British Fabian Butler and EZ-Kill Emanuel Shaped Obama "Cadillac Tax"

Barack Obama asked for votes from American workers in the 2008 election by attacking John McCain's plan to tax union health care plans. Obama pledged he would protect workers from such a proposal. Labor unions have been stunned to see President Obama betray his campaign pledge and demand this tax as a centerpiece of his program.

The betrayal took shape in a commentary published a month before the election (Oct. 10, 2008, in the New York Times "Campaign Stops" blog), written as two companion pieces appearing side by side, by the team of Stuart M. Butler and Ezekiel Emanuel.

Butler is a British strategist specializing in the de-industrialization of the United States, a member of the Fabian Society, and long-time director of Domestic and Economic Policy Studies for the "conservative" Heritage Foundation.

Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel is a leading advocate for euthanasia by withdrawal of medical care from the elderly and other vulnerable population sectors, and a government "bio-ethicist."

In their joint 2008 commentary, Emanuel demanded the overturn of the tax exemption granted in the 1950s to employee health care plans, blaming out-of-control health care costs on "gold-plated" workers' health insurance coverage. He advised Obama to reverse himself and go with a version of what McCain was calling for. Emanuel wrote, "For Democrats to do the right thing will mean they will have to take on their supporters in unions."

In the joint commentary, Stuart Butler wrote that McCain's attack on workers' health insurance plans was "bipartisan mainstream thinking."

This intervention by the British strategist and his American partner reflected Stuart Butler's long crusade to destroy American living standards. Butler had edited the 1989 Heritage Foundation book, A National Health System for America, which claimed that "Excluding employer-provided health insurance from taxation, or heavily subsidizing health care through government programs, encourages patients to consume more medical services and ignore the cost of those services...."

Stuart Butler once explained himself thusly to an Executive Intelligence Review journalist: "In the case of the [Ronald] Reagan government, we are using a conservative government to impose a quite radical, leftwing program — all based upon solid, liberal economic principles. There really isn't so much difference between the people in the Fabian Society, people like myself, and Milton Friedman."

In a follow-up joint commentary published in the same New York Times blog after the Presidential election (Nov. 16, 2008), Emanuel called on President-elect Obama to make cost-reduction of health care the main focus of his administration, and he pushed for the appointment of the behaviorist economist clique headed by Larry Summers and Peter Orszag to administer such "reform." Emanuel soon afterward became chief euthanasia advisor to the incoming administration, under this clique.