AP FACT CHECK: Skewed GOP claims on taxes, health insurance

Viewers of the latest Republican presidential debate didn't get a straight story from the candidates on U.S. taxes vs. the world, the state of the health insurance marketplace under "Obamacare" or what might happen if that law is taken away.
In his zeal to condemn the Obama administration's immigration record, Ted Cruz once again vastly overstated deportations under the previous two presidents. And he continued, as in a previous debate, to struggle with the meaning of carpet-bombing.
A look at some of the claims Saturday night and how they compare with the facts:
DONALD TRUMP: "Right now, we're the highest taxed country in the world."
THE FACTS: Far from it. The U.S. tax burden pales in comparison with that of other industrialized countries.
Taxes made up 26 percent of the total U.S. economy in 2014, according to the 34-nation Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. That measure looks at the entire tax burden, which is different than tax rates that can be gamed through loopholes, deductions and credits.
In Sweden, the tax burden is 42.7 percent of the economy. It's 33.6 percent in Slovenia (Trump's wife, Melania, was born in the part of Yugoslavia that became Slovenia). Britain clocks in at 32.6 percent, while Germany's burden is 36.1 percent.
Where is the tax burden lower than the United States?
South Korea, Chile and Mexico.
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TED CRUZ: "We will adopt commonsense reforms, No. 1, we'll allow people to purchase health insurance across state lines that will drive down prices and expand the availability of low-cost catastrophic insurance."
THE FACTS: Allowing the interstate sale of health insurance policies is not a new idea, and not the straightforward solution that it may sound.
This long-standing Republican proposal has previously run into opposition from regulators in many states. State insurance and consumer protection regulators say such an approach could trigger a "race to the bottom," allowing skimpy out-of-state policies to undercut benefits that individual states require. Proponents of interstate competition say a basic benefits plan would be spelled out.
Some insurance industry insiders see another complication: Out-of-state companies may not have adequate local networks of hospitals and doctors.
It's a tricky position for Republicans in Washington, who argue broadly (Cruz included) that the federal government should defer to state and local decision-making. On this matter, many states don't want the solution that Republicans are pushing.
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TRUMP: "The insurance companies are getting rich on Obamacare."
THE FACTS: Although some insurance companies are making a profit from their business under President Barack Obama's health care law, the industry's biggest player lost money.
United Health last year reported deep losses from its business on the health law's insurance exchanges and said it will re-evaluate whether it wants to continue in that market. Anthem, the second-largest insurer, said its enrollment in the law's markets fell, and the business has been less profitable than expected.
Aetna, the third-largest insurer, said it has been struggling with customers who sign up for coverage outside the health law's annual enrollment window and then use a lot of care. This dumps claims on the insurer without providing enough premium revenue to counter those costs.
Some industry analysts say insurers are struggling to attract enough healthy patients, and it's too easy for customers to manipulate the system by doing things like signing up for coverage, using health care, and then stopping premium payments.
A dozen of the 23 nonprofit health insurance co-ops created under the law have folded.
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CRUZ, defending his vow to deport 11 million people living in the U.S. illegally: "I would note that in eight years Bill Clinton deported 12 million people. In eight years George Bush deported 10 million people. Enforcing the law. We can do it."
THE FACTS: Statistics from Immigration and Customs Enforcement show that roughly 1.6 million were deported under Bush, not 11 million. Under Clinton, about 870,000 immigrants were deported, not 12 million, according to the Migration Policy Institute. So far, about 2.4 million have been deported under the Obama administration.
To get the swollen figures, Cruz appears to be combining deportations with arrests made by the Border Patrol in the previous administrations, according to the institute.
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CHRIS CHRISTIE: "The president and his former secretary of state are for paying ransoms for hostages. When (you) do that, you endanger even more Americans around the world to be the subject of this type of hostage-taking and illegal detention."
THE FACTS: President Barack Obama said exactly the opposite in June, when the White House reaffirmed its opposition to paying ransom to terrorist groups that hold American citizens hostage.
The president said such payments only serve to endanger more Americans and finance "the very terrorism that we're trying to stop" — points that Christie actually echoed during the debate.
Though the new White House policy precludes ransom payments by the U.S. government, the Obama administration did leave open the door to communication with hostage-takers — whether by the government, families of victims or third-parties — and said relatives who on their own decide to pay ransom won't be threatened with prosecution.
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CRUZ, defending his vow to "carpet bomb" to defeat the Islamic State: "When I say saturation carpet bombing, that is not indiscriminate. That is targeted at oil facilities. It's targeted at the oil tankers... It's using overwhelming air power."
THE FACTS: Cruz is trying to rewrite the dictionary, which defines the term as dropping many bombs on a small area to prepare it for advancing ground troops. The U.S. military uses precision-guided bombs against the kinds of specific targets that Cruz is talking about, which also reduce the risk of killing civilians — a goal the U.S. military has embraced under Republican as well as Democratic presidents.

Top tier takes heat: Rubio, others under fire at NH debate

The top tier in the Republican presidential race endured hard-hitting and sustained attacks on the debate stage Saturday night, with Florida Sen. Marco Rubio in particular getting pelted by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for skipping Senate votes and leaning on anti-Obama “talking points” on stage.
The debate in New Hampshire – their last before the state’s upcoming primary – saw the middle-tier candidates scrapping to gain traction, frequently putting the top three finishers in Iowa’s caucuses on defense over their records. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz faced renewed criticism over his campaign’s questionable caucus-night tactics, while billionaire businessman Donald Trump took heat from his old sparring partner Jeb Bush – and even the audience – over a development project.
But it was the clashes between Christie and Rubio that became most heated, and Rubio seemed to struggle at times to push past the tough-talking governor’s critique of his record.
“You have not been involved in a consequential decision where you had to be held accountable, you just simply haven’t,” Christie said. Pointing to a sanctions bill, Christie said Rubio skipped the vote, adding: “That’s not leadership, that’s truancy.”
Rubio fired back that Christie didn’t return to New Jersey during the recent snowstorm until he was pressured. “They had to shame you into going back,” Rubio said.
But Christie seized on a recurring effort by Rubio to look past his GOP rivals by repeating a line about President Obama trying to “change this country.”
“There it is. The memorized 25-second speech,” Christie said, mocking Rubio’s allegedly rehearsed “talking points” on Obama. When Rubio again accused Christie of not wanting to return to New Jersey for the storm, Christie shot back: “Is that one of the skills you get as a United States senator – ESP?”
With the polls tightening ahead of Tuesday’s primary, several Republican contenders on stage were looking for a late breakout, and Christie was unquestionably one of them.  Whether his debate-stage attacks can knock Rubio off his stride and hurt his momentum going into Tuesday’s primary remains to be seen. But Christie’s attacks were aimed squarely at questioning Rubio’s experience, an issue that the governors in the race have raised before.
Christie later went after Rubio for backing away from immigration reform legislation he once co-authored, saying he didn’t “fight” for it. Rubio countered that the plan has “no chance of passage” until the American people are convinced illegal immigration is under control.
Cruz, too, was sharply criticized by Ben Carson over representatives of his campaign incorrectly spreading rumors on Iowa caucus night that he was dropping out of the race. It was a rare moment, as the normally non-confrontational Carson detailed the resources that have gone into his White House bid and questioned why Cruz’s team would say he was suddenly leaving the race on the night of the first contest.
“To think that I would just walk away just 10 minutes before the caucus … I mean, who would do something like that?” he said. Carson called the rumors a good example of “certain types of Washington ethics … Washington ethics basically says, if it’s legal, you do what you need to do in order to win.”
Cruz, the Iowa caucus winner, insisted he “knew nothing about” the election night rumors, and again apologized.
“Ben, I’m sorry,” he said.
Trump needled Cruz on the same controversy in his closing remarks, saying of his Iowa victory, “That’s because you got Ben Carson’s votes, by the way.”
Cruz also had an awkward moment toward the end of the debate, when asked by the moderators about his stance on waterboarding. He said it’s “enhanced interrogation” and not technically torture, and he would not bring it back “in any sort of widespread use.” He then paused for several seconds, before resuming to recall legislation he backed prohibiting line officers from employing the technique – and say he’d use whatever “enhanced” methods needed to protect America.
Trump was unequivocal. “I’d bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding,” he said.
The Saturday night debate, hosted by ABC, was the candidates’ last before the New Hampshire primary. It also marked Trump’s return to the stage – after he sat out the last debate over a dispute with debate host Fox News. But he returned for the face-off in Manchester, N.H., with his front-runner status now in jeopardy, after Cruz bested him in the leadoff Iowa caucuses and Rubio pulled off a strong third-place finish that has given his campaign fresh momentum.
Yet it was former Florida Gov. Bush who put Trump on his heels at Saturday’s debate, in a dispute over eminent domain – the government power to seize property that Trump has supported.
“It’s a necessity for our country,” Trump said.
Bush then accused Trump of using eminent domain to take property from an elderly woman for a project in Atlantic City. After Trump denied it and then accused Bush of trying to be a “tough guy,” Bush asked, “How tough is it to take property from an elderly woman?”
Trump at that point essentially took on the audience, which booed him repeatedly as he then accused them of being Bush’s “donors and special interests.” Trump got the final word, telling Bush that the Canada-to-Texas Keystone pipeline they support is a “private job” that needs eminent domain to be completed. (According to local reports, the New Jersey woman in question ultimately kept her home by fighting the city in court, though she moved out several years ago.)
Despite being jeered by the audience for his “donor” charge, Trump did receive applause for his explanation of his position on health care. He vowed to repeal ObamaCare and replace it, but said, “We’re going to take care of people that are dying on the street.”
Trump, earlier, also defended his “temperament,” challenging criticism from Cruz that Trump would be a trigger-happy commander in chief.
“I actually think I have the best temperament,” Trump said.
Earlier this week, Cruz responded to Trump’s criticism of his Iowa caucus tactics by questioning his temperament and joking that with Trump in charge, Americans could wake up and find he’s “nuked Denmark.”
Trump reminded the audience at Saturday’s debate that he did not back the Iraq war.
“I was the only up here who said don’t go, don’t do it,” Trump said.
He also mocked Cruz, after the senator did not respond directly whether he stands by his words.
“He didn’t answer your question,” Trump noted. “People back down with Trump, and that’s what I like, and that’s what the country is going to like.”
Trump still leads in New Hampshire, but recent polls show Rubio surging in the state, which votes Tuesday.
The debate at St. Anselm College featured the seven top-polling candidates. Former HP CEO Carly Fiorina and former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore did not make the cut.
It started with a hiccup, as the moderators appeared to, temporarily, forget to invite Ohio Gov. John Kasich to the stage. He then walked on. Still, Kasich fielded several questions at the debate, challenging his GOP rivals on suggestions they would deport millions of illegal immigrants.
He also talked tough, as other candidates did, about North Korea on the heels of reports that they launched a long-range missile.
“We cannot continue to be weak in the face of the North Koreans,” Kasich said.
Unlike in Iowa, the battle for the not-Trump vote is crowded and competitive in New Hampshire. Aside from Cruz and Rubio, Kasich and Bush are also polling well in the state. Christie had been running strong as recently as January but has seen his numbers slide in recent weeks.
Cruz, later on in Saturday’s debate, was by turns tough and tender. He reiterated his goal to use “overwhelming air power” to take out the Islamic State. Citing reports about the emergence of a “jihadist university” in ISIS territory, he said that building “should be rubble” but added he’d wait until “freshman orientation” to destroy it.
Later, he told the story of his half-sister Miriam who died of an overdose, speaking about addiction in a state where the problem is at crisis levels.
“This is an absolute epidemic, we need leadership to solve it,” Cruz said.
Fiorina, and even some rival candidates, had lobbied ABC and the Republican National Committee to let her debate Saturday despite the criteria disqualifying her. But ABC stood firm in its decision to stick by criteria announced before Monday’s caucuses, after which three GOP candidates dropped out.

Government Tax Cartoon

Housing, jobs in high-tax Connecticut could take hit in wake of GE move

The downfall of America, greedy Government?

General Electric’s big move to Boston this summer could mean much more than leaving an empty corporate campus behind.
Residents and small business owners in the tony town of Fairfield, Conn. – home to GE’s global headquarters for more than four decades – are bracing themselves for the collateral damage after the company announced last month it would be moving to Massachusetts and taking 800 jobs, millions in grants and opportunities for expansion with them.
But that’s not even the half of it.
The trickle-down devastation triggered by GE’s move is predicted to spare no sector. The real estate market is expected to suffer as residents pick up and leave for better job prospects. Small businesses and infrastructure projects also could start to see setbacks in the near future, as the high taxes blamed in part for GE's move remain.
“Probably half of the higher-end homes that used to house the GE executives will sit either unsold or foreclosed because no one else living in the area can afford them at their current price,” Christopher Mills, president of C. Mills & Associates, which manages real estate portfolios nationwide, told FoxNews.com.
While there is a slight possibility a large company could swoop in and save the city, the odds aren’t in Fairfield’s favor.
“[It’s] not likely to happen because the same tax and legislative hindrances that chased GE out will keep other companies away,” he said. “Those hindrances are what have to be removed to prevent a localized depression.”
GE, which has a market value of nearly $290 billion, made good on threats to leave Connecticut following two of the largest corporate tax hikes in the state’s history in 2011 and 2015.
Massachusetts – often referred to as “Taxachusetts” -- ranks 25^th in a 2016 Tax Foundation survey of positive tax climates in the U.S. Connecticut, though, comes in a distant 44^th. Connecticut’s corporate income tax rate stands at 7.5 percent but bigger companies have to pay more in corporate tax liability.
GE likely paid 9 percent due to surcharges on growth income. They’ll pay 8 percent in Massachusetts, Jared Walczak, a policy analyst at the Tax Foundation, told Reuters.
Connecticut also has several corporate tax structures that are less favorable than other states, including rules that could put more of GE’s global sales within the state’s tax grasp. “Given the cost of corporate relocation, I suspect that GE anticipates substantial tax savings from the move,” Walczak said.
Republican state lawmakers slammed Gov. Dannel Malloy and the Democratic-led legislature for driving away one of the state’s largest employers.
“This is proof positive that the Democrat majority’s fiscal plans are failures,” Connecticut Senate Minority Leader Leonard Fasano said in a statement, blaming the state’s tax policies and warning “many more businesses” could follow in GE’s footsteps.
The hikes and bipartisan bickering about the state’s long-term economic goals could hurt the state permanently. “Nothing is so hostile to business as uncertainty,” Fred Carstensen, an economics professor at the University of Connecticut, wrote in the Hartford Business Journal. “Connecticut, it seems, has become the state of uncertainty.”
Malloy tried to downplay the impact of a GE move on the state but admitted, “Taken as a whole, there is no denying that Connecticut has had more good days than days like today.”
GE, which has a global workforce of more than 350,000 and ranks eighth on the Fortune 500, will be the largest publicly traded company based in Massachusetts.
David Lewis, president of Operations Inc., a human resources consulting company based in Connecticut, said “a move like this is a seismic event” for Fairfield. The move casts doubt and sends a message about whether the county is a viable place to do business, he told FoxNews.com.
GE’s move, coupled with a threat by banking heavyweight UBS to leave nearby Stamford, Conn., raised real concern with residents who are worried what a mass corporate exodus could mean for the state. Connecticut – specifically Stamford -- has had the bad luck of housing the U.S. headquarters of two European banks that have been slammed following a series of debt crises. Prior to the financial crisis, RBS and UBS each set up large offices with huge trading floors in Stamford. UBS, whose arrival in Stamford helped spur redevelopment in the area, has since relocated staff to Manhattan, while RBS has slashed its staff.
“The state has had a problem with the way it has treated business overall for the last 10 years,” Lewis said. “A lot of anti-business policies have raised the question whether the state is pro-business or not.”
In a separate interview with WNPR, he said Fairfield would have a difficult time staying relevant following GE’s move.
"Why would anyone pick Fairfield County to move their business?" Lewis said. "We have a high cost of living. We have a traffic issue that makes commuting into the county a challenge. ... Then there is the state government, who has a track record of passing mountains of anti-government legislation."
Chris Raveis, president of residential sales at William Raveis, Massachusetts LLC, told FoxNews.com that GE’s decision to leave Connecticut delivered a powerful psychological blow to the entire area that will be felt for years.
“I think everybody wants to be optimistic, but at this point, they are very discouraged,” he said, adding that reversing the damage could take some time.
Peter Gioia, an economist for the Connecticut Business and Industry Association, told the Hartford Courant, the “absolute, intense psychological impact” of GE’s move should not be minimalized.
He added that the company’s exit is “a glaring black eye for economic development.”

Obama rips 'doom and despair' Republicans on economy, defends oil tax

Obama is desperate to bring down America before he leaves office.

Hours after the Democratic presidential candidates went toe-to-toe on the debate stage in New Hampshire, President Obama used the bully pulpit Friday to take a shot at Republicans for spreading “doom and despair” on the economy – touting new jobs data while defending a proposed oil tax critics say will undermine any economic progress.
The new data, while reflecting a slowdown in job growth, nevertheless showed the unemployment rate dipping to 4.9 percent.
In remarks at the White House Friday, Obama said the U.S. now has the "strongest, most durable economy in the world." He also took a swipe at Republicans.
“I know that’s still inconvenient for Republican stump speeches," he said, before accusing them of embarking on a “doom and despair” tour in New Hampshire.
“Evidence, facts are on our side,” Obama said.
Obama’s remarks come a day before Republican 2016 candidates line up in New Hampshire for another debate, during which the economy is likely to be discussed at length.
Obama, meanwhile, defended his controversial proposal for a $10-per-barrel tax on oil companies in order to fund clean transport technology.
House Speaker Paul Ryan has called the forthcoming budget proposal part of an "out of touch" agenda and warned the proposed tax would raise energy prices, "hurting poor Americans the most."
Obama countered that with gas prices so low, the impact would be minimal.
“It’s right to do it now when gas prices are really low," he said.
Critics claim the levy would be passed on to consumers, something White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest effectively conceded on Friday. He said he“would not be surprised if they did pass that along” to consumers.
The 4.9 percent unemployment in January is the lowest it’s been under President Obama and came after the Labor Department announced employers added 151,000 jobs last month.

Hillary misleading about email probe during debate, former FBI agents say

This is how she really feels about the FBI probe.

Hillary Clinton used misleading language in Thursday night’s Democratic debate to describe the ongoing FBI investigation into her use of a private email server to conduct official government business while she was secretary of state, according to former senior FBI agents.
In the New Hampshire debate with Senator Bernie Sanders, which aired on MSNBC, Clinton told moderator Chuck Todd that nothing would come of the FBI probe, “I am 100 percent confident. This is a security review that was requested.  It is being carried out.”
Not true says Steve Pomerantz, who spent 28 years at the FBI, and rose from field investigative special agent to the rank of assistant director, the third highest position in the Bureau.
“They (the FBI) do not do security reviews,” Pomerantz said. “What they primarily do and what they are clearly doing in this instance is a criminal investigation.”
Pomerantz emphasized to Fox News, “There is no mechanism for her to be briefed and to have information about the conduct, the substance, the direction or the result of any FBI investigation.”
Separately, an intelligence source familiar with the two prongs of the ongoing FBI probe, stressed to Fox that the criminal and national security elements remain “inseparable.”  The source, not authorized to speak on the record,  characterized Clinton’s statement “as a typical Clinton diversion… and what is she going to say, “I’m 95 percent sure that I am going to get away with it?”
Fox recently learned that one of the FBI's senior agents responsible for counterintelligence matters, Charles H. Kable IV, is working the Clinton case, another indicator the intelligence source said that the FBI probe is “extremely serious, and the A-team is handling.”
Kable, known as "Sandy," was appointed special agent in charge of the counterintelligence division at the Washington field office by Director James Comey in December.
He had recently served as the chief of the counterespionage section at FBI headquarters.  In that capacity, a bureau press releases says the 15-year, well-respected FBI veteran, "provided leadership and oversight to the field offices engaged in espionage, economic espionage, and insider threat investigations."
While his responsibilities are not publicly known, Kable was described to Fox as "tough and no-nonsense FBI." The intelligence source said analysts and agents are exploring whether the mishandling of classified information was "intentional" and who may have benefited.
A spokeswoman for the FBI took Fox's questions, but said they would not be providing comment on Kable’s role or the FBI case.
In 2009, Kable led investigations against known and suspected Chinese intelligence officers in the U.S.  In January, former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, told the Hugh Hewitt radio show that "the odds are pretty high" that then-Secretary of State Clinton's personal email server was hacked by Iran, China and Russia.
A separate source told Fox, "it is no less of a violation of espionage statutes if any material was classified secret or top secret....All the statute requires is national defense information or NDI,” adding "this is way past accidental spillage…(it) is being investigated as intentional mishandling…in this kind of high profile investigation, the most damaging information takes primacy.”
Investigations into the compromise of classified information include damage assessments.  In the recent case of former CIA Director David Petraeus, the damage was deemed to be limited, discreet, and knowable because the highly classified information was shared with his biographer, who also had a security clearance.
In Hillary Clinton's case, if the private server was compromised by a third party, the extent of the damage maybe unknowable.
The hacker "Guccifer" compromised Clinton’s adviser Sydney Blumenthal's aol account, and he copied the email exchanges sent to Clinton.  The Romanian hacker, whose real name is Marcel Lehel Lazar, has an extradition hearing February 17, and in an interview, indicated he would welcome extradition to the U.S.
The amount of classified information, now including 22 top secret emails the State Department withheld from public release last week, stands at more than 15-hundred.
At the State Department briefing Thursday, spokesman John Kirby was asked by Fox News chief intelligence correspondent Catherine Herridge whether Clinton, as well as aides Huma Abedin, and Cheryl Mills, completed the required classified training that includes the proper storage, handling, and identification of classified information.
"Everybody here is trained in how to handle sensitive information. Sometimes that takes place in in-person briefings and I can't comment any further,"  Kirby said.  Asked it was documented, Kirby said he had nothing more to offer, but did confirm Clinton, Abedin, Mills were not exempt from the strict rules that apply to State Department personnel.
Fox: “So they would not be an exception?”
Kirby: “Everybody that works at the State Department gets trained in how to handle sensitive information.  Sometimes that's done in- person briefings.”
This is important because, on its face, this seems to undercut Clinton's claim she had no way to know it was classified because the emails were not marked.  Personnel are briefed on what constitutes classified  information and its proper handling.
Under the Freedom of Information Act, Judicial Watch sought the records documenting the classification training, but in a letter dated January 22, 2016, exactly seven years after Clinton signed her Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) to serve as Secretary of State, the government watchdog was told "no responsive records" could be found.

Republicans push for Fiorina to be included in ABC debate

In Iowa, Cruz placed first. Fiorina came in seventh place.

Is Fiorina not being included in the ABC debate because being a female she's better then the other men that are also not being asked to the debate?

Republicans are calling on ABC News to change its criteria for Saturday’s GOP debate in New Hampshire, complaining that rules announced before the Iowa caucuses are set to block Carly Fiorina from the stage. 
ABC announced Thursday that the former HP CEO, as well as former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore, did not make the cut for the upcoming debate. But the decision was based on criteria unveiled before three GOP candidates dropped out of the race following the Iowa contest.
The ABC rules were meant in part to narrow the debate stage crowd, for the first time eliminating the undercard event. But with the other undercard debaters now out of the picture, some of Fiorina's fellow candidates are joining her in pressuring ABC and the party to change the rules and make room for her.
“With 9 Republicans left, I call on the RNC to get rid of arbitrary requirements for debates. Americans deserve to hear from every candidate,” retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson tweeted Thursday.
Saturday night’s lineup includes: Donald Trump, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Carson, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Ohio Gov. John Kasich.
Carson and Cruz, as well as former presidential nominee Mitt Romney and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, have all called for a criteria change to get Fiorina on the stage.
Romney and Gingrich argued that Fiorina outperformed Christie and Kasich on Monday and should be allowed to debate.
“Don’t exclude only woman,” Romney tweeted.
So far, the network isn’t budging. And Republican National Committee spokesman Sean Spicer, while saying the decision rests with the networks, said the criteria "is what it is."
Spicer called Fiorina a "great candidate," but suggested it would be unfair to retroactively change debate criteria.
Fiorina and her campaign have pushed back aggressively against being kept off the debate stage.
“The people who should be frustrated, actually more than frustrated are the people of Iowa and New Hampshire,” Fiorina said on MSNBC's “Morning Joe” on Friday.
The network, in criteria set before the caucuses, said there were three different ways candidates could make it onto the stage for the debate. First, a candidate could place among the top three in the Iowa caucuses. A candidate could also qualify by ranking among the top six in an average of New Hampshire GOP presidential polls. Third, a candidate could qualify by ranking among the top six in an average of national GOP presidential polls recognized by ABC.
Three Republican candidates called it quits this week after poor showings in the Iowa caucuses. They include: Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.
In Iowa, Cruz placed first. Fiorina came in seventh place.
Calls to ABC News for comment were not immediately returned.

Oil Tax Cartoon

Obama to call for $10-per-barrel oil tax to fund clean transport

President Obama will propose a $10 fee for every barrel of oil to be paid by oil companies in order to fund clean energy transport system, the White House announced Thursday -- although Republicans were quick to declare the plan "dead on arrival" in Congress.
The fee would be phased in over five years and would provide $20 billion per year for traffic reduction, investment in transit systems and other modes of transport such as high-speed rail, the White House said. It would also offer $10 billion to encourage investment in clean transport at the regional level.
Obama is expected to formalize the proposal Tuesday when he releases his final budget request to Congress. However, the proposal immediately faced resistance from Republicans.
"Once again, the president expects hardworking consumers to pay for his out of touch climate agenda,” House Speaker Paul Ryan said in a statement, arguing it would lead to higher energy prices and hurt poor Americans.
Ryan went on to describe Obama’s plan as “dead on arrival” in Congress.
“The good news is this plan is little more than an election-year distraction. As this lame-duck president knows, it's dead on arrival in Congress, because House Republicans are committed to affordable American energy and a strong U.S. economy," Ryan said.
The White House claims the added cost of gasoline would incentivize the private sector to reduce the reliance on oil and to increase investment in clean energy technology.
The plan also saw opposition from advocates for the oil industry, who warned it would only harm consumers.
“The White House thinks Americans are not paying enough for gasoline, so they have proposed a new tax that could raise the cost of gasoline by 25 cents a gallon, harm consumers that are enjoying low energy prices, destroy American jobs and reverse America’s emergence as a global energy leader,” API President and CEO Jack Gerard:
“On his way out of office, President Obama has now proposed making the United States less competitive.” Gerard said.

UN raises billions for Syria relief, and critics ask if it is helping Assad

While the U.N. tries to raise billions for Syrian relief, it is under growing fire for helping the Assad dictatorship carry out a brutal “surrender or starve” strategy against its opponents, who are also beset by the scourge of ISIS.
Frustrated aid workers, academics and beleaguered Syrians are pointing  to the U.N.’s long-standing, cooperative ties with the regime of President Bashar Al-Assad in dispensing humanitarian aid inside the country as empowering the dictator to funnel relief supplies to his supporters, keep food and supplies away from desperate civilians who do not support him and use the relief to free up money for military campaigns against moderate and extreme opponents alike.
As one group of besieged anti-Assad Syrian aid workers put it in an open letter to the head of the U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Stephen O’Brien:  “For many of us in Syria, the U.N. has turned from a symbol of hope into a symbol of complicity.”
The rising frustration comes as a major donor meeting is getting under way  in London, aimed at  getting  wealthy nations to contribute $9 billion this year for relief efforts in Syria and surrounding countries, where millions of refugees have fled. The U.S. has given some $4.5 billion to the effort since the Syrian crisis began in 2011, and Secretary of State John Kerry announced an additional $925 million contribution at the London meeting.
For its part, the U.N. pushes back vehemently against any idea that its relief efforts help Assad. “Civilians bear the brunt of the inhumane actions by all parties to the conflict, the government and armed groups, which the international community has failed to stop for nearly five years,” declared an OCHA spokesperson in response to a question from Fox News.
“We and our partners continue to call for an end to the brutal violence, for those committing war crimes to be held accountable, and for the international community to take action. The voice of the United Nations humanitarian agencies has been loud, clear and unequivocal on this.”
Meanwhile, Assad’s forces, supported by Russian attack bombers, are instead drawing the noose of desperation even tighter.
This week, they continued to blast away at relief corridors that provide intermittent aid to hundreds of thousands of desperate Syrians in the northern city of Aleppo, and sparked a sudden “pause” in U.N.-sponsored peace talks in Geneva that had nominally flickered into existence at the end of January.
The Syria Institute, a Washington-based think tank,  contends that no fewer than 46 Syrian communities with a collective estimated population of about 1.1 million  are now under siege in Syria, with all but two sieges involving the Assad regime, though some communities also are besieged by ISIS.
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The Syria Institute population figures, produced in collaboration with a Dutch organization called PAX, do not include some 40,000 people estimated to be clinging weakly to life in the town of Madaya, where only one U.N. relief convoy has recently been allowed to enter, and where, according to a January 16  story in Foreign Policy magazine, U.N. officials had known about the town’s desperate plight for months but downplayed it.
Meantime, as U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power noted last month, “Out of a total of 113”  relief convoy requests the U.N. sent to the Syrian regime, “this U.N. member state approved and completed only 13.” In 80 cases, she added, Syria “did not even bother to respond to the United Nations within three months.”
Power called that “part of a deliberate, systematic strategy aimed at killing and displacing civilians.”
The continuing offensive and the diplomatic pause put a shadow over a British-backed preliminary to the donor conference where Syrian and international non-government organizations issued a strong appeal to wealthy donor nations to “demand an immediate end to siege tactics and demand unhindered access to humanitarian aid.”
Along with additional pleas to the donors to “strongly and unconditionally condemn all attacks on civilian life and infrastructure, the non-government attendees also called on rich countries to “provide long-term funding directly to Syrian civil society organizations,” a pointed departure from the U.N.-coordinated global funding process that has dominated the relief effort so far.

“Civilians bear the brunt of the inhumane actions by all parties to the conflict, the government and armed groups, which the international community has failed to stop for nearly five years.”
- OCHA spokesperson

“It sounds like the major donor partners increasingly understand the need for changes in the way things are done,”  said Simon O’Connell, executive director for Europe of the major U.S. humanitarian organization Mercy Corps, which is deeply involved in getting aid to Syria without the involvement of the Assad regime.  “There is recognition that at least some of the assistance is not able to make it to some of those most in need.”
O’Connell diplomatically pointed no fingers of blame in discussing the non-governmental appeal with Fox News, which he saw as a coming sea-change in the way that international aid is organized and delivered around the world.
But other humanitarian workers have had no such qualms.
In a toughly-worded article that appeared Monday on the website of the Council on Foreign Relations-sponsored magazine, Foreign Affairs, Dr. Annie Sparrow, a veteran international medical aid worker and assistant professor at Mount Sinai Global Health Center, declared that “long-festering concerns over OCHA’s lack of neutrality are growing.”
OCHA is the U.N. department that draws together global and international appeals for response at events like the donor mega-conference underway in London, and then  helps redistribute the money to the sprawling U.N. array of agencies, funds and programs, as well as other aid groups. It also coordinates relief efforts on a regional and national basis, including in Damascus, where it meets in a committee with members of Syrian government departments, and all non-U.N. aid agencies working in tandem must be approved by the Assad regime.
“Characteristic of many agencies of the United Nations, OCHA places a premium on maintaining good relations with the Syrian government, a position fueled by its desire to stay in Damascus,” Sparrow declared. She added that “it is worth asking whether OCHA’s bottom line is harming the agency’s efforts to alleviate the catastrophic consequences of Damascus’ anti-civilian strategy.”
Among other things, Sparrow charged that some $1.7 billion of the U.N.’s appeal for Syria “is allocated for U.N. and national agencies operating from Damascus, all controlled by the government and providing aid almost exclusively to government territory. In non-government territory, the U.N. in Damascus must work through the Syrian Arab Red Crescent” –whose local branches are often non-partisan and perform countless heroics, but whose leadership has close ties to the Assad regime.
Despite a 2014 U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing cross-border relief convoys into the northern half of Syria, she declared, citing a 2016 U.N. Humanitarian Needs Overview, “U.N. agencies reached an average of 4 per cent of the civilians in besieged areas (about 16,500 people) each month with health assistance, 0.6 percent (roughly 2,500 people) with food, and less than 0.1 percent (fewer than 500 people) with nonfood items such as tents, blankets and soap.”
(The same U.N. overview notes vaguely that “OCHA is “aware of” more than 185 Syrian NGOs working in humanitarian and development aid, including 75 that “continue to deliver substantive quantities of assistance to Syria from neighboring countries”—but also says they work “alongside” U.N. cross-border operations—in other words, there is no U.N. connection.)
More dramatically, Sparrow charges that OCHA’s 2016 Humanitarian Response Plan for Syria, which asks international donors for $3.2 billion to provide aid to some 13.5 million people, is a “watered down document” in which the Syrian government “revised the narrative, the budget and the programming,”  including any reference to the removal of land mines, a constant hazard to foraging civilians.
“According to the final Humanitarian Response Plan,” Sparrow declared, “there is no war in Syria, only a crisis and insecurity, which, incidentally, is not the government’s fault.” She also offered up samples from a draft version with tracking changes that removed touchy references.
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Asked by Fox News to respond to the article, an OCHA spokesperson emailed that “the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and its staff are impartial, neutral and independent. Suggesting otherwise is not only untrue but also irresponsible, and could be detrimental to the safety of the unarmed aid workers risking their lives every day to bring vital aid and protection to people in dire need.”
“The United Nations provides humanitarian aid on the basis only of an objective assessment of need -- in this and all crises,” she added. “Our focus is and will always be on the quickest, fairest and most efficient way of safely bringing people aid and protection, and telling the world what is happening on the ground.”
Many Syrians, however, disagree. In their open letter last month to the head of OCHA, Stephen O’Brien, members of anti-Assad non-government Syrian aid organizations -- “medical workers, teachers, rescue workers and civil society activists”-- declared that they were among those living under siege, and described their nightmare of “being starved, deprived of medical supplies and in almost all cases bombed daily by the regime of Bashar al-Assad.”
What made the grim suffering more painful, they said “is knowing that in many besieged areas, such as those around Damascus, U.N. warehouses full of lifesaving aid are often just minutes away.” They accused O’Brien of “choosing not to deliver that aid to us . . . because the Assad regime is not giving you permission. This is hardly surprising since it is the regime imposing the sieges in the first place.”
“By allowing the regime to veto aid to civilians in areas outside its control, you have allowed the U.N. to become a political tool of the war,” they declared and urged him simply to defy the government.
In reply, O’Brien said he was “deeply saddened and concerned,” and called the siege conditions “unacceptable, unconscionable and unlawful.” Saying that he had personally accompanied cross border relief convoys, and stressing the personal risks U.N. aid workers had taken, he offered assurances that “the U.N. is neither too close to any party nor acting in such a way to encourage the use of siege tactics.”
Repeating the mantra that only a political solution will solve the problem, he reiterated that “it is our duty to act impartially, neutrally and independently.”
The fact, however, is that all U.N. agencies, and not just OCHA, are careful to show deference to “national partners” in the planning processes for their activities in acknowledgement of the primacy of national sovereignty -- and Syria is no different, except in the bloodthirsty and violent way that it treats much of its population.
In its own country plan for Syria, for example, the United Nations Development Program declares that its country office, “with full cooperation with national partners, will identify target areas and beneficiaries …using available assessments of needs and priorities”—which are unlikely to come from rebel enclaves.  UNDP also says that some 933,000 people in Syria are already benefiting directly from cash-for-work schemes.
The child aid agency UNICEF, in a Syrian country program that it considered at its most recent Executive Board meeting this week, declared that over the next two years, its programing will focus on “interventions that enhance the resilience of families, communities and systems,” and states that while “working closely with all national partners, UNICEF will build positive coping mechanisms in communities.”
Overall, the UNICEF document said, “The country program priorities and strategies have been aligned with the future priorities of the Government of the Syrian Arab Republic.” The agency is appealing for $389 million to carry out its Syrian work.
In response to questions from Fox News, a UNICEF spokesman said that its country program, “including its humanitarian response, is informed by discussions and consultations with a range of partners, including national partners. This is normal practice, for operational and technical reasons. UNICEF delivers assistance based on the core humanitarian principles of neutrality and impartiality.”
After conducting more than 100 interviews with aid workers, volunteers and Syrian “stakeholders” over two years, a freelance journalist and a Ph.D. candidate at Cambridge University have come to the opposite conclusion about U.N. aid efforts. Despite their “pretensions to neutrality,” the two concluded, in an article published in the prestigious British journal International Affairs, that U.N. aid deliveries have “consistently benefited the Assad regime.”
One reason, they argue, is that the Assad regime’s authoritarian socialist development model had always involved “various welfare policies aimed at ensuring food security and political compliance,” such as subsidized bread supplies.
In other words, by “channeling most assistance” through Assad-approved local partners, “external donors have helped the regime fulfill some of its welfare responsibilities.” The regime also “shares credit for welfare provision without diverting resources from its military efforts.”
In some cases, the authors cite witness testimony that food aid is simply expropriated by the Assad military.
On the other hand, the regime’s refusal to allow aid convoys to reach dissident communities is the traditional harsh side of the same policy.
As the two authors put it:  “While emergency aid can appear apolitical on the surface,” the “undeniable importance of food during wartime makes a position of neutrality untenable.”
“By bringing external resources into life-or-death situations,” they conclude, “aid agencies inevitably become implicated in war’s inner workings.”
The need to get aid to suffering populations regardless of the protocols of neutrality is one reason why Mercy Corps’ O’Connell feels there is a growing argument for putting more resources in the hands of non-governmental and local Syrian organizations, as the NGO conference he attended strongly endorsed.
Mercy Corps itself, he noted, is managing to get aid supplies --not always regularly -- to some 500,000 people per month in the Aleppo governate that is now under increasing Assad pressure. The current Assad offensive, he subsequently declared, is having a “significant impact” on Mercy Corps’ work, causing temporary suspension of aid operations in some villages; the aid organization is “monitoring the situation closely.”
Before the suspension, O’Connell  told Fox News, “We see areas where at times we have to vary our strategies for delivering aid. On certain days we are able to get through, and others, not.”
The current humanitarian system, he observes, “is broken.”