A former presidential writer for George W. Bush and son of former
U.S. Congressman Jim Ryun, Ned Ryun is currently the head of American
Majority (www.americanmajority.org), a national organization committed to identifying and
training liberty‐minded leaders. Ned was the co‐founder and former director of the Generation Joshua
program. Ned earned degrees in English and History from the University of Kansas and has co‐authored
Heroes Among Us and The Courage to Run with his father and
his twin brother, Drew. Ned and his wife, Becca, reside in Northern
Virginia with their sons, Nathaniel and James. The views expressed on this blog are solely those held by Ned Ryun and do not necessarily represent the views of his current or previous employers.
Archive for the 'Ned's Blogs' Category
03 23rd, 2010
I’m helping organize the Post-Party Summits: Organizing for a Free America. Smart Girl Politics, RedState.com and the John Hancock Committee for the States are co-sponsors with American Majority. I’d encourage those interested in organizing on behalf of freedom to check out the nearest Summit, and then spread the word about the Summits to family and friends.
03 22nd, 2010
The below info is from a source on the Hill. Some very interesting points. I want health care reform. But what I want to see is tort reform, buying insurance across state lines, and the expanding of Health Savings Accounts. Those three things right there would revolutionize health care in America and make it better for every person.
Making a Bad Bill Worse:
Highlights of Reconciliation Legislation
The reconciliation bill recently released by Democrats would not mitigate the effects of the Senate-passed health care bill, but in fact make them worse:
More Tax Increases: The reconciliation bill raises taxes by an additional $50 billion when compared to the Senate bill, for an overall tax increase of $569.2 billion. The bill specifically expands the Medicare payroll tax—for the first time in history—to all investment income for individuals with incomes over $200,000 and families with incomes over $250,000. Because the underlying Senate bill does NOT index this new tax for inflation, more and more middle-class American families will be hit by this tax over time, just like the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT).
Higher Premiums: The reconciliation bill nearly doubles the tax on health insurers beginning in 2014, and also raises taxes and fees on drug makers and medical devices. The Congressional Budget Office has specifically stated that these taxes will be passed on to all Americans in the form of higher health costs and rising insurance premiums.
Budget Gimmicks Galore: The reconciliation bill includes a physician payment “cliff” in Medicaid, whereby payments for primary care physicians are increased for 2013 and 2014 only—a provision designed to mask the long-term cost of such a change. The bill also hides the cost of filling in the “doughnut hole” by not fully phasing in the provision until 2020. Health insurance subsidy levels would be increased in the short-term—but would grow more slowly in the years after 2019. And the threshold at which health insurance plans would be hit by the “Cadillac tax” would grow more slowly after 2020—resulting in a major and growing tax increase on the middle class if actually implemented.
Phony Deficit Reduction: The reconciliation bill and the Senate-passed measure combined do not reduce the deficit after excluding the more than $120 billion in revenue generated by the Social Security program and the CLASS Act long-term care entitlement. Since this revenue will eventually be used to pay out benefits to these two programs, the bill does NOT reduce the deficit in the near-term—or the long term.
More Lost Jobs: The reconciliation bill nearly triples the penalty—from $750 to $2,000—on businesses that cannot afford to provide their workers with health coverage, and applies these taxes to part-time as well as full-time workers. As if these higher taxes were not enough of a disincentive to prevent firms from hiring workers, the reconciliation bill also includes an unprecedented extension of the Medicare tax to all non-wage income. These tax increases will raise the top marginal rate on small business owners by 20%, and the top tax rate on investment income by 60%–discouraging the activity needed to grow the economy and create new jobs.
More Medicare Cuts: The reconciliation bill raises another $66.1 billion from Medicare Advantage, cutting a total of $202.3 billion from the program in order to fund new entitlements for other Americans. The total Medicare cuts in the bill now add up to $523 billion.
Sweetheart Deals: The reconciliation bill retains unpopular provisions in the Senate-passed measure—the “Louisiana Purchase,” Medicare coverage for individuals in Libby, Montana, and $100 million for a Connecticut hospital—while adding yet more backroom deals: A special provision permitting the Bank of North Dakota to continue to offer student loans which at this point still remains in the reconciliation measure, as well as increased disproportionate share hospital payments for Tennessee.
Empty Promises: The reconciliation bill forces an additional 1 million individuals into Medicaid on top of the 15 million already forced into Medicaid in the Senate bill. That means that 16 million of the 32 million newly insured individuals would obtain that coverage through Medicaid—a program which President Obama admitted at the recent health care summit suffers from serious access problems already. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 2 million fewer individuals will have a choice of plans on the Exchange, and 23 million individuals would remain uninsured.
Federal Funding of Abortion: The reconciliation bill fails to prohibit federal funds from flowing to plans that cover elective abortion, and also increases funding for community health centers by $2.5 billion—and neither the reconciliation bill nor the Senate-passed measure include ANY prohibition on community health centers using these federal funds to offer elective abortion.
03 15th, 2010
I read an early copy of The Blueprint: How the Democrats Won Colorado (and Why Republicans Everywhere Should Care). It is a fascinating read, and between it and The Argument by Matt Bai, you will have a very good look at how the dynamics of politics have radically changed in America. The Blueprint will be released April 1, and I highly recommend it. What is intriguing to me is how the progressives were better businessmen in regards to politics than conservatives. They demanded ROI and measurables, wanting to know that their money was invested well and that it would actually produce results. But the most interesting part of both books is that they highlight the fact that the parties are truly just empty shells; the real power in politics today is outside groups.
Fascinating survey by the Sam Adams Alliance on the tea partiers. The survey/study is called Early Adopters and provides a very interesting look into how the tea partiers think, what’s important to them, why they became involved. A 28 page study, this is one of the first, if not the first, real in-depth look at those behind the 2009 explosion of the tea party movement.
02 18th, 2010
This is a pretty amazing poll by Rasmussen: only 21% of Americans today say that the U.S. Government has the consent of the governed. So 79% are saying that they do not believe our government has the consent of the American people to govern. That would be an indication that the American people want change. They want their government back. They want leadership that represents their interests, not the interests of the political class or the crony capitalists. Interested to see where this all goes.
01 27th, 2010
Rasmussen Reports has some very interesting poll information about Senate races in 2010. Grant it, we’re a little over 8 months out from Election Day, but if Republicans, with most of those Senate candidates being conservatives, take back 6-7 seats in 2010, remember that of the 33 seats up for election in 2012, 23 of them are Democrats. Of those 23 Democrat seats, most are in blue states, but in 2010, if Republicans take back 6-7 seats, and lower the majority to 52 Dems and 2 Independents (Lieberman and Sanders), they only have to take 5 of those 23 seats in 2012 to take back the majority, and of course hold on to all 10 of the Republican seats up for election in 2012, most of which should be safe holds (except Brown in MA).
01 15th, 2010
There is a lot of chatter about the upcoming special U.S. Senate election in MA, taking place this Tuesday. So I’ll add my two cents. First, the very fact that this is a single digits race in a state that Obama carried by 21 points just over a year ago is staggering. Second, Rasmussen is showing that Scott Brown is actually 2 points ahead among those absolutely certain to vote. Today, Byron York of the DC Examiner is reporting that the bottom has fallen out on Coakley’s campaign polls. One Democrat quoted in that article says Coakley needs to be up 6-8 points going into election day to win . . . and she’s not up 6-8 points. I still would be semi-surprised if Brown wins. I mean, it is Massachusetts after all. But even if he doesn’t, and it’s a narrow win for Coakley, Democrats should be terrified for the 2010 fall elections. If they are having to squeek out a Senate election in one of the bluest states in America, what does it mean for Democrats in nominally blue states and battleground states? And what does it mean for those Dems holding seats in red states?
12 23rd, 2009
There was some chatter last week about the WSJ/NBC Poll showing the Tea Party movement with a favorable rating of 41%, vs. the Democrats at 35% and the Republicans at 28%; I was involved with some of that talk about what it all means, showing up on O’Reilly last Thursday night. But I think what was missed were some very interesting stats outside of that one. The poll was 21 pages long, but here some of the results and thoughts I had on them:
1. The Democrat Party had a 10% very positive rating, down from 17% a year ago. The Republican Party had a 5% very positive rating, down from 7% a year ago. Tiger Woods had a 5% very positive rating. Take away: if you have the exact same very positive rating as Tiger Woods in Dec., 2009, you might have problems, GOP. Just saying.
2. Only 38% of those polled thought the current members of Congress deserved to be re-elected. Look for some real change in members in 2010.
3. Here’s one of the more fascinating results of the poll. 56% of those polled identified themselves as moderate to very liberal. Only 7% said they knew a great deal about the Tea Party movement, yet 20% said they had a very positive view of it. . . that’s something to think about.
4. Over 60% of those polled thought America is in a state of decline. While down from 74% in Sept. of ‘08, that’s still a hefty percentage. As it’s been said, decline is a choice. The message of those showing up at the 2009 protests and rallies is: we choose not to decline. We choose to continue being great and call for a return to the principles that made us so: limited government, individual freedom and free enterprise.
5. Last point: 57% of those polled get most of their information from ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN or MSNBC. Think about the coverage of the Tea Party movement this year from those sources, and yet still, somehow, the Tea Party movement out-polls the Democrats and Republicans.
12 8th, 2009
There was a nice piece from Forbes.com today about how capping emissions is tantamount to suicide for the West. What’s amazing about the absurd, and hypocritical, Climate Summit in Copenhagen, as well as the EPA’s new power grab, is that in many ways they are based on data that has been brought under serious scrutiny with Climategate. It would appear the proper steps would be to go back and actually get the truth about the data, and proposed actions based on that data, before doing anything that would destroy the American economy.
If you’ve read previous blog entries, I’ve been a skeptic of the entire “anthropogenic global warming” idea from day one. Now we find that with Climategate, proponents of the anthropogenic myth appear to have been systematically engaged in manipulating data and hiding facts that didn’t support their views. It’s all very interesting how just a short while ago this was all settled science, a done deal, no more debate, we must move quickly to save the planet. Now, it’s becoming clear that some of these scientists were hiding data that proved there is global cooling. Senator Inhofe (R-OK) is now calling for a Senate investigation into Climategate. The reason I think this timing couldn’t have been better? The cap-and-trade bill, passed by the House and coming before the Senate, which would be devastating to the American economy if passed, is in many ways based on the myth of anthropogenic global warming. Though I had my doubts that bill would pass the Senate, I think now it’s nearly an impossibility.
