Inflation... The Next Frontier

The 778-page “stimulus package” bill – containing more than a trillion dollars of government spending – was passed by a Senate vote of 61-37 yesterday. The spending bill is now in a House/Senate conference committee, where the differences between the two will be battled out. It could be voted on as early as tomorrow. The link below will take you to a website that lists how each senator voted.

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=111&session=1&vote=00061

As currently written, this bill threatens our health care system by mandating a cost-effectiveness standard to health care. The new standard in this ridiculous spending bill will lead to rationed health care. Hidden in the bill is a component that would create a government-run comparative effectiveness research program. This will create a board that will have the power to ration health care as it sees fit.

Please contact your two U.S. Senators and U.S. Representative and ask that they vote NO on any so-called stimulus package.

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An excellent website to keep track of expenditures in Washington D.C. is http://www.legistorm.com/. The following was taken from LegiStorm's website.

"LegiStorm launched in September 2006. Our web site is dedicated to providing a variety of important information about the US Congress.

Based on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, LegiStorm's first information product was a database of congressional staff salaries but we have now added other valuable information, such as the most comprehensive database of all privately financed trips taken by members of Congress and congressional staffers.

The information is provided in a strictly factual, non-partisan fashion. We have no political affiliations and no political purpose except to make the workings of Congress as transparent as possible. We expect this resource to be useful to journalists, researchers, lobbyists and current and would-be staffers - as well as regular citizens who simply want to know how their representatives spend public money."