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***************************************** Known By the Company You Keep "Mr. Bush has been one of the most fortunate of modern presidents in choosing the people around him. The most important choice, of course, was Laura Bush, and then follow Mr. Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Ms. Rice and Secretary of State Colin Powell. By his appointments, Mr. Bush has done more for 'diversity' than a dozen New York Times editorials and Supreme Court decisions." - Arnold Beichman of the Hoover Institute *********************************** How to Subscribe If you know someone who might like to receive News & Views, you can sign 'em up at: http://www.chuckmuth.com. ***************************************** Colorado Guv Leads the Way...Again "Gov. Bill Owens (Colorado Republican) said Monday that he objects to using race as a factor in university admissions and would sign legislation prohibiting the use of race in deciding who gets into Colorado universities. Owens' comment prompted two high-ranking Republican state senators to say they are considering introducing legislation in the 2004 session barring the use of race in admissions, despite a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision." - Denver Post, 7/8/03 ***************************************** Prescription Drug Subsidies Thanks to everyone who took time to bring various aspects of the prescription drug bill currently being debated in Congress to my attention - both pro and con. You already know I'm opposed to the notion of creating the largest new government entitlement program since the days of LBJ's Great Society, but many of the concerns and objections you've raised are legitimate questions which I'll work on answering in the days and weeks ahead. I'm no expert on this issue (yet), but I know how and where to find the folks who are. One particular aspect of this issue is the practice known inside-the-beltway as "re-importation." Without going too deeply into this right now, the gist of the issue is this: Some prescription drugs are cheaper to purchase in other countries. Congress is considering legislation that would allow those other countries to ship their supply of these drugs back to the U.S., which on the surface would appear to mean significant cost savings to the consumer. But appearances ain't always what they seem. So I'm doing some in-depth study and research on the issue and will share what I find in the days ahead. In the meantime, if you have any information, thoughts, positions - pro or con - on the matter of reimportation of drugs, please send 'em my way. ***************************************** Gov't Is the Problem, Not the Solution "Chuck, I am 71 years old and can remember when a prescription cost a couple of bucks at most. The problem with the rising costs of prescriptions lies not with the companies, but with the government. We didn't have a medical or a drug-cost problem until the politicians got involved with our 'free' Medicare (along with many other 'free' services we could both list). Get the government out of the pharmacy business and free enterprise will cure the ills." - News & Views reader Robert Crowley ***************************************** Disastrous & Unconscionable "The Heritage Foundation is calling fast-moving Medicare reform legislation 'disastrous.' In an editorial, Heritage Foundation Vice President Stuart M. Butler wrote, 'It makes sense for our society to provide assistance targeted toward those who still face heavy burdens, chiefly because of their income. But Congress' approach would institute a government-sponsored drug program for all Medicare recipients, not just those who need help. For several reasons that approach is unconscionable.'" - Talon News, 7/9/03 ***************************************** Sowing Seeds of Their Own Demise "No matter how big a prescription drug subsidy is enacted into law, it will never meet the outsized expectations of today's 'Gimme Generation' of elderly, who feel they are owed unlimited benefits simply for living through World War II and the Great Depression. Therefore, they are guaranteed to be disappointed by the results and will chafe at any limitations on the government's largess. "When Mr. Bush refuses to expand the program to their liking, Democrats will be more than happy to say they will. And should Republicans ever suggest anything in the future to restrain the inevitable growth of the prescription drug program, Democrats will predictably attack them for slashing it and killing untold numbers of seniors by denying them life-saving drugs. These attacks will work, leaving Republicans as the bad guys once again, even though no prescription drug plan would exist without Republican support. "In short, the political calculation is penny-wise/pound-foolish in the extreme. Any prescription drug plan will be an albatross around the Republican Party's neck for generations to come. It's a bad deal." - Columnist Bruce Bartlett ************************************* Big Brother Lover Wants to Devour Competition Does the name Larry Ellison ring a bell? He's the CEO of Oracle Corporation, a huge technology company. He's also a huge fan of Bill Clinton and shares with the former president a certain kind of "that woman" problem. And apparently, the guy is just a little bit power hungry, too. As columnist James Glassman noted a couple years back, "It's an old joke in Silicon Valley. Q: What's the difference between God and Larry Ellison? A: God doesn't think he's Larry Ellison." And to top everything else off, Ellison is the guy who, immediately after 9/11, was pushing big time for the creation of a national ID card, complete with your digitized thumbprints and photograph...ID cards, by the way, that would be created using Oracle technology. How conveeeenient. OK, now that the background is out of the way, what's Larry up to these days? Mounting a hostile takeover of a competitor, PeopleSoft. Now, it's not every day that an organization dedicated to free enterprise and limited government calls on federal regulators to rein in a corporation, but that's exactly what the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise (CDFE) did this week in Ellison's case. The CDFE, which has no financial interest in either company, wrote to the Justice Department urging its antitrust division to block Oracle Corp.'s hostile takeover attempt. "Oracle's takeover would significantly reduce competition in the specialized business software market, not only driving up costs to customers and diluting shareholder value, but also creating one more corporate scandal to unsettle an already shaken public," the Center's Executive Vice President Ron Arnold wrote. Other than ol' Lar's Big Brother aspirations, his choice of political heroes, his arrogance, his greed, his ego, his ambition, his ethics and his character, we can't find anything wrong with the guy. Seriously, though, we tend to think CDFE is on to something here. This is NOT the kind of guy we want to be giving monopoly control of an industry to. ***************************************** How Liberals and Conservatives Were Created I don't know who the original author of this was, but thought it was great. In fact, in the spirit of this piece, we've come up with a new - VERY IRREVERENT - bumper sticker, which I'll reveal at the end (don't read if you 're easily offended). Enjoy. ***QUOTE*** The division of the human family into its two distinct branches, liberals and conservatives, occurred some 20,000 years ago. Until then all humans coexisted as members of small bands of nomadic hunter/gatherers. A thousand generations ago, in the pivotal event of societal evolution, beer was invented. This epochal innovation was both the foundation of modern civilization and the occasion of the great bifurcation of humanity into its two distinct subgroups. Once beer was discovered, our prehistoric forebears decided it was time to settle down. Making beer required grain, and securing a steady supply of it ordained the invention of agriculture. After that was accomplished, ancient man quickly, and unfairly, consigned actual cultivation to women. Men couldn't just run off, willy-nilly, however. Neither the glass bottle nor the aluminum can had yet been invented, so it was necessary to stick pretty close to home, and the brewery. This left our male ancestors with a lot of time on their hands, and led to the division of the species, which persists to this day. Some men tried to conserve remnants of the old way of life (hence the term "conservative") by spending their days in the open field in the dangerous pursuit of big game animals. At night they would roast their prey at a big barbecue, and afterwards sat around the fire drinking beer, passing wind and telling off-color jokes. Other, more timid, souls stayed closer to home. They are responsible for the domestication of cats and the invention of group therapy. Mostly, they sat around worrying about how life wasn't fair and concocting elaborate schemes to "liberate" themselves from inequity (thus their designation as "liberals"). In the evening they gathered around their fire, nibbling on fruit and nuts, sharing their innermost feelings. Today some liberals try to pretend they're really sort of conservative, and sometimes succeed in confusing people. ***UNQUOTE*** Gotta love it. Makes perfect sense, too. But this story gave rise to another more inter-galactic theory, as articulated on this NEW bumper sticker: "Conservatives Are From Mars - Liberals Are From Uranus!" I only printed up 500 of these babies, so if you want a couple, better order fast. Just $2.95 each...AND...if you buy three, we'll throw in an extra one FREE. Order now by going to: http://chuckmuth.com/merchandise.htm *********************************** How to Subscribe If you know someone who might like to receive News & Views, you can sign 'em up at: http://www.chuckmuth.com. Also, occasionally, the automatic listserve we use will "bump" subscribers off the list if your mailbox is full or experiences some other technical glitch. If you suddenly stop receiving News & Views, the first thing you should do is try to re-subscribe using the link above. Published by Citizen Outreach Chuck Muth Editor/Publisher 611 Pennsylvania Avenue, SE, #439 Washington, DC 20003-4303 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Citizen Outreach is a 501(c)(3) non-profit public policy organization and does not endorse candidates or lobby for specific legislation. The opinions and views expressed in Chuck Muth's News & Views reflect those of the writers, editors and columnists therein and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Citizen Outreach, its officers, directors or employees. To be REMOVED, go to: http://www.chuckmuth.com/remove/default.cfm and complete the removal request instructions you'll find there. Or send your request to [EMAIL PROTECTED] # # #
