The single biggest political phenomenon in the last 30 years is how the right wing of the GOP has been so successful at getting middle-class white voters to enthusiastically endorse policies and leaders who do not have their best interests at heart.

The answer to the question of whether or not there will be a government plan was stated very clearly: "The government plan faces opposition from some who fear it could ultimately drive private insurers out of business." There it is!

Since when has competition been a bad thing?

Insurance companies do not have to go out of business; they should just make themselves better. All they have to do is reduce their tremendous overhead and stop catering to their shareholders by making generous profits.

About 100 people gathered today at San Antonio de Padua Catholic Church for a two-hour forum on affordable housing, the latest event in a grass-roots campaign designed to highlight the need for more affordable units in the city.

In 2005, the City Council approved a four-year strategic plan which established affordable housing as a priority and called for the construction of 1,328 affordable family rental units. The council reviews the plan annually and is expected to vote on a new one in August.

Orange County Congregation Community Organization (OCCCO) – a faith-based group that represents the interests of 48,000 people from 22 congregations – is urging council members to renew the initiative and is trying to keep the issue in the limelight by holding petition drives, public events and prayer services.

Participants kicked off the event by applauding the city's efforts thus far, but adding that more affordable units are needed to accommodate low, very low and extremely low income residents.

Mikusky, music director for San Antonio de Padua church, said he initially tried to find an affordable one-bedroom apartment close to the parish, but was unable to and moved to Fountain Valley instead.

"This is like a dream for me," [City Councilmember Lorri] Galloway said. "It wasn't too long ago that the words 'affordable housing' were a political scourge."

The head of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said Congress had yet to find a way to pay for the plan.

The legislation would guarantee no one could be turned down for insurance but would require everyone to have policies and for businesses to buy coverage for their workers or face hefty penalties.

It would impose new rules on health insurers and set up a government plan to compete with private insurers.

Our immigration system is not broken, and we don't need immigration reform. It is our government that is broken, and we need government reform.

Let us have strong border control,

but let us also have legalization of long-term illegal immigrants

Remittances are a huge drain on the state and federal levels. The amount of money leaving the country is enormous.

Private charities provide spotty help at best. Taxes are the fairest way to spread the cost around.

Why is it that during times of economic crisis, the most vulnerable are blamed?

What about those of the legal population committing welfare fraud, Medicare fraud and Social Security fraud?

These vulnerable workers do pay taxes. When they purchase items, they are paying sales tax.

We cannot underestimate the significance of contributions these illegal immigrants make to the farming/agricultural/food processing/packaging business.

The standout in the recitation of costs because of illegal immigration is the portrait of Delia Godinez and her five children. The family receives $650 each month from the state's CalWorks program, $500 in federal food stamps and other vouchers and unmentioned thousands in public schooling benefits. This is for one illegal immigrant family.

Even parking becomes impossible when half of my neighbors are living nine people in a one-bedroom place with five cars outside.

As a member of Congress, I work hard to make sure that federal funding for school districts is maximized so this center and other area schools can best serve our students and communities.

The Obama plan would give new powers to the Federal Reserve to oversee the entire financial system and would also create a new consumer protection agency to guard against credit and other abuses that played a big role in the current crisis.

Lawrence Summers, head of the president's National Economic Council, said that those who believed this power should not reside with the Fed had the responsibility to make the case for some other agency.

The creation of the new consumer agency is aimed at guarding against the kinds of lending abuses which resulted in many Americans being saddled with far more mortgage debt than they could handle.

Undertaking a new and aggressive push to enact health reform this year, President Barack Obama bluntly challenged Republican critics on Thursday to put forward their own plan to expand coverage to the uninsured and help struggling families afford care.

A dispute over Obama's desire to create a new government-sponsored health plan to compete with private insurers is forming a major obstacle to bipartisan consensus on a sweeping overhaul of the nation's health care system.

He described his critics as naysayers.

Signs held among the several hundred demonstrators lining his route said "NObama" and "No to Socialism."

For his goal of reshaping the nation's health care system to bring down costs and extend coverage to 50 million uninsured Americans — an overhaul that has vexed Washington for decades — Obama has set an August deadline.

Senators of both parties agree on many big issues, including getting all Americans covered and prohibiting insurance industry practices that deny coverage to people with health problems.

The president also acknowledged that extending coverage will cost "a good deal of money at a time where we don't have extra to spend." He promised anew that he will not allow reform to add to the deficit, and said he will propose new savings "in the days to come" beyond those already outlined to help explain how reform will be financed.

Green Bay resident Laura Klitzka, a 35-year-old, married mother of two who has breast cancer that has now spread to her bones, introduced Obama. She carries about $12,000 in unpaid medical bills that continue to pile up as treatment continues that she said her family cannot afford.

"We're the only industrialized nation that doesn't have national socialized health care for everyone!"

• the dismemberment of innocent, defenseless human beings in foreign countries?
• the killing of innocent, defenseless human beings for medical research?
• propping up large corporations with failed business models?
• keeping someone in a house they gained possession of through taking out a loan they can’t repay?
  

• the people have a government, not the other way around?
• we as individuals retain most rights, and should be allowed to enjoy the fruits of our successes and deal with the consequences of our failures?
• we are a nation of laws, not elite cliques of entitled men?
• we are union of states with their own governments, powers, and rights?
• we have a Constitution that restricts what our federal government can do?
• the Constitution provides for checks and balances through separation of powers?
  

Citing contamination concerns, county housing officials had urged supervisors to give them the authority to evict those reluctant to leave. But some of the 14 remaining Ujima residents and a lawyer from the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles told supervisors that county housing officials had failed to help them find and pay for equivalent housing as required by federal law.

In November, supervisors ordered the county housing authority to close Ujima Village and begin relocating residents after tests showed potentially dangerous soil and water contamination at the 16-acre complex, a former oil tank storage yard for what is now Exxon Mobil.

Ujima Village was built in 1972 by a group of African American architects and developers with a mortgage underwritten by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

At the beginning of this report, The Times insults the intelligence of its dwindling readership by portraying Carol and Jerry Ptacek as victims of a Department of Housing and Urban Development program failure. One must read 19 paragraphs to discover that isn't so.

Both spouses are currently on disability -- sad, but not the government's fault. They gambled home equity they received from refinancing their home several times at Indian casinos -- a poor choice, but not the government's fault. They took out a negative amortization loan -- foolish, but not the government's fault. They assumed the house had been completely overhauled -- naive, but not the government's fault.