The media have an inadequate understanding of religion. This simple fact is corroborated frequently, as mainstream outlets attempt to illustrate stories, explain religious themes and delve deep into faith-based systems.  Unfortunately, most outlets miss the mark entirely, as journalists do not have proper understanding of the constructs through which they are attempting to report.  As a result, the American public suffers a lack of pointed and well-presented information on a subject that stands at the forefront of important global and domestic issues.

Case in point, Christiane Amanpour’s 2007 CNN mini-series entitled, “God’s Warriors.”  The three-part series delved into the world’s three largest religions – Christianity, Judaism and Islam.  As is typical of the secular media, an enhanced level of relativism led the Iranian-bred Amanpour (born in London to a Persian family) to equate “extremism” within and among adherents to the three religions.

While each belief system has had moral failures, equating the deaths as a result of radical Islamic fascism to those of contemporary Christianity and Judaism is absurd.  Furthermore, as is the case when journalists attempt to cover religion, Amanpour left out essential details that would have provided a more fair-minded picture.

In terms of her opaque coverage of Christianity, MercatorNew.com wrote the following,

“But she missed the obvious. [Christians] were participating in America’s legal and political system exactly as it was intended by the Founders, as a representative republic, with citizen involvement.  She missed the pre-Jerry Falwell political civil rights activism of Dr. Martin Luther King and other Christians, and she totally missed Catholic social justice and the involvement of the roughly 70 million strong Catholic community in the US in the pro-life movement. She did highlight the powerful impact of Roe v. Wade on galvanizing Christians. She just failed to mention the Catholic involvement, which is considerable.”

In its usual ideologically-balanced form, The New York Times wrote the following endorsement: “This three-part series…is a fine primer on the emergence of strains of Judaism, Islam and Christianity that want to fuse politics and religion, and have shown a willingness to blow things up and kill people to do it.”

Again, an unhealthy and unbalanced level of moral equivalence – though I will give the Times credit for writing: “the issues on these Christian warriors’ minds seem positively quaint next to the agendas of the people in Parts 1 and 2.”  Still, the inability to truly distinguish, on the whole, is a detriment to true understanding.  Unfortunately, this sort of coverage is common.

The modern secular newsroom lacks the ideological know-how to truly understand religion.  Perhaps Terry Mattinglybest exlplained the media’s “diversity problem”. According to Mattingly, “While there’s been heavy gender and racial diversity … there’s a lack of cultural diversity in journalism…”  It is this lack of diversity that leads to major misconceptions and the media’s inability to adequately tell stories that are rooted, themselves, in religious themes.

The lack of diversity may lie in the journalists themselves, as personal faith plays a role in the ability to understand and thus illustrate religious themes.  Just how religious are journalists?  According to USA Today, “the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press reported in 2007 that 8% of journalists surveyed at national media outlets said they attended church or synagogue weekly.”  Additionally, 29% reported never attending church services, with an additional 39% stating that they go a few times each year.  In sum: Not very religious – especially when compared to America as a whole.

Pew found that 39% of the public claims that they attend church services weekly.  Additionally, past Gallup pollshave shown as many as eight in ten Americans claim allegiance to Christianity.  Clearly, these numbers show the need for proper journalistic understanding and presentation, especially when covering stories rooted in Christian themes.

Not enough journalists are regular church goers. Faith is not an attribute one can physically observe, thus “affirmative action” – a promotional methodology that is highly controversial to begin with – is an impossibility (also, employment laws generally forbid interview questions of faith).  While general ignorance and inexperience with religious themes is likely a culprit amongst journalists, and consequently mainstream media outlets, complacency is also an impediment.

In a 2003 Los Angeles Times piece, David Shaw wrote the following:  “Absent…scandal — or the death of a pope and the election of his successor — the news media often seem indifferent to, ignorant of and, at times, downright hostile toward religion.”  Shaw is completely correct in his assertion.  If not indifferent altogether, the media approach religion so slothfully that it appears as though the effort to misunderstand is undertaken with a barely concealed level of hostility.

In covering the American Religious Identification Survey that was conducted in March 2009, the Pew Research Center wrote,

“A comment on the blog Matters of Faith declared, “The media’s tendency to give inordinate attention to religious dimwits and crackpots has seriously damaged the credibility of religious leaders. You rarely read or hear of the miraculously generous work of faith communities in caring for the poor and infirm around the globe. But let someone suggest that the Virgin Mary has appeared in a plate of refried beans and the bulletins circle the globe in minutes.”

This commentary targets one of the media’s main malfunctions when it comes to covering religion in general and Christianity in particular.  As is the case with most stories covered by the mainstream media, the more outlandish, the more the story is pursued.  In practice, this creates a climate of coverage strewn with the “dimwits and crackpots” mentioned above, as journalists lack the understanding or desire to seek a wide array of theological viewpoints.  Meanwhile, thousands of Christian missionaries risk their lives both domestically and internationally to make lasting spiritual and physical change in the lives of those in need.  Yet their stories go widely unnoticed.

Modern democracy hinges in part on a proper understanding of religion amongst journalists, leaders and the general public.  Matters of faith are some of the most personal aspects of American life.  Furthermore, faith is one of the only cohesive forces that, if properly nurtured, leads to interdependence and personal, spiritual and societal growth.  It is a shared and common experience.

Given the religious turmoil present in the Middle East – conflict that has affected America and Americans for for decades – one might think that the media have a responsibility to offer properly informed coverage.  While efforts to ethnically and sexually balance the newsroom have been underway for quite some time, ideological and theological divides have led to tilted and incomplete coverage in matters of faith.  It is time that the media better serve our democracy in covering a subject that will be increasingly important in the coming decades.

One of the biggest problems in getting Americans engaged on the nation’s fiscal challenges is that the problem is so hard for most people to get their arms around. The numbers are so huge, the issues so arcane and the problems so daunting that people may get angry about it, but have no idea how to grab onto it.

That’s what makes the approach of the Committee on the Fiscal Future of the United States interesting. Their Choosing the Nation’s Fiscal Future report, issued by the National Research Council and the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) today, is about how to control our national debt, already past $12 trillion and threatening to rise to staggering (and dangerous) proportions. Public Agenda is part of the Choosing Our Fiscal Future project with NAPA, working to build a network of citizens who’ll get involved in the discussion and work on solutions.

The nonpartisan committee laid out a goal for a sustainable debt level (keeping it to 60 percent of gross domestic product), four alternative paths for reaching the goal, and six basic questions to ask about any federal budget. The committee argues that if the answers to these questions are “yes,” we’re at least making progress.

Here are the questions, taken directly from the report. Consider whether the federal budget meets them now – and more importantly, keep them in mind as new budgets are proposed.

1. Does the proposed budget include policy actions that start to reduce the
   deficit in the near future in order to reduce short-term borrowing and long-term interest costs?
2. Does the proposed budget put the government on a path to reduce the federal debt within a decade to a sustainable percentage of GDP? Given the fiscal outlook and the committee’s analysis of the many factors that affect economic outcomes, the committee believes that the lowest ratio that is economically manageable within a decade, as well as practical and politically feasible, is 60 percent.
3. Does the proposed budget align revenues and spending closely over the long term?
4. Does the proposed budget restrain health care cost growth and introduce changes now in the major entitlement programs and in other spending and tax policies that will have cumulative beneficial fiscal effects over time?
5. Does the budget include spending and revenue policies that are cost-effective and promote more efficient use of resources in both the public and private sectors?
6. Does the federal budget reflect a realistic assessment of the fiscal problems facing state and local governments?

This gives the public something they haven’t had before: a set of standards for a “good” budget, or at least as good as it can be given the tremendous fiscal challenges we face. If we give the public more tools to measure the problem, and grapple with real solutions, we can get ahead of this challenge – while there’s still time.

To find out more, and to become part of the citizen network working on this issue, visit the Choosing Our Fiscal Future web site, become a Facebook fan, or follow us on Twitter @FiscalFuture.

Barack Obama made a big deal throughout the campaign and after that he wanted to raise income taxes on the rich by reversing the reductions in upper rates enacted under President Bush in 2001. Lower rate advocates have argued all along that lower rates are better for the economy, whereas raising the individual income tax rates again from 35 percent (which is already too high) to 39.6 percent or higher would hurt the economy. By proposing higher tax rates, Obama and his allies explicitly discounted the economic effects. Rumors in Washington suggest the President, facing persistently high unemployment, may have been mugged by reality in the immortal words of Irving Kristol. Obama may have come around to a more conservative position in favor of lower rates, at least for now.

Last year my colleague, Bill Beach, and I argued for a pro-growth alternative to ineffective, debt-laden fiscal stimulus. Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) led the fight in the Congress for stimulus that would work, but congressional leadership and Obama chose instead to pass a $787 billion debt hike masquerading as stimulus. The centerpiece of any effective pro-growth proposal was obviously to delay for some number of years the increase in tax rates that would otherwise occur with the expiration of the 2001 tax relief.

The best solution, of course, is to make the tax rate relief permanent, but that’s a debate better left to another day years from now. The immediate task is to delay the rate hikes. If the rumors of the President’s epiphany are true and he is willing to delay the rate hikes, that would be real progress.

The broad consensus appears to be that if the economy can avoid any more disastrous shocks, then the unemployment rate ending 2010 is likely to be about where it is today, at 10 percent. Obama should demand a delay in raising tax rates until the economy is materially stronger, say until the unemployment rate dips below 6 or 7 percent. If he were to do so, following the advice we gave at the start of 2009, it would provide the economy with a needed boost on at least three counts:

1. It eliminates a threat to the economy from Washington as highlighted in a recent Chamber of Commerce report;
2. It would delay the vitality draining effects of higher rates on capital formation and entrepreneurship in America; and
3. It would suggest the President finally is starting to “get it”, that higher tax rates are bad for the economy as we’ve said all along.

More from the Heritage Foundation…

Facing Up to the Nation’s Finances is back with a new “Budget Blog Carnival!” If you are unfamiliar, a blog carnival is an online “magazine” (blogo-zine) of sorts that focuses on a specific theme. This issue is all about the U.S. federal budget and the national debt.

As always, the carnival is comprised of a non-partisan collective of blog entries. While specific pieces may have ideological roots, the overall carnival is a testament to the diverse voices present in the ongoing debate that surrounds the budget, deficit and accumulated national debt.

Today, we are releasing an exciting array of entries from The Heritage Foundation, The Committee for a Responsible Budget, Econbrowser blog, ECONLOG blog and the Economist’s View blog, to name a few of the participants! Here is your guide to Facing Up’s Dec. 2009 Budget Blog Carnival:

First and foremost, Scott Bittle, executive vice president of Public Agenda and co-author of“Where Does the Money Go?”, leads the pack with a piece entitled, “The Three Questions for the Public on the Federal Budget.” In the piece, Bittle highlights three key questions for the public (and American leaders) to consider: “Can we afford it?” “Can we keep the status quo?” and “Am I willing to give up something I want because the government can’t afford it?”According to Bittle,

“Most of the people who’ve looked at this issue, whether they’re liberal or conservative, in or out of government, use the same word to describe the federal budget: “unsustainable.”

Next, economist Dr. Arnold Kling of the EconLog blog ponders various scenarios for resolving U.S. debt. From technological advances to hyperinflation, Kling provides valuable insight.

Conn Carroll of The Heritage Foundation penned a piece entitled, “The Definition of Economic Insanity.” In the entry, Carroll stands firmly against deficit spending as a means to stimulate the U.S. economy. In opposition to recent “jobs summit” proposals Carroll states,

“These “new” ideas will fail for the same reason the past two government stimulus plans failed: governments do not create jobs.”

In a separate piece, Carroll presents a series of government actions from the 1930’s through modern times that he considers examples of the “…failure of government to spend its way to prosperity…” and makes his case for the government to step “out of the way.”

And Dan Perry penned an intriguing article about the urgency of the debt. Perry charges both parties with fiscal irresponsibility, as he finds fault in both President Obama’s deficit spending and record-increases in spending during George W. Bush’s presidency. While he sees the “Tea Party” movement as impressive, he writes the following:

“After eight years of a Republican administration, the nation saw record spending and deficit levels without so much as a peep about the financial difficulties it might someday cause. Meanwhile, their solution to these economic woes are a series of tax cuts accompanied by no tangible reductions in spending.”

Next, James Hamilton of the Econbrowser blog responds to Paul Krugman, one of the leading economists to argue that U.S. budget deficits are not that troubling in the current fiscal environment. Hamilton expresses his worries about current and future deficits. Please also read Krugman’s writings on this subject here and here.

Also, here’s another piece from Hamilton — an assessment of federal budget commitments and the danger present in continuing on our current budgetary path.

Another exciting partner in the current Facing Up carnival is the bi-partisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. The Committee submitted two pieces — one about theessentials associated with tax reform and another that explores the true costs of health care reform. Both of these entries provide insight into the current debate over the national debt.

And, Mark Thoma from the Economist’s View blog highlights the three ways in which debt can make future generations worse off, while covering some of the “bogus arguments” that are given in the budget debate. Thoma concludes by calling some of the Republican opposition we’ve seen as “unduly alarmist.”

In a more-lighthearted commentary, Bob McCarty writes about the similarities he sees between the movie Friday the Thirteenth and the economic stimulus package.

Finally, in “Musings on America’s Budgetary Challenge,” David D. Kent provides a fun-filled look at federal expenditures and ponders the “what ifs” of potential spending scenarios.

That’s it for this edition of the blog carnival. Stay tuned for more!

The Heritage Foundation’s Steven Groves and Ben Lieberman are live at the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference reporting from a conservative perspective. Follow their reports on The Foundry and at the Copenhagen Consequences Web site.

Though Barack Obama garnered much attention for his Nobel Peace Prize win, the United States has won three lesser-known, tongue-in-cheek awards at the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference from a liberal environmentalist organization that has been critical of America’s refusal to wholeheartedly embrace their radical agenda.

And what “ignoble actions” earned the United States these noble prizes? According to the people at Avaaz.org, the U.S. government took home the “Fossil of the Day” award for “stalling negotiation to save life on planet earth.” Along with the Climate Action Network, Avaaz.org runs a daily award show at the Copenhagen Climate Conference. It’s worth noting that Avaaz.org is dedicated to “to clos[ing] the gap between the world we have, and the world most people everywhere want.”

The Fossil of the Day award is indicative of the “blame America first” sentiment that pervades these conferences and the Heritage team is doing all it can to make sure that, despite  this anti-US  sentiment,  the real interests of the American people are part of this debate.

Here’s video of the red carpet ceremony shot by Heritage’s Ben Lieberman:

We at Heritage applaud this award in part because, climate change and research aside, signing a colossal UN resolution in Copenhagen this week would mean signing over our sovereignty to unelected bureaucrats in the United Nations and Europe (not to mention the tremendous economic harm Copenhagen regulations would wreak on the U.S. economy). Here’s to fourth “Fossil of the Day Award.”

Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), ranking Member on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW), spoke to bloggers at The Heritage Foundation’s weekly Bloggers Briefing today and focused his remarks on the controversial “Climategate” scandal — the series of leaked e-mails that have blown holes through the theory of man-made global warming.

As Sen. Inhofe sat down to speak, he opined that he was just in the Senate trying to convince Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) to investigate the subject of the e-mails, instead of the people who uncovered the e-mails. Sen. Inhofe was the leader of the global warming opposition ten years ago when he chaired the EPW Committee; when a blogger asked him what he thought about the emergent news that the science was flawed, the Senator quipped, “Redemption.”

Senator Inhofe is not alone in his views on “Climategate.” The UK Telegraph called it the “greatest scandal in modern science,” and the UK MET is reevaluating over 160 years of climate data because “public opinion of man-made global warming has been shattered by leaked e-mails.” Sen. Inhofe seemed confident that neither climate bills would pass the Senate, but feared the Obama Administration would circumvent the legislative process and use the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to force regulation through the Clean Air Act. Sen. Inhofe fired back by releasing a YouTube video saying that the EPA finding that CO2 is a pollutant was based on faulty science.

Now, the United Nations is in the middle of the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference, where “the science is settled.” However, as we have stated, the science is far from settled. Now, the world has learned that the basis of the science that climate change was founded on could be proven faulty. This has not stopped the UN’s International Panel on Climate Change from creating a treaty that will be costly to the US economy and not have any real impact on the environment. And it’s a treaty that would infringe on our national sovereignty.

You can listen to Sen. Inhofe’s remarks here.

You can watch the video of his remarks here.

Media coverage of the CBO scoring of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s health care bill left out some of the fine print and heroic assumptions that were in the report. The Heritage Foundation believes they merit your consideration.

Premiums Rise

The media quotes the CBO as saying that ObamaCare would not make premiums rise for people who get their insurance through their job or other groups. This is mostly because millions of people would no longer receive coverage from their employer, and instead would buy insurance in the so-called “non-group” market that sells individual health plans. These would likely be older and sicker Americans.

While this transition could make premiums cheaper for those who would continue to receive health benefits through their workplace, they would likely see higher taxes down the road for subsidies that would be offered to people buying individual insurance, the CBO reports. And the CBO notes that other taxes imposed on medical device manufacturers, insurers and other providers would be passed onto consumers “in the form of higher premiums for private coverage.”

Additionally, the CBO said Sen. Reid’s health care bill would raise premium rates for people who buy it in the so-called “non-group” markets, and these increases would be 10 to 13 percent. So anyone who cites the CBO as saying Americans would not see their premiums jump assumes that employers will not dump their workers into an exchange where people get insurance individually.

There Is a Crowd-Out Effect

And that’s an assumption that goes too far. In fact, the CBO notes that roughly 6.4 million people who have work-based health coverage under the current law would lose it under Sen. Reid’s bill. That’s because some businesses would find it unaffordable to offer health care to their workers under the Reid bill. They’ll opt for paying the $750 fine and dumping their workers onto a health exchange. Many older and sicker employees would likely lose their job-based coverage, even if they like it, according to the CBO. Businesses would push these workers to get their health care in the “non-group” or individual market because it’s cheaper for companies. But as noted above, it’s not a better deal for the individuals.

Younger People Assumed to Fall in Line

At the other end of the spectrum, the CBO analysts make the assumption that younger, healthier workers are going to comply with the “individual mandate” in the bill. That’s the one that forces every American to buy health insurance or pay a fine (a provision whose constitutionality has been and will continue to be questioned). However, these younger workers will look at the option between a much more expensive, mandated health plan — providing benefits they don’t want or need — and a less expensive annual fine and be much more likely to forgo the health insurance plan and pay the fine. As the CBO reports, it’s the younger workers who are the biggest losers in this “reform.”

More from Heritage…

Opponents of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program have been losing the war of public opinion since last February when President Barack Obama and the Democrats on Capitol Hill voted to phase out the program. Even liberal political pundits like MSNBC’s Chris Mathews have expressed their outrage over the decision to deny thousands of families in Washington the opportunity to choose a safe and effective school for their children.

Opponents of the scholarships have used every reason they can muster to defend their position.

They argued that the program doesn’t work, despite the fact that the Department of Education released a report earlier this year finding that a student who enters the DCOSP in kindergarten will graduate high school reading two grade levels above their peers in the D.C. Public Schools.

They argued that the local government doesn’t want the program to continue, which is also false. A majority of the D.C. City Council supports the program.

They argue cost, but it’s actually cheaper to educate a child through the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. The $7,500 voucher is half the amount spent per pupil by the D.C. Public Schools. Also, the taxpayers of D.C. overwhelmingly support the program. A poll conducted over the summer found that seven of 10 D.C. residents support continuation of the program.

Just when it seemed all the reasons to oppose the program were exhausted, D.C. Councilman Tommy Wells and D.C. State Board of Education President Lisa Raymond got a little creative over cocktails.

The Washington Examiner reports:

At a cocktail party on Capitol Hill a week or so ago, D.C. Councilman Tommy Wells found himself chatting with Lisa Raymond, president of the D.C. State Board of Education… When he was on the school board, he had lobbied against vouchers. But when he saw that many poor kids were actually thriving in private schools, he considered organizing the council in favor of vouchers. D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton and the teachers unions hammered him. His discussion with Raymond sealed the deal, especially when she pointed out that federal funds were going to religious schools, many Catholic, that she argues discriminate against gays and lesbians.

After getting roughed up by Delegate Norton and the teachers unions, Wells decided to flip back and oppose the DCOSP, calling the program “discriminatory.” According to the Washington Post, Wells and Raymond sent a letter to Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) this week claiming that because Catholic institutions do not “provide employee benefits to same-sex spouses,” public funds should not go to their schools (879 of D.C.’s approximately 1,700 vouchers go to the city’s Catholic schools).

The Wells-Raymond letter is likely to be seen by both sides in the debate over the opportunity scholarships as an unwelcome attempt to inject another issue, with attendant religious tension, into a debate that has focused thus far on the well-being of students, whose parents make the choice among public schools, charter schools, and private schools of various kinds. It would be ironic as well if the debate over the definition of traditional marriage, which has included assertions that a redefinition will not hurt existing marriages, instead negatively impacted existing parental choices in education.

Still more disconcerting is the idea that Congress might be persuaded to agree to discriminate against low-income families (the DCOPS enrolls children from families with earnings at or below 185 percent of poverty) by limiting their choices in a demonstrably effective program. As Senator Durbin and others weigh the future of parental choice in education in the nation’s capital, that is the grievous form of discrimination on which they should focus and not on Wells and Raymond’s misguided missive after aperitifs.

To learn more about the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, watch the Heritage Foundation’s new documentary, Let Me Rise: The Struggle to Save School Choice in the Nation’s Capital at www.VoicesOfSchoolChoice.org.

Click here to view the embedded video.

First Lady Michelle Obama’s video on health care reform raises important issues about female patients who are falling through the cracks of the U.S. health care system. It’s not a perfect system, but Nina Owcharenko explains that ObamaCare would take women and the rest of the country in the wrong direction. Having to depend on politicians or faceless bureaucrats to make decisions about their care doesn’t empower women or improve their health care situations. Plus, the Obama health reform agenda isn’t what women want. A majority of female respondents told the Independent Women’s Forum in a recent survey that they don’t think government-run health care is best for them or their families.

The Senate voted on Saturday by a 60-39 majority to commence debate on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s bill that would radically expand government control over private health care decisions. The bill is over 2000 pages long, costs an estimated $2.5 trillion over the first ten years of implementation and carries a half trillion dollars in new taxes. Many Americans have to be thinking right now — they have heard from their dissenting constituents at Town Hall meetings and have seen the poll numbers for Obama’s health care bill dropping like a rock so why would they keep moving this bill forward?

This debate will center around many issues including huge taxes increases, economy-killing employer mandates and:

1. Abortion: Congressman Bart Stupak (D-MI) offered an amendment to the House bill to ban all federal funds flowing into the health care system from funding abortion. Senator Reid put language in the bill that allows some funds to go to abortion services by using an accounting gimmick. This issue could take the bill down, because the House approach is far different from the Senate approach. If this bill becomes a referendum on abortion policy, it may fail.

2. Cost: Senator Reid has promoted his bill as costing the federal government $849 billion and as a budget cutting bill. Conservatives in the Senate have pointed out that the costs are more accurately $2.5 trillion over the first 10 years of implementation because the benefits are not even scheduled to be paid out until 2014. There is a huge disparity between the two sides as to the cost of the bill and if it gets bigger and bigger on the Senate floor, then it may suffer a legislative implosion.

3. The Public Plan: Senator Joe Lieberman (D-CT) has pledged to support a filibuster of any bill containing the public option. Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME) will only accept a public option with a trigger. Other Senators have expressed reservations about different permutations of the public option. A bill with a too strong public option may not have the support to pass the Senate.

4. Wild Card: As with all these debates, there may be an issue that comes out of the blue and becomes central to the bill. There were debates over “death panels” during initial stages of the debates and controversies over coverage for illegal immigrants. Some other issue may be offered as an amendment or may be buried in the 2000 pages of the bill that may become the next controversy to prevent passage.

The week after Thanksgiving, the Senate will start the process of considering and voting on amendments to the bill. This process may go in one of two directions. It is possible that Reid uses the amendment process to buy just enough votes to pass the bill through targeted special interest amendments. Expect Connecticut, Nebraska, Arkansas, and, yet again, Louisiana to receive special treatment in the amendment process. If Senator Reid is able to buy support during this process, the bill will pass and the President will sign Obamacare before his State of the Union.

Scenario two kicks in if opponents of the bill play hardball. If opposing Senators offer non-germane amendments, like the legislation to restore the 2nd Amendment in the District of Columbia or a resolution of disapproval for Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to try Kahlid Sheik Mohammed in federal courts, then the Senate would be mixing some volatile issues into the health care mix. Regardless the course of action, this bill will either pass or fail as a direct result of the actions of a handful of Senators.

Read more about the five major flaws of Majority Leader Harry Reid’s health care bill here and at FixHealthCarePolicy.org.