Obama State of the Union Cartoons

Kamala Harris maintains position calling for elimination of private health insurance: source

Idiot

Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., who recently announced a 2020 presidential bid, has not softened her position to eliminate all private health insurance despite a report that claimed that she is opened to moderating her stance.
A source at the Harris campaign told Fox News late Tuesday denied a report on CNN that cited an unnamed adviser who "signaled" that Harris would be open to other, moderate health plans being pitched by other Democrats.
Kamala Harris “supports Medicare for all. Period,” the source told Fox News.
Harris, 54, made the remarks on Monday during a town hall event with CNN’s Jake Tapper. When asked whether people could keep their current health insurance under Harris’ plan, the California senator indicated they could not.
KAMALA HARRIS UNDER FIRE AFTER CALLING FOR ABOLITION OF PRIVATE HEALTH CARE PLANS: 'THAT'S NOT AMERICAN'
“Who among us has not had that situation?” she said at the town hall. “Where you got to wait for approval, and the doctor says, ‘Well I don’t know if your insurance company is going to cover this.’ Let’s eliminate all of that. Let’s move on.”
Amid backlash, CNN reported that Harris would be open to reforming rather than eliminating private health insurance, a proposal shared by more-centrist Democrats.

State of the Union 2019: The Trump economy is a success story not even his harshest critics can deny

With the shutdown over (at least for now), the State of the Union address is back “on.” When President Donald Trump takes the House podium on Feb. 5, you can count on him to take the opportunity to celebrate one of his greatest achievements: the economy.
It is booming by nearly every meaningful measure, and the president has every right to take a large measure of credit for it.
In November, unemployment dropped to its lowest rate in a half century. African-Americans, Latinos and women are thriving. Black unemployment was at 5.9 percent in May, the lowest ever recorded. Women’s unemployment recently reached its lowest rate in 65 years.
ANDY PUZDER: PRESIDENT TRUMP DESERVES ALL THE CREDIT FOR OUR SOARING LABOR MARKET
And, no Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, it is not because people are working two jobs and a zillion hours a week. Employment statistics don’t work that way. It’s because more people have jobs. And more people are encouraged about their prospects of finding a job.
Labor force participation continues to rise because strong wage growth is causing Americans who were once too hopeless to even look for work to pour back into the job market. In fact, unemployment ticked up slightly to 3.9 percent (still historically very low) in December despite adding 312,000 jobs because nearly 100,000 formerly “discouraged workers” decided to start looking for jobs.
For good reason. America has created more than five million jobs since Trump entered office. And for the first time there are more job openings in America than there are unemployed people.
Industries that some said were dead and never coming back – like manufacturing – are booming. Manufacturing added 284,000 jobs in 2018, the most in a year for more than a decade.

America has created more than five million jobs since Trump entered office. And for the first time there are more job openings in America than there are unemployed people.

A large part of these successes can be traced to the Trump-backed Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. In addition to sparking business investment and expansion by reducing corporate taxes, it also included a big tax cut for middle-class American families.
The average individual saw a tax cut of $1,400 while the average family with two children saw their taxes reduced by $2,917. In fact, Americans in every congressional district got a tax cut. While mega-millionaire House Speaker Nancy Pelosi dismissed a couple thousand extra dollars as mere “crumbs,” those tax-cut tidbits have been a big deal for the average working American and the economy overall.
President Obama – who presided over an average GDP growth of 1.65 percent – proved himself no economic Nostradamus when he said: “Two percent real GDP growth is the new normal for the U.S. economy.” Really? It shouldn’t be and under this administration, it’s not. GDP growth during the Trump administration has been nearly twice the Obama average, and was more than four percent in the second quarter of 2018.
And this is just scratching the surface: With consumer confidence rising, more pro-growth deregulation on the way, new trade deals being negotiated, and an energy boom on our horizon, we may be in for a much better “new normal.”
All this economic success is not just something the administration and the millions of Americans with good new jobs have noticed. The world has noticed. After a long decline beginning during Obama’s tenure, America, in just one year, has moved up six places in the Heritage Foundation’s 2019 Index of Economic Freedom because of the strong economic and deregulatory policies the Trump administration has enacted.
The president’s political opponents and the media can gaslight and uproot goalposts all they want – and they will. But the success of the Trump economy is plain to the millions and millions of Americans whose lives are measurably better than they were two years ago.
So when President Trump enters the well of the House next week, he can stand confidently before America and the world and say that, when it comes to the economy, “the state of the union is tremendous.”

Meadows to Ocasio-Cortez: Congress isn't 'just sitting around eating bonbons'

Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., reportedly butted heads with freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., a bit on Tuesday. (AP/Getty)

Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., reportedly butted heads with freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., on Tuesday.
The clash came at the first gathering of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform in the 116th Congress, which is led by Chairman Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., Bloomberg reported.
Meadows and fellow GOP lawmakers were trying to persuade Cummings to provide upward of three days' notice -- ideally, five days -- for Democratic lawyers' questioning of witnesses so members could sit in, the outlet said.
Five days' notice was reportedly seen by some as more ideal, to better accommodate members who don’t reside near the nation’s capital.
Ocasio-Cortez chimed in to say she didn’t “believe we need five days” as long as members were effectively carrying out their jobs, Bloomberg said.
Meadows reportedly addressed Cummings in his reply.
“Mr. Chairman, I can tell you on all of this at this particular point, we’re all wanting to cooperate,” Meadows said. “Sometimes our schedules, you know, we’re not just sitting around eating bonbons, waiting for the call of anybody.”
The freshman lawmaker went on to wonder if Republicans previously allowed for similar notice when they sat at the helm of the committee, to which Cummings replied, “No,” Bloomberg reported.
The committee chairman reportedly said he’d do what he could to give lawmakers the notice Meadows sought, while noting that this might not always be feasible.
On another matter, during a recess of the House Oversight Committee Hearing on Tuesday, Fox News Correspondent Peter Doocy asked Ocasio-Cortez whether she supported the proposal from California Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris -- who recently announced her 2020 bid for the White House -- to eliminate private insurance companies. While speaking at a town hall Monday night, Harris vowed to scrap all private health care insurance for approximately 150 million Americans if she was elected president.
"I think that's the direction that we absolutely need to go in," Ocasio-Cortez said. "I think one of the things that we're hearing right here in our, that we're really discovering in our hearings is that we -- the real issue with our health care system is that we're trying to have it both ways. We're trying to have half a free market system, half a more public system. And it is in the half-commitments that our systems are breaking down."

Scalise: Another shutdown inevitable without 'serious, credible' offer from Pelosi

House Minority Whip Steve Scalise told Fox News' "Your World with Neil Cavuto" on Tuesday that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi needs to change her tone and start making "credible" compromises to avert another government shutdown over border wall funding.
Pelosi, D-Calif., on Monday invited President Trump to deliver the State of the Union address on Feb. 5, after refusing to allow him to appear in House chambers during the partial government shutdown. On Friday, both chambers of Congress passed a short-term spending bill to reopen the government through Feb. 15 -- but it includes no funding for a border wall.
"Nancy Pelosi said she wouldn't negotiate during the shutdown. OK, now the shutdown is over for the time being," Scalise told Cavuto. "Will she finally start be willing to put a dollar amount on the table, to say how much is she willing to put together to support securing the border?"
Scalise said that experts have called for more than $5 billion in wall funding, and that Democrats are playing politics. Earlier this month, U.S. Border Patrol chief Carla Provost told "Your World" that "we certainly do need a wall," and the president has touted the support for one from the national border patrol union at White House press briefings.

FILE - In this Jan. 3 photo, a woman at the border fence between San Diego and Tijuana, as seen from Mexico. The top House Republican says a bipartisan border security compromise that Congress hopes to produce doesn't have to include the word "wall." (AP Photo/Daniel Ochoa de Olza, File)

"It's going to take at least 5 and a half billion dollars -- our experts who risk their lives have said that's what it will take to secure our border," Scalise said. "What's Nancy Pelosi willing to put on the table now that we're out of the shutdown?
Asked by Cavuto what specifically he was looking for from Pelosi, Scalise responded: "Well, it's got to be a serious, credible offer. Let's talk serious. What is your offer? If it's not $5.7 billion -- which is what the experts said -- then what is your number, and how do you back it up?"
Pelosi has rejected the White House's attempts at compromise to secure wall funding, including various immigration-related concessions for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients and extensions for emergency refugees.
"I don't think that's a tenable position for most Democrats," Scalise said. "We started seeing over the last few weeks more and more Democrats coming to our side -- even Steny Hoyer, the [Democratic] majority leader -- said physical barriers ought to be part of the solution."
Earlier this month, Hoyer, D-Md., told Fox News that border walls "obviously" work in some instances, and rejected Pelosi's suggestion that walls are necessarily immoral.
And House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., told ABC News' "This Week" that he "would not rule out a wall in certain instances," although he cautioned that the White House needed a better "plan" than simply using a wall as a "talking point."
Democratic leaders previously have supported building border walls. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and other Democrats, including then-Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, supported the Secure Fence Act of 2006, which authorized the construction of some 700 miles of fencing at the border. As of 2015, virtually all of that fencing had been completed, according to government figures.

FILE - In this Nov. 16, 2018, file photo, members of the U.S. military install multiple tiers of concertina wire along the banks of the Rio Grande near the Juarez-Lincoln Bridge at the U.S.-Mexico border in Laredo, Texas. Acting Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan says the U.S. will be sending "several thousand" more American troops to the southern border to provide additional support to Homeland Security. He says the troops will mainly be used to install additional wire barriers and provide increased surveillance of the area. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)

"The president said: 'I don't need a sea-to-shining-sea wall," Scalise said. "But there's about 550 miles of completely unprotected area where we know bad things -- drugs, human trafficking, even murderers come across the border. Let's start focusing on those areas."
He continued: "And if Nancy Pelosi really doesn't want a wall, President Trump has said, 'Hey, I'll be willing to let you put in language that bans cement wall.' But have some form of physical barriers. The steel slat barriers right now are what the experts say work the best. Let the experts figure that out."
The president's best chance to break the ongoing logjam with Pelosi, Scalise said, is the upcoming State of the Union address.
"They're going to see President Trump laying out the case for securing America's border," Scalise said, referring to the large audience expected to watch the president's speech. "What it's going to take. There are bad things that happen every day that most Americans never hear about. So let's actually lay that case out. And then we'll see where everybody is going to be."