Foolishly, most Americans assume that Congressmen actually READ the bills they are voting on and no what’s in it BEFORE they vote on it.  Silly us.

Politico recently reported that NO Democratic incumbents are using health care as one of the platforms they are running on for reelection.  What is supposed to be the crowing achievement of the Democratic party.  A decades old goal that has finally been reached.  The “this one’s for Teddy” accomplishment that will bring America in line with the rest of the civilized world.  Yet, not ONE single Democrat is running on the fact that they passed Obamacare.

The question of why, has to be asked.  Is it because they still haven’t read the bill and don’t want to be caught off guard by questions from voters who actually have read the bill?  Is it because they finally read the bill and realize that it contains a LOT of bad stuff that will raise costs and not keep their promise of “if you like your health care plan you can keep it”?  Is it because premiums are already going up for individuals and small businesses, due to the provisions of the law that go into effect next month?

Maybe it’s because roughly 2/3 of Americans aren’t in favor of the law.  Possibly, it’s because while Democrats took political cover by falsely claiming it would reduce the deficit, but now enough real data (including the docfix that they delayed to get a falsely positive CBO score) has come out to prove that it is far from a deficit reducing law.

Regardless of the reason, Democrats are running away from Obamacare as fast as they can as they campaign for reelection.  That should tell you something.

Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey explains how the administrations attempt to front load the ‘good’ stuff in the bill to garner support, has actually already begun to backfire:

After the polls showed that the newly-passed ObamaCare bill remained deeply unpopular with voters, the Obama administration reshuffled the rollout in order to convince Americans what a great deal they would get.  By “front-loading” the most popular provisions to make them effective immediately, the White House hoped that the momentum would shift to support for the one legislative achievement of Barack Obama’s turn — or at least neutralize its negative influence.  Instead, ObamaCare remains as unpopular as ever, and the bill will come due just before the midterms:

Health insurers say they plan to raise premiums for some Americans as a direct result of the health overhaul in coming weeks, complicating Democrats’ efforts to trumpet their signature achievement before the midterm elections.

Aetna Inc., some BlueCross BlueShield plans and other smaller carriers have asked for premium increases of between 1% and 9% to pay for extra benefits required under the law, according to filings with state regulators.

These and other insurers say Congress’s landmark refashioning of U.S. health coverage, which passed in March after a brutal fight, is causing them to pass on more costs to consumers than Democrats predicted.

Even though the bill has passed, which according to Madam Pelosi should allow us to know what’s in it, a dirty secret that most still don’t understand is the incredible control that HHS will have of their health care.  Almost all aspects of insurance, and as a result insurance costs and covered (or not covered) treatments, will be dictated by HHS regulations.  HHS will dictate what insurance plans must contain.  HHS  will dictate how much an insurance company can charge.  HHS will determine whether or not you can keep the plan that you have and like, and CBO analysis shows that the vast majority of Americans will NOT be able to keep the plan they have, even if they like it — contrary to what President Obama promised.

If Democrats believed so strongly in Obamacare that they had no qualms about using parliamentary tricks and dirty politics to get it passed into law, why are they hiding from it now that they are trying to get re-elected?

We all know that every time we purchase a new car, or new home appliances, that the new ones are more energy efficient than the old ones.  The only problem is that the cost savings often don’t justify the cash we have to lay out to get the new energy efficient models.  The same is true with businesses.

In many cases, when a businesses makes capital investments to upgrade a plant to make it more productive, a by product of that is replacing old, energy sucking, environment-polluting equipment with newer, more efficient, greener varieties.  However, like the consumer, it can be difficult to justify the capital outlay.

Christopher Horner of Big Government explains how President Obama’s plan to allow businesses to accelerate their deductions for capital expenditures will not only help the economy, but also help his green agenda:

The logic is simple and the Dutch actually showed (again, accidentally) how this works to reduce emissions: business do not replace capital equipment as early or often as they might like because the tax code disincentivizes it, with depreciation schedules instead of treating it like other business expenses. They therefore postpone purchasing newer, more efficient (and typically more energy efficient) equipment.

Change that, and they will pull through new technology into use.

In a way that is moving investments forward, a la cash for clunkers. But in other ways it is just smart and the right thing to do.

Here’s the downside: yes, you get emission reductions and not by harming economic growth, but actually encouraging it. However, the political class do not get to reward their constituencies with cap-n-trade wealth transfers from you and me to them, don’t increase the cost of energy, and obtain no new control over our lives.

And as many of you know, that is the whole point behind the scheme urgently needed to combat “climate change” (why not continental drift?) that actually would have no detectable impact, according to anyone, on climate.

It will be interesting to see if the President promotes this as helping America move to a greener economy, or if instead shies away from that type of statement.  While if he was true to his convictions about reducing carbon emissions and having a greener economy, he would embrace this type of change without mandate, the tax credits have two major flaws when viewed by his liberal base:  first, they will be seen as pro-business by his base who believe corporations should pay more tax, not less.  Second, it fails to redistribute wealth, which is one of the main goals of cap and trade, or cap and tax as many call it.

Ed Morrissey of Hot Air breaks down the surprising Washington Post/ABC poll:

Three months ago, the WaPo/ABC sample had a nine-point Democratic advantage in the partisan split, with a D/R/I of 34/25/38.  Today’s poll has a D/R/I among registered voters of 31/26/37, with a five-point advantage still being too high and both Democrats and Republicans slightly underrepresented.  Both Rasmussen and Gallup this year have the actual partisan gap at a single point.

…

Obama’s 46/52 is the first underwater rating of his term in office from the Post/ABC poll, which shows readers what creative sampling can do.  He’s been underwater on the economy for most of the year, though, with a term-low 41/57 at the moment.  His numbers haven’t changed much on the deficit or on Iraq, despite his Oval Office speech on the latter.  He gets a 49/45 for following the Bush playbook, from 48/42 in July — hardly an improvement.

In April, WaPo/ABC showed that 39% believed that Obama’s economic policies were making the economy better, while 26% said they were making it worse, and 32% believed they had no effect. In the most recent poll, 30% said they were making the economy better, 33% making it worse, and 36% believe that Obama’s economic policies and hundreds of billions of dollars spent have had no effect on the economy.

In addition to showing failing support for President Obama and his economic policies, there was bad news for Democrats with the mid-term elections less than two months away.

• 40% of registered voters say they have move confidence in Democrats and 38% say they have more confidence in Republicans.  Three months ago Democrats had a 12 point margin. (note, this polls was heavily weighted in favor of registered Democrats)
• 47% of voters said they would vote for the Republican in their Congressional district, and 45% said Democrat.  However, when looking at those that said they were likely to vote, the numbers favored Republicans 53%/40%.
• 55%/39% voters say they would rather have Republicans in control to keep Obama in check, rather than Democrats in charge of Congress to support the President’s agenda — this gap is double what it was three months ago.

The American people clearly no longer believe in the President’s message of hope and change.   After 20 months of hearing the President blame George Bush and the Republicans for everything that goes wrong, even though Democrats have controlled Congress for four years and they had a near unprecedented super majority for Obama’s first year in office, voters are no longer buying what President Obama is selling.  Promise after promise has been broken, from campaign promises about being the most transparent administration ever to not raising taxes on those making less than $200,000 to unemployment not going above 8% if his union-endorsed spending stimulus bill was passed.

People are growing weary of the Campaigner in Chief who relies on the Teleprompter in Chief , and who has failed to become the Commander in Chief and lead this country in a time of great need.

It's good to be the King

Here’s some more commentary on President Obama’s continued spending orgy.

While millions of Americans can’t find a job, millions more have given up looking, and millions more are struggling to keep their homes out of foreclosure, President Obama is living the high life.  Sending his wife to vacation in Spain at the tax payer’s expense, taking family vacations in Florida and Cape Cod, choosing golf over visits to the Gulf oil disaster, and taking Michelle to New York for ‘date night’, all while telling us we need to be more frugal.

Apparently, it’s good to be the King.

We now know that the summer of recovery actually was a description of his multiple family vacations and many rounds of golf with his fat cat buddies  Now that President Obama has ‘recovered’, he’s ready to spend more of your hard earned dollars.  Even though roughly a third of the $800+ billion of his first failed stimulus bill is still unspent, President Obama is pushing for a new $50 billion spending spree.  Doctor Zero details it:

President Obama “unveiled” his new “stimulus” plan in Wisconsin today.  It was a lot like watching an alcoholic unveil his new plan to get sober by switching to lite beer:

We’re going to “fire up sluggish economic growth” by plowing another fifty billion deficit dollars into roads, rail, and airports?  It’s hard to believe even the American media would be lazy enough to write such a headline with a straight face.

Does anyone seriously think our economy is just waiting for another fifty billion dollars’ worth of roads to come roaring back to life?  I guess business owners have all sorts of property staked out for new factories and shops.  They’re just waiting for someone to build roads leading to them.  Does all of this Administration’s economic knowledge come from playing “Sim City” computer games?

…

The Administration assures us its little espresso shot of new stimulus spending will be revenue neutral, paid for by “ending tax breaks for oil and gas companies.”  Oh, that’s just wonderful. Those tax hikes on oil and gas will be passed directly along to the consumer, in addition to hindering investment in the development of new energy resources.  The last thing a fragile, recessionary economy needs is an increase in energy costs.  I’m all in favor of tax simplification, but it has to be across the board.  Adding another few thousand pages to our ridiculous tax laws, to target unpopular companies for cash to fund more pork spending, plays up the worst aspects of a dysfunctional system.

The Obama plan:  Increase spending and debt until the point it is declared unsustainable, and then claim the only option is to raise taxes on corporations and the rich.

The result, businesses are not expanding due to concerns of looming tax increases, which means they also aren’t hiring.  No growth in hiring, means no growth in spending, which results in a floundering economy as confirmed by the recent falling GDP numbers.

Now, with hundreds of billions of unspent stimulus dollars, President Obama wants to spend another $50 billion in infrastructure spending which accomplishes two things, neither of which is economic growth:  first, it provides an excuse to raise taxes on energy companies; second, it let’s them put up more pretty signs around the country advertising how the Dem spending orgy is helping YOU, which they hope will overshadow 20 months of bungled administration policies and avoid a Democratic blood bath in November.

Does anyone really believe that after President Obama promised unemployment would stay below 8% if his first stimulus bill was passed (the one written in large part by union special interest groups), and after he promised the summer of recovery would turn the economy around, that now his latest spending bill will “fire up sluggish economic growth” as he claims?

So, is this really change you can believe in?

The only problem is that the first step to recovery is to admit you have a problem.  Unfortunately for America, President Obama hasn’t reach the stage of accepting he has a spending problem.   So, the Democratic spending orgy is set to continue.

Ed Morrisey of Hot Air nicely sums up the latest round of spending the President is pushing:

What happens when over a hundred billion dollars in borrowed cash gets plunged into infrastructure spending and it fails to kick-start the economy?  According to this administration, spend another $50 billion on the same failed policy.  Barack Obama will unveil his new economic stimulus plan in Wisconsin today, while Russ Feingold looks for a place to hide:

US President Barack Obama unveils plans Monday to spend at least 50 billion dollars to expand and renew US roads, railways and airports, in a fresh bid to fire up sluggish economic growth.

Obama, under intense pressure over November’s mid-term congressional elections in which his Democrats fear heavy losses, was set to make the announcement in a speech in Wisconsin, an official said. …

A White House official said that the “bold” infrastructure plan will be front loaded and make significant investments in the first year, in a bid to stimulate the sagging economy and boost jobs growth.

While some don’t think another stimulus can pass before the mid-term elections, Morrisey isn’t so sure.  He points out that stimulus bills like this are a way for Congressmen to get pork for their states and districts, and “showing the pork” might be the only thing that can get some Democrats re-elected this fall.

The fact that $100 billion has already been spent on infrastructure as part of the Democrat’s massive $800+ billion stimulus bill last year and that it did nothing to create sustained job or economic growth doesn’t seem to have any bearing on the President’s decision to spend some more of your money — to create more debt for your children and grand children.

It’s important to see this for what it is, an attempt to win votes for Democrats in the fall.  Even Vice President Biden admitted that they had structured the first massive spending stimulus bill to spend the most money and create the most jobs in the first half of this year — well over a year after it was passed.  It was to be part of their now infamous recovery summer, which would so enthrall the masses that they would line up at the polling stations in November and vote to re-elect the Democrats that created this economic nightmare we are suffering through.

Unfortunately, as has been the case time and time again, the Obama administration underestimates the intelligence of the American people.   All indications are that come November he will find out just how badly he has underestimated their intelligence.

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Silver Lining

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Obama’s Stimulus for Sign-Makers

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Obama’s Stimulus for Sign-Makers

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Obama’s Stimulus for Sign-Makers

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Senator Landrieu Responds to New Moratorium

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MMS Reissues Drilling Moratorium

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Felons for Franken: An Election Preview?

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Oil Companies Can’t Win for Losing

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McChrystal to Retire With 4-Star Rank

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Mark Steyn on Obama, the Unengaged President

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Oil Skimmers and the Dutch

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Oil Skimmers and the Jones Act

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The Unified Theory of Obama Fail

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The Great Mediator

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Budget Director Orzag to Leave

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Scientists Opposed to Moratorium Confront Salazar

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White House to Kyl: You Lie!

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A Few Smart Leaders

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Coast Guard Grounds Louisiana Oil Skimmers

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Footnotes from Obama’s BP Meeting

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Presidential Malpractice in the Gulf

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BP Agrees to $20B Fund

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BP Agrees to $20B Fund

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Media Growing Leery of Obama

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Robert Gibbs Thinks About Rain-Powered Cars

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Obama’s Speech for Dummies

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MSNBC Trashes Obama’s Message

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Another Issue Where Barack Obama and I Agree — Repealing the Mortgage Interest Deduction

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White House Professionals Hard at Work

The age of changing the way Washington works and the most transparent White House ever, appear to be as fictitious as the claims that no one earning under $250,000 will see one dime of a tax increase, the health care debate will be televised on CSPAN, and that there would be no lobbyists hired by the Obama administration.   How Fleetwood Mac put it?  Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies…

Ultra liberal Helen Thomas has railed against President Obama’s attempt to control the press saying that even “Nixon didn’t try to do that,” Thomas said. “They couldn’t control (the media). They didn’t try… I’m not saying there has never been managed news before, but this is carried to fare-thee-well–for the town halls, for the press conferences,” she said. “It’s blatant. They don’t give a damn if you know it or not. They ought to be hanging their heads in shame.”

There is no better example than the way Robert Gibbs has not only refused for months to answer questions about the alleged Sestak bribe, but has also mocked the media that has asked him to explain Sestak’s claim that he was offered a job to drop out of the Senate race.  It’s the same level of arrogance displayed up and down the Obama administration, from Gibbs, to Axelrod, to Emanuel, to the President.

Dick Morris says that the Administrations arrogance and disregard for the law could be in for a rude awakening through something called universal jurisdiction:

The Pennsylvania Attorney General, Tom Corbett — who is the Republican nominee for Governor this year — has ample jurisdiction to convene a grand jury to get to the bottom of the scandal and answer the key questions:

1. Who offered a job to Sestak?
2. What job was proffered?
3. And did the president know of the offer?

Corbett’s jurisdiction stems from the concept of universal jurisdiction, now accepted virtually everywhere…  This principle gives jurisdiction to law enforcement in the place wherever any act occurred that may have resulted in a crime.

Thus, if Cong. Sestak was in one of his homes, in PA or VA, when he received a telephone call offering him a job if he withdrew from the PA Senate primary against Sen. Arlen Specter, law enforcement authorities in PA and VA — both of which have Republican state Attorneys General — can subpoena Cong. Sestak to testify before a state grand jury and compel him to answer the who, what, when, and where that everyone has a right to know.

The people of the United States and, particularly the people of Pennsylvania, want these questions to be answered honestly.  They will not settle for a Democratic stonewall that refuses to let the truth emerge.

After months of stonewalling, Robert Gibbs said on Sunday that “nothing inappropriate” took place.  If that was the case, then why did the White House refuse for months to answer questions about Sestak’s claim?  Why has the Obama controlled justice department failed to open an investigation and prove that nothing inappropriate took place?  Guilt? Arrogance? Contempt for the law?  Take your pick, but the end result is the same.  An allegation of serious misconduct has been made and the White House has ignored all requests to explain what took place with Joe Sestak.

It remains to be seen whether or not Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett chooses to investigate the alleged attempt to influence an election by bribery, because the Obama justice department has refused to do their job.

Either way, this story is likely not going away any time soon, and the arrogance that Robert Gibbs and the rest of the Obama administration has shown on this matter likely isn’t helping stop Obama’s free-fall in the polls.

Update: Shortly after posting this, I read on Hot Air that there are allegations that the White House offered other candidates jobs to drop out of races.  Specifically, that Andrew Romanoff was offered a job to drop out of the Colorado Senate race against Michael Bennett:

The White House denied it at the time, natch, but the Post cited “several top Colorado Democrats” for corroboration. Just wondering: How many of these strangely similar allegations, any or all of which could conceivably violate federal law, are needed before Eric Holder decides it’s worth taking a closer look? That’s not to say anything will come of it — Michael Mukasey, Bush’s AG, explained to Dave Weigel today how easy it is to phrase these offers in a way that makes them hard to prosecute — but surely it’s worth finding out what, precisely, was said. In fact, Mukasey himself called for a special prosecutor. How about it, champ?

The last month has been no different, when he attacked Arizona’s attempt to curb the out of control illegal immigration that is bankrupting that state, along with focusing on attacking BP as yet another greedy business who will be kept in check by the President’s foot on their throat.  He’s repeatedly attacked corporate America and large financial institutions, and acts surprised when the stock market remains skittish and on the verge of another crash.

President Obama, time and again, tries to ride the populous wave, attacking whatever group he thinks will play best with American voters, regardless of whether their are any grounds for his attacks, or whether he has even read a short 16 page bill that he keeps mischaracterizing.

Dick Morris explains how President Obama is seeing a backlash in his approval numbers as a result of focusing more on populist politics than solving the serious problems America is facing:

The oil spill, the Arizona law, and the fallout from the Greek crisis are a trifecta of issues that are driving Obama’s job approval ratings to an all time low. After four months of hovering between a low of 46% and a high of 49% in the daily Rasmussen polls, Obama has dropped precipitously to only a 42% approval rating.

The three issues that are depressing his ratings have a great deal in common. In each case, the president originally seized on the issue to make populist political hay. Then, when the problem wouldn’t go away, voters began to realize that Obama is, in fact, the president and, logically enough, blamed him for the three ills that beset them.

When oil started to spill into the Gulf, President Obama saw a partisan opportunity to blame Republicans who had chanted “Drill, Baby, Drill” all during the summer of 2008 as high gasoline prices gave the McCain candidacy new steam. Even though he had, with lamentable timing, conceded and allowed expanded drilling a few weeks before the rig exploded, the impetus for drilling was clearly seen as Republican and the disaster hurt Republican ratings. Obama couldn’t resist also piling populist scorn on British Petroleum, lambasting big oil for the spill.

But then the oil did not stop flowing. Now the American people are tired of hearing about BP’s faults and are demanding presidential action to stop the spill. As the oil seeps onto the beaches of Florida, Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi, it also seeps into Obama’s poll numbers and drags them down.

A week after the spill, at which point the Obama administration had done basically nothing to evaluate or mitigate the damages from the oil spewing into the gulf, Obama’s solution was to snap at a staff members, “plug the damn hole.”   A month later, with little more having come out of the White House than those four ridiculous words, the oils is still gushing into the gulf.

ALLAHPUNDIT of Hot Air talks about Obama’s brilliant solution, and about the press finally beginning to turn on Obama:

If Bush had uttered something as mindlessly self-evident as “plug the damn hole” during crisis management, there’d already be t-shirts on sale on lefty blogs with that phrase emblazoned over a picture of him looking like a baboon. What’s doubly bad for The One right now, of course, is that spill anxiety is reaching a crescendo just as the story of the White House trying to bribe Sestak to drop out of the race is taking off again. The left’s grudgingly turning on him over that too, first with Tim Kaine admitting over the weekend that, yeah, maybe the White House should come clean and today with Dick Durbin(!) piling on

A couple days ago we reported on the fact that while Obama administration officials are making the Sunday talk show rounds reiterating how they will keep the boot on BP’s neck and shove them out of the way if they don’t get the job done, the Louisiana marsh lands are awash in oil, because President Obama sat on the sidelines or stood on the stump  making sure he didn’t let this “crisis go to a waste”, rather than giving Louisiana permission to dredge up sand to create a barrier to protect the delicate marshlands.

The only real question is what the next phase of the White House plan to not let America’s blackened beaches and dieing coastal ecosystem be a crisis that they let go to waste.  Expect President Obama to try and exploit this tragedy in at least three areas:

1. Use this as an excuse to apply some type of windfall profits tax on oil companies, possibly in the guise of a clean up fund for future spills.
2. Announce a reversal of his largely worthless decision to open up new areas to off shore drilling.
3. Use this to hard sell green energy and his cap and trade bill.

President Obama will use the gulf oil spill, the Arizona illegal immigration crisis and any other crisis that strikes America for his own political gain.  He has shown that clearly in his first sixteen months in office and there is no indication that he plans to stop campaigning and start governing any time soon.

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Netanyahu Returns to the White House

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Unflappable, Vol. 2

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Unflappable

First and foremost, before the massive oil spill could become Obama’s “Katrina” the liberal mainstream media would have to stop worshiping at the Altar of Obama and provide some unbiased reporting.  This type of reporting has been few and far between.

Allahpundit of Hot Air sums up the hypocrisy of the media:

Well, look on the bright side: If nothing else good comes from this disaster, at least now we have a roughly quantifiable sense of how long it takes for media outrage to build towards Obama versus towards Bush. Figure Dubya would have been under fire for dragging his feet on the spill after, what — maybe three days? It’s now 34 days since BP’s rig exploded and only yesterday did frustration really start bubbling on the Sunday chat shows.

Beyond the MSM mostly producing puff pieces or apologies for any of President Obama’s mistakes, there is the simple question of “did he do anything wrong?”

Initially, I looked at the “Obama’s Katrina” statements as nothing more than politics as usual.  An attempt by the right to return the favor for the blame that President Bush received due to the ineptitude of the governor of Louisiana and the mayor of New Orleans.  I am not a proponent of unfairly criticizing President Obazma, only because the press and left unfairly criticized President Bush.

However, now that we are over a month in, President Obama is clearly handling this massive disaster in a disastrous way.  Not only is he attempting to gain populous, political points by attacking BP and big business, which is Obama as usual, but more importantly he isn’t do anything to address the problem.  As an example, Louisiana has been waiting to get approval from the Corp of Engineers to use dredging ships to create a sand barrier around the Louisiana barrier islands.  Doing this would protect the delicate marshlands, but the Corp of Engineers refuses to approve the dredging, claiming they have to determine what impact it will have on the area first.

What “impact”?  Could it possibly have more impact than millions of gallons of oil flooding the marshlands, killing plant and animal life?

Rather than getting his hands dirty and helping solve the problem by picking up the phone and giving Louisiana permission to dredge and build the sand barrier islands, Obama is simply trying to make political hay by attacking BP and big business.  Talking about how he will keep his foot on the neck of BP and make them clean up their mess.

It’s time for the President to realize the American people don’t care about where his foot is, they care about their coastline.  He needs to get off the political stump and get to work solving the problem.  Start working with the Gulf Coast Governors to come up with solutions. Get them the oil booms, ships and skimming equipment they need.  There will be plenty of time for Obama to exploit the disaster for his political gain ‘after’ the spill is under control and the cleanup is done.

Is it Obama’s Katrina?  No, it’s far worse than that.

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Obama Wants to Cut Spending

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The Greg Craig Saga

Now comes round two.  The Climate Change bill The Cap and Trade bill The American Power act is an attempt by Obama and the Democrats in Congress to emulate what they see as a model green economy, Spain.  Prior to the election, President Obama admitted that his view of a green economy would include massive cap and trade taxes applied to energy, which would make electricity (and other energy) sky rocket.  In his view, this is a good thing, as the increased cost to the American public will create the pressure needed to spur on the development renewable energy.

The fallacy with Obama’s approach is that every place that renewable and green energy production has been forced, energy costs have skyrocketed (one of the main factors in Los Angeles being on the verge of bankruptcy) and have caused massive economic burdens.

Pajamas Media has received a leaked report that documents the massive failure of Spain’s green economy.

But today’s leaked document reveals that even the socialist Spanish government now acknowledges the ruinous effects of green economic policy.

Unsurprisingly for a governmental take on a flagship program, the report takes pains to minimize the extent of the economic harm. Yet despite the soft-pedaling, the document reveals exactly why electricity rates “necessarily skyrocketed” in Spain, as did the public debt needed to underwrite the disaster. This internal assessment preceded the Zapatero administration’s recent acknowledgement that the “green economy” stunt must be abandoned, lest the experiment risk Spain becoming Greece.

The government report does not expressly confirm the highest-profile finding of the non-governmental report: that Spain’s “green economy” program cost the country 2.2 jobs for every job “created” by the state. However, the figures published in the government document indicate they arrived at a job-loss number even worse than the 2.2 figure from the independent study.

The document itself, which is actually a slide presentation, doesn’t go into a lot of detail (presumably, an oral presentation accompanied it), but it does show large increases in green energy and renewable energy costs, which resulted in large increases in energy costs being passed on to the end consumers (industry and individuals).  This also appears consistent with California’s complete failure when it legislated renewable energy be used in the state and completely underestimate the cost burden that would be put on the state, and cities such as Los Angeles.

Despite these dismal failures in California and Spain, President Obama continues to promote his cap and trade agenda, which will put a massive financial burden on an already reeling American economy with the imposition of large energy tax increases to industry and consumers.

Combine the massive cap and trade taxes (estimated to be between $1,000 – $3,500+ per family) with the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, the expected increase in the death tax next year (which doesn’t just hit the rich, but also family businesses like farms that are passed on to children), all the Obamacare fees and taxes that will be passed on to consumers, and the looming VAT tax.

That’s a massive new tax burden on American citizens.  Not just the rich, but ALL Americans, or at least all Americans that are working and paying taxes.

If we thought the economy was in bad shape the last 18 months, just wait until all those new taxes start piling up.

Call it a continuation of the Obama global apology tour.  Call it a continuation of the administrations attacks on America and long standing American allies, while bowing to and hugging the dictators of the world.  You can call it a lot of things, but unfortunately you can’t call it good diplomacy or common sense.

Posner said in addition to talks on freedom of religion and expression, labor rights and rule of law, officials also discussed Chinese complaints about problems with U.S. human rights, which have included crime, poverty, homelessness and racial discrimination.

He said U.S. officials did not whitewash the American record and in fact raised on its own a new immigration law in Arizona that requires police to ask about a person’s immigration status if there is suspicion the person is in the country illegally.

…

QUESTION: Was there any areas in which China sort of turned the tables and raised its own complaints or concerns about U.S. practices around the globe or at home? Can you give some examples there -

ASSISTANT SECRETARY POSNER: Sure. You know, I think – again, this goes back to Ambassador Huntsman’s comment. Part of a mature relationship is that you have an open discussion where you not only raise the other guy’s problems, but you raise your own, and you have a discussion about it. We did plenty of that. We had experts from the U.S. side, for example, yesterday, talking about treatment of Muslim Americans in an immigration context. We had a discussion of racial discrimination. We had a back-and-forth about how each of our societies are dealing with those sorts of questions. …

QUESTION: Did the recently passed Arizona immigration law come up? And, if so, did they bring it up or did you bring it up?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY POSNER: We brought it up early and often. It was mentioned in the first session, and as a troubling trend in our society and an indication that we have to deal with issues of discrimination or potential discrimination, and that these are issues very much being debated in our own society. [emphasis added]

As usual, Ed Morrissey of Hot Air sums it up nicely:

In other words, China didn’t even mention it — the Obama administration did.  They managed to apologize for a law that, technically and practically speaking, the Department of Justice hasn’t even yet reviewed.  Eric Holder hasn’t read the sixteen-page bill after a month of criticizing it, and it seems highly doubtful that Posner has even “glanced” at it.  Besides, the same law has existed in California for years — and the White House hasn’t so much as breathed a word about California’s penal code.

It doesn’t make the Obama administration sound “mature” to call Arizona racist for tasking its law enforcement agencies with enforcing the law.  It makes them look illiterate, closed-minded, and weak.  Maybe Posner should focus on China’s long record of oppression, slave labor, political executions, and heavy-handed censorship — and join Arizona in demanding that the federal government start enforcing the laws that have existed for decades on immigration.

This is an ongoing theme with this administration.  Whitewash the wrongs done by countries like China, Iran, Venezuela, etc., while at the same time demonizing America and apologizing for our sins.

It would be bad enough if the sins were real, but more often than not, like with the Obama administrations constant politically-motivated mischaracterization of the Arizona law, the apologies aren’t for real sins, but instead are simply anti-American statements meant to gain the favor of the leaders of China, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela and the Muslim community.

Obama’s foreign policy appears to be a twisted variation of Field of Dreams “build it and they will come.”

Obama’s Field of Dreams approach is “tear down and demonize America and the rest of the world will open their arms and embrace us.”

Continued here:
Obama’s Aunt Granted Asylum

Prior to Napolitano’s admission — yes, that Janet Napalitano, the one that is responsible for the security of our borders and our ‘homeland’ — Eric Holder spent weeks criticizing the Arizona law, implying the law was discriminatory and racist, while later admitting in a Congressional hearing that he hadn’t read the 16 page bill he had been criticizing every time he stepped in front of a camera or was approached by a reporter.

ALLAHPUNDIT of Hot Air tells us about Napolitano’s admission that she hasn’t read Arizona’s highly criticized law:

First Holder, now this. Second verse, same as the first: It would take 20 minutes to read through the statute and less than two to read the key provisions that have raised concerns about racial profiling. But if you read it then you’re responsible for what you say about it, and we can’t have that with the midterms less than six months away. So here’s the deputy border-enforcer-in-chief admitting that she hasn’t found the time yet to review “in detail” an immigration law that’s been the talk of the country politically for about a month now.

Two top ranking Obama Administration officials, one our nation’s top attorney and the other in charge of our homeland security, have both failed to read a 16 page law, yet of have paraded in front of the media for weeks claiming the Arizona law is racist, discriminatory and unconstitutional.  Since those assertions clearly weren’t based in fact, and neither top official could be bothered to take a couple minutes to read a law they have been criticizing for weeks, we have to ask ourselves what other assertions of ‘fact’ these two have made over the last 16 months have been nothing more than biased political propaganda.

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Obama’s New Ringtone

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Wind Farm Off Cape Cod

See the rest here:
New York Times Threatened Obama!

The American Spectator reports that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was given the analysis by the Medicare actuary, which showed that Obamacare would have many negative side effects.  Sebelius refused to review, and as a result publicize, the report, claiming she didn’t want to influence the vote.  By not wanting to influence the vote, she meant she didn’t want to do anything to hurt the chances of Obamacare passing, even if that meant burying facts that Congress and the public should have had BEFORE the final votes were taken.

The economic report released last week by Health and Human Services, which indicated that President Barack Obama’s health care “reform” law would actually increase the cost of health care and impose higher costs on consumers, had been submitted to the office of HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius more than a week before the Congressional votes on the bill, according to career HHS sources, who added that Sebelius’s staff refused to review the document before the vote was taken.

Grace-Marie Turner of National Review Online summarizes the report that Sebelius buried until after the Obamacare vote:

But looking at the details of Foster’s report shows the many, many danger signs for Obamacare and how many of its promises will be broken:

1. People losing coverage: About 14 million people will lose their employer coverage by 2019, as smaller employers terminate their plans and workers who currently have employer coverage enroll in Medicaid. Half of all seniors on Medicare Advantage could lose their coverage and the extra benefits the plans offer.

2. Huge fines for companies: Businesses will pay $87 billion in penalties in the first five years after the fines trigger in 2014, partly because they can’t afford to offer expensive, government-mandated coverage and partly because some of their employees will apply for taxpayer-subsidized insurance.

3. Higher costs for consumers: Tens of billions of dollars in new fees and excise taxes will be “passed through to health consumers in the form of higher drug and devices prices and higher premiums,” according to Foster. A separate report shows small businesses will be hit hardest.

4. A program created to fail: The new “CLASS Act” long-term-care insurance program will face “a significant risk of failure,” according to Foster. Indeed, he finds, “there is a very serious risk that the problem of adverse selection will make the CLASS program unsustainable.”

5. Spending increases: Under the new law, national health spending will increase by $311 billion over the coming decade. And instead of bending the federal spending curve down, it will move it upward “by a net total of $251 billion” over the next decade.

6. “Free-riders”: An estimated 23 million people will remain uninsured in 2019, roughly 5 million of whom would be undocumented aliens; the remainder would be the 18 million who decline to get coverage and who will pay the penalty.

7. Spending reductions are fiction: Estimated reductions in the growth rate of health spending “may not be fully achievable” because “Medicare productivity adjustments could become unsustainable even within the next ten years, and over time the reductions in the scope of employer-sponsored health insurance could also become an issue.”

8. You can’t keep your doctor: Fifteen percent of all hospitals, nursing homes, and other providers treating Medicare patients could be operating at a loss by 2019, which will “possibly jeopardize access to care for beneficiaries.” Doctors are threatening to drop out of Medicare because cuts in Medicare reimbursement rates mean they can’t even cover their costs.

9. Coverage but no care: A significant portion of those newly eligible for Medicaid will have trouble finding physicians who will see them, and the increased demand for Medicaid services could be difficult to meet.

This is an objective report by administration actuaries that shows this sweeping legislation has serious, serious problems.

And there’s more: Joint Economic Committee Republicans explain in a new report the impact of a rarely mentioned $14.3 billion per year tax on health insurance, effective in 2014. They find this tax will be mostly passed through to consumers in the form of higher premiums for private coverage. It will cost the typical family of four with job-based coverage an additional $1,000 a year in higher premiums and will fall largely, and inequitably, on small businesses and their employees.

Whether you are for or against Obamacare and a move towards nationalized health care, it is hard to defend burying a report by the Medicare’s office of the actuary that detailed the negative impacts that passing Obamacare would cause.  Anyone that watched the votes on C-SPAN or simply watched President Obama’s sales pitches leading up to the votes would know that the picture that Democrats painted was far different than what the Medicare actuary and the CBO stated.   Obama and Congressional Demorats painted a picture of reduced costs, increased coverage, deficit reduction and so much more.

There is also a report that the White House Legislative Affairs office received a copy of the report prior to the Congressional vote.  Ed Morrissey of Hot Air discusses this:

If the Obama administration had this information before the vote — and it should be noted that this comes from a single, anonymous source — then it deliberately misled Congress on the cost estimates.  That may not be a crime, but it’s highly unethical at the least, and makes Barack Obama’s claims to operate with transparency absolutely laughable, if true.  As the Prowler’s source points out, the entire reason CMS provided an analysis was to ensure that everyone knew the ramifications of passing this legislation.  Deliberately withholding it would have stripped Congress of that transparency, if that’s indeed what happened.

The CBO, once you dug into the numbers, clearly showed that Obamacare would not reduce the deficit, but instead massively increase it.  The CBO report stated that premiums would rise faster under Obamacare than if no legislation was passed.  The HHS report, once  Sebelius stopped burying it, showed the same, an increase in costs, and millions losing their coverage or being unable to find physicians willing to treat them.

Are the lies and Chicago style politics ‘really’ the change that American’s voted for in November of 2008?

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Racism and The Tea Partiers

Hillary is an interesting prospect, because as a former Senator, tradition indicates that Republicans in the Senate won’t filibuster the vote on her confirmation.  After spending over a year fighting to pass the hugely unpopular Obamacare, there is speculation that President Obama does not want the Senate tied up for months fighting over a High Court nomination, which will be the result if Obama nominates someone from far-left.  While Hillary is certainly liberal, as a former Senator her nomination will likely move to an up or down vote much quicker than almost anyone else that Obama might nominate.

It would seem that Orrin Hatch broke this story, but it is unclear where he heard it:

Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, one of the top Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Monday morning that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been mentioned as a possible nominee to the Supreme Court.

“I even heard the name Hillary Clinton today, and that would be an interesting person in the mix,” Hatch said on NBC’s “Today Show.”

The senator said he would not pre-judge whether any potential nominee would be an appropriate candidate to replace retiring Justice John Paul Stevens, but he had general praise for the secretary of state.

“I happen to like Hillary Clinton, I think she’s done a good job for the Democrats — Secretary of State’s position,” Hatch said, “and I have high respect for her, and think a great deal of her.”

At the same time, putting her on the Supreme Court would eliminate another major problem that Obama sees looming.  While as an incumbent, traditional thinking would be that Barack Obama will walk through the Democratic primary, the fact is that his approval rating continues to fall.  He has passed a hugely unpopular health insurance bill, has massively increased the national debt, put through the largest tax increase in US history and appears headed towards a broad-based tax increase to pay for his massive increase in social programs.

Hillary Clinton might be the only candidate that could give Obama a real challenge in the Democratic primary, and putting her on the Supreme Court almost assures him of smooth sailing to the Democratic nomination in 2012.

Ed Morrissey discusses some of the benefits Obama would gain from putting Clinton on the High Court:

Politically, Obama gets a win by putting another woman on the court.  Unlike with at least one of the apparent short-listers (Elana Kagan), no one will doubt Hillary’s liberal bona fides.  But best of all, Obama would be dispatching the one Democrat who could conceivably win a primary race against him in 2012 if his numbers continue to fall.  Once on the Supreme Court, Hillary would not step down to run for President, and Bill Clinton would be effectively neutralized as well.

Morrissey goes on to discuss some possible negatives of a Clinton nomination. First, at 63, she is older than liberals would like, since she might only be on the court for 20 years.  Second, nominating her replacement for Secretary of State could lead to a contentious vote.  It would give the Republicans an opportunity to highlight the many diplomatic and foreign policy blunders by the Obama administration.

When it’s all said and done, I do not think that Hillary will be nominated.  All indications are that President Obama is ignoring his falling approval and the continued decline in support for Obamacare, and instead is emblazoned by the passage of Obamacare.  Just as he did following his election, he mistakenly sees the passage of Obamacare as a re-affirmation of a mandate to push his far-left agenda.  Look for Obama to nominate a far-left candidate that will put progressive ideology over adherence to the Constitution.

Rasmussen also found that both a national sales tax and taxes on junk food and soft drinks remain very unpopular.  These are two taxes that have been associated with the Democrats in Washington.  The justification for the junk food taxes is that these foods are unhealthy and therefore the nanny (US Government) will penalize you for eating it.  The national sales tax or VAT tax is expected to be pushed as the solution to pay for the massive deficit that Obama, Pelosi and Reid have created over the last 15 months.

It was reported last week that 47% of Americans will pay NO federal income tax.  Yet a new Rasmussen poll shows that the vast majority of Americans (66%/25%) believe America is already overtaxed.

Allahpundit of Hot Air breaks down the numbers:

If you think the “over 100K” crowd is grumbly now, check back with them after a few years of Obamanomics. As for the “under 50K” group, the amazing number really isn’t the “less than fair” column; after all, aside from the occasional hyperrich progressive imbecile, no one believes he or she should be paying more tax. The amazing number is, of course, the “more than fair” column. Surely this group forms the bulk of that 47 percent that pays no federal income tax — in fact, a couple with two kids making slightly over $50,000 can now achieve zero federal tax liability — and yet, somehow, 36 percent still say they’re paying too much. Why?

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Another dimension

This really shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone but the most naive amongst us.  Even before he was elected, many detailed the path that Barack Obama would lead us down if he was elected.

First, massively increase the deficit through a rapid expansion of government and huge increase in entitlement programs.

Second, declare that if the deficit spending is not gotten under control, the US will face bankruptcy.

Third, claim raising taxes is the only option to prevent the out of control deficit and the doom predicted in step two.

We have seen nearly a trillion dollars spent under the guise of stimulating the economy, even though most of the spending had little to do with jobs or infrastructure, and more to do with expanding social programs and funneling money into Democratic districts.

The Democrats rammed through Obamacare, which will likely have a true ten year cost of a trillion dollars or more.

Now, with Obama running up the deficit annually almost as much as President Bush did in eight years, a White House advisor slipped and publicly stated what many of us knew was coming down the road.  However, Obama wanted this to come from his “blue ribbon” deficit reduction panel, rather than having one of his advisers let it slip.

Allahpundit of Hot Air reports on how White House adviser Paul Volcker let the cat out of the bag:

We all know it’s coming, but I’m reasonably sure Volcker missed a memo instructing advisors not, repeat not, to mention this publicly until, oh, say, the day after Election Day 2012.

As it is, look for Gibbsy’s spin tomorrow to be, “B-b-but he was Reagan’s Fed chairman!”

Volcker, answering a question from the audience at a New York Historical Society event, said the value-added tax “was not as toxic an idea” as it has been in the past and also said a carbon or other energy-related tax may become necessary.

Though he acknowledged that both were still unpopular ideas, he said getting entitlement costs and the U.S. budget deficit under control may require such moves. “If at the end of the day we need to raise taxes, we should raise taxes,” he said.

While this isn’t a definitive declaration from the White House that Obama will push for a VAT tax,  the fact is that the Democrats spending spree is unsustainable, and there are only two choices.  Stop spending, or pass a broad-based tax increase.  Clearly, Obama and company have no intention of curtailing their spending, so that means it’s only a matter of time until they push for an across the board tax increase, most likely in the form of a VAT tax.

To quote the former Governor of Alaska, “how’s that hopey, changey thing working out for ya?”

On Friday, President Obama made a much publicized trip to an advanced battery technology manufacturer and among other things touted how his economic program had halted a two year slide with 160,000 jobs having been added in March.  After explaining how great his policies have been for America, President Obama took questions.

One woman asked if it was wise to add more taxes with the Health care law, since as she put it, “we are over-taxed as it is.”

President Obama showed initial irritation with the question, and quickly took the offensive with:

Well, let’s talk about that, because this is an area where there’s been just a whole lot of misinformation, and I’m going to have to work hard over the next several months to clean up a lot of the misapprehensions that people have.

Obama went on to spend over 17 minutes on his 2,500+ word answer.  President Obama wandered all over the place, from talking about the disinformation about Obamacare to how the US was (before his bill was passed) the only advanced country that allows citizens to have no health insurance (note he said 15 million, vs. the 30+ million he has used in the past when referring to the uninsured.

In the end, he wandered all over the place for 17 minutes, rarely addressing the actual question, which is about whether it’s smart to add more taxes when people are already over taxed.  About three minutes into the 17 minute filibuster, he said “and the final point is that” and continued to talk for over 14 minutes longer.

Here is the first 6 minutes of the answer from the DrudgeReportUSA YouTube channel:

Here’s the full transcript of that one question and answer:

Q    Thank you, Mr. President.  We’re honored to have you here today.  I’m Doris Ravis (sp) from Lake Wylie, South Carolina.  I work at Celgard.  We have wonderful CEOs that take care of us and have really helped the company grow.  My question is, though, in the economy times that we have now, is it a wise decision to add more taxes to us with the health care?  Because it — we are over-taxed as it is.

THE PRESIDENT:  Well, let’s talk about that, because this is an area where there’s been just a whole lot of misinformation, and I’m going to have to work hard over the next several months to clean up a lot of the misapprehensions that people have.  Here’s the bottom line:  Number one is that we are the only — we have been up until last week the only advanced country that allows 50 million of its citizens to not have any health insurance, and the vast majority of those folks work.  It’s just that they don’t happen to work for a company that is either big enough or generous enough to provide them any coverage.

So that’s point number one.  There is a moral imperative that is important.  Number two, you don’t know who might end up being in that situation.  See, those of us who have health care right now ask ourselves, well, is this something that should be a priority right now, but anybody here who lost their job and then COBRA ran out, or COBRA wasn’t subsidized the way the Recovery Act made sure COBRA paid 65 percent of the cost of COBRA — and if you had somebody at home who was sick, or you had a child who got sick, you’d suddenly say to yourself, well, now I see the need.

And so part of what we have to do is always say to ourselves, there but for the grace of God go I — and have a basic safety net.  So that’s point number two.

Point number three is that the way insurance companies have been operating, even if you’ve got health insurance you don’t always know what you got, because what has been increasingly the practice is that if you’re not lucky enough to work for a big company that is a big pool, that essentially is almost a self-insurer, then what’s happening is, is you’re going out on the marketplace, you may be buying insurance, you think you’re covered, but then when you get sick they decide to drop the insurance right when you need it.  Or when you get sick they try to find what they consider to be a preexisting condition that would justify them canceling your policy.  Or there’s some fine print in there where you’ve got a lifetime limit, and it turns out you thought you had coverage, but it turns out the coverage only goes up to a certain point and then afterwards you have to start paying out of pocket.  And even after paying all those premiums, you’re now in the hole for $100,000 or $200,000, and you’re going bankrupt and you’re losing your house.

And the final point is that the costs of health care — setting aside anything we did in reform, I mean, if we just allowed the current trajectory to go on — is out of control.  I haven’t talked to Bob about what his costs are looking like for Celgard employees, but I can tell you that health care costs have gone up, the price of health care has gone up three times faster than wages.  So either the company is having to swallow those costs, which means that’s less money that they could use for hiring new workers or investing in new plants and equipment, or they’re passing on those costs to their employees in the form of higher premiums, higher deductibles, higher co-payments.

And what’s happening federally is, because the costs are so out of control, all the programs that we already have — Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program — all those things are completely out of control.  So if you’re concerned about the deficit, what you’re really concerned about is the cost of Medicare, Medicaid, and all the other programs that are already in place.

So here’s what we did.  What we said is, number one, we’ll have the basic principle that everybody gets coverage.  And the way we’re going to do that is to say that most people individually shouldn’t buy health insurance on their own because they have no leverage and the insurance companies take advantage of it.  Instead what we’re going to do is we’re going to set up a big pool, a marketplace, that allows everybody to buy into this pool — that members of Congress, by the way, will be a part of so you know it’s going to be a good deal — because members of Congress, they’ve got to look out for their own families; they wouldn’t vote for it if it wasn’t going to be a good deal.  And just like Walmart is able to leverage a really good price from its suppliers for everything because they’re such a big purchaser, well, this pool will be a big purchaser and it will be able to get a better deal from insurance companies.

So that’s point number one.  That will drive down the prices for people who are participating and it will allow everybody to get a decent deal on insurance.  And what we do is we provide tax credits to people who still can’t afford it so that they can afford it.  That’s point number one.

Point number two is we’ve got the strongest insurance reforms in history.  So all those things I told you about — you not being able to get insurance because of a preexisting condition; you finding yourself getting dropped even though you’ve been paying premiums for 15 years and suddenly they just decide, sorry, we don’t want you because you’re getting sick — those policies will be over.  And so you will be protected as a consumer to make sure you’ve got security and protection if you’ve got insurance already.  That’s the second thing we do.

The third thing we do is we actually put in place a whole bunch of mechanisms to start reducing the actual cost of health care.  So, for example, one of the things that we do is to say we’re going to start encouraging paying doctors not based on how many tests they take, but based on the quality of the outcome — does somebody end up healthy.

And it turns out that a lot of times if you go to the doctor you get one test.  Then you go — referred to a specialist, you get another test.  Then maybe you go to a third person, the surgeon, you get a third test — it’s all the same test but you’re paying three times.

So what we’re trying to say is, we’ll pay you for the first test and then e-mail the test to everybody.  Right?  (Applause.)  Or have all three doctors in the room when the test is being taken.

But that’s an example of the kinds of things that save money and will start reducing costs over the long term.  So what we’ve done is we’ve embedded in how Medicare reimburses, how Medicaid reimburses, all these ideas to actually reduce the costs of care.

So our hope is that over time, over the next three, four, five, six years, because of all these changes, that we’ve actually saved money from this, even though more people are covered.

And so now you’ll hear the critics and the Republicans say, now, that just defies common sense.  If you’re adding 30 million more people, then it’s got to cost more money.  And you can’t pretend like somehow that’s going to help us on the deficit.  I’ve heard this criticism, I understand it.

But let me give you an example.  If you’ve got a house and you’ve got a big hole in your roof, and it’s raining and snowing through that roof and there are some people who are inside the rooms where the roof is okay and they’re nice and warm, and then you got a few — your family members in that room where there’s a big hole in the roof and they’re shivering, and they’re cold — if you repair the roof, that’s going to cost some money.  But if all the water damage from your floors and all the heat that’s going out of the roof, you count all those savings, over time it may turn out that it actually is saving you money and, by the way, all those family members now are warm, too.  You’re not the only one who’s warm, right?  That’s essentially what we’re trying to set up.

Now, last point I want to make.  All those savings that we’re anticipating, we don’t even count those when it comes to making sure that this is deficit-neutral.  Here are the two ways that we’re paying for this thing:  Number one, we are eliminating a whole bunch of waste, fraud, and insurance subsidies that were being paid out under Medicare that aren’t making our seniors any healthier.  I mean, you’ve got a pretty sweet deal for insurance companies right now in a program called Medicare Advantage where they get $18 billion a year paid to them to manage a Medicare program that about 80 percent of seniors are getting directly from the government, and it’s working just fine.  It’s just a subsidy to them that doesn’t make anybody healthier.  So what we’re saying is, well, let’s eliminate the subsidy.  So that’s about how we pay for half of this thing.

The other half of it, it is true that we have identified some additional taxes that we think are fair.  And let me describe, just to give you an example — I don’t think this will affect you, but I don’t know — I don’t know your family’s circumstances.  Right now, if you’re on salary, you get your salary from Celgard or any of the companies around here, you’re paying your Medicare tax on all of that, right?  You see it on your — it’s part of your FICA.  But if you’re Warren Buffett and you get most of your money from dividends and capital gains, you don’t pay Medicare tax on that.  You’re eligible for it.  You’re going to get the same Medicare benefits as anybody else.  But because your source of income is what’s called unearned income — capital gains and dividends — you don’t have to pay this.

Well, I’m thinking to myself how is it that the guy who is cleaning up the office is paying the Medicare tax and the guy who is making capital gains isn’t?  So what we said was, look, if you make more than $200,000, $250,000 a year, then that money that you make over $200,000, $250,000 a year that’s unearned — that’s from capital gains and dividends — you should have to pitch in to Medicare just like everybody else, because you’re going to be using it like everybody else.  So it’s a concept of fairness.  (Applause.)

Now, what the Congressional Budget Office has said — I’m sorry, by the way, these questions sometimes are — or these answers are long, but I want to make sure you guys — that I’m really answering your question.  I hope you feel like I really want to respect the importance of your question.  What the Congressional Budget Office has said is that as a consequence of the savings from the waste and fraud, combined with the new revenue sources I just mentioned, that this thing is going to actually reduce our deficit by over a trillion dollars — over a trillion dollars.  We’re actually saving money for the government — because we closed the roof, the house is now insulated, it’s warm.  And by the way, in the meantime we’ve got a whole bunch of people who were left out in the cold who are now being taken care of.

That’s the concept.  But I know that for a lot of people, they’ve got a legitimate concern about, gosh, it just seems like government spending is out of control.  I understand that.  I feel that.  But understand what happened:  When I walked in, we already had a $1.3 trillion deficit.  That’s an annual deficit of $1.3 trillion.  That’s — the day I got sworn in, before I did a thing, we had $8 trillion in accumulated debt from the war in Iraq — not paid for; the prescription drug plan, Medicare Part D — not paid for; Bush tax cuts — not paid for.

So we already had all this debt that had just been piled up, but nobody had noticed because things were going kind of good.  Just like a lot of folks didn’t notice their credit card was going up or that their home equity loans were going up because when things are going good you tend not to notice.

So all that debt had already accumulated.  We then had to spend $787 billion on the Recovery Act to do all the things — unemployment insurance; COBRA; what’s called FMAP, which is essentially helping states to keep their budgets afloat so that they didn’t have to lay off teachers and cops and firefighters — all of which if that had happened would have further depressed the economy and we would have recovered a lot later; the investments we’re making in clean energy and things like Celgard to help spur economic growth.

So we had to spend that, but that’s only a fraction of what our debt was.  And in addition what happens is when the economy goes south, there are fewer tax revenues.  And so you’re putting more money out to help people with unemployment insurance and things like that, but you’re getting less money in because folks are out of work and businesses aren’t making money.

Bottom line is, we now have a significant debt that has to be paid down.  That’s why I’m freezing government spending.  That’s why we reinstated what’s called pay-as-you-go.  You can’t start a program without paying for it.  Our health care program is paid for.

But the big thing, if you’re really worried about leaving debt to the next generation, which I know you are, the most important thing we’re going to have to tackle is our health care costs, because Medicare is by far — Medicare and Medicaid are the biggest things that are looming in the horizon in terms of what our debt is going to be.  Nothing else comes close.

If this health care bill never existed, if I didn’t do anything about it, we’d actually be a trillion dollars worse off over the long term.  But even with the saving we’re getting from health care, we’re still going to have to do more.  And if you don’t believe that, go on our Web site — www.whitehouse.gov — and you can look at how the federal budget works.

A lot of people think if you just eliminated foreign aid we could balance the budget, or if you just eliminated earmarks you could balance the budget.  Earmarks — pork projects, what everybody calls pork — those account for about 1 percent of the budget, less than 1 percent.  Foreign aid accounts for about 1.5 to 2 percent of the budget.

Most of the budget is Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, defense spending, and interest on the national debt.  That accounts for about 70 percent of the budget.  And so all this other stuff that sometimes we argue about, that’s not the big stuff.  We’re going to have to tackle the big stuff if we’re going to get our budget under control.

Boy, that was a long answer.  I’m sorry.  (Laughter.)  But I hope everybody — but I hope I answered your question.  (Applause.)  All right, I’m going to — I’ve got to make this the last question.  I’m going to ask this young man right here.

This characterization has been evident for a while, but since Obamacare passed, it has become clear that attacking the Tea Party is at the center of the Democrats plan for the mid-term elections.

The fact that the Democrats, including the White House and liberal press, are attacking the Tea Party movement this aggressively shows just how much the left fears the Tea Party and the impact its members will have in November.

If the result of the Winston Group poll that The Hill reported today are accurate, Obama’s aggressive attack strategy may backfire come November:

The national breakdown of the Tea Party composition is 57 percent Republican, 28 percent Independent and 13 percent Democratic, according to three national polls by the Winston Group, a Republican-leaning firm that conducted the surveys on behalf of an education advocacy group. Two-thirds of the group call themselves conservative, 26 are moderate and 8 percent say they are liberal.

The Winston Group conducted three national telephone surveys of 1,000 registered voters between December and February. Of those polled, 17 percent – more than 500 people — said they were “part of the Tea Party movement.”

“It’s a good sample size,” said David Winston, the polling firm’s director. “It will certainly give us an initial base to follow where these folks are.”

In addition. the poll found:

• 61% believe infrastructure spending creates jobs
• 63% believe reducing unemployment is more important than fixing the deficit
• 71% view the GOP favorably
• 75% view the Democratic party unfavorable
• 95% believe that “Democrats are taxing, spending, and borrowing too much”
• 80% disapprove of the job President Obama is doing
• 82% disapprove of Obamacare

In addition to the Winston Group poll, Ed Morrissey of Hot Air details the demographics of the Tea Party that a Gallup poll found:

Is the Tea Party as racist as the media and leading Democrats have portrayed?  Gallup’s demos of the Tea Party look very close to that of the overall American demos on ethnicity.  Whites make up 79% of the Tea Party and 75% of the population; blacks, 6% of the Tea Party and 11% of the population; and “other” in the Tea Party exactly matches the general population at 15%.

Numbers like that from a group where 40% are Democrats and Independents, and that is being continuously attacked by the White House, Congressional Democrats and the main stream media, appears to be another indication of how bloody November may be for the Democrats.

The Scott Brown victory in January was due to Independents and moderate Democrats voting against the Democratic candidate in large part to send a message to the Democrats in Washington.  While it was a local election, it became a national campaign.  As the Democrats clearly did not get the message from the Brown election in Massachusetts, don’t be surprised if a great number of Independents and moderate Democrats opt to resend that message in November.

President Obama’s demands on Israel seem to have done nothing more than damage US/Israel relations and give the Palestinians an excuse to refuse to hold legitimate peace talks.

Dick Morris poses two questions that President Obama should be asking himself:

Why is President Barack Obama so obviously humiliating Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu? Why is Secretary of State Hillary Clinton negating everything she said when she represented New York state and piling on the Jewish state?

Morris goes on to explain the cycle where by the Palestinians continue to demand more from Israel, while using US aid and land that Israel conceded to stage attacks on Israel.

Any peace deal with the Palestinian Authority will not be binding on Hamas, and the pattern of Gaza will likely play out again: First, Israel cedes land to the Palestinian Authority. Second, Hamas seizes the newly ceded land through elections or military action. Third, Hamas refuses to recognize the peace deal and uses the newly acquired territory as a base from which to launch further attacks against Israel.

Insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome each time.

When Hillary Clinton and President Obama explode in indignation against Israel for building apartments in East Jerusalem, they deliberately miss the point: There is no reason for Israel to catalyze peace negotiations when there is no single entity that is both committed to peace and speaks for the entire Palestinian people. Without a peace partner, negotiations are either a trip to nowhere or a slippery slope to more Gaza-like concessions that do nothing but strengthen the enemies of Israel without providing any advancement to the cause of peace.

The merits of building in East Jerusalem or the need for a moratorium on all settlement construction are quite irrelevant as long as a substantial body of Palestinian opinion wants a war with Israel and the prevailing political authority in Gaza insists on the Jewish state’s eradication.

So why are Obama and Clinton so intent on raising the profile of the construction issue and publicizing it? One suspects an effort is afoot to link Israeli resistance to the peace process with the ongoing loss of American lives in Iraq and Afghanistan, if not to the global terrorism of al Qaeda.

As President Obama continues to verbally chastise Israel, embarrasses Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by treating him worse than a third world dictator and sends US aid to the Palestinians, it’s hard to figure out what his end game will be.  Unless the President’s goal is destroying US/Israel relations, in order to garner support from those that wish to see Israel destroyed, it’s hard to understand the actions of the Obama administration.

More here:
Probably Won’t Keep That Good Solid B+

Read more here:
Conspiracy Theory

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Mirror Universe Obama

Last year President Obama’s arrogance resulted in French President Sarkozy reportedly calling President Obama Naive and grossly egotistical in regards to Obama’s response and handling of Iran’s nuclear program.  A response that to date appears to be a complete failure.

Now, President Obama showed a complete lack of respect to a visiting head of state, when after negotiations did not go to his liking, he simply walked out on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu:

For a head of government to visit the White House and not pose for photographers is rare. For a key ally to be left to his own devices while the President withdraws to have dinner in private was, until this week, unheard of. Yet that is how Binyamin Netanyahu was treated by President Obama on Tuesday night, according to Israeli reports on a trip viewed in Jerusalem as a humiliation.

After failing to extract a written promise of concessions on settlements, Mr Obama walked out of his meeting with Mr Netanyahu but invited him to stay at the White House, consult with advisers and “let me know if there is anything new”, a US congressman, who spoke to the Prime Minister, said.

“It was awful,” the congressman said. One Israeli newspaper called the meeting “a hazing in stages”, poisoned by such mistrust that the Israeli delegation eventually left rather than risk being eavesdropped on a White House telephone line. Another said that the Prime Minister had received “the treatment reserved for the President of Equatorial Guinea”.

…

Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, cast doubt on minor details in Israeli accounts of the meeting but did not deny claims that it amounted to a dressing down for the Prime Minister, whose refusal to freeze settlements is seen in Washington as the main barrier to resuming peace talks.

Prior to humiliating the Prime Minister by walking out rather than having dinner, Obama refused to allow press or photographers access to his meeting with Netanyahu.  Obama failed to hold a joint press conference, or even issue a press statement, both of which are expected when hosting a visiting head of state.

Apparently, President Obama decided to play hard ball and insult Netanyahu as retribution for what he saw as Israel showing disrespect to Vice President Joe Biden.  ALLAHPUNDIT of Hot Air explains:

In a nutshell, the right-wing part of Netanyahu’s government announced the building of new settlements in east Jerusalem on the day Biden came to visit, which allegedly sent The One into a snit over what he considered to be an insult. Never mind that Netanyahu himself apparently didn’t know about the timing of the announcement and that building in east Jerusalem, which would almost certainly remain Israeli in any peace deal, was routine. Obama wants to make a show of standing up to the Zionist entity for our Islamic “partners in peace” in the naive belief that that’ll help bring about the ever elusive solution to the crisis.

Some have said that he treated Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu like a third world dictator, but the fact is we have seen President Obama bend over backwards time after time to the dictators he thinks he can convince to become US allies simply by showing them the ‘softer’ side of the United States, while time and again he shows a lack of respect to our long-time allies.

The Republicans found a provision that guaranteed Pell grants into the future without providing funding for them, leaving that to a future Congress.  As this provision does not reduce spending, it was not eligible to be in the reconciliation bill.

Ed Morrissey of Hot Air touches on two points related to sending the bill back to the house:

If that’s all that gets struck from the bill, the only effect will be to lengthen the debate on health care.  Obviously, that’s exactly what the Republicans want.  With 62% of voters wanting the GOP to keep fighting against ObamaCare, their leadership has no reason to let up.

The big surprise here is that House leadership allowed themselves to screw up on minor points.  The process of reconciliation isn’t that arcane, and they certainly had the time to double-check their work.  They’ve been working on this strategy since Scott Brown won his election in mid-January.  To have the bill boomerang back because of Pell grants in a health-care bill is an embarrassment.

While this is mostly a delaying tactic by the Republicans, there is some significance to the delaying tactics.

First, a CBS poll released yesterday, which was conducted in the two days leading up to the House health bill vote, showed that 62% of American, including 41% of Democrats, wanted the GOP to continue to fight against Obamacare.  In addition, that survey showed 57%/18% that people believed that regardless of the Democrat’s claims of a great CBO score, that the bill would in fact increase the deficit.

Second, House and Senate Democrats had not only been working on the Reconciliation strategy since the Brown victory, but had spent weeks leading up to the vote working directly with Senate Parliamentarian Alan Frumin to insure that errors like this were not contained in the bill.  So, not only is it an embarrassment that these small errors existed, but also highlights the fact that the Democrats piggy backed a takeover of the student loan program onto Obamacare.

Finally, in addition to the minor victory of sending the bill back to the house for a new vote, and as a result keeping the ‘process’ in the news cycle, yesterday’s GOP tactics served another purpose.  The Republicans put forth close to three dozen amendments.  While they had no real hope that any would pass, many of the amendments were put forth, because voting against them will look bad for vulnerable Democratic Senators in November.  For instance, voting against an amendment that would forbid raiding Medicare to pay for the Obamacare bill.

President Obama and the far left have been reinvigorated with the passing of Obamacare.  While only a few weeks ago it seemed that Obama’s far left agenda had been stalemated and unlikely to have any real chance of being pushed through Congress, many believe that has now changed.

As Nancy Pelosi so famously said, “we will have to pass the bill to see what’s in it”.  Unfortunately, for the American voters, that has been the truth.  Many lies have been told about Obamacare, such as the President stating over and over that if you like your insurance plan, you can keep it.  Those that have read the bills know that isn’t the case, since it requires that once your plan changes (premium amount, deductible change, any coverage change — like a change in Rx benefits) require that you must move to a plan that is exchange-qualified.  That means for most people, once that regulati0n goes into affect, at their next plan renewal (when in most cases, something in the plan changes) they will have to move to an exchange-qualified plan and CANNOT keep the insurance plan they like.

It is likely that there will be a short-term bump in public opinion for Obamacare, as the President starts his PR campaign, which he will soon take on the road.  President Obama will keep focusing on the small number of popular consumer protections that go into effect quickly, while either not mentioning, or misstating the many negative regulations that will soon go into effect and will be hugely unpopular once voters understand what they mean.

However, it’s important to note that while a Gallup poll released yesterday did show a bump in public support for Obamacare, a new Bloomberg survey shows that a majority of Americans believe that health care is a private matter and that Obamacare is a federal take over of health care.  It also found that six out of ten Americans believe that individuals should be responsible to make sure their health care needs are met.

Ed Morrissey of Hot Air discusses the Bloomberg Survey:

If Democrats felt heartened after yesterday’s Gallup poll showing a plurality of support for their new ObamaCare plan, Bloomberg’s survey should bring them back to Earth.  The survey asked over a thousand adults their opinions of the ObamaCare bill during and after its passage, and like almost every poll taken in the last several months, a majority of respondents opposed it.  Moreover, a majority also consider it a government takeover of the American health-care system.

…

It also presents another problem for Democrats, which is that they will own every failure within the American health-care system from this point forward.  Had Republicans successfully blocked ObamaCare, they would have owned them, but now it all falls on the Democrats.

The fact that people can’t really keep their insurance if they like it, is just one aspect of Obamacare that will likely result in a backlash from voters. It’s one thing for people to say “yes, everyone should be covered, if it doesn’t change my coverage”, but that sentiment changes very quickly when people realize that their insurance coverage will soon change drastically, and for many Americans that will also mean higher premiums.

Since Obama, Pelosi and Reid know they have to ride the wave of positive press and re-energized liberal base, expect a major push to pass the remaining big, liberal agenda items.  What can we expect to see a major push to pass?

Immigration reform:  They started talking about this last week in order to wrap up some needed votes on the Health care bill, but this isn’t just about buying votes for Obamacare.  The Democrats see offering amnesty to illegal immigrants as an immediate increase in the size of the block of voters that automatically vote Democrat.  Most of the illegals given amnesty will receive some form of government subsidy, including for Obamacare, and therefore will want to keep the Democrats in office in order to keep their entitlements.

Cap and Trade:  Senator Kerry has already said that the Senate needs to move quickly to pass Cap and Trade.  They realize that weekly more cracks are forming in the ‘science’ surrounding global warming, or climate change as it’s now called, and therefore they must strike quickly.  Like with Obamacare, the American public does not believe Cap and Trade should be passed, but after just passing one major piece of legislation in contradiction of the will of the people, expect a major push to pass another.

Card Check:  President Obama owes the unions his election, a fact that Andy Stern of SEIU keeps publicly reminding him, when he says that the SEIU spent over $60 million to get President Obama elected.  Unions are one of the main contributors to the Democratic party.   Union membership in private sector companies is near an all time low, which is troubling to both union leaders and Democrats that count on that major source of funding and votes.  Card Check, or Employee Free Choice Act as the Democrats falsely named it, will eliminate the secret ballot and as a result, bring back ugly intimidation by union organizers.

These are not the only items on the far-left wish list, but they are among the most important to the liberal base and the most damaging to the United States.   Like Obamacare, these have been on the liberal wish list for a while, and the only chance of passing them is with the type of massive majority that the Democrats hold in Congress.  Like with Obamacare, they will push to get them passed quickly, hoping to leave enough time between the passage of these bills and the November elections, counting on these unpopular bills to no longer be in the public’s focus when they go to the voting booth.

In the coming days, I will post more information on each of these upcoming pieces of legislation.

President Obama set the tone for both Houses of Congress, when leading up to the passage of the first stimulus bill, his response to Republican leadership concerns about not being involved in drafting the stimulus bill was simply to state that he didn’t have to involve them, because as he said “I won”.

Dick Morris has been warning Democrats for a while that there will be a very steep price for defying the will of the American public.  He now says they will pay a heavy price in November for that defiance:

The Democratic Party’s decision to deform our health care system in the name of reforming it amounts to a suicide pact. With America decrying the legislation by 60-40 margins, the legislators lined up and dutifully drank the Kool-Aid.

…

The anger of the voters at this total disregard of public opinion will power Republican candidates throughout the nation and will impel one of the greatest reversals of Congressional alignment in history.

But the aftershock of this political earthquake is yet to come. It will be upon us in the fall when Congress must decide whether to proceed with the Medicare cuts (particularly to cut in doctors’ reimbursement rates) or to postpone or cancel them and add the cost to the federal deficit.

…

This vote transforms the political landscape in a way that we have not seen in our lifetimes and the results will be cataclysmic for the Democratic Party

The next seven months will be interesting.  Starting today, the Democrats will begin selling the benefits of Obamacare in an attempt to mitigate the damage in the mid-term elections come November.   Only time will tell how successful they will be with their sales job.

As to paying for their defiance, one has to now wonder about the Stupak bloc.  They claimed that their principles could not be compromised.  Bart Stupak said that if the Senate language, which provides for the public funding of abortion, was not amended then Stupak and his group could not and would not vote for it.  They did.

The White House wrote them a “here’s some cover for the mid-term elections” Executive Order, but they know, and the American public will soon know, that the Executive Order does nothing to prevent the public funding of abortion that Stupak has been decrying for months.

Not too many people thought the President could get this many Congressmen to fall on their swords for him.  If Dick Morris is right, the dismantling of the Democratic majority might be Obama’s greatest accomplishment.

See the original post:
Bloodhounds Tend To Vote Republican

Stupak claims that this executive order will address all concerns about public funds being used to pay for abortion, but Stupak did not address the mandate that all men and women buying insurance from exchange-qualified health care plans will be required to pay $1 a month (or more) that will go into a pool to pay for abortions within that plan.

Further, that Executive Order can be rescinded by President Obama or a future President, and more importantly does not trump legislation enacted by Congress.  Therefore, the Executive Order does nothing except give Stupak cover in the upcoming mid-term elections.

The following is a draft of Obama’s Executive Order posted on Major Garrett’s Foxnews blog:

EXECUTIVE ORDER

- – - – - – -

ENSURING ENFORCEMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION OF ABORTION RESTRICTIONS IN THE PATIENT PROTECTION AND AFFORDABLE CARE ACT

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” (approved March ¬¬__, 2010), I hereby order as follows:

Section 1. Policy.

Following the recent passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“the Act”), it is necessary to establish an adequate enforcement mechanism to ensure that Federal funds are not used for abortion services (except in cases of rape or incest, or when the life of the woman would be endangered), consistent with a longstanding Federal statutory restriction that is commonly known as the Hyde Amendment. The purpose of this Executive Order is to establish a comprehensive, government-wide set of policies and procedures to achieve this goal and to make certain that all relevant actors—Federal officials, state officials (including insurance regulators) and health care providers—are aware of their responsibilities, new and old.

The Act maintains current Hyde Amendment restrictions governing abortion policy and extends those restrictions to the newly-created health insurance exchanges. Under the Act, longstanding Federal laws to protect conscience (such as the Church Amendment, 42 U.S.C. §300a-7, and the Weldon Amendment, Pub. L. No. 111-8, §508(d)(1) (2009)) remain intact and new protections prohibit discrimination against health care facilities and health care providers because of an unwillingness to provide, pay for, provide coverage of, or refer for abortions.

Numerous executive agencies have a role in ensuring that these restrictions are enforced, including the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).

Section 2. Strict Compliance with Prohibitions on Abortion Funding in Health Insurance Exchanges. The Act specifically prohibits the use of tax credits and cost-sharing reduction payments to pay for abortion services (except in cases of rape or incest, or when the life of the woman would be endangered) in the health insurance exchanges that will be operational in 2014. The Act also imposes strict payment and accounting requirements to ensure that Federal funds are not used for abortion services in exchange plans (except in cases of rape or incest, or when the life of the woman would be endangered) and requires state health insurance commissioners to ensure that exchange plan funds are segregated by insurance companies in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles, OMB funds management circulars, and accounting guidance provided by the Government Accountability Office.

I hereby direct the Director of OMB and the Secretary of HHS to develop, within 180 days of the date of this Executive Order, a model set of segregation guidelines for state health insurance commissioners to use when determining whether exchange plans are complying with the Act’s segregation requirements, established in Section 1303 of the Act, for enrollees receiving Federal financial assistance. The guidelines shall also offer technical information that states should follow to conduct independent regular audits of insurance companies that participate in the health insurance exchanges. In developing these model guidelines, the Director of OMB and the Secretary of HHS shall consult with executive agencies and offices that have relevant expertise in accounting principles, including, but not limited to, the Department of the Treasury, and with the Government Accountability Office. Upon completion of those model guidelines, the Secretary of HHS should promptly initiate a rulemaking to issue regulations, which will have the force of law, to interpret the Act’s segregation requirements, and shall provide guidance to state health insurance commissioners on how to comply with the model guidelines.

Section 3. Community Health Center Program.

The Act establishes a new Community Health Center (CHC) Fund within HHS, which provides additional Federal funds for the community health center program. Existing law prohibits these centers from using federal funds to provide abortion services (except in cases of rape or incest, or when the life of the woman would be endangered), as a result of both the Hyde Amendment and longstanding regulations containing the Hyde language. Under the Act, the Hyde language shall apply to the authorization and appropriations of funds for Community Health Centers under section 10503 and all other relevant provisions. I hereby direct the Secretary of HHS to ensure that program administrators and recipients of Federal funds are aware of and comply with the limitations on abortion services imposed on CHCs by existing law. Such actions should include, but are not limited to, updating Grant Policy Statements that accompany CHC grants and issuing new interpretive rules.

Section 4. General Provisions.

(a) Nothing in this Executive Order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect: (i) authority granted by law or presidential directive to an agency, or the head thereof; or (ii) functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.

(b) This Executive Order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.

(c) This Executive Order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity against the United States, its departments, agencies, entities, officers, employees or agents, or any other person.

First, it’s important to note that while this is a slim sliver of hope, Foxnews and many other agencies believe that Pelosi has 216, if not more.  They believe that Pelosi continues to try and win yes votes only to pad the numbers so that no Democrats can be pointed to as the ‘deciding vote’ during the upcoming mid-term elections.

That said, less than an hour ago, The Hill reported that Pelosi is still short of 216 and that Stupak’s office is still calling him a firm no:

If every member votes, Democratic leaders can only afford 37 defections. According to The Hill’s whip list, there are 39 Democrats planning to vote no.

Furthermore, The Hill also has seven Democrats in the undecided/unclear column: Reps Jim Cooper (Tenn.), Kathy Dahlkemper (Pa.), Paul Kanjorski (Pa.), Alan Mollohan (W.Va.), Mike Quigley (Ill.), Bobby Rush (Ill.) and Loretta Sanchez (Calif.).

There have been various reports on Sunday that Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) and other anti-abortion lawmakers have agreed to an abortion deal involving an executive order from the Obama administration. However, Stupak’s office are strongly denying those reports.

AllahPundit of Hot Air says that Stupak may decide the fate of Obamacare:

I thought for sure that Lincoln Davis and John Tanner voting no meant that Pelosi had made it and was now releasing vulnerable Dems, but it ain’t so.

If the Stupak bloc is still back in the driver’s seat, the question remains:  will Stupak stand by his word or will he simply look for some political cover to help him in November?

The Executive Order will do nothing to stop the mandate that every man and women buying exchange-qualified insurance plans will have to pay $1+ a month into a trust to pay for abortions.  This is the very language in the Senate bill that Stupak said he could not vote for, but now the rumblings are he will vote for it as long as Obama gives him a meaningless Executive Order for him to wave in the air in November and say, “see, I got something from Obama, re-elect me.”

UPDATE:

Ok, this doesn’t look promising.  AllahPundit is reporting that Stupak has scheduled a press conference for 4:00 PM EDT, which almost certainly means he is announcing his yes vote.

UPDATE 2:

While we need to wait about another five minutes for the Stupak Press conference, the Hill is reporting that a deal has been reached with the White House and the remaining members of the Stupak bloc will flip to yes:

“Eight or nine” Democrats, including Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), will announce the deal at a 4 p.m. press conference, according to an anti-abortion Democrat.

“We’ve changed [our votes],” said Rep. Steve Driehaus (D-Ohio).

Driehaus said he’s seen the executive order and can now vote for the healthcare bill.  He said Stupak has signed off, as well.

As the day progressed, reports began to surface that Pelosi might still be short and that President Obama was considering issuing an executive order regarding the public funding for abortion.  The goal of the executive order would be to win the votes of Bart Stupak (D-MI) and nine other pro-life Democrats that won’t vote for the Senate bill while it contains public funding for abortion.

This evening, Gateway pundit is reporting that Pelosi remains short.  While we previously reported on Space and Matheson declaring their no votes, the news about Davis and about Clinton being brought in to make calls:

Glenn Reynolds reported– REPS. SPACE & MATHESON WILL BOTH VOTE NO. I’m also getting email reports that Rep. Lincoln Davis’s (D-TN) office is saying he will vote no, though I haven’t been able to find a published report to that effect.

There are reports that the socialists democrats even recruited Bill Clinton to make phone calls.

Gather.com has news that CNN is reporting that President Obama has recruited Bill Clinton to call undecided Democrats and try and convince them to vote yes for Obamacare:

More here:
Before It’s Too Late

Just a quick update: despite what you may be hearing from Fox, which has strangely had a more optimistic count for Democrats than even liberal websites, Pelosi DOES NOT have the votes yet.

…

Update #1 (5:48 PM EST): Zack Space just came out as a “no.” The Firedoglake count has him at undecided, so by their count, we just hit 216 no votes for the very first time. Will it stick? Who knows, but getting over the threshold is important.

The liberal site Firedoglake has the current count at 205 no, 204 yes, with 12 undecided and 10 they believe are holding firm with Stupak.  If their numbers are right, and they got all the undecided votes, then Pelosi would either have to cave and offer a deal to the pro-life Stupak group and come up with some language to address the Senate bill’s public funding of abortion.

Since it is a near certainty that the Senate would not act on any resolution or bill to ‘fix’ the Senate health carebill and remove the public funding for abortion, that really only leaves two choices.  First, Stupak and his group vote no.  Second, they go back on their word and vote for a bill with public funding for abortion.  It’s possible that Pelosi will help them by giving them some political cover by including some language to remove the public funding for abortion, even when she knows the Senate will never act on it.

ALLAHPUNDIT of Hot Air reports on a possible executive order on abortion aimed to win Stupak 10:

NRO says this “still isn’t nailed down,” but it sounds like the final stumbling block may be some sort of executive order about abortion to bring the Stupakers on board. And the pro-choicers are apparently okay with it. Gulp.

Read more from the original source:
What’s Good For Obama

When President Bush left office, 43% of people strongly disapproved of his job performance.  This was after years of fighting two unpopular wars, and a presidential campaign that saw Obama, Clinton and other Democrats sole strategy being to demonize President Bush and claim any Republican elected would simply be four more years of George Bush.

It is amazing, that after the years of war, near collapse of the economic system, and two plus years of Democratic Presidential candidates demonizing Bush, that Obama has equaled his strongly disapprove numbers in just a little over a year.

Today, Ed Morrissey of Hot Air reports on today’s Rasmussen Reports poll:

Today’s Rasmussen numbers from their daily presidential poll puts Barack Obama into an unusual position.  In just 14 months, he has made himself more unpopular than his predecessor, at least by the measure of strong disapproval.  Obama’s approval index has tied its lowest mark yet at -21:

Rasmussen describes the new low for President Obama:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Friday shows that 23% of the nation’s voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty-four percent (44%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -21. That matches the lowest Approval Index rating yet recorded for this President (see trends).

And from the “do they really not get it” category, Rasmussen explains what we have seen repeatedly over the last year, which is the more Obama pushes Obamacare on the American public, the lower his approval rating goes:

Each time the President leads a big push for his health care plan, his job approval ratings suffer. For Members of Congress, the impact may be more tangible. Just 34% say they’re more likely to vote for someone who supports this legislation. Fifty-percent (50%) are less likely to vote for a Member of Congress who supports the health care reform plan proposed by the President and Congressional Democrats. …

Overall, 45% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President’s performance. Fifty-five percent (55%) disapprove.

It is simply amazing that a President that had an approval ratings in the high 60′s or 70′s (depending on the poll) when he took office, now only has a 45% approval rating.  Even more stunning is he is approaching the point where half of America ‘strongly’ disapprove of the job he is doing.

Read more here:
Obama’s Speech at the Patriot Center

Read the original:
Obama’s Speech at the Patriot Center

For instance, they are instructed not to use the total of 23 million people that will still be uninsured once the plan is in place, but instead to say 95% are covered. They say that 95% insured sounds better than 23 million uninsured. Also, the memo stated that saying that there would still be 23 million people uninsured after Obamacare is fully in force, would make President Obama’s statement to the joint sessions of Congress in September look bad, when he said that there were 30 million uninsured, which is why they needed to pass Obamacare.

While the memo warned in general about not getting into the specifics of CBO analysis numbers, it specifically warned that staffers and their bosses (the Congressmen) should not discuss the Medicare doc fix at all.  The memo stated that they would pass legislation with the doc fix in it after Obamacare was passed, but they did not include it in the Obamacare bill, because it would destroy the bills deficit neutrality.

Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey has made the scanned memo available here.

Democrats in Congress are claiming the memo did not come from the Democratic leadership.  The Talking Points Memo has more details:

A senior Democratic leadership aide told TPMDC in an interview the memo, printed by Politico and leading the Drudge Report this afternoon a few days ahead of the health care vote Sunday, is “a hoax.”

“We have checked with every Democratic office, no one has ever seen it. It did not come out of a Democratic office,” the aide said, adding that media outlets printing the memo have not checked with leadership offices if the memo is authentic. A second Democratic leadership aide confirmed the memo was not sent by the Democrats. A third Democratic aide also said the memo is fake, citing the “draft” stamp and saying no one uses such things.

“If this were a Democratic communications person who wrote this, they should be fired, because this looks like Republican talking points,” the third Democratic aide told TPMDC.

There are likely no areas where President Obama has equaled President Bush.  Bush didn’t do everything right, but he shot straight with the American public and he let the cards fall where they may.  A stark contrast to President Obama who routinely misstates the truth, attacks the former administration and outright lies about his mythical bi-partisan efforts.

The President’s approval rating has been on a steady decline.  Specifically there has been a steady and severe increase not only in the number of people that disapprove of him, but those people moving from the ‘somewhat’ disapprove category to the ‘strongly’ disapprove category.

Rasmussen reports, via The Volokh Conspiracy, has released new poll numbers that show after only a little over a year, the number of people that strongly disapprove of President Obama is equal to President Bush’s numbers when he left office:

When George Bush left office he was deeply unpopular: in Bush’s last month, according to Rasmussen 43% strongly disapproved of the job Bush was doing, while only 13% strongly approved, for a staggering negative rating of –30%. Rasmussen’s Thursday release shows that after 14 months in office President Barack Obama has achieved Bush’s 43% of the people strongly disapproving of his performance, but Obama is still 10% ahead of Bush in those who strongly approve (23% v. 13% for Bush).

I suspect that the main difference in their overall approval ratings is among African-Americans, not whites.

Imagine how unpopular Obama would be if the press and the late night comedians (who are at least as important as the press) treated Obama as they treated Bush.

It’s important to understand that when President Bush left office, not only had we been at war in Iraq and Afghanistan for years, but we just finished the longest Presidential campaign ever (Senator Obama started his campaign years before the election), with the Democrats main platform being the demonization of George Bush and the claims that any Republican elected would be four more years of George Bush.

In that article, I outlined two major manipulations that President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have been utilizing to force the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to score the bill as costing less than one trillion dollars in the first ten years, and reducing the deficit during that same time frame.

The ‘manipulations’ that I highlighted, along with those I didn’t, might be the greatest scam or fraud ever perpetrated on American citizens in our countries history.

The two manipulations that I focused on were the ten years of tax revenue vs. only six years of Obamacare expenses, and Pelosi and Reid blocking all attempts to pass the Medicare ‘doctors fix’, until after the CBO scored the reconciliation bill and Obamacare is passed.

Unfortunately, with CBS and other news agencies touting the “CBO certified” numbers and trumpeting how Obamacare will reduce the deficit, many Americans don’t understand the true cost or that the CBO summary numbers are meaningless, because of the manipulative limitations that the Democrats required the CBO to follow.

The Weekly Standard breaks down the real cost of the bill:

For a variety of reasons, this tally doesn’t remotely reflect the bill’s real ten-year costs.  First, it includes 2010 as the initial year.  As most people are well aware, 2010 has now been underway for some time.  Therefore, the CBO would normally count 2011 as the first year of its analysis, just as it counted 2010 as the first year when analyzing the initial House health bill in the middle of 2009.  But under strict instructions from Democratic leaders, and over strong objections from Republicans, the CBO dutifully scored 2010 as the first year of the latest version of Obamacare.  If the clock were started in 2011, the first full year that the bill could possibly be in effect, the CBO says that the bill’s ten-year costs would be $1.2 trillion.

But even that wouldn’t come close to reflecting the bill’s true costs.  The CBO projects that over the next four years, less than two percent of the bill’s alleged “ten year” costs would hit:  just $17 billion of the $940 billion in costs that the Democrats are claiming.  In fact, the costs through President Obama’s entire presidency, should he be reelected, would be $336 billion.  What would the president leave behind for his successor?  According to the CBO, he would leave behind costs of $837 billion during his successor’s first term alone.  If his successor were to serve a second term, he or she would inherit a cool $2.0 trillion in Obamacare costs — about six times its costs during Obama’s own tenure.  This legislation is a ticking time-bomb.

To see the bill’s true first-decade costs, we need to start the clock when the costs would actually start in any meaningful way: in 2014.  The CBO says that Obamacare would cost $2.0 trillion in the bill’s real first decade (from 2014 to 2023) — and much more in the decades to come.

But $2.0 trillion wouldn’t be the total ten-year costs.  Instead, that would merely be the “gross cost of coverage provisions.”  Based on earlier incarnations of the proposed overhaul, the total costs would be about a third higher (the exact number can’t be gleaned from the CBO’s analysis, which is only preliminary and is not a full scoring) — making the total price-tag between $2.5 and $3 trillion over the bill’s real first decade.

How would we pay for all of this?  According to the CBO, by diverting $1.1 trillion away from already barely-solvent Medicare and spending it on Obamacare, and by increasing taxes on the American people by over $1 trillion.  Among the Medicare cuts would be cuts of $25,000 in Medicare Advantage benefits per enrollee — up from $21,000 in the previous scoring.

That is the time based manipulation and massive cuts to Medicare.  Here is why Pelosi and Reid refused to pass a new ‘doctors fix’, even though the last one will expire on April 1st, resulting in a 21% cut in Medicare reimbursements to doctors.  All in the name of getting a good, if completely fictional, CBO score:

We’d also pay for this through increased deficits.  Under strict instructions from the Democrats, the CBO gave Obamacare credit for over $400 billion (from 2014 to 2023) in phony “savings” that would allegedly result from cutting doctor’s payments under Medicare by over 20 percent and never raising them back up.  As the CBO notes, one of two things could happen:  Congress could either follow through on these severe pay cuts — in which case doctors would view all Medicare patients as if they have the plague — or, Congress could eliminate these pay cuts — as everyone in Washington expects to have happen under the so-called “doc fix” — in which case the CBO projects that this bill would raise deficits by over $100 billion from 2017 to 2019 alone.

Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI) appeared on Fox and Friends and explains how the CBO score and deficit reduction numbers that Pelosi and other Democrats touted yesterday have nothing to do with the real costs:

Ed Morrissey of Hot Air comments on the IRS expansion buried in Obamacare:

We’ve heard the double-counting argument (and it’s a good one), but the IRS expansion makes for a better, more immediate argument. Do we need the IRS checking on us every month to enforce the health-insurance mandate? Do Americans think hiring an additional 15,000 IRS agents to get even more involved in our lives is a great idea for reform?

As if all of this wasn’t bad enough, the rumblings are growing that the Senate may not even pass the reconciliation bill.  Instead, they will simply let the House pass the current Senate bill, or should I say “deem it passed” and then refuse to take up the House reconciliation bill in the Senate.   Leaving tax payers not only with the massive increase to the deficit, but also all of the special deals the Senate bill contains.

He promised that no families making less than $250,000 would receive a tax increase.  I suppose technically, forcing them to pay more for insurance coverage isn’t raising their taxes, but that doesn’t mean that it will be any easier on middle class families.

While Obamacare will add a 3.9% Medicare tax to investment income for the first time on families making over $250,000, the hardest hit families will likely be those having combined incomes around $100,000.

These folks will be too “rich” to qualify for ObamaCare’s subsidies, but probably too poor to easily afford the pricey insurance that the president’s plan forces them to buy.

Many of these $100K families will be obliged to buy a policy costing an average of $14,700 for the mid-level, “silver” health plan, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s estimates. After income taxes, they’ll be spending almost a quarter of their net income for health insurance.

During the health care summit, President Obama stated as fact, a completely inaccurate statement.  He claimed that if Obamacare passed, insurance premiums would go down.  However, at that time, the CBO had already stated that while there would be a very minor decrease in premiums for large corporate plans, there would be a 10-13% increase in premiums for individuals purchasing insurance on their own.

The budget office concluded that premiums for people buying their own coverage would go up by an average of 10 percent to 13 percent, compared with the levels they’d reach without the legislation.

As always, it is very difficult to know whether the President simply doesn’t know what is contained in the health care bills he is forcing on the American public, or if he is being intentionally deceitful.

In his interview with Bret Baier, the President stated that all ‘special deals’ were being removed from the Senate bill, except those provisions that would apply to all states.  He used the Louisiana provision as an example of one that has been incorrectly characterized as a special deal for Louisiana, when in fact it applies to all states.

Unless the Louisiana purchase has been rewritten in the reconciliation bill, then either President Obama intentionally lied or clearly doesn’t know what is in the Senate bill, which coincidentally House Democrats are terrified of voting on.

In his interview with Bret Baier, the President stated:

Something that was called a special deal was for Louisiana. It was said that there were billions — millions of dollars going to Louisiana, this was a special deal. Well, in fact, that provision, which I think should remain in, said that if a state has been affected by a natural catastrophe, that has created a special health care emergency in that state, they should get help. Louisiana, obviously, went through Katrina, and they’re still trying to deal with the enormous challenges that were faced because of that.

That also — I’m giving you an example of one that I consider important. It also affects Hawaii, which went through an earthquake. So that’s not just a Louisiana provision. That is a provision that affects every state that is going through a natural catastrophe.

Now I have said that there are certain provisions, like this Nebraska one, that don’t make sense. And they needed to be out. And we have removed those. So, at the end of the day, what people are going to be able to say is that this legislation is going to be providing help to small businesses and individuals, across the board, in an even handed way, and providing people relief from a status quo that’s just not working.

Now lets look at the Language of the Senate Bill:

8 ‘‘(2) In this subsection, the term ‘disaster-recovery

9 FMAP adjustment State’ means a State that is one of

10 the 50 States or the District of Columbia, for which, at

11 any time during the preceding 7 fiscal years, the President

12 has declared a major disaster under section 401 of the

13 Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assist

14 ance Act and determined as a result of such disaster that

15 every county or parish in the State warrant individual and

16 public assistance or public assistance from the Federal

17 Government under such Act and for which—

There is only one state, that in the preceding seven fiscal years, would qualify under the senate language.  Hawaii and their mythical earthquake would of course not qualify.

So, unless the reconciliation bill removes the “preceding seven fiscal years” and changes this to an ongoing relief for states where disasters are declared in every county following a natural disaster, it can and does only apply to Louisiana.

That then leaves us with two options.  Either the President intentionally lied to Bret Baier and the American public or contrary to his claims, he doesn’t know what the Senate language contains.

I think Cassy Fiano of Hot Air sums it up well:

This moment, from Bret Baier’s interview on Fox News with Obama, might just be one of the biggest “WTF?!” moments from Obama’s presidency yet. Obama is either completely making things up, living in an alternate reality, or really, really confused.

The gang of three (Obama, Pelosi and Reid) are guilty of what is tantamount to lying to the American public.  They have crafted and re-crafted their health care bills, until they get CBO (Congressional Budget Office) scores that they can ‘sell’ as reducing the deficit over the next 10 years.

Two of the most blatant examples of this are:

1. Having ten years of tax revenues, but delaying the implementation of the majority of the health care bill for four years, so there are only six years of costs.
2. Continuously pulling the Medicare ‘doctors fix’ from House and Senate bills, because if the fix is delayed, the CBO is not allowed to count the $300+ billion of cost in their bill costing and deficit calculations.

Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone could use the ‘budgeting’ scheme that Obama, Pelosi and Reid are using?  When you are trying to get a loan and the bank asks for your income and expenses, you could say, “well, this is how much my salary is for the year, but for my expenses, I’m not going to count January 1st through April 15th, because that would make it look like I couldn’t afford the house, so I am only going to count my bills after April 15th.”

No bank would accept that approach, but that is exactly the manipulation that exists in the Democrat’s health care bill, so that Obama, Pelosi and Reid can say, “it reduces the deficit over the first decade.”   Of course it does, if you manipulate the numbers, include ten years of tax revenues, but only six years of program costs, you are able to make it look good for that first ten years.

Even using this manipulation, Pelosi and Reid have had to play ping pong with the CBO, because even with four extra years of tax revenues, they have not been able to show any ‘paper’ deficit reductions, without including all kinds of subtle manipulations to the language of the bill, such as mandating fictional cost savings in certain programs.  As I write this, Pelosi has not been able to provide language for the health-care reconciliation bill, because the CBO score keeps coming back too high, which won’t allow them to perpetuate the lie that it will reduce the deficit.  The bill was supposed to be published online days ago.

Ed Morrissey of Hot Air comments on Pelosi’s game of continuous CBS scoring:

The entire political world waited yesterday for a report from the Congressional Budget Office that would either allow Democrats to schedule a vote on Saturday for ObamaCare or collapse the effort altogether.  The six PM deadline came and went without a peep out of the CBO, pushing any potential vote into next week.  What happened?  The Washington Times reports today that the CBO has found itself buried under the task of continually re-scoring ObamaCare proposals — and they’re not alone.

The second, and equally egregious, manipulation relates to the doctors fix.  For years, the Medicare reimbursement schedule  has been flawed, and as a result, each year Congress passes a doctors fix, so that doctors will be paid a reasonable reimbursement.  This year, not passing the ‘doctors fix’ would result in doctor’s Medicare reimbursements being cut by 21%, which would result in most doctors immediately stopping the treatment of all Medicare patients.

However, there is a problem, in order to get a CBO score that shows Obamacare reduces the deficit over the next decade, the ‘doctors fix’ cannot be current law.  The CBO can only count the proposed legislation it is scoring and enacted law.  Reid and Pelosi have killed each bill that has been introduced that includes the doctors fix, because they know that their ‘fictional’ deficit reduction of $130 billion or so over the next decade, would immediately become a $200+ billion deficit increase.   Note: several independent reviews of the Senate bill show a REAL first decade actual cost adding $1 trillion to the deficit, vs. the fictional $130 billion deficit reduction.

The reason for this is that by delaying the doctors fix, the CBO is required to count that 21% that will be added back with the doctors fix, as a cut to Medicare.  So, from the CBO score’s perspective, Medicare has been cut by $300+ billion, when in fact it will be added back as soon as the doctors fix is finally passed.

The order of passage of the bills is key to Pelosi, Reid and Obama’s deception.  So, if health care does pass this weekend, then expect to see a doctors fix bill rushed through next week and signed into law.  It’s important to note, that the gang of three are all on record saying that Medicare reimbursements won’t be cut by 21%, but will be fixed separately, they just don’t come clean with the fact that the reason for doing them separately is to manipulate the CBO score.

Mr. President, is this what you meant by “changing the way Washington works”?  Is lying to the American public really the hope and change you promised?

A survey by the New England Journal of Medicine cites fears of increased patient loads and decreased pay, along with already having large debt loads, as reasons why they would not recommend the medical profession to others and would consider leaving if Obamacare passes.   Nearly 50% of primary care physicians are considering leaving or feel they will be forced out of their medical practices if Obamacare is passed.

CNS News reports on the New England Journal of Medicine Survey:

More than 29 percent (29.2) percent of the nearly 1,200 doctors who responded to the survey said they would quit the profession or retire early if health reform legislation becomes law. If a public option were included in the legislation, as several liberal Senators have indicated they would like, the number would jump to 45.7 percent.

The medical journal published the results in its March and April edition, saying: “While a sudden loss of half of the nations physicians seems unlikely, a very dramatic decrease in the physician workforce could become a reality as an unexpected side effect of health reform.”

Kevin Perpetua, managing partner for the Medicus Firm, reported that a reform bill could be “the final straw” in an already financially precarious industry.

“Many physicians feel that they cannot continue to practice if patient loads increase while pay decreases,” Perpetua said in the study. “The overwhelming prediction from physicians is that health reform, if implemented inappropriately, could create a detrimental combination of circumstances, and result in an environment in which it is not possible for most physicians to continue practicing medicine.”

“With an average debt of $140,000, and many graduates approaching a quarter of a million dollars in school loans, being a doctor is becoming less and less feasible,” Perpetua said. “Health-care reform and increasing government control of medicine may be the final straw that causes the physician workforce to break down.”

The survey shows that many doctors already find their situations difficult:

– 36 percent said that they would not recommend medicine as a profession to others, regardless of whether health-care reform passes;
– another 27 percent would still recommend medicine as a career, but not if the current reform proposal passes.

In total, 63 percent of doctors would not recommend the profession after health-care reform passes. Just 12 percent do not recommend becoming a physician now but think they would if current reform proposals pass.

Primary-care physicians, those who work in the critical fields of family and internal medicine, not only feel that they would want to quit but that they might be cast out of medicine. 46.3 percent of those physicians said that they would either want to leave medicine or that they would be “forced out” by the changes to the system.

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“They Told Me if I Voted for McCain …”

As dirty as the process appears, the results of Obamacare will be so much worse.  Pajamas Media describes the liberal thinking that has led to the failures of the post office and the city of Detroit, and how the lessons we didn’t learn from their collapses will be re-lived in the health care system if Obamacare is passed:

Before casting “yea” votes in favor of a government health care grab later this week, wavering House Democrats may want to struggle out of the left’s ideological fog for a moment and consider the sad, but instructive, tales of the U.S. Postal Service and the city of Detroit.  Both are poster boys (excuse me, poster persons) for how government can get almost anything gloriously wrong.

That the U.S. Postal Service is swimming in red ink isn’t news. The nation’s postal service, despite its first-class mail monopoly, swims in red ink a lot. The important news to Americans as they follow Washington’s three-ring health care circus is that U.S. Postmaster General Joe E. Potter wants to drop Saturday mail delivery as a cost-cutting measure.

To repeat, the postmaster general wants to reduce service in an effort to staunch red ink. That’s service as in mail delivery, the U.S. Postal Service’s bread and butter. Imagine a hamburger joint announcing to its customers that it plans to stop selling hamburgers a day or two a week to cut costs. Of course, a hamburger joint wouldn’t limit the sale of hamburgers to keep its costs down. The guy who owns the hamburger joint would get creative in his marketing and pricing to sell more hamburgers. He might trim costs operationally but not at the expense of selling as many hamburgers as he and his help could flip. Why the difference? The hamburger joint can go out of business. The U.S. Postal Service, being immune to risk, cannot.

…

Detroit is upside-down liberal thinking gone wild — almost literally. What’s happening in the Motor City gives us a hint to what may lie ahead for government-run health care. Stick with me on this one.

Mayor Dave Bing, a former NBA standout, plans to raze areas of Detroit that are blighted or abandoned. Bing plans to replace ramshackle plots with green spaces and trees. The total area in Detroit that the mayor wishes to raze surpasses all of Youngstown, Ohio, in square miles. Mayor Bing says that razing decrepit and abandon sections of Detroit is a cost-cutting move that will save the city millions of dollars in police and fire services, among others.

What’s the joke many are telling:  Government Health Care — Post office efficiencies, with IRS compassion.

While Stupak’s primary concern is the Senate bill’s public funding of abortion, that isn’t his only concern.  He says that there are other problems with the Senate bill that he and other House members fear will never be fixed if they agree to pass the Senate bill.

Ed Morrissey of Hot Air comments on the interview:

Bart Stupak not only says that the dozen members in his coalition aren’t “really” wavering, the Democratic Congressman also says that abortion isn’t the only problem with the final ObamaCare push. Stupak notes that there are “250″ bills passed by the House languishing in the Senate, and wonders why anyone would assume the Senate would act any more enthusiastically on a reconciliation bill.

It would appear that Pelosi is busy playing Harry Reid’s game of lets make a deal, trying to win votes by cutting special deals, to meet their self imposed deadline of an up or down vote no later than the 21st.

Last week, during one of President Obama’s Obamacare pep rallies, he claimed that his bill would save money and reduce the deficit by $1 trillion over the next decade.  Even with the double counting of the cuts to medicare, and without counting the ‘doc fix’ bill, the best CBO score that they were able to get is about $140 trillion deficit reduction over the next decade.  Of course, independent analysis of the bill from organizations like the Wall Street Journal state it will actually add around $1 trillion to the deficit over the next decade.  Yet, the President states that it will reduce the deficit by $1 trillion.

Even in light of the Teleprompter, one might assume that was a ‘mistake’.  Yet, he made the same statement again, a few days alter.  It appears that President Obama has reached the stage where the truth is irrelevant and he believes the means justify the ends, even if it includes lying to the American public.

Yesterday in Ohio, President Obama claimed that his health care reform would reduce health care premiums by 3,000 percent:

Monday in Strongsville, Ohio, President Obama said  that ObamaCare will reduce health insurance premiums by “3,000 percent.” Considering that a 50 percent decrease in premiums would mean that we’d be paying half as much as we now pay for health insurance and that a 100 percent decrease in premiums would mean that we’d be paying nothing for health insurance, President Obama is telling us that insurance companies will actually start paying us money to keep our health insurance.

President Obama has tried to create a wave of anger towards insurance companies in order to get support for Obamacare.  He routinely tells the American public that insurance companies are to blame for the high cost of health care.  Yet, as is often the case with this White House, the truth is far different than the rhetoric:

Whatever their sins, insurers are mainly intermediaries; they pass along the costs of the delivery system. In 2009, the largest 14 insurers had profits of roughly $9 billion; that approached 0.4 percent of total health spending of $2.472 trillion. This hardly explains high health costs. What people need to know is that Obama’s plan evades health care’s major problems and would worsen the budget outlook. It’s a big new spending program when government hasn’t paid for the spending programs it already has.

Mr. President, the campaign is over.  It’s time to stop making campaignesque lies, and start shooting straight with the American public.

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Under the Bus, Vol. XXXII

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Fossil Fuels vs Future Fuels

Excerpt from:
“Obama Effect” Spurs Record Number of Nobel Peace Prize Nominations

He told President Clinton that his legislation (Hillarycare) was so complex and far reaching, and would effect so many people, that the American people needed to know what was in it, and that the Senators needed to know what was in it.

If you removed the date he refers to and the name Clinton, everything he says applies to what President Obama is trying to do with Obamacare.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The government ran up the largest monthly deficit in history in February, keeping the flood of red ink on track to top last year’s record for the full year.

The Treasury Department said Wednesday that the February deficit totaled $220.9 billion, 14 percent higher than the previous record set in February of last year.

The deficit through the first five months of this budget year totals $651.6 billion, 10.5 percent higher than a year ago.

The Obama administration is projecting that the deficit for the 2010 budget year will hit an all-time high of $1.56 trillion, surpassing last year’s $1.4 trillion total. The administration is forecasting that the deficit will remain above $1 trillion in 2011, giving the country three straight years of $1 trillion-plus deficits.

AllahPundit of Hot Air puts this massive deficit in perspective:

All I can do is try to contextualize this for you: According to CBO, based on an analysis of the deeply deceitful numbers presented to it by Reid and Obama, the national panacea of health-care reform will save us $132 billion over the next 10 years. Which means the feds blew through our big decade-long ObamaCare refund in about … 17 days last month. (Savings from 2020 to 2029 are estimated to be $1 trillion, but follow the “deeply deceitful” link for insight into that. Even CBO scoffs at trying to predict any numbers that far out.)

This follows a day after the CBO said that it projected the deficit over the next 10 years to be $1.2 trillion higher than the Obama administration has estimated.  The CBO projects the deficit to be $9.7 trillion vs the $8.5 trillion the White House has estimated for the next decade.  That would put the national debt in 2020 well over $22 trillion, which is a number that many people consider unsustainable.

That $22 trillion national debt doesn’t even take into account the real costs of the health care bill if it is passed.  Through manipulation of the CBO scoring, the gang of three (Obama, Pelosi and Reid) were able to get a CBO score showing a deficit reduction over the next decade of $130 billion or so.  Independent analysis of the health care bill put the real cost at about $1 trillion over the next decade, which would raise the 10 year deficit to close to $11 trillion and the national debt in 2020 to over $23 trillion.

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Obama’s Vietnam

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Obama’s First Presidential Health Checkup (Updated x2)

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Right Here, Buddy

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You Can Quote Me on This

Joe Biden, speaking on the CBS Early Show, stated that the Stimulus Bill was designed in two stages, with the job creation portion of the bill in the second stage, which will kick in this year:

This is actually a pretty amazing assertion by the Vice President.  The White House ‘inherrited’ a country that was hemorrhaging jobs.  The Democrats in the House and Senate, along with President Obama, passed the stimulus practically overnight, without allowing debate on the bill, nor giving members of Congress a chance to read it, because it was critical that the bill was passed in an emergency fashion, because we needed to stop the job losses and start creating new jobs.  We all remember President Obama’s promise that if the Stimulus bill was passed that unemployment wouldn’t top 8%.

Now, Vice President Biden says that the bill was designed so that the job creation portion of the bill wouldn’t occur until the second year, which just coincidentally is an election year.

On its face, it appears that from the start Democrats sacrificed the American economy to create a massive spending bill that they hoped would create great photo ops and news stories 14-18 months after the bill was passed, just in time to help Democrats campaigning for the mid-term elections.

The latest attack is being launched at the Governor of Virgina:

Democrats have targeted Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell in their effort to paint Republicans as hypocritical when it comes to stimulus money.

The Governor’s office confirmed Monday that Virginia will receive $24 million in federal funds over the next four years to use on health care information technology.

That money comes from funds made available to states by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

McDonnell has emerged as  a rising star in the Republican party since his landslide election victory last November.

McDonnell’s office released a statement on Monday heaping praise on the funding, “I thank U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius for approving Virginia’s application for cooperative funding…”

However, during his campaign McDonnell said the stimulus bill would bring dangerous long term debt.

The DNC wasted no time in jumping on the issue.

“The spate of Republicans being exposed for seeking stimulus dollars under the radar, proves that either Republicans were just being sarcastic when they assailed the stimulus and they actually love the Recovery Act, or their objections are based on politics and not principle,” said  Hari Sevugan, DNC spokeswoman.

As always, it’s hard to tell whether Democrats are really so totally confused on the difference between opposing a stimulus bill they believe is bad for the country and their state or district receiving stimulus money once the Democrats passed the bill.

Senators and House Representatives are sent to Washington to represent the best interest of the people in their districts.  Virtually all Republicans opposed the stimulus bill, because they didn’t believe the orgy of spending and the resulting deficit ballooning was good for the voters of their district, state and country.

However, once the Democrats in Congress passed the $850+ billion stimulus bill then Republicans have an obligation to their constituents to request funds for their home states and districts.  Their constituents, along with their children and grandchildren, will be paying for the trillions of dollars of new debt the Democrats are racking up, so therefore Republicans would not be doing their job if they ‘stood on principle’ and refused to take stimulus dollars.  The people of their districts are going to have to pay for this stimulus bill for a very long time, so therefore they must receive an equal share of it.

The reality is that the Democrats making these accusations of hypocrisy know that there is a big difference between Republican opposition of the bill, and those same Republicans now ‘accepting’ or ‘requesting’ funds for their districts.  However, that fact doesn’t matter.  This week has been decreed a “promote the stimulus” week by President Obama.  He has Cabinet members flying around the country for photo ops and to spin how great the stimulus bill has been.  Therefore, by default, the President’s decree also makes this an ‘honest free’ week.