That is what every forecast shows, including folks who have every reason to cozy up to Obama.

You understimate the impact of Obamacare on small businesses. Particularly employers with less than 100 employees. The $2k fine doesn’t apply for the first 50 employees, so the incremental savings of dropping everyone are significant.

increased government involvement in the healthcare industry will be more expensive than what people think.

Name one ongoing government program that has been cheaper than expected? Medicaid, Medicare, and SS have all been far more expensive than originally anticipated.

There is no reason to believe that Obamacare will be an exception to this rule. Conservatives understand that the economy is dynamic. Change begets change.

Almost half of hte country pays no income tax.

Republican’s are against tax increases across the board.

The fact that the Republicans resist tax increases on the rich is NOT equivalent to taking money away from the middle class.

Money is earned by the people who earn it. My reluctance to increase Bill Gates taxes is not the same thing as the government taking money from me to give to anyone. Bill Gates did not get rich on the backs of the poor—the poor had no money in the first place. Henry Ford got rich by creating a lot of middle class households and by providing a product that people wanted at a cost below that which they were willing to pay.

Only a socialist would say the things you say. Middle class jobs are created when people become rich. Henry Ford created a lot of middle class jobs by becoming one of the richest men on the planet. So did Bill Gates.

How many middle class jobs are created by Obama’s anti-business policies?

How many poor or middle class people create jobs? To create a job that pays a salary of $50k + benefits it costs roughly $70k. Who do you think creates jobs? It requires accumulated capital to pay a salary. Fight the accumulation of capital, and you are working against the creation of jobs.

No campfire unless there is wood to burn. Remove the wood, and there is no campfire.

Obama’s only comeback to good Republican arguments was “we won the election” (something he stopped saying after 2010).

Now Obama doesn’t even engage in the world of ideas.

Your savior is an empty suit who needs a teleprompter to give a speech that resembles watching a tennis match.

Ben Stein with a headache is smarter than Obama on his best day.

He held together hopes for American independence by his actions and character.

Resume doesn’t mean a bunch of backs that one has scratched. It means a record of accomplishment. It means seeing how someone has performed in challenging environments.

Do you want your heart surgeon to have ANY experience with heart surgery? Or is talking a good game enough for you?

Much of government relates to economics, and most politicians were political science majors without a basic understanding of economics.

I agree that governors are almost always compromised, but that is in fact my point. Executive positions will expose who the person really is. Executives face no win scenarios (just as Ike had no win scenarios in WWII).

No President is going to be able to operate in a clearly ideological way 100% of the time. Some compromise, or bobbing and weaving, is inevitable.

Better to see how they navigate those challenges in advance of giving someone keys to the White House.

You will know far more about a former governor’s propensity to “play the game” then you will someone without that experience.

A BCBS can’t merge with anyone, and they are having their requests for premium increases denied.

Weak companies don’t merge with other weak companies.

You are parroting the notion about a losing on each item, but making up for it in volume.

Insurance companies will get out of lines of business that are no longer profitable (see flood insurance).

Chrysler didn’t merge with Fiat until Uncle Sam covered a big chunk of Chrysler’s liabilities.

No health company will want to merge with a weak company. The only exception to that rule is if the weak company has some asset (think Skype) that the larger company wants (think Microsoft).

You are not thinking like a business person on this.

I agree on both counts.

However, that does not mean that attributes B and C are irrelevant, or that attribute A is more valuable than other attributes.

I am in favor of attribute A, but not at the expense of other attributes.

Put in more conversational language, business experience is helpful but it doesn’t make up for other deficiencies.

I am not a Romney fan, but I know that most of his supporters value his business experience more than his time as governor. He is a good example of the point I am making. Nothing about Romney as a business person was RINO-like. However, as governor, the record tells a different story.

Imagine that Romney had never been governor. He would very much appear like Herman Cain because he would not have the warts that he has now.

We don’t know what warts Herman Cain would have because Cain never actually took the reins over a state government.

He who has the gold makes the rule.

Well, in this case, he who regulates the payor literally makes the rule.

The key word is neither “direct” nor “indirect”. To the contrary, the most important word is “increased” as a modifier of “involvement”.

Does someone launching an ICBM make direct contact with the enemy? No. But the impact is undeniable.

8 years of service as governor of the country’s largest and dynamic state (at that time it was the economic engine for the US) was the best possible resume one could have. It was an opportunity to see how/if Reagan put his ideas to work.