For all the disinformation and shrill debate over health care reform there are things upon which almost all of us can agree. First, there is indeed a serious problem. Neither side of the aisle disputes the fact that one in every six dollars spent in the U.S. relates to health care. That is a crucial problem affecting our economy and the well-being of the middle class as well as the poor.

We can argue about health care reform until we turn blue in the face but the fact remains, we must pass health care reform for the sake of the nation. Health care costs are out of whack and unsustainable. With Americans spending $1 in every $6 on health care related expenses are economy has been damaged and our industries made less competitive in a global market. If current trends go unabated, by 2050, 40% of the American economy will be consumed by health care.

I attended Congressman Donnelly’s town hall meeting in Kokomo on the subject of healthcare reform. I thought the Congressman did an excellent job of maintaining relative civility amongst the participants. It was not an easy task.

County GOP Chairman Mike Griffin, in a recent letter to the editor, called the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 taxes on energy. He should get his information from more knowledgeable sources than the GOP leadership, Fox News, and coal industry lobbyists. This legislation, despite Mr. Griffin’s claims will NOT “tax anything emitting carbon.” The reality is there are NO PROPOSED TAXES in this legislation.

I have often said that when a single political party totally dominates in a community, you have a climate ripe for corruption. It is true in a large community such as Democratically controlled Chicago and it is just as true in a Republican controlled community such as Hancock County. Single party dominance eliminates an important tool for the checks and balances our Founding Fathers knew to be essential. In recent weeks, a number of Republican faithful have asked me what can be done about the Linda Grass situation.

A number of political pundits have sounded the death knell of the Republican Party. Like the premature announcement of Mark Twain’s death, the GOP obituary is exaggerated. The national GOP is on the ropes, if not on a lifeline. That is nothing new. Both political parties have suffered tremendous defeats and subsequent crises of identity before. Democrats contemplated a lengthy exile in 1972, 1984, and 2004. Republicans did the same in 1964, 1976, and 1992. In each case the exile was short-lived.

In the May 12 Washington Post, columnist Chris Cillizza ponders the question can Mitch Daniels save the GOP. The very fact that the question is raised clearly shows the lowly state of the current national GOP.
Cillizza's column follows a William Kristol article in the conservative mouthpiece the National Standard, that praises Gov. Daniels address to the graduating class at Butler University.

I noted this week that the GOP has announced it has chosen an individual to lead the fight against Obama's choice to fill the upcoming Supreme Court vacancy. Since no one has been selected as the President's nominee this is a case of putting the cart before the horse. Rather than wait to see who the nominee is going to be and what legal issues they might disagree upon, Republican leadership has determined it is just going to say no to anything and everything this Administration brings to the table.

Moderate Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter’s defection to the Democratic Party reflects badly on the GOP and not simply because it places the Democrats closer to a filibuster-free Senate. Senator Specter’s defection reflects upon the direction the GOP has taken the past several years.

Now that the Obama Administration has announced it will not seek criminal charges against CIA operatives who committed acts of torture, the time is right to pursue further investigations into the state of affairs that gave rise to torture. Now that the Presidency has returned to the moral higher ground, we must ensure our nation never return to such illicit behavior. Shedding light on how behavior that violated American and international law was authorized by the highest officials in government can only serve the better good.