Beat Up on the Debt Ceiling

The media really beat on the Tea Party during the debt limit debate. The movement likely suffered a loss of political capital for very little gain.

The Tea Party got beat up because they let the left choose the issue. The debt limit was a crisis because the Pelosi/Reid Congress failed to raise the debt limit to match their spending.

The Pelosi/Reid Congress could have used their super majority to raise taxes or raise the debt limit. Pelosi/Reid chose to put our nation is a terrible spot hoping to gain political points by pushing our finances to the brink.

I hope that the budget fiasco made it clear to leaders of the Tea Party movement that they cannot simply let progressives define the battlefield and expect to win.

To restore American freedoms, the Tea Party needs to choose the issue.

The most powerful issue is Health Freedom.

The Health Freedom debate must start with fundamentals. It cannot start with the assumption that employer based insurance is health freedom.

Employer based health insurance was designed by progressives in decades past as part of the path to socialism. In the Carter administration, I attended lectures during which the professor put forward the notion that the first step to socialism was to convince Americans that group funding was the only way to pay for health care.

The professor instructed young activists to promote employer based health care.

I figured that if supporting group-funding of health care was the first step to socialism; then the first step to the restoration of liberty would be to promote self-funded health care.

While working in the insurance industry, I carefully deconstructed a group insurance pool and created a viable alternative to insurance called "The Medical Savings and Loan."

I developed the Medical Savings and Loan as a business model (not as a political platform).

However, I believe that this business model could play a vital role in the restoration movement.

The fact that the MS&L is important. It actually shows how the free market creates new businesses and new jobs.

BTW, the idea that austerity measures lead to prosperity is paradoxical until one realizes that government is, by nature, in a negative space.

Government, by nature, places constraints on the market. The argument for limiting government is a argument for limiting the constraints.

The argument for limited government is convoluted because it argues for a negative. Conservatives seek to place limits on the ability of the government to limit.

Adding the Medical Savings and Loan into the puzzle creates a mechanism in which one is arguing a positive.

My argument is that we should create the Medical Savings and Loan as an alternative to employer based insurance.

The Medical Savings and Loan, at this point, is simply a logical structure for self funded health care.

If the Tea Party argued for this new logical structure in conjuction with the argument for limited government, then they would have a complete system which shows why constraining government leads to prosperity.

Much as I would like to move on to different topics, I think I will continue to pound the drum for the Medical Savings and Loan through 2012.