As Obama hammers ‘income inequality,’ gap grows under his presidency

Income inequality -- the gap between the rich and poor -- is an issue U.S. presidents of both parties have spoken of for years. 

President Clinton touted, toward the end of his term, that wages were rising "at all income levels" for the first time in decades. President George W. Bush, toward the end of his, pondered the best way to respond to income inequality, noting some policies "lift people up" and some "tear others down."
But perhaps no president has hammered the issue as emphatically as President Obama.
In his 2012 State of the Union address, Obama said: "The defining issue of our time is how to keep that promise alive. No challenge is more urgent. No debate is more important. We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by, or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, and everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules."
But a look back shows that income inequality has grown, not shrunk, under the current president. 
"All told, income inequality has tended to get worse under President Obama," American Enterprise Institute President Arthur Brooks said.
The gap between rich and poor has fluctuated greatly over time, but there are signals that the country is going back to a divide not seen in a long time.
Back in 1928, the top 1 percent of earners received about a quarter of all pre-tax income. The bottom 90 percent received just over half of it.
Fast forward to the Great Depression and World War II. America experienced a time of economic change and development that dramatically reshaped U.S. income distribution. In 1944, under Franklin D. Roosevelt, the wealthy weren't quite as wealthy. The top 1 percent saw their income share sink to 11 percent. Meanwhile, the bottom 90 percent saw their income share rise to 67 percent.
Through the '50s and '60s and early '70s, decades of economic growth brought prosperity for all. Each economic group's income share remained fairly constant. Then came the late 1970s, where under President Carter, the top 1 percent saw their share begin to rise and the bottom 90 percent saw theirs begin to fall.
Between then and now, the share of income gains captured by top earners grew. The top 1 percent saw a 45 percent increase under Clinton and a 65 percent increase under Bush.
That number has dramatically increased since Obama's inauguration in 2009. By 2012, the top 1 percent was back to where it was decades ago -- taking in about a quarter of all pre-tax income. Yet the bottom 90 percent saw their share fall below 50 percent for the first time in history.
Some analysts say this is because Obama was more focused on health care than alleviating unemployment and poverty.
"Our system is predicated on presidential leadership, and the president has not been focused on either you know poverty or unemployment," said AEI's Michael Strain. "Early in his term he was focused on health care as we all know, and you know we have the election, and this just hasn't been at the front-burner."
But Heather Boushey, with the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, said, "I don't think you can lay the blame for that at the feet of Obama."
She continued: "I think that that blame lies also with the U.S. Congress who's made decisions about what they want to fund and how they want to focus on dealing with the deficits rather than focusing on getting us back to something close to full employment."
A look at what's called "real income," or income adjusted for inflation, underscores the trend in recent decades.
In 2012, the bottom 90 percent was earning an average "real income" of about $30,000 a year. That's similar to what they were earning back in 1980.
But the top 10 percent of earners typically made over a quarter of a million dollars in 2012. And the top 1 percent averaged over $1.2 million in earnings that year. That is where the most dramatic fluctuation can be seen over time, as the gap between lower and top earners has widened.
According to the work of Emmanuel Saez, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, during the post-recession years of 2009-2012, top earners snagged a greater share of total income growth than during the boom years of 2002-2007.
In other words, income inequality has become more pronounced since the Bush administration, not less.
"Rich people have pulled away, largely because the top 1 percent has been doing quite well -- and disproportionately doing quite well under President Obama," Brooks said. "Remember that the stock market has doubled in value since President Obama took office, and at least 80 percent of those gains have gone to the top 10 percent of the income distribution."

Democrat Punching Bag?

NJ Gov. Christie's office denies claims of withholding Sandy aid funds

A New Jersey mayor who says that she was blocked from receiving millions of dollars in Superstorm Sandy recovery grants because of her refusal to sign off on a politically connected commercial development claimed Sunday that she was told that an ultimatum relating to the project came directly from Christie himself.
In an interview with CNN's "State of the Union" Sunday, Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer said that she was approached about the commercial development project by Kim Guadagno, Christie's lieutenant governor, at an event this past May.
"The lieutenant governor pulled me aside and said, essentially, 'You've got to move forward with the Rockefeller project. This project is really important to the governor.' And she said that she had been with him on Friday night and that this was a direct message from the governor," Zimmer recalled Guadagno saying.
Christie's office denied the claim later Sunday, with spokesman Colin Reed saying "Mayor Zimmer's categorization about her conversation in Hoboken is categorically false."
Zimmer told the Star-Ledger that she had met with federal prosecutors Sunday and given them a copy of her daily journal and other documents related to the case. Zimmer also said that she would be willing to testify under oath regarding the allegations. Christie's administration is already under investigation over traffic jams on the George Washington Bridge last September that were apparently manufactured as political retaliation.
Zimmer had alleged Saturday that Guadagno and a top community development official told her recovery funds would flow to her city if she allowed the project to move forward. The Democratic mayor said the Republican administration officials wanted Rockefeller's plans for the property approved, while Zimmer said she preferred to go through normal channels and hear from all stakeholders, including the public and owners of adjacent property.
"I was directly told by the lieutenant governor — she made it very clear — that the Rockefeller project needed to move forward or they wouldn't be able to help me," Zimmer told The Associated Press.
"There is no way I could ethically do what the governor, through the lieutenant governor, is asking me to do," she said.
Christie's office called Zimmer’s statements politically motivated, with Reed Colin Reed saying the administration has been helping Hoboken secure assistance since Sandy struck.
"It's very clear partisan politics are at play here, as Democratic mayors with a political ax to grind come out of the woodwork and try to get their faces on television,” Reed said.
Reed also bashed MSNBC, which first reported Zimmer’s comments.
“MSNBC is a partisan network that has been openly hostile to Gov. Christie and almost gleeful in their efforts attacking him, even taking the unprecedented step of producing and airing a nearly three-minute attack ad against him this week,” he added.
A state website that tracks the distribution of Sandy aid shows that Hoboken received a $200,000 post-storm planning grant in October out of a $1.8 billion pot of money controlled by the state. Hoboken also received a $142,000 state energy resilience grant.
Besides state money, Hoboken has received $70 million in recovery funds distributed by the federal government, according to the Christie administration. Zimmer said she has applied for $100 million to implement a comprehensive plan to help insulate her city from future floods.

Maryland's ObamaCare website sent customers to Seattle pottery store

The Maryland website for ObamaCare mistakenly listed an 800 number that sent some Maryland residents attempting to pick a health insurance provider to Seattle Pottery Supply, instead of the state's call center.
The number appears under the words "State Advantage" and "call a representative," according to The Baltimore Sun.
The correct number for help shows up multiple times on the marylandhealthconnection.gov site before the incorrect number appears.
Critics of the state-run site said Saturday this is just the latest in a long series of problems for the Maryland health exchange.
"You can't make this stuff up, and I guess if it wasn't so serious, it could be funny," said state Senate Minority Leader David R. Brinkley, a Frederick County Republican.
A state spokeswoman said Saturday that she had no update on efforts to fix the problem. Maryland officials were unaware of the problem until contacted Friday by the newspaper.
Maryland is one of 14 states that chose to build its own website to sell health insurance as part of the federal Affordable Care Act.
State officials have set a goal of signing up 150,000 people for private insurance by the end of March; 22,512 had signed up on the website as of Jan. 11.
The site’s problems have become the major issue in this year’s gubernatorial race in which front-runner and Democratic Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown was Gov. Martin O’Malley’s point man on developing the health exchange.

White House reportedly delays ObamaCare equal coverage provision

The Obama administration is reportedly delaying enforcement of another aspect of ObamaCare, one that prohibits employers from providing better health benefits to top executives than those being offered to regular employees.
According to The New York Times, tax officials said they would not enforce the provision in 2014 as they had not yet issued the appropriate regulations.
The Affordable Care Act, commonly known as ObamaCare, says employer-sponsored health plans must not discriminate “in favor of highly compensated individuals” with respect to either eligibility or benefits, and provides a tax break for employer-sponsored insurance, while demanding employers not provide better coverage to higher-paid employees.
Yet Bruce I. Friedland, a spokesman for the I.R.S., told the New York Times that employers would not have to comply until the agency issued regulations or other guidance.
Under ObamaCare, an employer that has a fully insured health plan that discriminates in favor of high-paid executives could face a steep penalty: a tax of $100 a day for each individual affected negatively.
Among the issues holding up the implementation of regulations, according to the Times, are how to measure the value of employee health benefits, how to define "highly compensated" and what exactly constitutes discrimination against less-paid employees. 
As a result, the Times reports, officials have decided to review the existing nondiscrimination rules for self-insured companies, even as they try to write new rules for employers that buy commercial health insurance.
“Under the Affordable Care Act, for the first time all group health plans will be prohibited from offering coverage only to their highest paid employees. The Departments of HHS, Labor and the Treasury are working on rules that will implement this requirement of the ACA, taking into account public comments that were previously requested,” Erin Donar, a spokesperson for the Treasury told Fox News in a statement Saturday evening.
“As we continue this work, employers still have the same incentives they always have had to offer coverage to their employees as part of a competitive compensation package, and will have additional incentives under the Affordable Care Act starting this year and next.”
The enforcement delay is the latest in a list of deadline extensions and exemptions to the controversial law by the Obama administration to minimize disruption from the new health care law, which is sure to play in key role in this year’s midterm elections.

American Hustle

Media Doesn't Want Accurate ObamaCare Enrollment Numbers

As I write this Chuck Todd is using his MSNBC show "The Daily Rundown" to spread the fabricated myth that 2.2 million Americans "enrolled" in ObamaCare. This isn't true and if Todd doesn't know it isn't true he is not a tenth as smart as I think he is. Sadly, Todd's willingness to spread government propaganda without qualification is not unique among a media that obviously don't want to push for the release of accurate ObamaCare enrollment numbers.

You are not "enrolled" in ObamaCare or any insurance plan until you have paid your first month's premium. Scattered reports from various insurance companies tell us that anywhere from 95% to 50% of those the White House are counting as enrolled have not paid and therefore are not really enrolled.
The numbers the White House and its mouthpiece media are using do not fall under the accepted or standard definition of "enrollee." We are being told 2.2 million enrolled when the truth is that 2.2 million only went as far as to place a health plan in their shopping cart. How many of those 2.2 million are truly enrolled is a number the White House isn't releasing and the media are not publicly pressuring them to release.
If the mainstream media wanted the true enrollment figure, they could easily do what they always do when they want something: coordinate a narrative throughout every media outlet that pressures the administration to release the numbers and criticizes them for not doing so.
Instead, senior White House correspondents like Chuck Todd are, without qualification, repeating the number as though it's an accurate number.
But why would we expect the media to push for a truth that might hurt President Obama's signature piece of legislation, and one the media championed and refused for three years to vet for fear it might derail the entire program?
This kind of sloppy reporting and parroting of Obama talking points has defined our media since the day Barack Obama became a national figure.


Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC       

Most ObamaCare enrollees already had health plans, report says

The majority of the more than 2 million Americans who signed up for health insurance under ObamaCare through the end of December were already enrolled in employer-sponsored plans or had previously bought their own coverage, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
Early data from insurers, brokers and consultants suggest that the marketplaces are popular with consumers who were previously covered elsewhere, raising questions about a law intended to expand coverage to millions of healthy, uninsured Americans to help offset costs.
A survey by management consulting firm McKinsey & Co. found that only 11 percent of consumers who purchased new coverage under ObamaCare were previously uninsured. The survey was based on a sampling of 4,563 consumers between November and January, according to The Wall Street Journal.
HealthMarkets Inc., an insurance agency that signed up about 7,500 people in exchange plans, reported that 65 of its enrollees had prior coverage, the report said. Fifteen percent of enrollees had their individual plans canceled, and 40 percent switched over from previous individual plans.
"One of the intents of the law was to address the uninsured problem in our country," David M. Cordani, chief executive of insurer Cigna told the newspaper. Some insurers said the early data on newly insured consumers is falling short of expectations.
Insurers in Michigan expected 400,000 of the state's 1.2 million uninsured people to join private plans this year, according to an analysis provided Michigan-based Priority Health. As of the end of December, only 76,000 people had signed up, many of whom were previously covered, according to the report. 
"I don't know we're growing the number of people with insurance here, so much as we're just adding complexity," Geoff Bartsh, vice president for policy at Minneapolis-based Medica Health Plans told the Journal. 
Federal health officials told the newspaper they don't yet know the number of people who have signed up for coverage through the exchanges who had insurance when they enrolled. Consumers have until the end of March 31 to purchase plans under ObamaCare.
"We are in the middle of a sustained six-month open-enrollment period, and we have seen a strong interest in the product overall across the range of demographics so far," said Aaron Albright, a spokesman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. "We are ramping up outreach activities so that more Americans learn how they can now benefit from affordable health insurance."
Overall, adults ages 55-64 were the most heavily represented in the signups, accounting for 33 percent of the total. Nationwide, the premiums paid by people in that demographic don't fully cover their medical expenses. Some are in the waiting room for Medicare; that coverage starts at age 65.
Young adults from 18 to 34 are only 24 percent of total enrollment, the Obama administration said Monday in its first signup figures broken down for age, gender and other details. Enrolling young and healthy people is important because they generally pay more into the system than they take out, subsidizing older adults.

Bloggers have First Amendment protections, federal court rules

  A federal appeals court ruled Friday that bloggers and the public have the same First Amendment protections as journalists when sued for defamation: If the issue is of public concern, plaintiffs have to prove negligence to win damages.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a new trial in a defamation lawsuit brought by an Oregon bankruptcy trustee against a Montana blogger who wrote online that the court-appointed trustee criminally mishandled a bankruptcy case.
The appeals court ruled that the trustee was not a public figure, which could have invoked an even higher standard of showing the writer acted with malice, but the issue was of public concern, so the negligence standard applied.
Gregg Leslie of the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press said the ruling affirms what many have long argued: Standards set by a 1974 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Gertz v. Robert Welch Inc., apply to everyone, not just journalists.
"It's not a special right to the news media," he said. "So it's a good thing for bloggers and citizen journalists and others."
Crystal L. Cox, a blogger from Eureka, Mont., now living in Port Townshend, Wash., was sued for defamation by Bend attorney Kevin Padrick and his company, Obsidian Finance Group LLC, after she made posts on several websites she created accusing them of fraud, corruption, money-laundering and other illegal activities. The appeals court noted Padrick and Obsidian were hired by Summit Accommodators to advise them before filing for bankruptcy, and that the U.S. Bankruptcy Court later appointed Padrick trustee in the Chapter 11 case. The court added that Summit had defrauded investors in its real estate operations through a Ponzi scheme.
A jury in 2011 had awarded Padrick and Obsidian $2.5 million.
"Because Cox's blog post addressed a matter of public concern, even assuming that Gertz is limited to such speech, the district court should have instructed the jury that it could not find Cox liable for defamation unless it found that she acted negligently," judge Andrew D. Hurwitz wrote. "We hold that liability for a defamatory blog post involving a matter of public concern cannot be imposed without proof of fault and actual damages."
The appeals court upheld rulings by the District Court that other posts by Cox were constitutionally protected opinion.
Though Cox acted as her own attorney, UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh, who had written an article on the issue, learned of her case and offered to represent her in an appeal. Volokh said such cases usually end up settled without trial, and it was rare for one to reach the federal appeals court level.
"It makes clear that bloggers have the same First Amendment rights as professional journalists," he said. "There had been similar precedents before concerning advocacy groups, other writers and book authors. This follows a fairly well established chain of precedents. I believe it is the first federal appeals court level ruling that applies to bloggers."
An attorney for Padrick said in an email that while they were disappointed in the ruling, they noted the court found "there was no dispute that the statements were false and defamatory."
"Ms. Cox's false and defamatory statements have caused substantial damage to our clients, and we are evaluating our options with respect to the court's decision," wrote Steven M. Wilker.