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Monday, February 11, 2013

Tithes and Taxes ... Health Care Spending and MOM ... Lessons "Taught" at the White House

Dr. Ben Carson is an exceptionally bright person with an inspiring life story. Recently he shared that story as he spoke at the White House National Prayer Breakfast.

{NOTE: On a personal note, he's the kind of person who took time to come to Augusta several years ago and speak for free at the annual Boys and Girls Club Dinner.}

Since Dr. Carson is not a politician, he speaks from the heart and tells it like it is. And being the child of a  single mother in inner-city Detroit and now a pediatric neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins, he has quite a perspective to offer.

Ben Carson for President is subtitled 'The Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon has two big ideas for America:

" . . . make time to watch the video of Dr. Ben Carson speaking to the White House prayer breakfast this week.

Seated in view to his right are Senator Jeff Sessions and President Obama. One doesn't look happy. You know something's coming when Dr. Carson says, "It's not my intention to offend anyone. But it's hard not to. The PC police are out in force everywhere."

Dr. Carson tossed over the PC police years ago. Raised by a single mother in inner-city Detroit, he was as he tells it "a horrible student with a horrible temper." Today he's director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins and probably the most renowned specialist in his field.

Late in his talk he dropped two very un-PC ideas. The first is an unusual case for a flat tax: "What we need to do is come up with something simple. And when I pick up my Bible, you know what I see? I see the fairest individual in the universe, God, and he's given us a system. It's called a tithe.

"We don't necessarily have to do 10% but it's the principle. He didn't say if your crops fail, don't give me any tithe or if you have a bumper crop, give me triple tithe. So there must be something inherently fair about proportionality. You make $10 billion, you put in a billion. You make $10 you put in one.

Of course you've got to get rid of the loopholes. Some people say, 'Well that's not fair because it doesn't hurt the guy who made $10 billion as much as the guy who made 10.' Where does it say you've got to hurt the guy? He just put a billion dollars in the pot. We don't need to hurt him. It's that kind of thinking that has resulted in 602 banks in the Cayman Islands. That money needs to be back here building our infrastructure and creating jobs."

Not surprisingly, a practicing physician has un-PC thoughts on health care:

"Here's my solution: When a person is born, give him a birth certificate, an electronic medical record, and a health savings account to which money can be contributed—pretax—from the time you're born 'til the time you die. If you die, you can pass it on to your family members, and there's nobody talking about death panels. We can make contributions for people who are indigent. Instead of sending all this money to some bureaucracy, let's put it in their HSAs. Now they have some control over their own health care. And very quickly they're gong to learn how to be responsible."

The Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon may not be politically correct, but he's closer to correct than we've heard in years."

Summing Up

Dr. Carson presented two solid ideas --- proportional or flat taxes and giving people MOM like control over health care spending in order for it to be done responsibly and cost effectively.

Sounds like what the good doctor is 'preaching' to the President and other politicians would be the right thing to do, including embracing the MOM way in lieu of the OPM approach when implementing government policies and programs.

But Dr. Carson isn't about to enter political life. He's far too honest, full of common sense and plain spoken to ever be a successful U.S. politician.

Besides, he couldn't get elected, even if he tried.

What a shame.

Thanks. Bob.


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