Myth One: Government Health Care Is More Efficient
Myth Two: We're Spending Too Much on Health Care
Myth Three: Forty-Six Million Americans Can't Get Health Care
Myth Four: High Drug Prices Drive Up Health Care Costs
Myth Five: Importing Drugs Would Reduce Health Care Costs
Myth Six: Universal Coverage Can Be Achieved by Forcing Everyone to Buy Insurance
Myth Seven: Government Prevention Programs Reduce Health Care Costs
Myth Eight: We Need More Government to Insure Poor Americans
Myth Nine: Health Information Technology Is a Silver Bullet for Reducing Costs
Myth Ten: Government-Run Health Care Systems in Other Countries are Better and Cheaper than America's

On Monday, President Barack Obama will mark his first six months in office. Americans for Tax Reform has assembled the following numbers for taxpayers evaluating Obama’s performance:

10
Number of years it will take to double the national debt under the Obama budget

16
Number of days it took Obama to break his central campaign promise to not raise “any form” of taxes on Americans earning less than $250,000 per year by signing an increase in the federal excise tax on tobacco (Smokers’ median income is $36,000 per year)

153
Number of days it took Obama to abandon his campaign promise to allow the public
to view legislation on his desk for five full days : “When there’s a bill that ends up on
my desk as president, you the public will have five days to look online and find out
what’s in it before I sign it, so that you know what your government’s doing.”

500
Number of Fortune 500 companies who would ship jobs abroad as a result of Obama’s
proposed double taxation of American companies overseas

0
Number of developed countries that have a higher corporate income tax rate than the
United States (we’re tied with Japan at 40%)

$50 billion
The amount of tax money raised per year for every one percentage point in a
Value Added Tax (VAT) scheme not ruled out by White House officials

33%
The percentage of families filing a tax return that had zero or less in income taxes paid
(making it mathematically impossible to cut taxes for “95 percent of working families”)

800,000
Minimum number of Americans attending tax tea parties since Obama’s inauguration

Ten or twenty years ago, when you wanted to show how bad a new Big Government program was, you could compare it the Post Office or the Department of Motor Vehicles.

And everybody would get your point.

But those examples don't work today.

First, technology. The Internet dramatically reduced the number of times that people need to show up and stand in line at the Post Office or Department of Motor Vehicles. Email and cheap phone rates slashed the number of letters and post cards that Americans send. Secure servers and Internet payment options slashed the number of checks that Americans mail.

Second, to build goodwill, government copies private business. Government officials and employees adopted and adapted private enterprise methods to make the Post Office and Department of Motor Vehicles a lot faster, friendlier, and customer responsive. Extra clerks during peak customer traffic hours and during peak times of the year. Putting clerks through Dale Carnegie and other human relations trainings.

The results? Most people are no longer p.o.'d at the P.O. A large percentage of them are surprised and happy with the D.M.V.Baloo - discussion

So, if you tell people that the new Big Government program will be as rude or inefficient as the Post Office, or as arrogant and slow as the Department of Motor Vehicles -- a lot of people will think you have lost your mind, and may even look forward to the new Big Government program.

QUESTION: What common ground do liberals and libertarians have? What are some of their differences?

MY SHORT ANSWER: The best way to learn the similarities and differences between liberals and libertarians is to check out the World's Smallest Political Quiz.

The Quiz chart shows, broadly, where and how liberals and libertarians agree and disagree. Quiz annimationTo simplify a bit, liberals tend to agree with libertarians on many issues of personal freedom, and differ most sharply with libertarians on issues of economic freedom.

For example, Nat Hentoff is one of America's greatest defenders of free speech and the First Amendment. He's a liberal. However, he so strongly agrees with the uncompromising libertarian defense of free speech that he recently became a Senior Fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute.

Libertarians and many liberals want to protect religious liberty, Fourth Amendment rights, sexual freedom, and personal privacy. Many liberals agree with libertarians that the Drug War is a failure and should be ended. The ACLU, like many other liberal organizations, agrees with libertarians that the current effort to impose a national ID upon America is wrong.

For those liberals who oppose a military draft, and U.S. military intervention abroad, libertarians are staunch and reliable allies.

That's a lot of common ground!

Quiz cardsThe Quiz also indicates where liberals tend to disagree with libertarians. Libertarians strongly believe in a free-market economy, where people are free to do as they wish with their labor, their property, their money, and their businesses, as long as they don't initiate force against others. Liberals tend to favor far more government control over people's money, property, and the economy.

Again, the place to begin exploring this issue is the World's Smallest Political Quiz. Enjoy taking the Quiz -- and share it with your friends!

(One final point: In my comments I'm using the word "liberal" in the modern American sense. In the 19th century, the word "liberal" meant something quite different than it does today -- it referred to a broadly libertarian philosophy of small government, free markets, personal freedom and peace. This "liberalism" was the philosophy of the American Revolution. Indeed, even today, many libertarians refer to themselves as "classical liberals." And in Europe, the term "liberal" is often used in this older sense.)