Obamacare Threatens Life and Liberty; Supreme Court to Decide Constitutionality in 2012 The Supreme Courts announcement on Monday

that it will consider the constitutionality of some of Obamacares provisions, including the individual mandate, has reignited discussion of the health care laws many problematic provisions. In addition to increasing insurance premiums and hampering job growth, Obamacare poses significant threats to the religious liberty of institutions and individuals and could have a serious negative impact on families. For Belmont Abbey, a private Catholic college located in North Carolina, the most serious impact is Obamacares threats to religious freedom and conscience rights. Late last week, the Becket Fund for Religious Libertyannounced it will represent Belmont Abbey in a suit the school is bringing against the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on behalf of Belmont Abbey over a new mandate that would force the college to provide insurance plans for students and employees that cover procedures and prescriptions the college finds morally objectionable. Fulfilling a provision of Obamacare that requires coverage of preventative services, HHS adopted a rule in August that mandates nearly all insurance companies cover contraception and sterilization without cost to the insured. The rule includes mandatory coverage of ethically controversial drugs like Ella, which can act as an abortifacient. Employers with moral and ethical objections to covering such services, like Belmont Abbey, can find little recourse in the narrowly drawn religious exemption to the rule. Without a robust religious exemption from the rule and not wishing to subsidize contraception, sterilization, or abortion, Belmont Abbey decided to sue HHS to secure the right to provide insurance coverage in accordance with the schools religious beliefs. Violations of institutional and individual conscience rights arent the only troublesome aspects of Obamacare. The law is replete with provisions that can be used to fund abortions and negatively impact families. As Heritage research has pointed out since Obamacare first passed, the law includes multiple problematic provisions with respect to the federal role in funding elective abortion. Additionally, the limited and loose conscience protectionsoutlined in the law are inadequate to protect pro-life medical professionals freedom to practice their profession in accord with their personal beliefs. In addition to loopholes allowing federal funding of abortion, to which the vast majority of American families object, new funding streams for contraception education in schools and marriage penalties in Obamacare make the healthcare law very family-unfriendly. Heritage research demonstrates how the law restricts parents ability to participate in the medical decisions of their minor children, establishes disincentives for people to marry, and weakens the religious freedom of individuals and institutions. From conscience rights to parental rights, Obamacare poses many serious challenges to American liberty. nominee / n :m ni:/ noun [count]

plural nominees

: someone or something that has been chosen as a candidate for a job, position, office, honor, award, etc. : someone or something that has been nominated He is expected to be the Democraticnominee. There's been a lot of controversy about the nominee to the Supreme Court. often followed by for She is one of thenominees for Best Actress. the Presidents nominee for Attorney General

Straight Talk for the Super Committee It has been 12 months since the American people spoke resoundingly at the polls against overtaxing, overspending, and overborrowing, but memories can be short in Washington. All it takes is for a couple of politicos and the so-called "mainstream" media to denigrate the Tea Party and the freshman congressional class--and urge compromise--and you have the spectacle of some Members of Congress hiding under the neutral-sounding "revenue raising" banner and urging the so-called "Super Committee" to raise taxes. Throw in some character assassination of those holding the line against spending and higher taxes and you have a potential stampede on Capitol Hill that rivals the flight of a herd of buffalo in an old Western movie. But those Members of Congress who bow to the pressure of more spending and higher taxes will encounter serious trouble from the voters--which President Obama dismissively described as "bitter" as they "cling to guns and religion." The American people have shown time and again that they dont suffer from amnesia; if double crossed by the same old Washington crowd, Americans are not likely to forgive and forget. Many politicians forget that the American people always remember. And many politicians also think that the American people will fall for euphemisms (a fancy word for lies) such as "revenue enhancement." That's another mistake. Every time a politician or a journalist refuses to call something what it is--in this case, raising taxes--the American people know that someone is trying to pull the wool over their eyes. So here is some straight talk. Members of Congress sitting on the Supercommittee--officially the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, which was created in August by the Budget Control Act--should be on notice that if they propose raising taxes when they submit their deficit-cutting recommendations later this month, their problem will be with the American people. America's problem is not that our taxes are too low, but that spending by the federal government is too high. Members of Congress who call themselves conservative know that tax increases weaken the economy. They should not waver out of fear of being demagogued by liberals, including President Obama. The case is strong against the snake oil President Obama has been selling on the road for weeks. Conservatives should make this case with force. We should relish demonstrating how President Obama continues to press for those taxes that would do the most job-killing damage -- higher tax rates on small businesses, investors, and savers. Raising the top tax rates might make sense to those beholden to the Occupy Wall Street mentality, which believes that the rich must be punished. But when a growing economy with job growth is the goal, advocating this policy is bizarre and self-defeating.

In view of his background and his goals, it is understandable that President Obama sympathizes with the left wing mob wreaking havoc in Oakland and other cities across our nation. But it makes no sense when a conservative from middle America begins to mouth nostrums about inequality. Conservatives, of course, must push back against absurd claims by President Obama and others that conservatives or Republicans just want to keep taxes on the rich low. Conservative Members of Congress should make the case again and again that principled conservatives, especially those in the media-vilified Tea Party, don't want government protecting the rich. On the contrary. Most people I know wouldn't mind becoming rich themselves, but they want to do so by their own effort and spirit. What these Americans find offensive is that some would become rich--or richer--by buddying up to the politically powerful. That's what happens, for example, when the government picks a company to subsidize because it likes its product or because company executives know and kow-tow to people in high places. That's Solyndra. Conservatives care about freedom. And they care about those who use the opportunities of this great nation, combined with their own hard work and talents, to become better off for themselves and their children and grandchildren. And even more, conservatives care about the process that leads to wealth creation, because that process also leads to more jobs and higher incomes for others. Liberals want to separate the taxation of the wealthy from the processes that lead to wealth and job creation. The economy just doesn't work that way. Another fact that those serving on the Super Committee should consider as they ponder how to cut the deficit is that the problem with future budget deficits is not a shortage of revenues, but too much spending. Federal revenues in normal times average about 18.5 percent of our economy. Revenues are deeply depressed today due to the recession and useless stimulus programs, but revenues will recover as the economy recovers. In contrast, while spending is traditionally around 20 percent of the economy, today it stands at 24.3 percent. Although it is projected to decline somewhat as the economy improves and war spending declines, spending will take off again soon as Social Security and Medicare spending increases. Spending is out of line and is going to get much worse under current policy. Conservatives have no reason to agree to higher taxes just so Washington can spend more. This battle is about both getting spending under control and limiting the size and scope of government. Simply stated, more taxes means more government. And make no mistake, this is what will happen. Liberals will promise spending cuts--they will even promise $3 or $4 in spending cuts for every $1 in raised taxes. Only, these spending cuts will never, ever materialize. This happened under President Reagan and has happened since, and will happen again. It will be just like that beloved TV special we all watched last week at Halloween. The Lucy Van Pelt liberals will take the ball away and the conservatives will end up like Charlie Brown. We at the Heritage Foundation stand with the 33 Senators who last week sent a letter to the members of the Super Committee, asking that their recommendations meet the following criteria:

 "Balance our budget within ten years; "Place entitlements on a path to fiscal solvency; "Comprehensive tax reform that lowers rates and promotes economic growth, with no net tax increase; [and] "Avoid a further downgrade of our credit rating." Though the Senators left out a crucial fifth criterion -- fully funding defense to protect America -theirs is an important clear statement to which I subscribe. I encourage you to add your name to this letter and stand with the brave lawmakers who are standing up for principle and fighting for real fiscal reform, not increasing taxes in the interest of preemptive "compromise." Click here to add your name to The Heritage Foundation's open letter on the Super Committee. Your signature will be automatically registered when you click.

delegate

/ d l

ge t/ verb

inflected forms: delegates; delegated; delegating

Meanings: 1 : to give (control, responsibility, authority, etc.) to someone : to trust someone with (a job, duty, etc.) [with object] A manager should delegate authority to the best employees. Those chores can be delegated to someone else. [no object] He doesn'tdelegate very well. 2 [with object] : to choose (someone) to do something often used as (be) delegated He was delegated by the town to take care of the monument. Learn about delegate as a noun

underground

nd

gra nd/ adjective

1 : located or occurring below the surface of the earth underground parking garages an underground explosion 2 always used before a noun : secret and usually illegal anunderground deal The drugs are supplied through an undergroundnetwork. 3 always used before a noun : of, relating to, or produced in a social and artistic world that is different and separate from the main part of society She loves the citys underground music scene. underground newspapers/movies Learn about underground as an adverb and a noun.

chaos

/ ke

:s/ noun [noncount]

1 : complete confusion and disorder : a state in which behavior and events are not controlled by anything The loss of electricity caused chaos throughout the city. When the police arrived, the street was in total/complete/absolute chaos. The country had descended into economic chaos. 2 : the state of the universe before there was any order and before stars and planets were formed

Obama Spins His Wheels with Economy Stuck in First Gear No news is good news--except when it means that the story about America's slow-moving economy remains the same. A new report this morning from the Department of Labor shows that despite all of President Barack Obama's promises and policies to grow the economy, there are still 14 million unemployed Americans. Meanwhile, the President is still spinning his job creation wheels, signing executive orders and pushing for misguided and expensive policies that lack support in Congress. The word from the monthly jobs report shows that unemployment was little unchanged at 9 percent in October, with only 80,000 jobs created. While it's always good news when jobs are created (especially given this Administration's record), there isn't much of a sign of a strong economic recovery. So what's the President doing about it? He's pitching "job creation" plans that will do nothing to create jobs and that lack support in Congress while signing executive orders that sound great in speeches but ultimately will mean little for America's economic bottom line. On Wednesday, President Obama campaigned for his infrastructure spending plan, which he says would put hundreds of thousands of unemployed construction workers to work. Just a day later, the Democrat-controlled Senate failed to pass it, with bipartisan opposition. As we wrote yesterday, dumping more money into roads wouldn't create jobs anyhow, and the Senate was wise to reject it. Then on Tuesday, the President signed an executive proclamation establishing the Fort Monroe National Monument located in Hampton, Virginia. Remarkably, the President spun the signing as a jobs plan, saying "Local officials estimate that this may end up creating as many as 3,000 jobs in the region." If his $787 billion stimulus wasn't enough to get the economy going, perhaps a new national monument will do the trick? And if not that, then maybe the executive order hesigned on Monday that "directs the FDA to step up work to reduce the drug shortages and protect consumers" could help? Add on the President's do-nothing student loan relief he announced last week, which will offer less than $10 per month in relief to borrowers, and you have a series of stabs in the dark from the Obama White House that, apart for being bad policy, won't amount to new jobs. While the economy continues to sputter, America's fiscal house continues to hemmorhage debt. The congressional "super committee" has until Thanksgiving to come up with a plan to find $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction savings. As of yesterday, congressional leaders remain at an impasse. Done correctly, Congress can solve Washington's spending and debt crisis, preserve its ability to protect the nation,

and assist a return to a strong, vibrant economy--without raising taxes. And all of that will go a long way toward creating the kind of economic environment needed to grow jobs. Yesterday, 33 Senators took a stand against overspending and overborrowing, writing a letter to the supercommittee saying that their plan must balance our budget within 10 years; place entitlements on a path to fiscal solvency; include comprehensive tax reform that lowers rates and promotes economic growth--with no net tax increase--and avoids a further downgrade of our credit rating. Heritage vice president David S. Addington said of the letter, "While the Senators left out a crucial fifth criterion -fully funding defense to protect America -- theirs is an important clear statement by elected leaders of what must be done." A new paper from Heritage, Three Pillars of Reform for the Super Committee, lays out specific recommendations for Congress, including fully funding national defense, transforming entitlement programs, and not raising taxes.Alison Fraser, Patrick Knudsen, and Mackenzie Eaglen explain why that kind of bold action is necessary: Given the nation's gloomy budget scenarios, it is both urgent and imperative that Congress set the right course for solving the budget crisis. But details matter. If the super committee arrives at a ragtag assortment of desperate deficit reduction policies simply to meet an arbitrary target, the committee could do more harm than good. Today's economic report shows more of the same economic news for America, and President Obama is responding with more of the same policies that won't change the country's economic direction. Campaigning for measures that lack merit -- and lack congressional support -- won't solve the problem. With a fast-approaching deadline to cut spending, Congress has a chance to take substantial measures to put America's budget on sound footing, and if it does it the right way, it can also help ensure a brighter economic future.

beef up

phrasal verb

Construction: beef (something) up or beef up (something) Status: informal

: to add weight, strength, or power to (something) Security around the city will be beefed up during the event. The medicine helpsbeef up the immune system.

Does New Health Care Mandate Trample on Freedom of Conscience? Congress Asks the Experts Yesterday morning, the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health held a hearing asking the question, Do New Health Law Mandates Threaten Conscience Rights and Access to Care? The prevailing response from the panelists was a resounding yes. Fulfilling a broader requirement of Obamacare that dictates mandatory coverage of certain preventative services, President Obama's Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released an interim final rule this past August that requires nearly all insurance companies to cover contraception, sterilization, education and counseling regarding such services - without cost to the

insured. The rule includes mandatory coverage of ethically controversial drugs like Ella, which can act to abort an early pregnancy. Employers with moral and ethical objections to covering such services will find little relief in the mandates religious exemption. The narrowly drawn exemption is only available for entities whose primary mission is to inculcate religious belief and who hire and serve co-religionists. Jane Belford, Chancellor and General Counsel for the Archdiocese of Washington, explained: HHS has drafted a religious exemption that is so narrow that it excludes virtually all Catholic hospitals, elementary and secondary schools, colleges and universities, and charitable organizations, none of which impose a litmus test on those they serve, as the HHS mandate would have them do. Testimony and discussion at the hearing yesterday addressed this exceptional attack on the conscience rights of employers who will now be forced to choose between compromising their convictions or providing insurance coverage that violates deeply held beliefs. As William Cox, president and CEO of the Alliance of Catholic Healthcare, a Sacramento-based organization representing Catholic healthcare providers in California, pointed out, the mandate will force religious employers to cooperate under governmental compulsion with conduct that is inconsistent with their religious and moral beliefs, or cease functioning altogether. That dire decision may just cause a decrease in access to care as employers are forced to forego providing coverage rather than disregard their beliefs. David Stevens, M.D., CEO of Christian Medical Association, also suggested in written testimony that the meaningless religious exemption, can potentially cause a decrease in the provision of health insurance for employees of pro-life health care employers who want to avoid conflicts of conscience regarding the subsidy and implied endorsement of controversial contraceptives. Religiously affiliated organizations play an important role in advancing civil society through healthcare, education, and a host of social services. Policymakers should advance the cause of religious freedom, not only for religiously-affiliated organization but all people of conscience, by ensuring that employers and individuals are able to provide and buy health insurance that accords with their deeply held beliefs.

Debunking Obama's Latest Jobs Myth Imagine a high-speed train zooming down hundreds of miles of glistening train track stretching across sunny California, connecting Anaheim to San Francisco. It's a bullet train dream, and it's a prime example of President Barack Obama's latest plan to create jobs in America. The trouble is that this dream is far from reality. The Los Angeles Times reported this week that the California high-speed train--which is funded in part by $3 billion in federal grants from President Obama's stimulus--is now expected to cost $98 billion, twice what was expected, and will take an additional 13 years to complete, extending the project to 2033. Questions remain about where the funding will come from, whether the project is viable, and whether the projected ridership will even materialize. But projects like these are central to President Obama's plan to put Americans back to work. Speaking yesterday from Georgetown Waterfront Park in Washington, D.C., Obama declared that his plan will

"put hundreds of thousands of construction workers back on the job rebuilding our roads, our airports, our bridges and our transit systems." And that is, of course, all at the expense of the American taxpayers. The President once called these projects "shovel ready," meaning that as soon as money arrived from the federal government, workers could be on the job. He made it sound as easy as flipping a switch, but unfortunately it didn't work as planned. Despite a $787 billion stimulus package, America's economy continues to languish with 14 million out of work and a 9.1 percent unemployment rate. The President joked, "Shovel-ready was not as shovel-ready as we expected." Though he didn't use the phrase "shovel-ready" in his remarks yesterday, the implication was still there. If Congress approves his jobs plan, he argued, all the construction workers sitting on the sidelines will be put back to work overnight. But that's not the way things work in the real world. Associated Press and Congressional Research Service reports show that infrastructure spending does not create jobs and, in fact, can even have a negative effect. Heritage's Patrick Knudsenexplains: Building and repairing roads and bridges neither creates net job growth nor boosts the economy in the near term. First, increasing government spending on these projects simply moves resources from one place to another it may employ construction workers, but only by reducing jobs in other sectors. Further, the money never gets out the door soon enough to promote near-term job growth. And then there's the President's flawed argument that since others are doing it, the United States should be, too. "How do we sit back and watch China and Europe build the best bridges and highspeed railroads and gleaming new airports, and we're doing nothing?" he asks. It's not a new line of argument from the President, and it leaves out some very important facts. Dating all the way back to the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama spoke of the need to "invest" in infrastructure in order to be competitive with the likes of China. At the time, Jim Geraghty reported at National Review Online that while Obama puts China on a pedestal, he entirely overlooks some serious problems with transportation in China--namely, stories of severe power shortages affecting the country's exports, an episode where 500,000 train passengers were left stranded for days, and outbreaks of violence where airplane travelers were left grounded without accommodation. And that's not to mention the working conditions under which China builds its infrastructure. Meanwhile, Europe, which heavily subsidizes its passenger rail systems, receives a poor return on its investment. Heritage's Ron Utt explains that despite massive spending, passengers are opting for more efficient transportation in the air: In Europe as a whole (EU-27), rail accounted for only 6.1 percent of passenger travel in 2007, including travel by air and sea. Buses accounted for 8.3 percent of the market, and air travel accounted for 8.8 percent. Despite Europe's huge investment in passenger rail, its market share declined from 6.6 percent in 1995 to 6.1 percent in 2007. Over that same period, commercial air increased its share from 6.3 percent to 8.8 percent. By providing faster service and competitive prices, it took passengers away from rail, buses, and autos. But to hear President Obama tell the story, building a European- or Chinese-style infrastructure is the key to the future--and to creating new jobs. Workers are ready to go, and all they need is your money to get started. But this is something we tried once already with the last stimulus, it didn't work, and it's

not going to work this time, either. Obama's infrastructure plan is a train that shouldn't leave the station, headed for a bridge to nowhere, and jobs are the last thing that it will deliver.

enforce

/ n fo s/ verb [with object]

inflected forms: enforces; enforced; enforcing

1 : to make (a law, rule, etc.) active or effective : to make sure that people do what is required by (a law, rule, etc.) Police will beenforcing the parking ban. enforce a contract 2 : to make (something) happen : to force or cause (something) trying to enforce obedience/cooperation enforceable / n fo s b l/ adjective [more enforceable; most enforceable] This is not an enforceable contract. enforcement / n fo sm nt/ noun [noncount] the enforcementof the treaty She works in law enforcement. [=she works for the police] enforcer / n fo s / noun, plural enforcers [count] lawenforcers [=police officers]

mandatory

/ mnd

tori, British

mnd tri/ adjective

: required by a law or rule This meeting is mandatory for all employees. [=all employees must go to this meeting] The mandatory fine for littering is $200. [=everyone caught littering must pay $200] amandatory retirement age [=an age at which workers are required to retire] a mandatory drug test