Op-Eds and Blogs

<b>Originally printed in the Daily Caller, June 20th, 2011 </b> Prior to being elected to the United States Senate last November, I spent 31 years building a plastics manufacturing business in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. My educational background is in accounting and finance, but when you help start a business from scratch, you wind up doing just about everything. I operated machinery, loaded trucks and railcars, hired and trained the staff, kept the books, paid taxes, purchased raw materials, sold our finished products, did payroll, opened mail, emptied trash, and made coffee. Why am I telling you this? Because I’m not in the least bit unusual. Every day, millions of hard-working business owners, and the good people that work with them, struggle to build a good life for themselves and their families. They are the backbone of America. They work hard and play by the rules. And they live within their means. Why can’t Washington?

<b>Printed in the Washington Post, June 16th, 2011</b> Obamacare poses two great dangers to our nation: lower quality of care and runaway costs. It will stifle innovation and lead to rationing. But the overwhelming cost and the damage it will do to our nation’s finances at a pivotal moment in our history deserve greater scrutiny. The promises Obamacare supporters have made about the ultimate cost of the program are based on highly unlikely premises. Those who support the 2010 health-care law are betting that costs will remain under control largely because its central feature — health insurance exchanges, which amount to a centralized, government-run market of subsidized insurance policies — will not be all that popular. They are counting on the notion that when the government offers “free” money, there will be few takers. This is not realistic.