Friday, January 31, 2014

The U.S. Government Waste List 2013

The Waste List: 66 Ways The U.S. Government Is Blowing Your Hard-Earned Money Submitted by Michael Snyder of The Economic Collapse blog,
Why did the U.S. government spend 2.6 million dollars to train Chinese prostitutes to drink responsibly?  Why did the U.S. government spend $175,587 "to determine if cocaine makes Japanese quail engage in sexually risky behavior"?  Why did the U.S. government spend nearly a million dollars on a new soccer field for detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay?  This week when I saw that the IRS was about to pay out 70 million dollars in bonuses to their employees and that the U.S. government was going to be leaving 7 billion dollars worth of military equipment behind in Afghanistan, it caused me to reflect on all of the other crazy ways that the government has been wasting our money in recent years.  So I decided to go back through my previous articles and put together a list.  I call it "The Waste List".
Even though our politicians insist that there is very little that can still be cut out of the budget, the truth is that the federal budget is absolutely drowning in pork.  The following are 66 crazy ways that the U.S. government is wasting your hard-earned money...
#1 The IRS is about to pay out 70 million dollars in bonuses to employees even though discretionary bonuses are supposed to be cancelled due to the sequester.
#2 According to the Washington Post, the U.S. government is going to leave 7 billion dollars worth of military equipment behind in Afghanistan.
#3 It is being projected that the trip that the Obamas will be making to Africa will cost U.S. taxpayers $100,000,000.
#4 The NIH plans to spend $509,840 on a study that "will send text messages in 'gay lingo' to methamphetamine addicts to try to persuade them to use fewer drugs and more condoms."
#5 The National Science Foundation has given $384,949 to Yale University to do a study on “Sexual Conflict, Social Behavior and the Evolution of Waterfowl Genitalia”.  Try not to laugh, but much of this research involves examining and measuring the reproductive organs of male ducks.
#6 The IRS spent $60,000 on a film parody of “Star Trek” and a film parody of “Gilligan’s Island”.  Internal Revenue Service employees were the actors in the two parodies, so as you can imagine the acting was really bad.
#7 The NIH has given $1.5 million to Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts to study why “three-quarters” of lesbians in the United States are overweight and why most gay males are not.
#8 The NIH has also spent $2.7 million to study why lesbians have more “vulnerability to hazardous drinking”.
#9 The U.S. government is giving sixteen F-16s and 200 Abrams tanks to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt even though the new president of Egypt, Mohammed Morsi (a member of the Muslim Brotherhood), constantly makes statements such as the following
“Dear brothers, we must not forget to nurse our children and grandchildren on hatred towards those Zionists and Jews, and all those who support them”
#10 During 2012, the salaries of Barack Obama’s three climate change advisers combined came to a grand total of more than $370,000.
#11 Overall, 139 different White House staffers were making at least $100,000 during 2012, and there were 20 staffers that made the maximum of $172,200.
#12 Amazingly, U.S. taxpayers spend more than 1.4 billion dollars a year on the Obamas.  Meanwhile, British taxpayers only spend about 58 million dollars on the entire royal family.
#13 During 2012, $25,000 of federal money was spent on a promotional tour for the Alabama Watermelon Queen.
#14 The U.S. government spent $505,000 “to promote specialty hair and beauty products for cats and dogs” in 2012.
#15 NASA spends close to a million dollars a year developing a menu of food for a manned mission to Mars even though it is being projected that a manned mission to Mars is still decades away.
#16 During 2012, the federal government spent 15 million dollars to help the Russians recruit nuclear scientists.
#17 Over the past 15 years, a total of approximately $5.25 million has been spent on hair care services for the U.S. Senate.
#18 The U.S. government spent 27 million dollars to teach Moroccans how to design and make pottery in 2012.
#19 At a time when we have an epidemic of unemployment in the United States, the U.S. Department of Education is spending $1.3 million to “reduce linguistic, academic, and employment barriers for skilled and low-skilled immigrants and refugees, and to integrate them into the U.S. workforce and professions.”
#20 The federal government still sends about 20 million dollars a year to the surviving family members of veterans of World War I, even though World War I ended 94 years ago.
#21 The U.S. government is spending approximately 3.6 million dollars a year to support the lavish lifestyles of former presidents such as George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.
#22 During fiscal 2012, the National Science Foundation gave researchers at Purdue University $350,000.  They used part of that money to help fund a study that discovered that if golfers imagine that a hole is bigger it will help them with their putting.
#23 The U.S. government is giving hundreds of millions of dollars to the Palestinian Authority every single year.
#24 Federal agencies have purchased a total of approximately 2 billion rounds of ammunition over the past couple of years.  It is claimed that all of this ammunition is needed for “training purposes”.
#25 During 2012, the National Science Foundation spent $516,000 on the creation of a video game called “Prom Week” which apparently simulates “all the social interactions of the event.
#26 If you can believe it, $10,000 of U.S. taxpayer money was actually used to purchase talking urinal cakes up in Michigan.
#27 When Joe Biden and his staff took a trip to London, the hotel bill cost U.S. taxpayers $459,388.65.
#28 Joe Biden and his staff also stopped in Paris for one night.  The hotel bill for that one night came to $585,000.50.
#29 If you can believe it, close to 15,000 retired federal employees are currently collecting federal pensions for life worth at least $100,000 annually.  That list includes such names as Newt Gingrich, Bob Dole, Trent Lott, Dick Gephardt and Dick Cheney.
#30 The U.S. Department of Agriculture has spent $300,000 to encourage Americans to eat caviar.
#31 The National Institutes of Health recently gave $666,905 to a group of researchers that is conducting a study on the benefits of watching reruns on television.
#32 The National Science Foundation has given 1.2 million dollars to a team of “scientists” that is spending part of that money on a study that is seeking to determine whether elderly Americans would benefit from playing World of Warcraft or not.
#33 The National Institutes of Health recently gave $548,731 to a team of researchers that concluded that those that drink heavily in their thirties also tend to feel more immature.
#34 The National Science Foundation recently spent $30,000 on a study to determine if “gaydar” actually exists.  This is the conclusion that the researchers reached at the end of the study….
“Gaydar is indeed real and… its accuracy is driven by sensitivity to individual facial features”
#35 In 2011, the National Institutes of Health spent $592,527 on a study that sought to figure out once and for all why chimpanzees throw poop.
#36 The National Institutes of Health has spent more than 5 million dollars on a website called Sexpulse that is targeted at “men who use the Internet to seek sex with men”.  According to Fox News, the website “includes pornographic images of homosexual sex as well as naked and scantily clad men” and features “a Space Invaders-style interactive game that uses a penis-shaped blaster to shoot down gay epithets.”
#37 The General Services Administration spent $822,751 on a “training conference” for 300 west coast employees at the M Resort and Casino in Las Vegas.  The following is how the Washington Post described some of the wasteful expenses that happened during this “conference”…
Among the “excessive, wasteful and in some cases impermissable” spending the inspector general documented: $5,600 for three semi-private catered in-room parties and $44 per person daily breakfasts; $75,000 for a “team-building” exercise — the goal was to build a bicycle; $146,000 on catered food and drinks; and $6,325 on commemorative coins in velvet boxes to reward all participants for their work on stimulus projects. The $31,208 “networking” reception featured a $19-per-person artisanal cheese display and $7,000 of sushi. At the conference’s closing-night dinner, employees received “yearbooks” with their pictures, at a cost of $8,130.
You can see some stunning pictures of GSA employees living the high life in Las Vegas right here.
#38 Do you remember when credit rating agency Egan Jones downgraded U.S. government debt from AA+ to AA?  Well, someone in the federal government apparently did not like that at all.  According to Zero Hedge, the SEC planned to file charges against Egan Jones for “misstatements” on a regulatory application with the SEC.
Normally, the SEC does not go after anyone.  After all, when is the last time a major banker went to prison?
No, the truth is that the SEC is usually just a huge waste of taxpayer money.  According to ABC News, one investigation found that 17 senior SEC officials had been regularly viewing pornography while at work.  While the American people were paying their salaries, this is what senior SEC officials were busy doing…
One senior attorney at SEC headquarters in Washington spent up to eight hours a day accessing Internet porn, according to the report, which has yet to be released. When he filled all the space on his government computer with pornographic images, he downloaded more to CDs and DVDs that accumulated in boxes in his offices.
An SEC accountant attempted to access porn websites 1,800 times in a two-week period and had 600 pornographic images on her computer hard drive.
Another SEC accountant used his SEC-issued computer to upload his own sexually explicit videos onto porn websites he joined.
And another SEC accountant attempted to access porn sites 16,000 times in a single month.
#39 According to InformationWeek, the federal government is spending “millions of dollars” to train Asian call center workers.
#40 If you can believe it, the federal government has actually spent $750,000 on a new soccer field for detainees held at Guantanamo Bay.
#41 The U.S. Agency for International Development spent 10 million dollars to create a version of “Sesame Street” for Pakistani television.
#42 The Obama administration has plans to spend between 16 and 20 million dollars to help students from Indonesia get master’s degrees.
#43 The National Science Foundation spent $198,000 on a University of California-Riverside study that explored “motivations, expectations and goal pursuit in social media.” One of the questions the study sought an answer to was the following: “Do unhappy people spend more time on Twitter or Facebook?”
#44 In 2011, $147,138 was given to the American Museum of Magic in Marshall, Michigan.  Their best magic trick is making U.S. taxpayer dollars disappear.
#45 The federal government recently spent $74,000 to help Michigan “increase awareness about the role Michigan plays in the production of trees and poinsettias.”
#46 In 2011, the federal government gave $550,000 toward the making of a documentary about how rock and roll contributed to the fall of the Soviet Union.
#47 The National Institutes of Health has contributed $55,382 toward a study of “hookah smoking habits” in the country of Jordan.
#48 The federal government gave $606,000 to researchers at Columbia University to study how heterosexuals use the Internet to find love.
#49 A total of $133,277 was recently given to the International Center for the History of Electronic Games for video game preservation.  The International Center for the History of Electronic Games says that it “collects, studies, and interprets video games, other electronic games, and related materials and the ways in which electronic games are changing how people play, learn, and connect with each other, including across boundaries of culture and geography.”
#50 The federal government has given approximately $3 million to researchers at the University of California at Irvine to fund their "research" into video games such as World of Warcraft.
#51 In 2011, the National Science Foundation gave one team of researchers $149,990 to create a video game called “RapidGuppy” for cell phones and other mobile devices.
#52 In 2011, $936,818 was spent developing an online soap opera entitled “Diary of a Single Mom”.  The show “chronicles the lives and challenges of three single mothers and their families trying to get ahead despite obstacles that all single mothers face, such as childcare, healthcare, education, and finances.”
#53 Last year, the federal government spent $96,000 to buy iPads for kindergarten students in Maine.
#54 The U.S. Postal Service once spent $13,500 for a single dinner at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse.
#55 In 2011, the Air Force Academy completed work on an outdoor worship area for pagans and Wiccans.  The worship area consists of “a small Stonehenge-like circle of boulders with [a] propane fire pit” and it cost $51,474 to build.  The worship area is “for the handful of current or future cadets whose religions fall under the broad category of ‘Earth-based’, which includes Wiccans, druids and pagans.”  At this point, that only includes 3 current students at the Air Force Academy.
#56 The National Institutes of Health once gave researchers $400,000 to study why gay men in Argentina engage in risky sexual behavior when they are drunk.
#57 The National Institutes of Health once gave researchers $442,340 to study the behavior of male prostitutes in Vietnam.
#58 The National Institutes of Health once spent $800,000 in “stimulus funds” to study the impact of a “genital-washing program” on men in South Africa.
#59 The National Science Foundation recently spent $200,000 on a study that examined how voters react when politicians change their stances on climate change.
#60 The federal government recently spent $484,000 to help build a Mellow Mushroom pizzeria in Arlington, Texas.
#61 At this point, China is holding over a trillion dollars of U.S. government debt.  But that didn’t stop the United States from sending 17.8 million dollars in foreign aid to China in 2011.
#62 The U.S. Department of Agriculture gave the largest snack food maker in the world (PepsiCo Inc.) a total of 1.3 million dollars in corporate welfare that was used to help build "a Greek yogurt factory in New York."
#63 The National Science Foundation recently gave a whopping $697,177 to a New York City-based theater company to produce a musical about climate change.
#64 The federal government once shelled out $2.6 million to train Chinese prostitutes to drink responsibly.
#65 The U.S. Department of Agriculture once handed researchers at the University of New Hampshire $700,000 to study methane gas emissions from dairy cows.
#66 The federal government has spent $175,587 "to determine if cocaine makes Japanese quail engage in sexually risky behavior".

California spends $1.37M on ObamaCare web stream featuring Richard Simmons

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Bailey Comment: Unbelievable!

Facing a $78 million budget shortfall, California’s ObamaCare exchange has spent $1.37 million to fund an outreach video featuring exercise guru Richard Simmons gyrating on the floor and hugging a contortionist who is kneeling with his buttocks in the air.
The “Tell a Friend — Get Covered” campaign by Covered California features other celebrities Olivia Wilde, comic Billy Eirchner, Fran Drescher and Tatyana Ali. The centerpiece of the effort was an eight-hour live web stream that ran on Jan. 16.
None of the celebrities were paid for their work, Covered California said.
State Sen. Ted Gaines, a Northern California Republican, fired off a terse letter to Covered California Director Peter Lee demanding to know why he would launch such a campaign at taxpayer expense. The exchange likely will face a $78 million shortfall during the next fiscal year, said Gaines, who is vice chairman of the Senate Standing Committee on Insurance.
He singled out the web stream for special scorn.

Thursday, January 30, 2014

House GOP leaders back limited path to legal status for illegal immigrants

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 Bailey Comment: GOP is now Caving in!

House Republican leaders on Thursday endorsed a limited path to legal status for some illegal immigrants, in a move Democrats said could open the door to a deal on comprehensive immigration legislation.
The position was included in a document released by party leaders during their annual retreat in Maryland. The "standards for immigration reform" document ruled out a special path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.
Instead, it said immigrants living here illegally could remain and live legally if they pass background checks, pay fines and back taxes, learn to speak English and understand U.S. civics, and can support themselves without access to welfare.
But GOP leaders made clear that border security must be improved first.
"None of this can happen before specific enforcement triggers have been implemented," the document said.
Nevertheless, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., a big advocate for immigration legislation on the Senate side, said the announcement could smooth the way for a deal on legislation. The Senate passed an immigration bill last year.
"While these standards are certainly not everything we would agree with, they leave a real possibility that Democrats and Republicans, in both the House and Senate, can in some way come together and pass immigration reform that both sides can accept. It is a long, hard road but the door is open," he said.
The House GOP document is sure to meet resistance from some rank-and-file members, and skeptical Republicans on the Senate side.
In advance of the House Republican retreat, Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, the top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, delivered a 30-page memo to all House Republicans challenging their expected stance.
Sessions told members of his party they must "end the lawlessness -- not surrender to it" -- and they must defend the legitimate interests of millions of struggling American workers.
In his memo, Sessions warned of the negative impact of the House immigration proposal on U.S. workers, taxpayers and the rule of law. His analysis said increasing the number of immigrants would hurt an already weak economy, lower wages and increase unemployment. He cited White House adviser Gene Sperling's comment earlier this month that the economy has three people looking for every job opening.
House Speaker John Boehner, in remarks obtained by Fox News, told Republican members Thursday that the guidelines they announced "are as far as we are willing to go."
"I have been clear that I oppose the massive, flawed immigration reform bill passed by the Democratic-controlled Senate. I've been clear that the House will not take it up or engage in negotiations with the Senate on it," he said. "We will address this issue in a step-by-step, common sense fashion that starts with securing our nation's borders and enforcing our nation's laws."
He added: "Nancy Pelosi said yesterday that for her caucus, it is a special path to citizenship or nothing. If Democrats insist on that, then we are not going to get anywhere this year."
Among the other planks of the House GOP "standards" was a statement that, "We must secure our borders now and verify that they are secure."
It called for a "zero tolerance policy" for illegal border crossers "when immigration reform is enacted."
The document also backed improving the system used to verify the immigration status of workers, and said the legal immigration system needs to be overhauled.
"Every year thousands of foreign nationals pursue degrees at America's colleges and universities, particularly in high skilled fields," the document said. "When visas aren't available, we end up exporting this labor and ingenuity to other countries. Visa and green card allocations need to reflect the needs of employers and the desire for these exceptional individuals to help to grow our economy."
The document opened the door to a temporary worker program, and, significantly, threw support behind a DREAM Act-style program. The Obama administration has already, on its own, allowed young illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children to stay in the country for now -- which is what the DREAM Act would have addressed.
The GOP document backed that goal, for those who meet certain criteria and either serve in the military or get a college degree. "It is time to provide an opportunity for legal residence and citizenship for those who were brought to this country as children through no fault of their own," it said.
The document also made clear that "criminal aliens, gang members and sex offenders" would not be able to seek legal status at all.

IRS customer service leaves millions of calls unanswered

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Have a question on your tax returns? Don't ask the IRS. Bailey Comment : "Unless you owe them money"!
As tax day looms, an annual watchdog report to Congress finds that the agency is falling short when it comes to answering Americans' questions about the convoluted tax code.
The National Taxpayer Advocate found only 61 percent of people seeking to speak with a customer service representative last year got through to anybody -- leaving nearly 20 million calls unanswered.
The report largely blamed budget cuts, and lamented the impact the poor customer service is having on taxpayers.
"At the risk of vast understatement, it is a sad state of affairs when the government writes tax laws as complex as ours -- and then is unable to answer any questions beyond 'basic' ones from baffled citizens who are doing their best to comply," the report from National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson said.
The study detailed how customer service has steadily declined over the past several years, including at its 400 "walk-in sites." In fiscal 2014, the office said, the IRS will only answer "basic" questions at those sites during filing season. And it will not answer any questions, "even basic ones," after April, even for filers who got extensions.
"In addition, the IRS will discontinue its longstanding practice of preparing tax returns for low income, elderly and disabled taxpayers who seek help," the report said.
With the erosion in services, wait times have gone up. In fiscal 2004, callers were left on hold for just 2.6 minutes. Today, the average wait time is nearly 18 minutes.
Some taxpayers resort to writing letters to the IRS with their questions. The agency received 8.4 million such letters last year, but more than half were not answered by the end of fiscal 2013, the report said.
The problems stems in large part from budget cuts. The training budget has, according to the report, gone from $172 million a few years ago to $22 million. The workforce itself has fallen from 95,000 full-time workers to 87,000.
"Thus, the IRS not only has fewer employees than four years ago, but those who remain are less equipped to perform their jobs," the report said.
As the IRS is reluctant, like other agencies, to simply lay off employees in the face of budget cuts, it has targeted areas like training for cuts.

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

FACT CHECK: Obama and Medicare premiums

WASHINGTON (AP) — It seems to be something of an occupational hazard for President Barack Obama: When he talks about his health care law, he's bound to hit a fact bump sooner or later.
So it went Tuesday night, when he declared Medicare premiums have stayed flat thanks to the law, when they've gone up. As for an even bigger theme of his State of the Union address, the president's assertion that "upward mobility has stalled" in America runs contrary to recent research, while other findings support him.
A look at some of the facts and political circumstances behind his claims, along with a glance at the Republican response to his speech:
OBAMA: "Because of this (health care) law, no American can ever again be dropped or denied coverage for a preexisting condition like asthma, back pain or cancer. No woman can ever be charged more just because she's a woman. And we did all this while adding years to Medicare's finances, keeping Medicare premiums flat, and lowering prescription costs for millions of seniors."
THE FACTS: He's right that insurers can no longer turn people down because of medical problems, and they can't charge higher premiums to women because of their sex. The law also lowered costs for seniors with high prescription drug bills. But Medicare's monthly premium for outpatient care has gone up in recent years.
Although the basic premium remained the same this year at $104.90, it increased by $5 a month in 2013, up from $99.90 in 2012. Obama's health care law also raised Medicare premiums for upper-income beneficiaries, and both the president and Republicans have proposed to expand that.
Finally, the degree to which the health care law improved Medicare finances is hotly debated. On paper, the program's giant trust fund for inpatient care gained more than a decade of solvency because of cuts to service providers required under the health law. But in practice those savings cannot simultaneously be used to expand coverage for the uninsured and shore up Medicare.
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OBAMA: "Today, after four years of economic growth, corporate profits and stock prices have rarely been higher, and those at the top have never done better. But average wages have barely budged. Inequality has deepened. Upward mobility has stalled."
THE FACTS: The most recent evidence suggests that mobility hasn't worsened. A team of economists led by Harvard's Raj Chetty released a study last week that found the United States isn't any less socially mobile than it was in the 1970s. Looking at children born between 1971 and 1993, the economists found that the odds of a child born in the poorest 20 percent of families making it into the top 20 percent hasn't changed.
"We find that children entering the labor market today have the same chances of moving up in the income distribution (relative to their parents) as children born in the 1970s," the authors said.
Still, other research has found that the United States isn't as mobile a society as most Americans would like to believe. In a study of 22 countries, economist Miles Corak of the University of Ottawa found that the United States ranked 15th in social mobility. Only Italy and Britain among wealthy countries ranked lower. By some measures, children in the United States are as likely to inherit their parents' economic status as their height.
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OBAMA: "We'll need Congress to protect more than 3 million jobs by finishing transportation and waterways bills this summer.  But I will act on my own to slash bureaucracy and streamline the permitting process for key projects, so we can get more construction workers on the job as fast as possible."
THE FACTS: Cutting rules and regulations doesn't address what's holding up most transportation projects, which is lack of money. The federal Highway Trust Fund will run out of money in August without action. To finance infrastructure projects, Obama wants Congress to raise taxes on businesses that keep profits or jobs overseas, but that idea has been a political nonstarter.
The number of projects affected by the administration's efforts to cut red tape is relatively small, said Joshua Schank, president and CEO of the Eno Center for Transportation, a think tank. "The reason most of these projects are delayed is they don't have enough money. So it's great that you are expediting the review process, but the review process isn't the problem. The problem is we don't have enough money to invest in our infrastructure in the first place."
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OBAMA: "More than 9 million Americans have signed up for private health insurance or Medicaid coverage."
THE FACTS: That's not to say 9 million more Americans have gained insurance under the law.
The administration says about 6 million people have been determined to be eligible for Medicaid since Oct. 1 and an additional 3 million roughly have signed up for private health insurance through the new markets created by the health care law. That's where Obama's number of 9 million comes from. But it's unclear how many in the Medicaid group were already eligible for the program or renewing existing coverage.
Likewise, it's not known how many of those who signed up for private coverage were previously insured. A large survey released last week suggests the numbers of uninsured gaining coverage may be smaller. The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index found that the uninsured rate for U.S. adults dropped by 1.2 percentage points in January, to 16.1 percent. That would translate to roughly 2 million to 3 million newly insured people since the law's coverage expansion started Jan. 1.
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OBAMA: "In the coming weeks, I will issue an executive order requiring federal contractors to pay their federally funded employees a fair wage of at least $10.10 an hour, because if you cook our troops' meals or wash their dishes, you shouldn't have to live in poverty."
THE FACTS: This would be a hefty boost in the federal minimum wage, now $7.25, but not many would see it.
Most employees of federal contractors already earn more than $10.10. About 10 percent of those workers, roughly 200,000, might be covered by the higher minimum wage. But there are several wrinkles. The increase would not take effect until 2015 at the earliest and it doesn't apply to existing federal contracts, only new ones. Renewed contracts also will be exempt from Obama's order unless other terms of the agreement change, such as the type of work or number of employees needed.
Obama also said he'll press Congress to raise the federal minimum wage overall. He tried that last year, seeking a $9 minimum, but Congress didn't act.
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REP. CATHY McMORRIS RODGERS of Washington, in her prepared Republican response: "Last month, more Americans stopped looking for a job than found one. Too many people are falling further and further behind because, right now, the president's policies are making people's lives harder."
THE FACTS: She leaves out a significant factor in the high number of people who aren't looking for jobs: Baby boomers are retiring.
It's true that a large part of the still-high unemployment rate is due to jobless workers who have given up looking for a job. There are roughly three people seeking every job opening, a circumstance that can discourage others from trying. But one big reason people aren't seeking employment is that there are so many boomers — the generation born in the immediate aftermath of World War II — and therefore more than the usual number of retirements.
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Associated Press writers Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Christopher S. Rugaber, Joan Lowy, Sam Hananel and Tom Raum contributed to this report.
EDITOR'S NOTE _ An occasional look at political claims that take shortcuts with the facts or don't tell the full story.

King Obama

Political Cartoons by Henry Payne

 

'WITH OR WITHOUT CONGRESS': Obama hits road after vowing action

 After vowing in his State of the Union address to use the power of the pen to pursue his agenda in 2014, President Obama once again is hitting the campaign trail to tout his proposals – while countering criticism that his presidency has entered a lame-duck phase.  

The president on Wednesday will launch a multi-state, post-speech tour. He’ll visit a Maryland town just outside Washington before traveling to the Pittsburgh suburbs. From there, he travels to Wisconsin and Tennessee on Thursday.
The stumping comes after the president offered a mixed message in his State of the Union address – he made clear he’ll sidestep Congress “wherever and whenever” he can to tackle economic issues but also lowered his sights for what is achievable at this stage in his presidency.  
In his State of the Union address, Obama stopped short of proposing any sweeping new initiatives. He renewed his call for Congress to approve an immigration overhaul “this year,” but for the most part narrowed his focus to smaller-ticket items he’s vowing to do on his own.
Urging a “year of action,” he pitched what he called “concrete, practical proposals” to boost the middle class and build “new ladders of opportunity” for others to enter it.
“Some require congressional action, and I’m eager to work with all of you,” Obama said. “But America does not stand still – and neither will I.  So wherever and whenever I can take steps without legislation to expand opportunity for more American families, that’s what I’m going to do.”
The speech reflected a president struggling to advance his agenda partway through his second term, in the face of a divided Congress, flagging public support and several controversies. Instead of flatly declaring what will be achieved in 2014, the president said “let’s see” where both parties can make progress.
Thematically, Obama focused his remarks on income inequality and American workers. He argued that the economic recovery largely has benefited those “at the top” while leaving many Americans struggling to break into the middle class.
He offered a mixed prescription for those economic ills.
Advisers had signaled ahead of the speech that the president in 2014 will rely more on executive actions to pursue portions of his agenda, with the understanding that passing anything controversial through Congress is an uphill battle. Obama took a first step in that direction on Tuesday, announcing he’ll approve an increase in the minimum wage for new federal contract workers, from $7.25 an hour to $10.10.
Among the other executive actions Obama is vowing to take is a plan described as “starter savings accounts.” Obama said he’d launch “myRA” accounts to help people save for retirement – under the rough outline of the plan, the accounts would be offered, via employers, through a Roth IRA account and backed by the government. The initiatives also include a review of federal job training programs, a partnership with CEOs to help long-term unemployed, and partnerships with tech companies to improve web connectivity in the classroom.
Obama also said "I'll act on my own" to streamline the bureaucracy for key infrastructure projects.
On gun control as well – which featured prominently in last year’s address, only to stall in Congress – Obama said he’d keep trying “with or without Congress to help stop more tragedies from visiting innocent Americans.”
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., speaking on Fox News, complained afterward that Obama was taking a “my way or the highway” approach by saying he’d bypass Congress, sounding more like a “bully” than someone looking to work with lawmakers.
But the president would still need Congress’ support for major agenda items, including an increase in the federal minimum wage for all workers, one of his top priorities.
Obama renewed that call on Tuesday night, telling Congress: “Say yes. Give America a raise.”
He further urged employers, as well as states, to raise their wages with or without Congress.
The president also called for Congress to extend long-term unemployment benefits, and expand the earned income tax credit for workers without children. On education, he renewed a call for Congress to help ensure universal pre-K for 4-year-olds.
While some of Obama’s future executive actions may be modest in scope, House Speaker John Boehner on Tuesday cautioned Obama not to overstep his bounds. “We have a Constitution,” Boehner said, warning that if he goes too far he’ll hit a “brick wall.”
Meanwhile, in the official GOP response, Washington Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers urged the president to join Republicans in fostering a more pro-business climate.
“We hope the president will join us in a year of real action by empowering people -- not by making their lives harder with unprecedented spending, higher taxes and fewer jobs.”
Obama delivered the State of the Union as he struggles in his second term to achieve the kind of legislative victories he notched in his first.
The past year has seen the administration thrown off course by controversies and other setbacks, ranging from the exposure of the government’s widespread surveillance activities to the problems with the ObamaCare launch.
Though Obama’s address focused largely on the economy and wages, the health care law remains a major challenge in 2014. The administration has worked to address widespread technical problems with the federal insurance exchanges, but lawmakers are still voicing concerns about the financial stability of the system. Some Republicans also tried to draw attention to the law’s downsides by bringing as their guests Tuesday night Americans whose coverage was negatively affected by the law.
Obama did offer a defense of his health law toward the end of the address. He stressed that the law prevents Americans from being dropped from or denied coverage over a preexisting condition, and said Americans “aren’t interested in refighting old battles” on the law.
To Republican critics, he said: “Tell America what you’d do differently. Let’s see if the numbers add up. But let’s not have another 40-something votes to repeal a law that’s already helping millions of Americans like Amanda. The first 40 were plenty.”
Obama left foreign policy for the end of his address, defending his administration’s decision to engage Iran in nuclear negotiations while acknowledging there is more work to do in the fight against terrorism.
“While we have put Al Qaeda’s core leadership on a path to defeat, the threat has evolved, as Al Qaeda affiliates and other extremists take root in different parts of the world,” Obama said. Obama vowed to keep working with allies to “disrupt and disable” those networks.

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Firewood 4 Sale

Political Cartoons by Lisa Benson

Senate Republicans pitch ObamaCare alternative on eve of presidential address

Seizing on the public's continued anxiety over the ObamaCare rollout, a trio of Republican senators on Monday unveiled a sweeping alternative proposal they say would gut the law's mandates and taxes while preserving consumer protections. 
Sens. Orrin Hatch, of Utah; Tom Coburn, of Oklahoma; and Richard Burr, of North Carolina, announced their plan one day before President Obama delivers his State of the Union address. It is his first such address since the launch of the state and federal health care exchanges. 
The GOP proposal, dubbed the Patient Choice, Affordability, Responsibility and Empowerment Act, would repeal the president's marquee legislative achievement while instituting new reforms the senators say would give states and individuals more flexibility and purchasing power. 
"Americans deserve a real alternative, and a way out," Coburn said. 
Under the plan, insurances companies would not be able to impose lifetime limits on patients and would be required to allow dependent coverage up to the age of 26, as ObamaCare currently does. The Republican proposal would address the issue of pre-existing conditions by creating a new "continuous coverage" standard that would prevent any individual moving from one insurance plan to another from being denied on the basis of a pre-existing condition so long as that individual was continuously enrolled in a health plan. 
The requirements on individuals to buy insurance, and on mid-sized and large businesses to provide it, would be repealed. 
Senate aides describing the proposal acknowledged there's little chance of movement in the current Congress, where Democrats control the Senate and have resisted all Republican-led House attempts to repeal or chip away at ObamaCare. Still, the aides said they hope continued public dissatisfaction with the way the law is being implemented might shore up the efforts of Hatch, Coburn and Burr. A new Associated Press-GfK poll shows that while negative perceptions of the new exchanges have eased, 66 percent of Americans say the rollout is not going well. 
"The American people have found out what is in ObamaCare -- broken promises in the form of increased health care costs, costly mandates and government bureaucracy," Burr, a North Carolina Republican, said in a statement. "We can lower costs and expand access to quality coverage and care by empowering individuals and their families to make their own health care decisions, rather than empowering the government to make those decisions for them." 
While the House has introduced and passed dozens of bills to repeal some or all of the health care law, as a minority in the Senate, Republicans have struggled to get votes on ObamaCare-related bills or amendments. They have instead focused on highlighting what they describe as flaws in the law during speeches or press conferences. 
In their most notable legislative assault on the law, Republicans late last year tried to defund the law in a standoff that fueled a partial government shutdown. Democrats consistently have hit the GOP for criticizing the law without offering a comprehensive alternative -- something the Burr-Coburn-Hatch measure is surely aimed at countering. 
Their proposal calls for the targeted use of tax credits to help individuals buy health care. Employees who work for a small business with 100 or fewer employees would be able to receive a credit while those whose annual income is 300 percent of the federal poverty level could receive an age-adjusted refundable tax credit to buy health coverage. Small businesses would also be allowed to band together and purchase insurance, even across state lines. 
To help offset the costs of the plan, the senators would maintain ObamaCare's cuts to Medicare and also eliminate the unlimited tax exclusion of employer-provided health coverage, instead capping the employer's tax exclusion at 65 percent of an average plan's cost. 
There is currently no official estimate of the bill's cost. However the group said it is designed to be "roughly budget neutral" over a 10-year period. 
Under the plan, Medicaid reforms would enable eligible individuals to opt out and take advantage of a health credit to purchase coverage, while enrollment would be capped. Federal funds would be distributed to states according to the number of low-income individuals at or below 100 percent of the federal poverty line but would reflect demographic and population changes, according to the senators. 
Rounding out the plan would be a series of medical malpractice reforms and disclosure rules that would require insurers to list covered items and services as well as any limitations or restrictions. Eventually, the senators said they hope to work with colleagues and introduce formal legislation to implement these reforms. 
"It's critical we chart another path forward," said Coburn, a medical doctor. "Our health care system wasn't working well before ObamaCare and it is worse after ObamaCare."

Study: Most sponsors of minimum wage hike bill don't pay interns

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While congressional Democrats want employers to adhere to a proposed increase in the federal minimum wage, a new analysis shows most bill sponsors are not so generous with some of their own workers. 
The Employment Policies Institute found that 96 percent of House and Senate sponsors of the minimum wage bill do not pay their interns. That includes lead bill sponsors, like Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, according to the study. 
As a whole, most members of Congress -- whether they support an increased minimum wage or not -- do not pay interns. But the Employment Policies Institute argues that the practice shows "sponsors are legislating with a 'do as I say, not as I do' approach." 
President Obama is expected to reiterate his call for an increase in the federal minimum wage in his State of the Union address on Tuesday night. 
The unpaid intern is somewhat of a fixture on Capitol Hill. An Atlantic piece over the summer on the practice noted that lawmakers often cast those sought-after positions as educational and resume-building experiences. 
At the same time, some lawmakers have made the leap and begun to pay those workers. The EPI study found that Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Mark Begich, D-Alaska, and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., are among the lawmakers who pay at least some of their interns. 
The minimum wage bill would increase the federal minimum from $7.25 an hour to $10.10 an hour, over two years. Supporters note the federal minimum has not increased since 2009, and argue working Americans need the extra money. 
"American businesses, American workers have [been] doing the right thing. Washington needs to help them," White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer told "Fox News Sunday."  He said items like raising the minimum wage would help the country "make tremendous progress." 
But critics, like EPI, claim that raising the minimum could have an adverse effect, discouraging businesses from hiring more workers at a time when the government is trying to spur job growth. 
"The minimum wage is mostly an entry level wage for young people," Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell told "Fox News Sunday." "We have a crisis in employment among young people right now, and generation 18 to 30, people that got out of college, are finding there are no jobs for them. The last thing we want to do is have even fewer jobs for younger people."

Monday, January 27, 2014

Secret abortion fees hidden in ObamaCare premiums, lawmakers say

Insurance companies working under the Obamacare umbrella have secretly added a surcharge to cover the cost of abortions, an apparent violation of federal law that forbids the practice, congressional leaders charge. 
Consumers signing up for insurance in an Obamacare exchange won't find a single sentence telling them that they will pay at least $1 a month to fund abortions.
"The president promised when the health care bill passed that it would not cover abortion. We knew that was an empty promise as the bill stipulated a $1 a month surcharge for plans that covered abortions," said Rep. Joe Pitts, R-Pa., who chairs the House's Energy and Commerce subcommittee on Health. "On top of that ... it's near impossible to decipher which plans include abortion and at what cost!"
To fix this, a House bill will be introduced this week to demand full disclosure and a separate itemized premium. It also will prohibit federal subsidies for Obamacare insurance plans that cover abortion. That bill, HR-7, or the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act," will be introduced by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.
On Oct. 9, Rep. Chris Smith, R-NJ, introduced a bill on the disclosure issue, which now has been folded into the broader HR-7. Smith is co-chairman of the Bipartisan Congressional Pro-Life Caucus.
Aides with both Pitts and Smith have researched numerous Obamacare policies and have yet to find any mention of abortion.
"We can't find any insurance plans where this is disclosed," said Andrew Wimer, communications director for Pitts.

Sen. Paul: Dems should recall Clinton's intern scandal

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Democrats should remember President Bill Clinton's sexual affair with a White House intern before turning their criticism to Republicans' attitudes toward women, Sen. Rand Paul said Sunday.
"He took advantage of a girl that was 20 years old and an intern in his office," said Paul, R-Ky. "There is no excuse for that, and that is predatory behavior."
Paul's invocation of intern Monica Lewinsky comes as Democrats have been redoubling their efforts to paint the GOP as a party that stands opposed to women on issues such as contraception, abortion rights and equal pay. In the wake of losing back-to-back presidential elections, the GOP has tried to improve its outreach to female voters, who reliably support Democratic candidates.
The GOP's efforts stumbled this week, when former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee linked women's "libido" and government-sponsored birth control while addressing the Republican National Committee. While Huckabee said Democrats were the ones who were patronizing to women, his comments spun out of control, and Democrats quickly seized on the phrasing to underscore their campaign.
Paul, rejecting the criticism of the GOP, said Democrats should look at their most recent former president and his infidelity. Clinton's sexual relationship with Lewinsky was among the reasons the House cited in voting to impeach Clinton in 1998. The Senate acquitted him.
"Someone who takes advantage of a young girl in their office? I mean, really. And then they have the gall to stand up and say, `Republicans are having a war on women?"' Paul told NBC's "Meet the Press."
Paul's remarks come as he weighs a presidential campaign in 2016 -- an endeavor that could bring him face to face with former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, if she, too, decides to run for the White House.
Paul said that Bill Clinton's infidelity shouldn't be used against Hillary Rodham Clinton if she seeks the Democratic nomination for president. "Now, it's not Hillary's fault," he said.
But of the Clintons, he added "sometimes it's hard to separate one from the other."
Paul's comments track with what his wife said about Bill Clinton in a recent profile.
"I would say his behavior was predatory, offensive to women," Kelley Ashby told Vogue, adding that Lewinsky affair should complicate his return to the White House as first gentleman.

Sunday, January 26, 2014

In weak economy, working-age people emerge as new face of food stamps


 
A SLOW ECONOMIC RECOVERY, high unemployment and stagnant wages are contributing factors as working-age people, for the first time, now make up a majority in U.S. households that rely on food stamps — suggesting that government spending on the $80 billion program may not subside significantly soon.

Pro-life activists march in San Francisco

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Many thousands of anti-abortion protesters from across California marched through downtown San Francisco on Saturday, calling for restrictions on a medical procedure that was legalized more than 40 years ago.
A massive and diverse crowd of protesters rallied in front of City Hall before marching down Market Street to Justin Herman Plaza for the 10th annual "Walk for Life West Coast." They chanted "Pro Life" and carried signs that read "Defend Life" and "Women deserve better than abortion."
On Wednesday, thousands of abortion protesters participated in the annual Walk for Life rally in Washington, D.C. to mark the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that legalized the procedure.
San Francisco police did not immediately provide an official crowd estimate, but at one point marchers stretched across more than a mile of Market Street, the liberal city's main thoroughfare.
High school senior Nancy Castellanos came to San Francisco on one of six buses of worshippers from St. Peter's Catholic Church in Dixon, about 70 miles away. She believes the laws need to change to make it harder to get an abortion.
"I am 100 percent, completely against abortion," Castellanos, 17, said. "If you don't want the child, there's always adoption."
John Paine, 52, arrived with people from his church group in Visalia in California's Central Valley, after making a 3 1/2-hour drive to San Francisco on Saturday.
"I'm ashamed that my country sanctions the killing of the most defenseless of its citizens," Paine said. "Human life in all its stages is sacred and should be protected."
A small group of pro-abortion rights activists protested the march on Market Street, holding signs that read "Abortion on demand and without apology."
Anna Wilson, 20, a commercial artist who lives in San Francisco, said she participated in the Walk for Life march two years ago, but said she's since changed her stance on abortion.
"I realized I was looking at it in a real childish way," Wilson said. "I'm not pro-abortion. Nobody's pro-abortion. But I am pro-choice. I think that women should have every single choice available to them, as much as men do."
Supervisor David Campos introduced a resolution last week opposing the dozens of "Abortion Hurts Women" banners that organizers hung from street lamps on Market Street. The resolution says "the prominent display of false anti-abortion statements on public property on Market Street misrepresents the City's support for reproductive health, rights and justice."
Over the last several decades, anti-abortion groups have focused on placing relatively small restrictions on abortion, especially in conservative states with Republican-dominated legislatures. But lawmakers in those states are under increasing pressure from activists to take stronger action to limit abortion.
But California, which has a Democratic governor and Legislature, expanded abortion access last year with a measure that allows nurse practitioners, certified nurse midwives and physician assistants to perform a type of early abortion.

Saturday, January 25, 2014

Politico Ignores Bio-Gate, Declares Wendy Davis 'Most Judged Woman In America'






Friday, Breitbart News reported that Politico has thus far published only three stories on Texas gubernatorial candidate and Democrat rising star Wendy Davis being caught fabricating her life story as a single teenage mother who put herself through school. The fact that Politico has shown almost no interest in the Davis scandal did not stop the left-wing outlet from running a lead piece Saturday that declares Davis "The Most Judged Woman In America."

Judged where, exactly? Certainly not on the pages of Politico or the mainstream news media.
Moreover, the piece is written by Liza Mundy, who identifies herself as the program director at the New America Foundation. What Politico does not disclose, though, is that the New America Foundation is a left-wing organization -- left-wing enough to attract the son of George Soros to its board. Politico is obsessed with every move anyone with the last name Koch makes, but not so much when it comes to a Soros-affiliated writer at their own site.
Let's give credit to Politico, though. Propaganda-wise it is a master-stoke for the left-wing outlet to almost completely ignore the Davis scandal and then lead with an article that paints her as a martyr to something that never happened.
As always, it is important to remember that although it is a left-wing outlet, Politico disguises itself as objective. But objective outlets do not devote 50-plus stories to a stupid comment and 3 to someone fabricating for a year the narrative that helped make them a star.

No, Mr. Obama, we don’t dislike you because you’re black



America, we have an egotistical, delusional president. He has convinced himself that he is disliked by many Americans because he is black. 
In a lengthy interview with New Yorker magazine editor David Remnick the president tells him, "There’s no doubt that there’s some folks who just really dislike me because they don’t like the idea of a black president. Now, the flip side of it is there are some black folks and maybe some white folks who really like me and give me the benefit of the doubt precisely because I’m a black president."
President Obama’s approval rating has fallen badly in the national polls. His ratings are historically low. The second lowest in modern history at this point of a presidency. Lower than Bush. Lower than everyone but Richard Nixon.
I don’t dislike Obama. I dislike his beliefs and his policies.
Here come the excuses. Obama desperately wants to believe it’s all because he’s black. Because if he didn’t have that excuse, it would have to be based on his performance.
When Obama blames "some folks" for not liking him because he's black, he refers to conservatives and white Americans. I’m an unapologetic member of both groups.
It’s an interesting excuse.
If we disliked him for the color of his skin, that would excuse his failed performance as president. How convenient. That would excuse everything he’s done to damage or destroy American exceptionalism, capitalism, and the U.S. economy.
If this was about race, it would excuse his dismantling of the economy. It would excuse the 92 million working-age Americans not in the workforce.
It would excuse all-time record lows for workforce participation. It would excuse tens of thousands, and in some cases, hundreds of thousands of Americans dropping out of the workforce every month.
It would excuse the fact that only crummy, crappy, low-wage part-time jobs are being created because of Obama’s policies.
If this was about race, it would excuse Obama taking the formerly greatest health care system in the world and plunging it into crisis and confusion.
It would distract us from seeing his failed ObamaCare web site that cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
Or his blatant lies about keeping our health insurance if we like it. Or his lies about the middle class not being taxed to pay for 30 million new patients.
Or his lies about the quality of care remaining the same, even though we’ve added 30 million new patients, with no new doctors.
Or his lies about prices going down, while our rates are going through the roof, and his own IRS predicts health insurance will cost the average family a staggering $20,000 per year by 2016.
If this was about race, it would excuse his lies about wanting to create jobs for middle class Americans while he’s made conscious decisions to hire foreign companies (who rely on cheap foreign labor) to build and fix the defective ObamaCare website.
If this was about race, it would excuse his never ending spending and debt.
Or the damage he’s done to middle class Americans -- the doubling of gas prices, the all-time record highs for electricity, the jobs he’s destroyed by not approving oil drilling, or fracking, or the Keystone Pipeline.
Or using the EPA to try to put coal industry completely out of business.
It would excuse his using the power of the IRS to persecute Tea Party groups and conservative critics (like me), while allowing the IRS to hand out fraudulent tax refunds to illegal immigrants claiming fake dependents not even living in the United States.
It would excuse four dead American heroes in Benghazi, a refusal to send help while they were fighting for their lives, and a blatant cover-up before the election.
But putting all that aside, let me point out a few inconsistencies in Obama’s allegation against conservatives:
First, I don’t dislike Obama. I dislike his beliefs and his policies.
Second, last I checked Obama is not just “black.” He’s half white, born by a white mother, raised by white grandparents.
Third, I’ve been consistent my entire life. I’ve been a true blue conservative patriot since age 3, when I handed out campaign literature for Barry Goldwater, in my father’s arms. I judge people by their political beliefs and policies, not the color of their skin.
At the age of 11, I despised the policies of ultra-leftist Presidential candidate George McGovern. His beliefs and policies were almost identical to Obama’s today. Did I hate white Midwestern men?
In 1980, as a student at Columbia University, I despised the policies of President Jimmy Carter, whose policies were almost identical to Obama’s today. Did I hate white Southern men?
Today, I despise the policies of ultra-leftist politicians like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. Do I therefore hate white Mormons and Italians?
Lastly, I can think of many Jewish Democrats whose policies I despise. The first one that comes to mind is Debbie Wasserman Schultz, whose statements often make me physically ill. Does that mean I hate Jews? That’s pretty funny, because I’m Jewish.
In each case a Republican conservative like me despises the political beliefs and policies of people I believe now, or believed back then, to be extreme, radical, socialist, economically ignorant, and damaging to America and capitalism.
No, Mr. Obama, we don’t dislike you because you’re black. But we do despise your policies, your lies, and your destruction of the greatest country, economy and middle class in world history.

Friday, January 24, 2014

3 Million People Have Now Enrolled in ObamaCare

ObamaCare hit 3-million enrollees on Friday — still short of the number the administration had hoped for by the end of December — but reached only by including enrollees who have not yet made their first payment.

The insurance industry traditionally considers someone enrolled when they pay their first month’s premium.

Last week, the Department of Health and Human Services reported 24% of the 2.2 million enrollees through Dec. 28 were between ages 18 and 34.  The Affordable Care Act’s survival depends on younger, and presumably more healthy, enrollees to sign up for care to keep insurance pools balanced.

Under the ACA, every individual in the country has to have insurance by April 1 -- the end of open enrollment period -- or they will face a  $95 fine, or 1% of their annual income for failing to comply.
“We are encouraged that millions of people have been enrolled in Marketplace or Medicaid coverage since October 1, and will work to give millions more Americans the peace of mind that comes with health security in the months ahead,” Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Marilyn Tavenner said in a release.
Devon Herrick, senior analyst at the National Center for Policy Analysis, says the report continues to leave out two key statistics:  premium payments and demographics.
“We knew and assumed that as we got closer to the first of the year, more people would go online, especially as the administration ironed out the bugs in the exchange software and website,” Herrick says. “It does make sense that as they can, more people will go online.”
But fears of adverse selection, which is when older and sicker people making up the majority of enrollees, remains.
“The administration seems to be quietly worried about that as well,” he says. “Hopefully the late enrollees are younger people.”


HealthCare Gov, healthcare site, healthcare website

ObamaCare death debt? States can seize assets to recoup Medicaid costs




Tom Gialanella, 56, was shocked to find out he qualified for Medicaid under ObamaCare. The Bothell, Wash., resident had been able to retire early years ago, owns his home outright in a pricey Seattle suburb and is living off his investments.
He wanted no part of the government's so-called free health care. "It's supposed to be a safety net program. It's not supposed to be for someone who has assets who can pay the bill," he said.
And after reading the fine print, Gialanella had another reason to flee Medicaid -- the potential death debt.
Though many may not realize it, states are allowed to recover the cost of health care after someone's death by seizing their assets. It applies to Medicaid recipients who are between the ages of 55 and 64. The law has been in place since 1993, when Congress realized states were going broke over rising Medicaid expenses.
But under ObamaCare, Medicaid eligibility has expanded dramatically along with the promise that the federal government will pick up the cost of the higher tab -- at least for the first few years, after which states will be on the hook for a portion of the increase.
Millions more are entering the system, perhaps without knowing that their assets could be at risk. 
However, just like Gialanella, others are opting out.
A Washington state couple in their early 60's actually got married recently so their combined income would keep them out of Medicaid and allow them to purchase a plan on the health exchange. Filing as individuals, their incomes had been low enough that they qualified for Medicaid.
They married primarily because Sophia Prins owns a home and wants to will it to her children without any worry that the government will attach a lien for the cost of her medical care. Prins doesn't think it's fair to go after the assets of people who get government assistance through Medicaid, but not those getting taxpayer subsidies through the exchange plans.
The story prompted Washington's Democratic governor, Jay Inslee, to issue an emergency rule change. It says the state may only recover the cost of nursing home care provided to Medicaid recipients in that 55-64 age group. That's the minimum allowable under the 1993 law.
"We have this population that we want to make sure they have access to health care," said state Medicaid Director MaryAnne Lindeblad. "We want them to get in so they can get the kinds of services that keep them healthy."
Oregon followed suit. But the 23 other states that expanded Medicaid under ObamaCare have not changed their estate recovery policies. A lot of money is at stake.
In 2004, California collected $44.6 million through estate recovery. It's a number that is certain to rise dramatically. MediCal officials tell Fox News they expect 1 million-2 million additional enrollees by 2015.
Minnesota, a much smaller state than California, managed to collect $25 million in 2004. It, too, is keeping its estate recovery policy in place.
Critics see a money grab.
"I think that people are maybe in for a shock when they find out their heirs are going to be paying for their care, because they got into a system under false pretenses," said Dr. Jane Orient of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, a group opposed to the Affordable Care Act. 
The estate recovery law is so under the radar right now that interest groups like the AARP are still studying how it will play out under ObamaCare for seniors. 

Thursday, January 23, 2014

Internal Revenue Code (IRS)

The Internal Revenue Code is the body of law that codifies all federal tax laws, including income, estate, gift, excise, alcohol, tobacco, and employment taxes. These laws constitute title 26 of the U.S. Code (26 U.S.C.A. § 1 et seq. [1986]) and are implemented by the Internal Revenue Service through its Treasury Regulations and Revenue Rulings.
Congress made major statutory changes to title 26 in 1939, 1954, and 1986. Because of the extensive revisions made in the tax reform act of 1986, title 26 is now known as the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (Pub. L. No. 99-514, § 2, 100 Stat. 2095 [Oct. 22, 1986]).
Subtitle A of the Code contains five chapters on income taxes. The chapters cover normal income taxes and surtaxes, taxes on self-employment income, withholding of taxes on nonresident Aliens and foreign corporations, taxes on transfers to avoid Income Tax, and consolidated returns.
Subtitle B deals with Estate and Gift Taxes. The rules and regulations concerning the taxation of probate estates and gifts are very complicated. This subtitle contains chapters on taxing generation-skipping transfers and rules on special valuation of property.
Subtitle C contains the law of employment taxes. It consists of chapters on general provisions relating to employment taxes and other sections dealing with federal insurance contributions, railroad retirement taxes, and federal unemployment taxes.
Subtitle D covers miscellaneous excise taxes. Its fifteen chapters cover a variety of issues, including retail excise taxes, manufacturers' excise taxes, taxes on wagering, environmental taxes, public charities, private foundations, Pension plans, and certain group health plans.
Subtitle E covers alcohol, tobacco, and other excise taxes. Chapter 53 deals with machine guns, destructive devices, and certain other firearms.
Subtitle F contains provisions on procedure and administration. Under this subtitle are twenty chapters that deal with every step of the taxation process, from the setting of filing dates and the collection of penalties for late filing, to criminal offenses and judicial proceedings. The rules for administrative proceedings under the Code are addressed in the appendix to title 26.
Subtitle G addresses the organization of the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation. Subtitle H contains the rules for the financing of presidential election campaigns. Subtitle I contains the Trust Fund Code.
The Internal Revenue Code has grown steadily since the 1930s. The complexity of its provisions, most of which are written in technical language, has required law and accounting firms to develop specialists in the various areas of taxation.

Health care system so flawed it could bankrupt insurance companies

Administration fears part of health care system so flawed it could bankrupt insurance companies

While the administration publicly expresses full confidence in its health care law, privately it fears one part of the system is so flawed it could bankrupt insurance companies and cripple ObamaCare itself.
"Week after week, month after month," says John Goodman of the National Center for Policy Analysis, "the Obama administration kept telling us everything's working fine, there's no problem and then they turn on a dime and fire their contractor."
To justify a no-bid contract with Accenture after firing CGI as the lead contractor, the administration released documents from the Department of Health and Human Services and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services that offered a rare glimpse of its worst fears, saying the problems with the website puts "the entire health insurance industry at risk" ... "potentially leading to their default and disrupting continued services and coverage to consumers."
Then it went even further, saying if the problems were not fixed by mid-March, "they will result in financial harm to the government."
It even added that without the fixes "the entire health care reform program is jeopardized."
In spite of the "urgent" need officials cited to keep the system from collapsing, the White House spokesman said he knew nothing about it.
“I didn't see the article I'm not aware of those statements,” Jay Carney said.
The dangers were known in early December, but later, shortly before CGI was fired, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius gave Fox News an upbeat account.
“I’m thrilled that we’re going to have millions of people for the first time that have health security,” she said.
Shortly after the website went live,one official told Congress a critical part of the system – what is known as the “back end” -- had not even been built yet.
Doug Holtz-Eakin, former head of the Congressional Budget Office, says "the back end -- that information is supposed to be transmitted to an insurance company, the insurance company knows who you are, they know what policy you've picked."
But the back end still hasn't been built, so insurers are dealing with massive confusion, missing information on who's signed up and what subsidies they get.
Sebelius insisted once again Wednesday it would all come together and insurance companies will get their money.
"I mean we will get them paid,” she said. “There is no question about that, so we are on track."
For now, though, officials concede they're relying on estimates from the insurers.
"Here's who we think we have, and here's the subsidy we think they're owed," explains Jim Capretta of the Ethics and Public Policy Center. "Please send us a check from the treasury," he says chuckling. "The honor system again."
"There's no way to effectively match policies and people," says Holtz-Eakin.
"And on top of that, you can't match policies, people, to the federal subsidies and that's a big problem in terms of just the mechanics of making payments."
The administration emphasizes that fixing the site by mid-March is urgent. Otherwise the system could descend into chaos and threaten the future of ObamaCare.
Meanwhile, a new Quinnipiac poll gives the president poor grades for his management of health care, with 59 percent disapproving while 36 percent approve.

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