath; Sanchez has shown no stomach for it.

That is an almost unprecedented federal lunge at controlling the lives of American citizens. The only real peacetime comparison is military conscription. It's astonishing, and it blows away the fiction that the American Left cares two whits about individual liberty. In a free country, if I don't want to buy something -- whether it's health insurance or something else -- I shouldn't have to. And I certainly shouldn't face fines and jail time for exercising that right. Unfortunately, Loretta Sanchez and her comrades on the Left have higher priorities than the liberties of their fellow citizens.

Personally, I think Loretta has signed her political death warrant, and none too soon. I hope the GOP can avoid a bloody primary fight that only helps this enabler of government paternalism. Assemblyman Van Tran has the best shot at taking her out, and maybe this appallingly anti-freedom vote will concentrate some minds on the bigger picture. I also hope the O.C. business community will wing into gear to help in the effort to oust Sanchez. I understand they will circle the wagons around Democratic state Sen. Lou Correa because he is the mule who carries their legislation in Sacramento. But Sanchez has been a very willing cog in the machinery of government gigantism President Obama is building -- and in her case defending individual liberty and free markets ought to transcend narrow self-interest.

You know what’s best for your family when it comes to health care, and it is crucial that any health care reform proposal ensures high-quality health care, protects your ability to make choices, and gives you affordable options.

Our nation’s health care system needs reform. However, in their rush to takeover our nation’s health care delivery system, Democrats in Congress have forgotten what Americans want and are pushing legislation that will reduce your family’s health care options, reduce the quality of health care and significantly increase the costs of health care.

For example, tucked in on page 131 of their 1,990-page health care reform bill, they have created a “health choices commissioner.” This would be an unelected government bureaucrat in Washington who will be making decisions about what benefits health insurance plans may and may not offer. This will lead to fewer choices and a “one-size-fits-all” approach that cannot possibly contemplate the unique scenarios that each family faces, whether they are young and healthy, whether they are dealing with serious medical conditions, or whether they are caring for an elderly parent who has special long-term care needs.

What’s worse, there are limited resources for this government takeover so giving this power to the federal government could lead to the rationing of health care and your family facing long lines at the doctor’s office and hospital. We do not need waits of months and years to get necessary care and we do not need the federal government telling doctors which tests and procedures to order. What we need are policies that allow individuals to remain free to make these decisions with their doctors.

Furthermore, the Democrats’ plan will increase the cost of health care for you and your family. Changes to the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit in the bill will raise Medicare Part B premiums by $25 billion and Part D premiums by 20 percent. Furthermore, the bill imposes a new $2 billion tax on health insurance policies, as well as a new 2.5% tax on medical devices, including everything from bandages to wheelchairs. Both of these taxes will be passed directly onto you and your family in the form of higher health care costs.

American families want health care reform that will expand access and choices and decrease costs. House Republicans have offered solutions that would do just that. Our solutions include: increasing options by allowing folks to purchase insurance across state lines; lowering costs by enacting rational medical malpractice reform and increasing competition; and expanding access to health care by allowing dependents up to age 25 to remain on parents’ policies and creating risk pools that will provide real options for those with preexisting conditions.

It’s your job to make health care decisions for your family. The government’s job is to ensure you have access to affordable alternatives and then get out of the way.

President Barack Obama is asking Americans to "withhold judgment" until after the "facts" are known why Major Nidal Hasan, a devout Muslim who believed Muslims shouldn't be in the Army because they might have to kill other Muslims, gunned down 13 innocent fellow soldiers at Ft. Hood while shouting "Allahu Akbar!"

This is the same president who, while knowing virtually no facts about why Cambridge police entered the home of black Harvard Prof. Louis Gates, immediately assumed it was because Gates is black.

What would you call the act of a lone gunman who laid in wait for hundreds of shoppers at a farmer’s market in Kabul and then opened fire on them with two guns? And, if you learned that gunman had, over weeks, terminated his rental contract and given away his furniture (and leftover broccoli) while saying good-bye to his neighbors, would his murder of as many unarmed and unsuspecting infidels as he could kill seem to be the act of one who suddenly snapped? And, what would you have thought upon learning that he shouted “Allah is Great” as he opened fire on the helpless victims? Would you have concluded that the murderer acted in random fashion as a crazy person?

It is true that we do not know if Nidal Malik Hasan originally joined the military with intentions to agitate against American wartime initiatives. We do know that he was not prepared to serve unless the declared military campaign suited his personal agenda. When, in response to the attacks of 9-11, the US went to war against states that perpetrate Islamist terror, he consistently expressed opposition to the goal of defeating Al Qaeda. He also used his position as Army psychiatrist to preach Islam to returning war vets that he was assigned to counsel. The rants against the war effort and in favor of Islam earned him a poor job performance rating at Walter Reed and a transfer to Fort Hood. His internet postings drawing moral equivalence between suicide bombings and heroic acts of American troops to die in attempt to save comrades later earned him a place on the FBI watch list.

Jihad, known generally as the holy war waged by Muslims against infidels, has been characterized in our time by suicide killers who announce that Allah is great before activating a bomb vest, crashing planes into buildings, or firing into groups of unarmed people. These rampages only stop upon death of the jihadist. The act is intended to make a signature statement and expected to instill fear and horror in a community – as well as the civilization at large.

The hard dichotomy for many westerners to confront is that jihad is not personal. Jihad is a generalized attack on a way of life and a way of thinking. Thus, the tendency to describe the suicide killers’ senseless acts as random seems rational and offers some comfort to dazed westerners. These Islamist killers are often described as respected professionals as were the doctors that planned the London and Glasgow terror attacks. Many who knew Hasan have spoken, like his landlord and uncle, in bewilderment and surprise when acknowledging his act of mass murder. But the jihadist’s war is not against the nice people encountered along the way but against a consensual political compact that directly repudiates his favored Sharia-inspired doctrinal tyranny.

Why is it important to call this barbaric and cowardly act, jihad? Although painful, we must recognize there are those among us, some were even born to America, that have joined a conspiracy to destroy all that is American. In the name of all victims of jihad, including those who died on 9-11, we have a responsibility to recognize and declare jihadist attacks for the evil they represent to liberty loving Americans.

At a time when tension is high, it is important to recognize the western-oriented American Muslims who live among us and who sincerely condemn acts of jihad. But we also must preserve the freedom to judge a terrorist act by its design. Just as a jihadist distinguishes between individual westerners and his general hatred of the permissive democratic system that they embrace, so too must westerners find a way to identify and resist terror actors who mean us grave harm while still accepting individual Muslim citizens who contribute positively to our democratic and pluralistic way of life. 

As the suicidal Democratic congressmen proceed to rubber-stamp the Obama health care reform despite the drubbing their party took in the '09 elections, the president trotted out the endorsements of the AMA and the AARP to stimulate support. But these -- and the other endorsements -- his package has received are all bought and paid for. Here are the deals:

The American Medical Association (AMA) was facing a 21 percent cut in physicians reimbursements under the current law. Obama promised to kill the cut if they backed his bill. The cuts are the fruit of a law requiring annual 5 percent to 6 percent reductions in doctor reimbursements for treating Medicare patients. Bravely, each year Congress has rolled the cuts over, suspending them but not repealing them. So each year, the accumulated cuts threaten doctors. By now, they have risen to 21 percent. With this blackmail leverage, Obama compelled the AMA to support his bill ... or else!

The American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) got a financial windfall in return for its support of the health care bill. Over the past decade, the AARP has morphed from an advocacy group to an insurance company (through its subsidiary company). It is one of the main suppliers of Medi-gap insurance, a high-cost privately purchased coverage that picks up where Medicare leaves off. But President Bush-43 passed the Medicare Advantage program, which offered a subsidized, lower-cost alternative to Medi-gap. Under Medicare Advantage, the elderly get all the extra coverage they need plus coordinated, well-managed care, usually by the same physician. So more than 10 million seniors went with Medicare Advantage, cutting into AARP Medi-gap revenues.

Presto! Obama solved their problem. He eliminates subsidies for Medicare Advantage. The elderly will have to pay more for coverage under Medigap, but the AARP -- which supposedly represents them -- will make more money. (If this galls you, join the American Seniors Association, the alternative group. Contact sbarton@americanseniors.org.

The drug industry backed Obamacare and, in return, got a 10-year limit of $80 billion on cuts in prescription drug costs. (A drop in the bucket of their almost $3 trillion projected cost over the next decade). They also got administration assurances that it will continue to bar lower-cost Canadian drugs from coming into the U.S. All it had to do was to put its formidable advertising budget at the disposal of the administration.

Insurance companies got access to 40 million new potential customers. But when the Senate Finance Committee lowered the fine that would be imposed on those who don't buy insurance from $3,500 to $1,500, the insurance companies jumped ship and now oppose the bill, albeit for the worst of motives.

The only industry that refused to knuckle under was the medical-device makers. They stood for principle and wouldn't go along with Obama's blackmail. So the Senate Finance Committee retaliated by imposing a tax on medical devices such as automated wheelchairs, pacemakers, arterial stents, prosthetic limbs, artificial knees and hips, and other necessary accoutrements of health care.

So these endorsements are not freely given, but bought and paid for by an administration that is intent on passing its program at any cost.

The White House announced last week that the $787 billion stimulus package has "saved or created" more than 1 million jobs.

Yet on Friday we learned that unemployment increased to 10.2%, and the number of unemployed Americans rose by 558,000 in October. If you factor in workers who gave up looking or settled for a part-time job, the real unemployment rate--what's known as U6--is an astounding 17.5%.

Look out now for even more claims about "saved or created" jobs from the Obama administration.

As numerous economists have explained, there is no academic or empirical basis for the category of "jobs saved."
 
Veronique de Rugy of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University says, "no agency--not the Labor Department, not the Treasury, not the Bureau of Labor Statistics--actually calculates 'jobs saved.' "

Dr. Allan Meltzer of Carnegie Mellon University adds, "One can search economic textbooks forever without finding a concept called 'jobs saved.' It doesn't exist for good reason: How can anyone know that his or her job has been saved?"

The fact is, there is no guarantee that the government actually creates a job when it spends stimulus money. There is no way of knowing whether a worker or firm that is engaged in a stimulus-related activity would have been idle or engaged in some alternative activity. But we do know that as the recovery picks up, individuals engaged in government activity will be unavailable for more productive private activity.

That means that the recovery will have trouble truly lifting off if many of our workers have been committed to questionable make-work projects concocted by Speaker Pelosi and President Obama. A Keynesian might be happy to have government workers digging holes and filling them in, but workers occupied in that manner cannot, at the same time, return to the factory floor. The higher the number of such dislocated workers, the higher the policy challenge going forward.

So if the Obama administration is just going to make up formulations like "saved or created" that have no basis in economics, let us offer our own formulation that is a far more accurate characterization of our economic challenges since the enactment of President Obama's $787 billion stimulus package, even if economists currently don't use this measure.

And that is, we have seen more than 4 million jobs "lost and dislocated" since President Obama and the Democratic Congress enacted the stimulus package in February.

This is a much easier formulation to understand.

You begin with the increase in the number of unemployed Americans since the stimulus was passed in February as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That number is 3.2 million, which represents the jobs that have actually been lost since the stimulus package was enacted.

Then, to have a clear sense of the liabilities created by Obama's misguided policies, we should add to our "jobs lost" number an estimate of private workers who have been "dislocated" by the government. Since stimulus actions are meant to be temporary, knowing how many workers have been "dislocated" is essential to forming a realistic long-run economic outlook. The more dislocated workers that Obama creates today, the higher the number of workers that will have to eventually be reabsorbed by the private sector tomorrow when the stimulus winds down.

So what figure should we use for the number of "dislocated" jobs since the stimulus program was enacted?

Thankfully, the White House has, perhaps inadvertently, provided us with an estimate. When the White House says that jobs have been "saved or created" by the stimulus program, then we should say that this is the number of jobs "dislocated" by the stimulus program.

So, using current figures, adding the number of actual jobs lost since February (3.2 million) to the number of jobs that the Obama administration says that they have "saved or created" since February (1 million) means that the economy has "lost and dislocated" more than 4 million jobs since President Obama signed his $787 billion stimulus package.

This "lost and dislocated" formulation is a much more honest assessment of where we are as a country when it comes to understanding job creation, unemployment and the economic challenges ahead under the so-called stimulus package.
 
If it's not, then the White House should at least explain how "saved or created" is more accurate.