Joe Knows Bankruptcy - On An Intellectual Level

Our ever-brilliant vice president today on the need to spend trillions on health care reform:

“We’re going to go bankrupt as a nation,” Biden said. “Well, people when I say that look at me and say, ‘What are you talking about? You’re telling me we have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt?’

“The answer is yes, I’m telling you.”

So we go bankrupt without health care reform?

There is no logic here. This is "burn the village to save it" government lunacy, designed to hoodwinked the weak-minded into supporting structural changes in the way we live so that government gains total control of our lives.

We may not yet be economically bankrupt.

But Biden, Obama and the Progressives in Congress have shown that we are morally and intellectually bankrupt in Washington, D.C.

And only an election will fix that.

UPDATE -- Congressional Budget Office director Douglas Elmendorf, testifying before the Senate Budget Committee today, refuted White House claims (lies) that passing health care reform will save money. As reported in The Washington Post:

Instead of saving the federal government from fiscal catastrophe, the health reform measures being drafted by congressional Democrats would increase rather than reduce public spending on health care, potentially worsening an already bleak budget outlook, the director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said this morning.

At last, someone with a calculator and a fully functioning brain.

Krauthammer's Take on Joe Biden

Columnist Charles Krauthammer, in my opinion, is a national treasure. He is brilliant, most often correct, and very funny. So even as we disagree on Joe Biden's latest flu advice, I cannot resist posting a portion of his take last night on the Fox News' All Stars:

I think the single most important public health measure that we can take is to put Joe Biden in quarantine. The prognosis, unfortunately for him, is not good. There's no known cure for what ails him, which is a congenital inability to control his tongue.

But the good news is that that researchers around the world are working around the clock on a cure. So there always is hope.

I'm sorry. I couldn't help myself on that.

Good stuff.

Cutting Joe Biden Some Slack

Yes, Vice President Joe Biden is a clown.

Yes, it is great fun laughing at Joe Biden's gaffes, especially when he contradicts his boss.

But maybe we should be paying closer attention to what he's actually saying. No, seriously!

Today the vice president said he wouldn't fly in commercial aircraft or ride in subways because of the greater potential to contract the flu, and that's what he would recommend to this family.

"That's me," he said.

Quite simply put, he is speaking for himself. He isn't acting as a mouthpiece for Homeland Security, HHS, or even the White House, just noodling the idea that common sense says you ought not to put yourself in harm's way if there are alternatives and no overriding reasons otherwise.

It's a sad measure of how far we have fallen as a nation when everything anyone says becomes an occasion for ridicule. Now I'm not a big Biden fan -- the thought that he is but a heartbeat away from being Commander-in-Chief is much more troubling than the Mexican Swine flu -- but give the man credit for a bit of clear thinking on the "pending pandemic."

What he said about aircraft? True. Studies have shown that even in normal times flying can be hazardous to your health because of the closed air systems. If you've got 150 people on a flight, and just one has a cold, there is a good chance you will catch it. My own anecdotal experience convinces me that this is so: I don't think I've ever flown without coming down with the cold or flu shortly afterward, except for the times I've flown in practically empty jetliners, or small aircraft. I would imagine subways have the same sort of problems.

Right now the official position of the White House, et al, is that we are looking at a probable pandemic that is very serious, bears watching, should close affected schools, will necessitate quarantines, and yet ... isn't worth closing the border, no one need worry about wearing a mask, the death rate seems rather small, and not to worry because our best and brightest scientific minds are on the case.

In other words, it's deadly serious and it's no big deal. All at the same time.

That may well be true, as several epidemiologists say that is is likely that the Mexican Swine flu, while pandemic in nature, is not yet skilled at killing its hosts. It may take two or three "waves" over the next year or so for it to become so adept.

Which, to me, argues for trying to isolate it and contain it quickly. Don't allow it to find a host more condusive to its killer ambitions. Take sensible precautions now, like tightening border crossings and restricting certain types of travel, and each of us personally doing our part.

As one of our Founding Fathers said, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."

Ben Franklin and Joe Biden, strange bedfellows. Who knew?