New report shows administration lagging far behind ObamaCare enrollment goals

In the final stretch of enrolling Americans in ObamaCare, the administration is lagging far behind its own goals -- leaving uncertain whether the program is attracting enough people for the system to work. 
The Department of Health and Human Services reported Tuesday that more than 940,000 people signed up in February, bringing the total enrollment number to 4.2 million. That's well short of the unofficial goal of signing up 7 million by the end of open enrollment on March 31.
The numbers renewed calls from Republicans to push off the looming penalty for not buying insurance. And they revived accusations that the administration still is not telling the whole story behind those numbers.  
"Given these dismal enrollment numbers, the president needs to work with Congress to get rid of this year's individual mandate penalty," said Brendan Buck, spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner.
Hoping for a surge in the final weeks, administration officials are going to new lengths to promote the law and encourage people to sign up -- including President Obama plugging HealthCare.gov during a YouTube appearance with comedian Zach Galifianakis.
"During this final month of open enrollment our message to the American people is this: you still have time to get covered, but you'll want to sign up today," HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a statement on Tuesday.
The administration recently has backed off the goal of enrolling 7 million by month's end. But the government also is coming up short in attracting young adults into the system. The government wanted roughly 40 percent of enrollees to be between 18 and 34 years old; the latest report shows just a quarter of those who have selected a plan are in that coveted age group.
The government, and the insurance industry, wants to attract a high percentage of young adults in order to offset the costs of taking on older, less-healthy customers. Failure to attract enough younger customers could result in higher premiums for everyone else.
It is possible that many participants could be waiting until the final few days and weeks of the month to enroll -- after March 31, most of those who do not have insurance will be required to pay a penalty. But Republicans were skeptical.
"It seems the president's push to enroll young adults is far too little, too late," Buck said. "The administration won't tell us how many people have actually paid for a plan or how many were previously uninsured. But what we do know is that young adults -- those who the White House repeatedly said are critical -- are deciding the health care law is a bad deal. Now, millions stand to be forced to pay a new tax because of this law."
Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee echoed those concerns, and alleged that the president's recent media appearances "suggest that the administration is panicked as the March 31 deadline fast approaches."
Lawmakers say the numbers are still confusing. Though the administration has reported the number of sign-ups, it has not said how many of those individuals have paid their premiums. Further, the administration has not said how many of those enrolling through the ObamaCare exchanges were previously uninsured.
That figure matters because the health care overhaul was originally pitched as a way to cover the nation's estimated 47 million uninsured. But a newly released study suggested many of those people are not being reached. The study by McKinsey & Co. showed that of the uninsured eligible to sign up for an ObamaCare private plan, just 10 percent said they had done so. Further, it found that just a quarter of those who did sign up for coverage in the marketplaces were previously uninsured. That suggests the bulk of those signing up are simply switching from one plan to another.
HHS and supporters of the health care law countered Republicans' skepticism with a more upbeat view.
"Now that over 4.2 million Americans have enrolled in private coverage through the Health Insurance Marketplace, on top of the millions who have received coverage through Medicaid, more and more Americans are gaining the peace of mind and financial security that comes with having health insurance," Anne Filipic, president of Enroll America, said in a statement. "With 83% of consumers receiving financial assistance to help pay for their plans, quality health care has finally become a reality for millions, and we're confident that enrollment will continue to accelerate as we approach the March 31st deadline for coverage."
While millions are joining through the state and federal insurance exchanges, millions more are signing up through Medicaid. In another wrinkle to emerge from the law's implementation, prison inmates are apparently being signed up via the expanded Medicaid as well.
The New York Times reported this week that jails and prisons are taking advantage of the new Medicaid criteria to cover single, childless inmates for certain hospital stays -- in turn transferring the cost from the states to the federal government. Those individuals can also remain covered once they leave jail or prison.

Administration drops controversial proposed Medicare changes

The Obama administration says it's pulling the plug on proposed changes to the Medicare prescription program that ran into strong opposition on Capitol Hill. 
Among other changes, the regulation proposed to remove three classes of drugs from a special protected list that guarantees seniors access to a wide selection of critical medications. 
The three classes of drugs facing removal were antidepressants, antipsychotics and drugs that suppress the immune system to prevent rejection of a transplanted organ. 
The administration hoped to save a total of $729 million by 2019 with the change. But patient groups including the National Kidney Foundation and the National Alliance on Mental Illness pushed back hard. 
Medicare administrator Marilyn Tavenner said Monday in a letter to Congress that the administration will not move forward with the changes.

Immigration change gives legal status to undocumented relatives of US military

Immigration reform may be stalled in Congress, but a new Obama administration policy is extending legal status and military benefits to thousands of illegal immigrants who are the spouses, parents and children of American military members. 
Supporters say the policy -- which applies to active-duty military, reservists and veterans -- is long overdue. 
"Those veterans and those men and women who serve in the National Guard certainly deserve the peace of mind that their family members will not be deported," immigration attorney Faye Kolly said. 
But critics say the policy is tantamount to backdoor amnesty. 
"A whole class of aliens with no right to be in the United States are suddenly going to be allowed to live and work here on the basis of their relationship with military and veterans," said Dan Cadman, with the Center for Immigration Studies. 
The exemption, called parole in place, came in the form of a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services "policy memorandum." It was not submitted to or approved by Congress, and the regulations were not published in the Federal Register, which allows for public comment prior to a rule taking effect. 
"I don't want to overstate it, but it sounds very similar to imperial decree if you ask me," Cadman said. "The public had no chance to comment on this new policy. I believe the way this was done was illegal." 
Obama administration officials say the new rules do not require congressional action because they're based on existing statutes. 
"It's clearly within the president's authority to enforce the law and choose which immigrants he thinks are the priority," said Brent Wilkes of the League of United Latin American Citizens. "These folks aren't threats. They've got a relative that's serving our nation." 
One face of this new policy is Christian Gonzalez, a retired Marine who has been recommended for a Purple Heart. He was attacked five days in a row by improvised explosive devices (IED's) in Afghanistan. The last one nearly claimed his life. 
"For a brief period, I was paralyzed from the waist down. I suffered a pretty traumatic brain injury from that," said the San Antonio resident, sitting alongside his wife Laura, who was brought to the U.S. illegally as a child. 
"Without her, you know, I'd be lost with my disabilities. Critics only look at her as an illegal alien. They're not looking at her as the spouse of a veteran," he said. 
Christian and Laura met in middle school. He enlisted in the Marines during high school. They got married when he returned from multiple tours in Afghanistan and Iraq. Under the new policy, tens of thousands of illegal aliens like Laura will be offered a green card and legal residency. 
As the wife of a veteran, she would be entitled to his health care, education and survivor benefits, as well as simple things like a Social Security number and driver's license. 
"I'm covered, my kids are covered, but the woman that runs the house, she's not covered. So that's probably the hardest part," Gonzalez said. "Now she'll be able to get a job, go to school. It would make her feel like she contributes more to the family."

‘Gaming the system’? States use trick to undo food stamp cuts

Bailey Comment: "The three states that are doing this crap have a large Democratic majority of Voters."

States are using what critics call a "perverse" legislative maneuver to partly undo congressional cuts to food stamps, despite efforts by some U.S. lawmakers to stop it. 
The Washington Post reported Monday that three states so far are finding a way to avoid or minimize the cuts. The bill passed by Congress last month was supposed to save $8.6 billion over the next decade in food stamps. But New York, Connecticut and Pennsylvania have figured out how to trigger additional spending anyway. 
The trick, as many states have discovered, is for them to devote a relatively modest amount of funding to home-heating assistance. Under the law, states that give a certain amount to families could then qualify those families for additional food stamp money. 
Lawmakers, reportedly concerned that states were "gaming the system," had raised the threshold in the new law -- but states have responded by simply spending more money on home-heating assistance. In turn, this triggers more food stamp funding. 
The move, which supporters hail as a way to keep feeding families in need, also threatens to undermine the savings from the hard-fought farm bill. Fiscal conservatives have long worried that food stamp funding -- formally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program -- has surged to dangerous levels, reaching nearly $80 billion last year. 
According to the Post, it's not clear how long the latest gambit will last. 
"Some states will be able to do it, some states will not be able to. No one knows for how long they'll be able to do it," Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., told the Post. "They have jumped into the breach where the federal government abdicated its responsibility." 
But so far, New York State reportedly raised home-heating spending by $6 million, resulting in an extra $500 million in federal food stamp money. 
Connecticut and Pennsylvania took similar steps. 
Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, told the Post that lawmakers would have expressly prohibited this if they had expected it. He called the move "perverse," despite being legal.

ObamaCare will hasten income inequality, union report says

A new report from a major U.S. union says ObamaCare will hasten income inequality.
Although it defends the intent behind the Affordable Care Act, the report, entitled “The Irony of ObamaCare: Making inequality worse,” concludes that the law will transfer a billion dollars in wealth to insurance companies, uneven the playing field in the market, force employers to cut back on hours and result in pay decreases, Ralston Reports said.
“The promise of Obamacare was the right one and the hope for extending healthcare coverage to the un-and under-insured a step in the right direction,” the report says. “Yet the unintended consequences will hit the average, hard-working American where it hurts: in the wallet.”
The report says it’s “ironic” that the Obama administration is publicly discussing income inequality though it has yet to make the changes to ObamaCare that Unite Here believes are necessary to avoid exacerbating income disparity.
“Having already made efforts to accommodate businesses, churches and congressional staff, it is ironic that the administration is now highlighting issues of economic inequality without acting to preserve health plans that have been achieving the goals of the ACA for decades,” the report concludes. “Without a smart fix, the ACA will heighten the inequality that the Administration seeks to reduce … We cannot sit idly by as the politicians carve up our health plans while they carve out exceptions for themselves and every special interest feeding at the trough in Washington.”
The report comes about three weeks before the enrollment deadline for ObamaCare. While officials say 4 million have signed up for private insurance on the exchanges so far, the program is still short of its unofficial 7 million goal.

Even Obama seems to be losing faith in Obamacare

 

If you’d like the government to change something about Obamacare, give the White House a ring. They’re in a flexible mood.

President Obama this week approved yet another delay to provisions in the Affordable Care Act, giving insurers until 2016 to sell a type of insurance policy that’s supposed to be banned under the health-reform law. The ban, which was supposed to begin this year, would prevent insurers from selling bare-bones plans that might be affordable but don’t abide by 10 “essential service rules” required under the new law.

When insurers began canceling such coverage last year, however, several million Americans were forced off plans they had chosen, with most alternatives being more expensive. That undermined Obama’s frequent claim that “if you like your health insurance, you can keep it,” and turned into one of the most controversial elements of a law that hardly lacks detractors.

In November, Obama announced a one-year delay in the ban on “substandard” plans, as he used to call them. Now, extending the delay to 2016 will “provide consumers with choices so they can decide what is best,” the government says. Yet these limbo plans — temporarily allowed but bound to vanish at some point — defy the whole intent of Obamacare, as if the president is losing faith in his own plan. “This is a political move to minimize the impact of this as an argument against Democratic candidates,” says Sean Nicholson, a management professor at Cornell University.

Obama and his fellow Democrats certainly need some political cover as the November midterm elections approach. Support for the ACA has never risen above 45% and it actually weakened as the law went into effect. A recent Gallup poll shows 23% of Americans say they’ve been hurt by the law, while only 10% say they’ve been helped. That may overstate the ACA’s actual impact — since 16% of people said the ACA harmed them a year before it even went into effect — yet the negative impression alone is a big problem for Democrats who voted for the law and now must defend it as they run for reelection.
People with bare-bones insurance plans tend to be healthy enough to feel comfortable skimping on coverage. Yet it’s critical to get such people to enroll in the new federal program, so the premiums they pay will help offset the cost of older, sicker enrollees. If the ACA exempted everybody who wanted a cheap, limited plan, it could thwart the whole program, since it would include too many costly patients and premiums would be prohibitively high.
Obama now seems to be backing off one of the key planks of the whole reform effort. Yet many of the people “allowed” to keep a substandard plan will be forced to enroll in Obamacare anyway. The pressure, however, comes from three sources other than the federal government:
States. Insurance commissioners in each state must explicitly allow insurers to offer the limbo policies, and only about half of the states have said they will. So people in many states won’t be able to get a limbo plan even though Obama has said they can.

Insurers. Insurance companies spent three years preparing for the onset of Obamacare, including the ban on bare-bones plans. While reinstating old policies might earn them a few extra bucks, it’s also a hassle to cancel policies, then reinstate them only to cancel them again in a couple of years. “I would expect insurers that have already decided not to offer these are not going to change their minds in great numbers,” says Tim Jost, an expert on health law at Washington & Lee University law school.

Healthcare consumers. Bare-bones plans are the type consumers drop most frequently, as they get new jobs that offer better coverage, go onto a spouse’s plan or simply drop their insurance. Since insurers are only allowed to carry over plans that were offered in 2013 — not offer new ones — turnover alone should quickly reduce the number of people who have such plans, diminishing the importance of limbo plans.

The change means Democrats will be able to say Obamacare really does let you keep your insurance plan (wink, wink). But Jost says even that strategy carries risks. “By delaying it until 2016, that means some people might get cancellation notices right before the next presidential election," he says. “That doesn’t seem very smart.”

Of course, Obama could always extend the deadline.

Rick Newman’s latest book is Rebounders: How Winners Pivot From Setback To Success. Follow him on Twitter: @rickjnewman.

 

Issa

‘Game the system’? Nonprofits, including Farrakhan-tied group, enjoy windfall from farm subsidies

Several nonprofits that have little to do with farming or are in poor standing with their local governments have been receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in farm subsidies over the past decade, federal records show.
They include an Islamic charity tied to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, a Midwestern group devoted to waterfowl habitat, and a major conservation group with few farms to its name.
The group tied to Farrakhan, called the Three Year Economic Saving Program, has received nearly $160,000 in farm subsidies since 2002. The program was incorporated on Sept. 12, 2001, and is listed as “Not in Good Standing” by Illinois’s secretary of state.
The program has no record of ever being a charity with the Illinois Attorney General Office, which oversees the state’s 501(c)(3) nonprofits. The program nevertheless funded an operation called Muhammad Farms, purchased by Farrakhan in 1995. While Muhammad Farms consists of about 1,500 acres in Georgia, its farm subsidies are received at Farrakhan’s Chicago home.  
The Savings Program’s goal, according to its website, is “to provide at least one meal per day, according to the teachings of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad for the 40 million black people in America.”
Adam Andrzejewski, founder of OpenTheBooks.com and former Republican candidate for governor of Illinois, questioned the subsidies.
“’Not in good standing’ doesn’t seem to trouble the Cincinnati office of the IRS,” he said. “Why is Farrakhan’s charity allowed to receive federal money? This is no longer about farm policy, it’s merely a transfer mechanism from one set of Americans who pay taxes to another set who know how to game the system.”
OpenTheBooks.com displays taxpayer dollars given to the charity since 2008, and FoxNews.com reviewed raw data since 1995 in the database run by Andrzejewski’s group. 
The Savings Program has been listed as “Not in Good Standing” since September of last year. According to the Office of the Illinois Secretary of State, the nonprofit was “involuntarily" dissolved by the State of Illinois on Feb. 1 following its failure to file an annual report within six months of its due date. “Sooner or later, the [Illinois] Department of Revenue will catch up with them during tax time,” said an employee of the Illinois Secretary of State’s Business Services office, who commented on the condition of anonymity. The employee could not comment on the legality of the program’s continued acceptance of donations under the auspices of being a 501(c)(3).
As with other nonprofits accepting subsidies, they ostensibly benefit from their government status in two ways – both by receiving the subsidies and by enjoying tax-exempt status.
The Muhammad Farms website says supporters can donate “tax deductible contributions” to the Three Year Economic Saving Program. Yet the IRS’s public database of 990 forms (which can prove a nonprofit’s tax-exempt status) shows no such listing for either Muhammad Farms, the Nation of Islam or the Three Year Program. Some religious organizations are exempt from filing 990 forms, which may allow the Three Year Economic Program to evade disclosing its assets. Through the Freedom of Information Act, nonprofits are required to provide the past three years’ 990 forms on request, and the Nation of Islam has not returned calls requesting the forms or comment.
The Southern Poverty Law Center calls the Nation of Islam a “black separatist group” and Farrakhan’s rhetoric “deeply racist, anti-Semitic and anti-gay,” stating that the Nation of Islam’s theology includes “innate black superiority over whites.”
Chicago Ducks
About $3.4 million in taxpayer funds have gone to foundations based in Chicago that seek to conserve waterfowl at the Putnam County, Ill., Dixon Waterfowl Refuge. Since 2001, seven waterfowl habitat foundations have received roughly $50,000 per year. Each foundation is an arm of the Wetlands Initiative, a program that, according to its website, is “dedicated to restoring the wetland resources of the Midwest.” 
Each of the seven separate foundations is run out of the same downtown Chicago high-rise office, has the same agent, shares the same IRS 990 filer and receives subsidies from the same USDA county office. Subsidies flow from the Putnam USDA office because the money goes to a waterfowl refuge overseen by the Wetlands Initiative in the same county.
The seven foundations are each dedicated in name to the Pintail, Ringbill, Blue-Wing Teal, Green-Wing Teal, Wood, Mallard and Gadwall ducks— none of which are endangered. Each of these ducks’ situations is labeled “of the least concern” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.  Only two of these ducks are in the Midwest year-round; the other five migrate briefly through the Midwest or are there for one season annually at most.
According the finance manager of the Wetlands Initiative, the seven foundations are named for ducks seen at Hennepin’s Dixon Waterfowl Reservation, which is owned nearly entirely by the seven foundations, and their subsidies are set to expire in October 2015. The Ringbill Habitat Foundation, according to the manager, has the most assets as it owns the most land. The finance manager did not respond to questions regarding why there are seven foundations, and not one.   
Group Compensated for Lamb Slaughter, Tobacco Loss
The National Audubon Society, a conservation-focused nonprofit headquartered in downtown Manhattan, has pulled in hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years in federal payments.
The society is the largest recipient of farm subsidies in New York’s SoHo neighborhood, having collected roughly $763,000 over the last decade.
The group’s payment recipients span eight states. Since 1995, about 90 percent of the foundation’s $932,801 in farm subsidy payments have gone to conservation, while about $114,000 was dedicated to crop and livestock payments.
The National Audubon Society’s benefits include crop payments for corn, barley, oats, sorghum, soybeans, cotton, wheat, oilseed, burley and sunflowers. The foundation received a $30 lamb meat slaughter subsidy in 2003 and has received $576 for tobacco loss assistance since 1995. The tobacco loss assistance program was introduced to help farmers regain money lost due to slashed U.S. tobacco quotas and acreage.  
In the eight states the payments flow to, just one farm affiliated with the society could be found during a review by FoxNews.com. Dayton, Ohio’s, Aullwood Farm has received no more than $3,224 of the $114,000 in payments since 1995. The farm does raise lamb, which could explain the lamb slaughter subsidy.  The farm also raises grass crops, which could cover some, but not all, of the payments the National Audubon Society has received.
The Minnesota chapter of the Society has received over $6,000 in various payments over the last decade, but the National Audubon site does not list any centers or sanctuaries in the state.
According to its 990 form, the foundation’s 26 “key employees” are collectively compensated with more than $8 million each year. The society’s president earns a salary of over $460,000.
The National Audubon Society did not return requests for comment.

ObamaCare in peril? Questionable sign-ups, delays mar launch

Three weeks out from the ObamaCare enrollment deadline, the president's signature health care law is facing ever-increasing challenges which go far beyond the program's troubled exchange websites. 
Raising questions whether it's a crippled law that's near impossible to implement along its mandated timetable, key elements of the act continue to unilaterally be pushed off by the administration. Lawmakers are raising concerns about the security of the ObamaCare websites, even as the many "glitches" that blocked would-be enrollees are fixed. 
And at the heart of the Affordable Care Act's problems is the question of whether it will do what President Obama said -- cover a large swath of the country's 47 million uninsured. 
The numbers the administration is using to tout its progress to that end are coming under the microscope. While officials say 4 million have signed up for private insurance on the exchanges so far -- still short of the unofficial 7 million goal by the end of March -- it's unclear how many of them were previously uninsured. 
A new pair of studies suggests not very many, meaning Obama's target audience largely has not been reached. 
A startling study by McKinsey & Co. showed that of the uninsured eligible to sign up for an ObamaCare private plan, just 10 percent said they had done so. Further, it found that just a quarter of those who did sign up for coverage in the marketplaces were previously uninsured. That suggests the bulk of those signing up are simply switching from one plan to another, some facing higher premiums in the process. 
Further, the administration apparently has no idea how successful the program is when it comes to the core goal of signing up the uninsured. The National Journal reported that Gary Cohen, the health official at the helm of the insurance marketplaces who will soon be stepping down, said the administration is not really tracking that. 
"That's not a data point that we are really collecting in any sort of systematic way," Cohen reportedly said. 
Health agency spokesman Aaron Albright told Fox News on Friday that they are now "looking at a range of data sources" to figure that out. 
Reports of slow sign-ups and rising premiums have only emboldened Republicans fighting against the law. Four years after its passage, the law's defeat was still the central rallying cry at the Conservative Political Action Conference in suburban Washington this week. 
"When ObamaCare was debated in Congress, we screamed from the rooftops that it just wouldn't work -- that it would be a job killer; that it would absolutely make health care more expensive and less accessible for millions of Americans," Sen John Cornyn, R-Texas, said Friday at the conference. "We were accused of somehow being heartless and misinformed. But now, four years later, our predictions have come true." 
The other chunk of ObamaCare-related sign-ups comes from Medicaid, which was expanded under the health care law. But while the administration recently touted that nearly 9 million were found eligible since the October launch, new estimates show just about 3 million of them were newly registered because of the health care law. 
The central concern at this stage is whether the insurance industry is seeing enough sign-ups -- insurers were relying on an infusion of young and healthy customers in order to offset the cost of insuring everyone else and complying with other provisions in the law. 
Without the proper mix of customers, premiums could rise. Asked about the McKinsey study, America's Health Insurance Plans spokesman Robert Zirkelbach said that what "ultimately matters" is who signs up, not necessarily how many sign up. 
Meanwhile, other implementation problems threaten to exacerbate the industry's concerns. 
The administration this week announced that it would let people keep plans that would otherwise be out of compliance for another two years. This was an extension of a "fix" Obama made for all those whose policies were canceled, after he was accused of misleading voters in claiming anyone who liked their health plan could keep it. 
But that potentially deprives insurers of even more revenue. Insurance industry consultant Robert Laszewski reportedly said this week that insurers are "very worried" now about the sign-ups. 
Hanging over all of these implementation problems is the 2014 midterm elections, and a sizeable group of Democrats nervous about the law's more unpopular provisions going into that vote. 
Lead among them would be the individual mandate requiring people to buy insurance. In the latest dose of bad news, The Wall Street Journal reported that, according to the Tax Policy Center, the penalty for not buying insurance could be a lot higher than the $95 fine Americans usually hear about. 
The House voted Wednesday to delay the tax penalty for one year, with more than two-dozen Democrats supporting the bill. 
In another looming confrontation, House Republicans plan to tie the so-called "doc fix" to a decade-long postponement of the mandate. The "doc fix" is a semi-routine patch by Congress to prevent doctors from seeing a massive cut in their Medicare reimbursement rate. The current one runs out at the end of this month. 
A spokesman for House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi called the GOP plan a "new low."

How much did YOUR vote count?

How much did YOUR vote count? Because of the Electoral College, a vote from Wyoming is worth 3.8 times as much as a vote from California. This table shows a state by state comparison of the power of each vote. The column on the right represents how much a vote is worth, compared to how much it would be worth if all votes were treated equally. Note, if the United States simply used the Popular Vote to decide elections, all the numbers in the right column would be "1.00".

State	Population	Electors	People Per Elector	Vote Power
Wyoming	479602	3	159867	3.17
D.C	519000	3	173000	2.93
Vermont	593740	3	197913	2.56
Alaska	619500	3	206500	2.45
North Dakota	633666	3	211222	2.40
South Dakota	733133	3	244378	2.07
Rhode Island	990819	4	247705	2.05
Delaware	753538	3	251179	2.02
Montana	882779	3	294260	1.72
Hawaii	1185497	4	296374	1.71
New Hampshire	1201134	4	300284	1.69
Idaho	1251700	4	312925	1.62
Maine	1253040	4	313260	1.62
Nebraska	1666028	5	333206	1.52
New Mexico	1739844	5	347969	1.46
West Virginia	1806928	5	361386	1.40
Mississippi	2768619	7	395517	1.28
Iowa	2869413	7	409916	1.24
Connecticut	3282031	8	410254	1.24
Oklahoma	3358044	8	419756	1.21
Arkansas	2551373	6	425229	1.19
Utah	2129836	5	425967	1.19
Kansas	2654052	6	442342	1.15
Nevada	1809253	4	452313	1.12
Oregon	3316154	7	473736	1.07
Wisconsin	5250446	11	477313	1.06
Minnesota	4775508	10	477551	1.06
Alabama	4369862	9	485540	1.04
South Carolina	3885736	8	485717	1.04
Louisiana	4372035	9	485781	1.04
Kentucky	3960825	8	495103	1.02
Indiana	5942901	12	495242	1.02
Missouri	5468338	11	497121	1.02
Tennessee	5483535	11	498503	1.02
Colorado	4056133	8	507017	1.00
Massachusetts	6175169	12	514597	0.98
Maryland	5171634	10	517163	0.98
Pennsylvania	11994016	23	521479	0.97
Washington	5756361	11	523306	0.97
Virginia	6872912	13	528686	0.96
Ohio	11256654	21	536031	0.95
New Jersey	8143412	15	542894	0.93
North Carolina	7650789	14	546485	0.93
Michigan	9863775	18	547988	0.92
Illinois	12128370	22	551290	0.92
New York	18196601	33	551412	0.92
Arizona	4778332	8	597292	0.85
Georgia	7788240	13	599095	0.85
Florida	15111244	25	604450	0.84
California	33145121	54	613796	0.83
Texas	20044141	32	626379	0.81

The way the "vote power" column was calculated is as follows. The United States has a population of 272,690,813. (Population numbers are taken from the US Census 1999 estimate, from this page.) Since there are 538 Electors in the Electoral College, the average Elector represents about 506,860. The large (in population) states are given approximately about as many Electors as is proportionate to their population. However, the smaller states are given up to 3 times as many Electors as they should get if they were handed out proportionately to their population. If you divide they average number of People Per Elector (506,860) by the People Per Elector from a particular state, you get the number of effective votes per person for that state. For example, from Wyoming, divide 506,860 by 159,867 and you see that a vote from Wyoming is worth about 3.17 times as much as the average American's vote.
An alternate way to do the calculation would be to divide the percent of the Electoral Vote the state takes up by the percent of the national population it takes up. Wyoming makes up 3/538 of the Electoral College, or about 0.558%. However, it only makes up (479,602 / 272,690,813) = 0.176% of the national vote. Divide those two numbers and you see that Wyoming's voters count (0.558% / 0.176%) = 3.17 times as much as they should if all votes were treated equally. Either way you do the calculation, you should get the same answer.
Is this fair?
Is it fair that 0.176% of the population (Wyoming) gets 0.558% voting power of who gets to be the next president? Or how about the people of California, who make up 12% of the country, but only get 10% of the Electoral Votes?
Winning the Popular Vote by 13% and still losing the election
Based on the fact that the Electoral College makes some Americans' votes more than others (votes from smaller states are generally worth more than votes from larger states), it is possible for one Candidate A to get 56.5% of the popular vote and still lose to Candidate B, who only got 43.5%.
Let's say Candidate A wins eleven of the most populous states: Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Florida, New York, Texas, and California. These states represent 56.5% of the population (154,051,863 people), but only 268 Electoral College votes. Candidate B wins the rest of the states (including D.C.), which represent 43.5% of the population (118,638,950 people) and 270 Electoral College votes, giving him (or her) the election.
Candidate A - 56.5% of popular vote, 268 Electoral Votes
Candidate B - 43.5% of popular vote, 270 Electoral Votes
Is it fair that someone could win the Popular Vote by a 13% margin and still lose the election?

Even Worse: Winning the Popular Vote by 56.5% and still losing the election
If we take into account that each state gives ALL of their Electoral Votes to a single candidate, even when he wins by a single vote, things get even worse. If Candidate B won Wyoming by a single vote (239,801 to 239,800) he would still get all 3 of Wyoming's Electors. Assuming this happened in all of Candidate B's states (winning each one by 50.001%), and assuming Candidate A won all of his states 100% to nothing, the margin gets a lot bigger. Candidate A could get 78.25% of the Popular Vote and still lose, compared to Candidate B's only 21.75%.
Candidate A - 78.25% of popular vote, 268 Electoral Votes
Candidate B - 21.75% of popular vote, 270 Electoral Votes
Does it seem fair that someone could win the Popular Vote by a 56.5% margin and still lose the election? Candidate A could get more than THREE TIMES as many popular votes as Candidate B and still LOSE the election. Does this seem like equal protection under the law?

Election 2000
Right now Gore leads by over 250,000 votes in the Popular Vote, but Bush could win the Electoral Vote if Florida goes his way. In the example above, the candidate who won by 56.5% of the Popular Vote still lost the election. With Candidate B winning even though the popular vote was 21.75% to 78.25%, THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE was CLEARLY disregarded. The votes of the extra 56.5% of the population who voted for Candidate A were not heard because of the unfair way the votes are counted into the Electoral College. Those voters were cheated, and their votes were not treated fairly. While not nearly as extreme as this example, the extra 250,000 people (about 1% of the population) who voted for Gore were also cheated, because their votes were not treated equally. Not unless the votes are given equal power, and every American voter is given equal protection under the law, is the will of the people honored.
This Electoral College analysis was done by Robert Glen.

'Reunited' Tea Party activists mount battle against IRS at CPAC

OXON HILL, Md. –  The IRS targeting scandal may have faded from the headlines of major newspapers, but Tea Party groups renewed their battle cry against the tax agency on Thursday as the Conservative Political Action Conference got underway. 
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, kicked off CPAC -- the annual conservative pilgrimage just outside the nation's capital -- by telling a crowd of the GOP faithful, "We need to abolish the IRS." 
"By virtue of your being here today, tomorrow each and every one of you is going to be audited by the IRS," he said.
Following his speech, a six-person panel discussion, titled "IRS Targeting Scandal: Protecting the Voice of the People," served as a refresher course for the standing-room-only crowd packed into the Maryland meeting room.
The purpose, panelists told FoxNews.com, was to come together and share stories about what they say are abusive targeting practices of conservative groups at the hands of the tax-collecting agency.
But for Bill Norton, head of the Tea Party Patriots, the actions of the IRS go beyond harassing conservatives. He says the actions of the government agency trample on the First Amendment rights of everyone.
"Freedom of speech is very essential," Norton said. "It's not about the Tea Party targeting but about targeting free speech."
Panelist Jordan Sekulow, executive director of the American Center for Law and Justice, said the IRS scandal has "united and reunited this movement ... standing up against the IRS."
"People used to not speak out commonly against the IRS," he said. "Victory, part one, is that we are calling out the IRS and we can do that for the first time together."
Sekulow also raised the possibility that the newest plot twist involving Lois Lerner -- the ex-IRS official who first publicly acknowledged the targeting -- smacks of a government cover-up. 
During a House hearing on Wednesday, Lerner once again invoked her Fifth Amendment right not to testify. Last year, Lerner also refused to answer questions about her role in singling out conservative groups for extra scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status.
The mystery of her refusal to testify for a second time is what Seklow says is disconcerting.
"We already know Lois Lerner is at the center of this," he said. "She is not going to be able to talk her way out of it. But how high up does this go?"
He added, "There are lots of people involved but at the end of the day, she decided not to testify. Something happened. What happened?"
At times. the crowd clapped, cheered and expressed anger as Kevin Kookogey, founder and president of Linchpins of Liberty, detailed his story at the hands of the IRS.
Kookogey, said the tax agency slow-walked his application for 501(c)(3) status. He says what should have taken two to four months stretched out over 35 months and ended up costing him a $30,000 grant. He said he also lost 75 percent of his business because his clients did not want to associate with someone being looked at by "the largest and most intimidating organization in the world."
Eventually, he said, he did get his application approved but "it was like a lifeguard had tossed a preserve to a swimmer who had already drowned."

Fox News poll: 67 percent would vote out all current lawmakers

Most voters would oust all current members of Congress -- including their own senators and representative -- if given the opportunity, the latest Fox News poll finds.
By a 67-26 percent margin, voters would kick everybody on Capitol Hill to the curb and replace them with new people. That includes two-thirds of Democrats, Republicans and independents.
The result is perhaps not so surprising, given how voters feel about lawmakers these days: just 12 percent approve of the job Congress is doing, while 78 percent disapprove.
READ THE FULL POLL RESULTS
Congress received a record-low 9 percent approval rating in October 2013.
Democratic candidates hold a slim two-percentage point advantage when voters are asked about their preference for Congress this year.
Forty percent of voters would back the Democratic candidate in their House district if the election were held today, versus 38 percent who would vote for the Republican.
"I don't want to go all Jimmy Carter on everyone, but there does seem to be a general malaise amongst the electorate," says Republican pollster Daron Shaw, who conducts the Fox News poll with Democratic pollster Chris Anderson. "This may help Republicans in the fall, but based on the economic evaluations, the generic ballot, and ratings of prominent Republicans, right now voters give both President Obama and the GOP the thumbs down."
The parties have been close on this generic ballot test in recent months. Republicans had a two-point edge in January, and in December it was tied.
The small Democratic advantage of the moment does not include a coat-tails effect from Obama. Overall, 44 percent of voters say they would be less likely to support a candidate if Obama campaigns for them, while 31 percent would be more likely to back him or her.
Independents are more than twice as likely to vote against (45 percent) a candidate Obama campaigns for rather than support that candidate (18 percent).
It’s the same story for former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney: voters would be less likely to vote for a candidate he supports by 14 points (41-27 percent).
Texas Senator Ted Cruz, a Republican, is also no vote magnet: by an 8-point margin voters would be less likely to vote for a candidate he backs (26-18 percent), while 38 percent say it wouldn’t matter to their vote.
The only person tested who would do more good than harm for a candidate is former President Bill Clinton. Forty percent of voters say they would be more likely to vote for a candidate he backed, while 31 percent say less likely.
When it comes to issues, 43 percent of voters say they would be less likely to support a candidate who backs the health care law, while 30 percent would be more likely. Another 25 percent say it wouldn’t matter to their vote.
The Fox News poll is based on landline and cell phone interviews with 1,002 randomly chosen registered voters nationwide and was conducted under the joint direction of Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R) from March 2 to March 4, 2014. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points for the total sample.

GOP lawmakers fight Dem push to punish Issa for IRS hearing actions

House Republicans are fending off aggressive efforts by Democrats to punish Rep. Darrell Issa for cutting off Dem. Rep. Elijah Cummings during a heated hearing on the IRS targeting scandal.
House Republicans are fending off aggressive efforts by Democrats to punish Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., for cutting off a Democratic congressman during a heated hearing on the IRS targeting scandal.
The House voted Thursday afternoon to block a resolution that would formally chastise the chairman of the House oversight committee for his conduct at Wednesday's hearing.
The vote was along party lines, 211-186, with 10 members voting present. Ohio Democratic Rep. Marcia Fudge, chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, had offered the resolution, which called Issa's behavior "offensive and disrespectful."
Fudge also penned a letter to House Speaker John Boehner urging the speaker to strip Issa of his chairmanship "immediately."
"Congressman Darrell Issa of California abused his authority and therefore must be reprimanded to ensure the dignity of the House of Representatives is preserved," Fudge wrote, calling him a "disgrace."
Boehner, though, brushed off the Democratic complaints.
"Mr. Issa was within his rights to adjourn the hearing when he did," Boehner said.
Issa shut down the committee hearing on Wednesday when the IRS official at the center of the scandal involving targeting of conservative groups, Lois Lerner, again invoked the Fifth Amendment when asked a series of questions.
In doing so, Issa cut off Maryland Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings' microphone as Cummings, the panel's top Democrat, continued to speak.
"You cannot just have a one-sided investigation," Cummings shouted. "There is absolutely something wrong with that. That is absolutely un-American."
Issa, though, defended his actions and told reporters after the hearing: "He was not directing questions toward the witness and the committee [had] already adjourned."
He later told Fox News that Cummings "was simply endlessly slandering the efforts of the committee."
Members of both parties, though, have apparently criticized Issa's actions.
During a press conference on Thursday, Cummings said several Republicans on the committee apologized to him for Issa's actions.
A senior House Republican aide told Fox News that "Issa needs to learn self-control. Now all of our members have to defend his poor actions."
Some of the Democratic criticism, though, has become increasingly personal.   
Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz linked cutting the microphone to oppression in Venezuela and Ukraine.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson called Issa's behavior "crude, wrong, racist and mean."
Issa and Cummings are not yet back on speaking terms.

Congressional investigators to probe troubled state ObamaCare exchanges

The investigative arm of Congress on Wednesday agreed to look into problems with state health exchange websites around the country.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office accepted an initial request from a group of House Republicans seeking an audit on how $304 million in federal grants were spent on the Cover Oregon website, which has yet to enroll a single person online without special assistance.
The agency said due to similar requests from several members of Congress and congressional committees related to the rollout of online health care exchanges, it would broaden the investigation and issue several separate reports on its findings.
GAO spokesman Charles Young said just which states will be included with Oregon will be determined as the investigation goes forward. But 14 states and the District of Columbia opted to create their own exchanges and accepted federal funding to do so.
Republicans have been stepping up their attacks on troubled health exchanges during this election year, but Rep. Greg. Walden, R-Ore., said it was a non-partisan issue.
He noted Oregon Democratic Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley made their own requests for the GAO to investigate a day after the Republicans -- Walden, House Committee on Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton of Michigan, and Reps. Joe Pitts and Tim Murphy of Pennsylvania -- filed theirs last month.
"The politics will play out where they may, good or bad," Walden said. "That doesn't mean you don't ask questions. We need to get answers."
Merkley said in a statement that he looked forward to the GAO's recommendations "about how to fix the system and avoid this happening in the future."
Cover Oregon spokesman Michael Cox said, "We will participate fully with the GAO as they conduct their work."
Walden added that the probe of state websites would "piggyback nicely" on another GAO look at the federal health exchange website, which has already begun.
Separately, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has asked for an inspector general's investigation into problems with the rollout of the health care law.
Some of the state exchanges have outperformed the federal exchange website, but others have trailed behind and faced significant challenges, including expensive fixes to glitches and lower projected enrollments.
In addition to Oregon, where residents on their own still can't sign up for coverage in one sitting, the exchanges in Maryland, Hawaii, Massachusetts and Minnesota have faced major problems.
Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, called the investigation a political stunt.
"With House Republicans voting today for the 50th time to repeal the Affordable Care Act, it is disappointing but not surprising that Republicans are now using federal government resources to investigate state health exchanges instead of finding a productive way to help Americans access health care," Schatz said in an emailed comment.
States with successful exchanges include Connecticut, Rhode Island, Kentucky and New York. Connecticut, which has far exceeded its enrollment goals for the open enrollment period, is setting up a consulting business and marketing an "exchange in a box" to other states.
Cover Oregon's online enrollment system was supposed to launch in October, allowing individuals and small businesses to compare insurance plans and qualify for federal tax credits to subsidize the premiums. It wasn't ready, however, forcing people to fill out a lengthy paper application that would have to be processed by hand. Pieces of the website are now working and some portions of the processing are automated, but significant problems still exist.
Republicans have contended problems were known for months before the launch. Gov. John Kitzhaber, a Democrat, has acknowledged mistakes were made but denies having prior knowledge of problems that kept the website from launching on time.
Other questions raised by the Republican request, crafted in consultation with the GAO, include:
-- What capability does the federal government have to reclaim those funds if Oregon abandons the state-run exchange and joins the federal one?
-- What other costs has Oregon incurred because of the website's failure?
-- Did Cover Oregon's status as a state organization play a role in its failure?
-- What steps could federal agencies have taken to assure state and federal oversight of projects like this in the future.
The Wyden-Merkley request asks more questions:
-- How were the federal funds used, including job creation, public and private contractors, software developers, and consumer education?
-- What efforts to enroll people outside the website have been successful, and what can be done to expand enrollment ahead of the March 31 deadline?
-- If taxpayer funds were mismanaged, can the federal government reclaim grant funds from contractors?
-- Was there anything in the Affordable Care Act that Cover Oregon did not respond to in its creation?
-- What can Oregon do to most quickly and efficiently overcome Cover Oregon's problems and enroll more people?

Budget proposal won’t tame debt, interest would soon exceed military spending

President Obama's latest budget proposal paints a troubling picture of America's fiscal future. 
Here's a startling snapshot:   
-- By 2024, the total national debt would rise from $17.4 trillion to nearly $25 trillion.
-- By 2020, U.S. taxpayers would be paying more in interest on the debt than they would on the entire Defense budget.
-- By 2017, those interest payments would be bigger than the budget for Medicaid.
Despite Democratic claims that President Obama has tackled the deficit, the numbers give a sense of what fiscal hawks -- who have not given up their fight despite an election-year aversion to dealing with the debt -- are so worried about.
"We can't let election-year malaise be an excuse for inaction on such an important issue," Maya MacGuineas, of the Fix the Debt Campaign, said in a statement.
White House officials appear to be declaring a victory of sorts over the deficit -- which is the annual budget shortfall. A White House statement touted the fact that "the deficit has been cut in half as a share of the economy" under Obama.
It is true that under the budget blueprint, the 2015 deficit would shrink to $564 billion from $649 billion this year. That's a sharp fall from year after year of $1 trillion-plus deficits during Obama's first term.
But even when the deficit shrinks, the national debt -- which basically is the nation's ultra-platinum credit card tab -- will continue to grow. A lot.
And every year the debt grows, the interest on that debt also grows, crowding out needed funding for everything from the military to education to infrastructure to entitlements.
Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., said he's concerned that the fastest-growing part of the budget may actually be the interest.
"We are not going to be able to sustain the safety net that we have in this country with this kind of debt," he told Fox News, warning of a "super-sized" government whose budget "will never balance."
Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, said the president's proposal will continue to inflict "an excruciating financial toll."
According to White House budget documents, the proposal shows the interest on the debt rising from $223 billion this year to more than $800 billion a decade from now.
What startles lawmakers is how that rapid rise compares with other parts of the budget.
The proposal shows the Defense budget shrinking from $612 billion today to $583 billion in 2020. That same year, the interest on the debt would soar past $600 billion. Soon, it would begin to crowd out other vital areas of the budget as well.
In arguing that the budget plan represents "fiscal responsibility," Obama administration officials point to a select stat -- the percentage the deficit or debt represents as a share of the economy. The White House budget documents show that percentage, in both cases, dipping over the next decade. Sylvia Mathews Burwell, director of the Office of Management and Budget, referred to this as "stabilizing our debt-to-GDP ratio."
But that assumes the economy will not fall victim to another recession. And even when the percentage drops, the debt total keeps rising.
"Although debt would decline as a share of GDP under the president's budget, it will be far too high and could be even higher if the economy doesn't grow as the president hopes or other assumptions in the budget prove to be too optimistic," MacGuineas said.
Many members of Congress, though, have been just as reluctant as members of the administration to take on tough long-term talks about tackling the debt. Past talks between Obama and Republican leaders like House Speaker John Boehner failed to produce a so-called "grand bargain," leaving both sides feeling burned by the effort. Republicans blame Democrats for pursuing tax increases and shielding some entitlement spending, while Democrats blame Republicans for their stalwart opposition to most tax hikes.
The White House says that it will nevertheless push for some savings in the budget plan, including $402 billion in "health savings" and $650 billion from proposed tax reform over the next decade.
Congress is likely to go its own way on the budget all the same, but the current fiscal trajectory is not much different than the one Obama proposes.

Red Line

Megyn Kelly: “Why Hasn’t Obama Been Impeached?”

In what could prove to be a major turning point in the mainstream media, Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly is now the first TV anchor to openly suggest that President Barack Obama should be impeached.
Her comments came during an interview with Senator Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in which they were discussing Obama’s presidential power grab and selective application of the law.

100 Years A Slave

Kerry says West will respond to Putin's 'aggression,' will travel to Kiev for talks

Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday outlined the far-reaching responses the United States and Western allies are considering for Russian President Vladimir Putin's “incredible act of aggression" in Ukraine, including economic sanctions and efforts to reduce Russia’s status as a world power.
“It’s an incredible act of aggression,” Kerry told CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “It is really a stunning, willful choice by President Putin to invade another country.”
Kerry announced Sunday that he's traveling to Kiev on Tuesday for diplomatic talks. The United States’ top diplomat added that Western powers are fully prepared to isolate Russia for its military incursion into Ukraine. Among the potential responses he outlined were bans on visas, freezing assets, penalties on trade and investment, and a boycott of the Russian-hosted, G-8  economic summit in June.
He even hinted at the removal of Russia from the list of powerful G-8 countries -- the U.S., Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia.
Putin is "not going to have a Sochi G-8,” Kerry told NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “He may not even remain in the G-8 if this continues. … He’s going to lose on the international stage.”
Kerry’s response follows Russia on Friday sending troops into Ukraine’s Crimea region, amid months of political upheaval in that country that included residents in late February ousting President Viktor Yanukovych.
Kerry said Putin should respect the democratic process through which the Ukrainian people ousted the pro-Russian president and assembled a new government.
President Obama said Friday that the U.S. “will stand with the international community in affirming that there will be costs for any military intervention in Ukraine.”
He pressed his case the next day in a 90-minute phone call with Putin, calling Russia's actions "a clear violation" of Ukraine's sovereignty and asking for his forces to pull back, according to the White House.
However, the situation appeared to worsen by Sunday with Ukraine's new prime minister warning his country is "on the brink of disaster," as hundreds of armed men in trucks and armored vehicles surrounded a Ukrainian military base in Crimea.
Despite Kerry’ strong words Sunday, the Obama administration faces a difficult challenge in finding a response that might deter Putin, who argues the turmoil in neighboring Ukraine poses real threats to the life and health of Russian citizens living there and that Moscow has the right to protect them.
Still, Kerry suggested Putin’s stated motive is a "trumped-up pretext." 
He also said he spoke on Saturday with foreign ministers from the Group of Eight countries and a few other nations, and "every single one of them are prepared to go to the hilt in order to isolate Russia" because of the invasion.
And he suggested American companies "may well want to start thinking twice about whether they want to do business with a country that behaves like this."
Kerry also said the administration was ready to provide economic assistance "of a major sort" to Ukraine.
He made clear that a military response to counter Russia's action was unlikely.
"The last thing anybody wants is a military option," said Kerry, who was also interviewed on ABC's "This Week." "We want a peaceful resolution through the normal processes of international relations."
The U.S. and Europe are not obligated to come to Ukraine's defense because it does not have full-member status in NATO. Broader international action through the United Nations seems all but impossible because of Russia's veto power as a permanent member of the Security Council.
Kerry tried to frame the crisis as broader than U.S. versus Russia or East versus West. "We're not trying to make this a Cold War," he said. It's about Ukrainians "fighting against the tyranny of having political opposition put in jail."
The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Issa, House GOP investigative committee say Lerner will testify in IRS scandal hearing

Former Internal Revenue Service official Lois Lerner, a central figure in the IRS scandal, will appear before Congress on Wednesday after refusing to testify last year on the matter, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said Sunday.
Issa, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, told “Fox News Sunday” that Lerner’s lawyers have indicated she will testify before his committee, after saying last week that she would not.
“It’s going to be a good, fact-finding hearing,” he said.
Issa said he didn’t know why Lerner’s lawyers changed their mind, but suggested Lerner testifying was “in her best interest,” considering the recent evidence the committee had gathered.
Later in the day, Lerner attorney William W. Taylor disputed Issa’s claim, saying his client would not testify.
“As of now, she intends to continue to assert her Fifth Amendment rights,” Taylor told Politico. “I do not know why Issa said what he said.”
Taylor’s statement was follow by a release from the oversight committee that stated Taylor had confirmed in writing that his client is willing to testify but wants to delay the hearing by one week.
“We have informed Mr. Taylor that Ms. Lerner may make her request for a delay on Wednesday when she appears for the hearing,” said committee spokesman Frederick Hill.
Issa and Lerner’s attorneys also have argued about whether she is protected under the Fifth Amendment from having to testify.
In May 2013, Lerner invoked the amendment right during her first-and-only appearance before the House committee, but only after she said during an opening statement that she broke no laws.
Lerner resigned last year from her post as the agency’s director of tax-exempt organizations.
The House committee continues to investigate the IRS in its 2012 targeting of Tea Party groups and other politically conservative organizations trying to get tax-exempt status.
Congressional investigators are trying to determine who exactly gave the orders for IRS agents to target the groups.
Issa said Sunday that Lerner was “in a powerful position and could have been acting alone.” Congressional documents also suggest that she was under political pressure to orchestrate the targeting.
However, safeguards against such situations should have been in place and Congress should work to put in “more checks and balances,” he also said.
Last week, Lerner attorney William Taylor said his client would testify on Capitol Hill only if compelled by a federal court or if given immunity for the testimony.
Taylor stated his position in a letter to Issa. He was responding to a letter Tuesday from Issa saying, in part, that Lerner’s testimony remains “critical to the committee’s investigation.”

Disincentivizing Work and Hurting Seniors: The Reality of Obama's Agenda

As we enter March, the nightmare that is Obamacare continues to seek and destroy the pocketbooks of hardworking Americans.
Just recently, Americans have learned that the law will "reduce the American workforce by the equivalent of 2 million full-time workers in 2017," according to a report from the Congressional Budget Office.
The Obama Administration, quick to dismiss the CBO's report, said it is "subject to misinterpretation." However, President Obama has previously cited the CBO to generate support for his healthcare bill, and subsequently warned about those who "now suddenly are ignoring what the CBO says."
Strange how the Obama Administration's support for the non-partisan office simply vanished once it was determined that Obamacare "creates a disincentive to work."
We have also learned other ways that Obamacare negatively impacts the employment outlook in this country. For starters, a small business owner recently profiled in The Wall Street Journal said that "she doesn't plan to hire more workers since it would create an administrative burden for eventually complying with the law."
Additionally, The New York Times reported last week that "Cities, counties, public schools and community colleges around the country have limited or reduced the work hours of part-time employees to avoid having to provide them with health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, state and local officials say."
These stories offer a glimpse into how the Affordable Care Act is really affecting everyday Americans' employment opportunities; even if Harry Reid thinks these stories are "untrue."
These data have demonstrated that the Obama Administration does not deserve the American people's trust when it comes to healthcare, and this dupery is found in their policies towards America's seniors as well.
As former CBO Director (there's that pesky CBO again!) Douglas Holtz-Eakin recently chronicled, "Obamacare financed its assault on existing insurance arrangements in part by $156 billion over 10 years in direct cuts to Medicare Advantage plans."
This is bad news for America's seniors.
Per Holtz-Eakin's group, the American Action Forum, millions of seniors will be subject to plan cancellations, fewer plan options, higher premiums, reduced doctor networks and higher overall out-of-pocket costs for Medicare benefits as a result of these cuts.
Seniors will be exposed to even more risk from the disruption caused by President Obama to Medicare Part D. Milliman recently calculated that "Up to 50% of Part D plan choices may be eliminated or materially changed during 2015 and 2016 based on provisions in the Proposed Rule using assumptions derived from survey responses."
It's not fair to American seniors that their healthcare is raided by the Left in order to help pay for the failed program that is Obamacare. The disastrous policy ideas from liberals have shown that they don't work in real life. Here we have a great opportunity for conservatives to show the American people smart policy that helps lowers costs, improves access and actually helps their everyday lives.
Follow John Murray on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jmurraydc

Key vote postponed for controversial Justice nominee Adegbile

The Senate has postponed a key vote Monday on the controversial nominee to head the Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department, Fox News has learned.
Supporters of nominee Debo Adegbile would have needed a simple majority of 51 votes Monday to clear the way for a final vote. But the procedural vote was canceled because of a snowstorm forecast for Monday, the same day most Capitol Hill lawmakers return from their home states.
The vote has been rescheduled for midday Tuesday. If Adegbile clears the procedural vote then, after another short debate, a final vote in which he would again only need a simple majority of 51 votes to be confirmed will take place.
Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., joined others in his concern about Adegbile’s support for convicted Philadelphia cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Adegbile is facing criticism for his role in 2009 in getting Abu-Jamal's 1981 death sentence overturned during his time as acting director of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. 
“The vicious murder of Officer [Daniel] Faulkner in the line of duty and the events that followed in the 30 years since his death has left open wounds,” Casey said Friday. “After carefully considering this nomination and having met with both Mr. Adegbile as well as the Fraternal Order of Police, I will not vote to confirm the nominee.”
Adegbile's death sentence has been commuted but he remains in prison.
Widow Maureen Faulkner told Fox News she is gratified at the decision by Casey to vote against the nomination of Adegbile and that she plans to continue to lobby members of the Senate to take a similar stand.
Among the others who have expressed their objection to the nomination is GOP Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey.
“The murder was not a random street crime,” Toomey and Philadelphia District Attorney R. Seth Williams recently wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece. “Abu-Jamal was an ardent supporter of the "MOVE" organization -- a racist, anarchist group founded in Philadelphia in 1972. The group's radical positions included encouraging violence against police.”

Costs of ObamaCare bungles start to add up, with Maryland first at about $30.5M

Maryland could end up spending as much as $30.5 million as a result of a glitch in its ObamaCare website, as the Obama administration steps in to help states with problematic exchanges.
Because of Maryland’s defective exchange, the state cannot determine whether customers remain eligible for Medicaid, according to a report by state budget analysts released Thursday.
As a result, the state has agreed with the federal government to a six-month delay in determining eligibility, meaning that payments will continue to be made to customers who are not eligible until the system is fixed. The delay will cost the state $17.8 million in fiscal 2014 and $12.7 million in fiscal 2015, the analysts estimated.
On Friday, the Obama administration said it would suspend some Affordable Care Act rules to help the 14 states with their own ObamaCare sites, particularly Maryland, Massachusetts, Hawaii and Oregon, which have had the most problems.
The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services plan, completed a day earlier, states the federal government will help pay for “qualified” health-insurance plans for customers in those states who because of “exceptional circumstances” had to buy plans outside of ObamaCare exchanges, as reported first by The Washington Post.
The administration made the change before the end-of-March deadline for Americans to enroll in ObamaCare this year.
In Maryland, the exchange cannot convert income data from the existing Medicaid enrollment system into a calculation needed to review whether enrollees are qualified “because of a variety of system architectural flaws,” according to budge analysts.
The exchange has been plagued by computer problems that have made it difficult for people to enroll in private health care plans since its debut Oct. 1.
State officials have decided to stick with the exchange through the open enrollment period that ends March 31 but is evaluating alternatives with an eye toward the next enrollment period that begins in November.
Among the possibilities is adopting technology developed by another state, joining a consortium of other states, partnering with the federal exchange or making major fixes to the existing system.
Thirty-six states use the federal HealthCare.gov site, which crashed and had other major problems in the first two months of enrollment.
The Maryland report said the state may need to develop an interim solution while a long-term solution is being developed. However, that process would likely take at least nine to 12 months, pushing up against the next open-enrollment period.
The report also states the development of the exchange was “a high risk undertaking” from the outset, in large part because of contractors woes, tight deadlines, constantly evolving requirement and its need to interface with work-in-progress federal databases.
The administration changes this week are not the first to ObamaCare, to be sure.
In November, Obama helped Americans about to lose policies because they didn’t meet new minimum requirements by allow the substandard plans to be sold through the end of this year.
And administration officials has twice this year given medium- and large-sized employers more time to offer health insurance to most full-time workers.
However, the change this week is significant because it marks the first the time the federal government has agreed to help pay for policies bought outside the new exchanges.
The coverage in the outside policies would have to be comparable to those offered on the exchange. And customers would have to start paying premiums, then get the subsidies after the state exchanges could determine their income eligibility.
Maryland Health Benefit Exchange official told The Post earlier this week that roughly 7,000 applications are stuck in state’s system, but all of them might not need insurance and that officials were still looking over the administration’s offer.

Real people with real problems refute Reid's claim ObamaCare 'horror stories' untrue

Despite Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's claim earlier this week that ObamaCare "horror stories" weren't true, there are plenty of real people out there with real problems.
Reid managed to ignite a firestorm when he accused those who complain about canceled policies and higher rates under ObamaCare of flat-out lying.
"There's plenty of horror stories being told,” he said. “All of them are untrue, but they're being told all over America."
Tell that to Linda Deright, who told Fox News’ Neil Cavuto,"There must be six million of us, then. I think we should just call ourselves the liars' club."
Tom Gialanella of Seattle says he got a letter last fall canceling his old policy and laying out details of his ObamaCare option.
"My premiums would increase approximately 61 percent,"he says. I went from $891 a month to $1437 a month and also my deductibles all doubled."
Jeff and Victoria Haidet of North Carolina had been in a high risk pool, an expensive form of coverage for those with serious health problems, but found ObamaCare even more expensive.
"We were a little shocked to see that one come back at even higher rate than what our high risk insurance pool was. That rate came back at$950 a month for the policy, which had higher deductibles than what we had in the high risk pool," Jeff said.
All of which prompted Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell to say, " These people across America, who are losing their insurance, whose jobs are being lost, are not making this up. And no amount of Harry Reid calling everybody a liar changes the facts."
Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., who has given 11 speeches laying out horror stories from his constituents, also challenged Reid's accusations.
"I guess you think the active imagination of Missourians is just running wild because they're contacting our office constantly telling about higher premiums, higher deductibles, insurance they used to have that worked, and insurance that doesn't work," he said.
Those who feel they have been misled or find themselves forced to pay more than before are hardly a rarity. Some 6.2 million had their policies canceled last fall, many pushed into more expensive plans.
The Congressional Budget Office also recently found that ObamaCare will force two of three small businesses to pay higher rates than they do now and even many Democrats talk about the need to fix the law.

2013 Waste List

Taxpayer dollars fail to reform struggling schools  - $7,300,000

$7.3 million were wasted on struggling school districts that failed to implement educational reforms.

Is there a double standard for political gaffes?

In politics, the dreaded foot in mouth gaffe is an occupational hazard.The casual statement, the careless snipe, the outdated phrase that bypasses the brain’s "sensitivity” filter can wound or even doom a public figure, especially if the offender happens to be conservative.
The relative scant attention paid to such faux pas from left-leaning offenders suggests a double standard may be at work.
This week offered several examples. Vice President Joe Biden, a presumed presidential candidate, fired off yet another quip that some say played off an offensive stereotype of African-Americans and basketball.
At a Black History Month event attended by Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson ,a former NBA player, Biden said, "I told the president, next game, I've got him. I may be a white boy, but I can jump."
Perhaps because Biden is perceived of as the gaffe machine that keeps on giving, or perhaps because his folksy demeanor gets him a pass, he is seldom held to account for such indelicacies.
More troublesome is a remark by Alex Sink, the Democratic House candidate in Florida's 13th Congressional District,who made a reference to Latinos in a recent debate that smacked of insensitive stereotyping - one that got little attention outside of a few conservative news outlets.
"We have a lot of employers over on the beaches that rely upon workers, and especially in this high-growth environment, where are you going to get people to work to clean out hotel rooms or do our landscaping," she said.
Also this week, UN Ambassador Samantha Power sent out a bizarre and grotesquely insensitive tweet about Daniel Pearl , the Wall Street Journal reporter who was beheaded on video tape by al Qaeda leader, Kalid Sheik Mohammed. "Daniel Pearl's story is a reminder that individual accountability & reconciliation are required to break cycles of violence," she wrote.
The Twitterverse briefly lit up, prompting a correction from Power, which still left critics scratching their heads. It read, "Correction: @DanielPearlFNDN's work is a reminder that individual accountability + reconciliation are required to break cycles of violence."
Also this week, Donna Brazile, the Democratic National Committee's vice chairwoman, tweeted out this embarrassing blunder in advance of Arizona Governor Jan Brewer's veto of a controversial anti-gay rights bill: "Dear Arizona Republicans: Just so you know -- you've already lost this argument 50 years ago --You don't get to decide who sits at the lunch counter."
The tweet was accompanied by a grainy old photo of African-Americans seated at a segregated lunch counter.The tweet garnered no reaction until Instapundit's Glenn Reynolds saw it, and promptly tweeted that it was "The Lie of the Year." Brazile apparently forgot that segregation proliferated in the South under Democratic Party rule.
In each of the above cases, the offenders walked away virtually unscathed. Some analysts say when Republicans commit similar offenses, their careers are almost always damaged, sometimes beyond repair.
Tim Graham of the Media Research Center says swift retribution for GOP gaffes is a product of the left’s control, not just of media, but of the culture - from film, to music, to academia, to the publishing world and beyond.
"One of the ways these gaffes become so powerful," Graves says, "is that news media doesn't just notice once. It notices it again and again and again and they head into movies, into pop lyrics into late night skits, Saturday Night Live, they take a gaffe and absolutely try to immortalize it."
The New York Times on Friday reported that "Republicans have called Wendy Davis, a Democratic candidate for Texas governor, “Abortion Barbie,” likened Alison Lundergan Grimes, a Senate candidate from Kentucky, to an “empty dress,” criticized Hillary Rodham Clinton’s thighs, and referred to a pregnant woman as a “host.”
The Times story finds that Democrats virtually salivate over such GOP mistakes. Emily's List, the political action committee that supports pro-choice female candidates, has raised $25 million this election cycle. Every time a Republican inserts foot into mouth, Emily's List's fundraising arm springs into action, and the cash register starts ringing.
Republicans do the same, but as the Media Research Center's Graves tells Fox News, " our megaphone is not as big."