If I hear one more time...

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...that President Obama is taking on too much I'm going to go nuts. Why in the world does the executive branch have so many branch's in it if not to handle more than one thing at a time? Why in the world does the legislative branch have committee's and sub-committee's if not to handle more than one thing at a time?

Let's take health care reform. Somehow not doing anything makes sense because of the current economy and the economy is all that President Obama should be focused on. We hear this from countless analysts, pundits, news anchors, etc. Now yes, neither party's leadership is talking about doing nothing even if a lot of Republican's, elected officials (not the leaders or more senior members) and media pundits alike, have made the case it can't be done now.

Both parties have agreed on anywhere from 75-90% of how best to lower costs -ways that have been talked about for decades. Health care reform isn't starting from ground zero, countless health reform bills have been written over the years and we've already seen potential reform bills given to the CBO. Now it may not happen as quickly as President Obama has asked for but the fact is, based on how far the reform debate and various bills have come, this isn't out of the realm of possibility nor somehow counter productive to the growth of the economy.

Now time will tell which version of health care reform will pass and how good or bad it'll be for the country but when health care represents 1/6 of the U.S. economy, focusing on health care is focusing on the economy.

Drew Altman, Ph.D., President and CEO of Kaiser Family Foundation added a key perspective on his blog:

But the number itself could use some perspective. Expressed as a ten-year cost, one trillion dollars is a big, perhaps scary number. But we are also talking about reforming one sixth of our economy, and over the next ten years it would represent about half of one percent of projected GDP, under three percent of projected health spending, and about two and one-half percent of total federal spending. That is still a lot, and some may legitimately value other national priorities more highly, including deficit reduction, but in return we would reform health care, cover the bulk of the uninsured (projected by CBO to reach 54 million by 2019 and by others to go higher), and give Americans peace of mind about their health insurance.

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Global Warming Controversy?

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Some punditry, as usual, are up in arms that an economist and physicist (notice not an environmentalist) in the EPA had his challenge of global warming (a misleading phrase in and of itself) suppressed. Currently temperatures are tracking downward but when you look at the historic temperatures it has climbed ever since 1880 with periods of time experiencing down years while always moving on an upward trajectory.

Now, Al Gore and some politicians do like to go too far in their grandstanding but at what point do the biggest big business, "drill baby, drill" supporters acknowledge that even Shell, BP, and Chevron have global warming sections on their sites and are doing everything they can to help fix it?

It'd be nice though if those that argue it isn't man made (which it isn't entirely man made) and/or that even if it is, it's too late, would accept that almost every country in the world, two different political administrations, and almost all international science agencies as well as all international energy companies are talking about trying to fix global warming -or at least slow down its pace. They could also Google and read countless science reports (you'll have to sift through the article links to get to the actual reports) that explain it and present all the facts.

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