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This is the fifth in our series this month that covers the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care. Over the years, and especially the past few months, it has been increasingly more difficult to keep up with the idiocy, insanity, and wastefulness of this legislation. In just the past three months we have had to dedicate almost thirty daily posts just to get through all of the nonsense. I do not know how many posts it will take this month to get through it all since more insanity pops as quickly as we review it.
As we promised earlier this week, we are not going into to tremendous details, analyses, and background on the latest bad news. We have done that in-depth work in the past few months. This week and probably next, we are just trying to document and stay ahead of the bad news from the worst piece of legislation ever written.
1) We have often pointed out how the writers of Obama Care never stopped to examine their logic train to make sure that stupid stuff did not happen as a result of the law. But, unfortunately, stupid stuff keeps popping up as a result of the law.
Consider a November 6, 2013 report from CBS News in New York. Nona Willis Aronowitz and Aaron Cassara’s love affair began at a party in 2008 and within a year they found themselves getting married at the NYC City Hall in Manhattan. However, four years later they realized they could save thousands of dollars annually if they got divorced and signed up for health insurance via Obama Care.
The math calculation for Aronowitz and Cassara is that together as a family of only two, they make more than the $62,000 level to qualify for Obama Care. However, if they got divorced and lived together unmarried, they would qualify for the law’s subsidies and could literally save hundreds of dollars a month on their health care.
Why? A single person can qualify for Obama Care subsidies if their income is less than $46,000 a year. Thus, by living together, unmarried, the stupidity of the Obama Care math makes it very profitable to get divorced for these two New Yorkers and probably many other Americans across the country.
You cannot say any law is a good piece of legislation when it reaches so deeply down into a family and forces the family to make the life impacting decision to get a divorce. Pathetic.
2) This Presidential administration promised to be the most transparent ever. We have proven that promise to be a joke any number of times but the latest proof of this false claim recently came about relative to Obama Care.
A website that tracks the health care policy cancellations and the skyrocketing premiums and deductibles being caused by Obama Care, mycancellation.com, has had a rough start, with Twitter freezing its Twitter account at least three times since the site launched last week. Twitter provided no advance notice or warning of the disruption to their service and the people operating the website and related Twitter account suspect there is some political motivation or arm twisting behind the scenes to silence the bad news that their effort is uncovering. Definitely not a transparency friendly atmosphere if that arm twisting is coming from the Obama administration.
But the other half of the story beyond the news suppression, is the incredible number of stories that Americans are sending into this collection effort along with copies of their policy cancellation letters and the notices of how much their current health care costs will be going up if they are fortunate enough not to have their policies cancelled. Their stories and the proof of their agony and pain from Obama Care’s tentacles can be seen at the following link:
http://www.teaparty.org/twitter-fire-removing-photos-people-whove-lost-health-insurance-30337/
3) Any reasonable person would probably conclude that media empire NBC has been a fervent and biased supporter of Obama from day one of his administration. We could go off on why and how they are so biased but it is funny what happened in late October. CNBC’s morning anchors discussed the recent news that their own insurance plans will become more expensive because of Obama Care.
On Oct. 30’s “Squawk Box,” CNBC correspondent Scott Cohn revealed details of NBC’s open enrollment, showing an official fact book outlining the process. He quoted the document, revealing that Obama Care would increase NBC employee health insurance premiums. Cohn observed “Some of these costs, when you look at this, are way up -- double digits.” Well duh?
4) When CNN reports something bad about the Obama administration, you know that the administration really screwed up. CNN reported in early November:
Senate Democrats voted unanimously three years ago to support the Obamacare rule that is largely responsible for some of the health insurance cancellation letters that are going out.
In September 2010, Senate Republicans brought a resolution to the floor to block implementation of the grandfather rule, warning that it would result in canceled policies and violate President Barack Obama’s promise that people could keep their insurance if they liked it.
Rather than listen to the Republicans, EVERY Senate Democrat voted to support the provision that is causing havoc for American families with millions of people losing their access to their preferred insurance plans. Thus, they are complicit in the President’s lies or deceptions that if you liked your current policy you could keep your current policy. That options was snuffed out three years ago by every Senate Democrat and not a single one of them had enough integrity to warn America about the impending doom, a doom predicted by Senate Republicans.
5) Again, when NBC comes down hard on this administration you know they really laid an egg. The following link puts to video clips side by side. The first clip is the President emphatically declaring that if you like your current insurance policy, you can keep it under Obama care.
The second clip is about a small business owner who saw his health insurance costs go up 400% since he now must buy an Obama Care policy that provides maternity health care for his 59 year old wife. Just another bit of stupidity and no one thinking through what was actually in Obama Care:
http://www.westernjournalism.com/small-business-owners-premiums-increase-400/
6) It is so pathetic when politicians realize they screwed up and could lose their access to the best and most cushy job in the world, that of being a U.S. Senator. Politico reported on October 30, 2013 that Louisiana Senator Landrieu would introduce a measure that would allow Americans to keep their health insurance coverage amid a flurry of reports documenting that hundreds of thousands of people have been told that they will lose their plans because of Obama Care.
“The promise was made, and it should be kept,” said the good Senator. “And it was our understanding when we voted for that bill that people when they have insurance could keep with what they had. So I’m going to be working on that fix.”
Two problems her, Senator. As we discussed above, three years ago you voted against a Republican provision that would have avoided this mess altogether. You blew that chance and now about 3.5 million Americans have already lost access to their preferred plans.
Second, just this past August, at an event sponsored by the Southwest Louisiana Chamber of Commerce, you publicly stated: “If I had to vote for the bill again, I would vote for it tomorrow.” So what happened between August and now? What changed such a dramatic turnaround? Oh, that’s right, your 2014 reelection hopes have taken a gigantic hit because of the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care. Talk about a hypocrite.
7) In closing today, I directly lifted some talking points from an October 31, 2013 analysis by the Heritage Foundation. Their article pointed out hat there are at least four other brewing Obma Care disaster besides the currently exploding disasters of Americans losing access to their preferred doctors, their preferred health insurance plans, and the fact that many are seeing their deductibles and premiums going up substantially in cost.
As Heritage points out, these four other disasters were predicted years ago but no one in this administration took them seriously but they have now arrived on the doorsteps of tens of millions of Americans:
1. Back-Door Public Option: You might have thought it was killed off, but an ugly embodiment of the public option is alive and well in Obamacare. Health expert Robert Moffit pointed out in 2011 that the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) next year will administer at least two nationwide health plans that will compete against private insurance. OPM is responsible for these plans’ pricing, profits, and operations.
These government-sponsored plans are the only health plans that can compete nationwide under a new set of rules, giving them an unfair advantage in an already disrupted health insurance market. “Instead of fair competition with private health plans, Congress is sponsoring the equivalent of a national monopoly,” Moffit wrote.
2. Illegal Subsidies to Congressional Members and Their Staffs: Keep in mind, OPM is the same agency that recently ruled members of Congress and their staffs can buy health insurance in the Obamacare exchanges and use a large, tax-free subsidy that exists for federal workers who get their coverage under the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP). Sure, the federal government doesn’t have actual legal authority to pay for federal workers in a health plan outside of plans contracted by OPM. But when has that stopped this Administration from creating special rules that flout the law’s language?
3. Cancellations in Employer-Sponsored Insurance: Much of the recent media focus is on cancellations for customers with individual insurance plans, but Heritage, the Congressional Budget Office, Deloitte, McKinsey & Co., and other organizations have warned for years that businesses will drop health coverage for their employees and dump them onto the federal health exchanges. With higher health costs, it will be cheaper for many companies to pay Obamacare’s employer mandate fine rather than pay for expensive, government-mandated health plans.
The scenarios vary, but anywhere from 5 million to 35 million hard-working Americans could lose their current health plans—and face the same plight of many customers forced to deal with a glitch-ridden website to buy plans on the Obamacare exchanges. A big reason why this hasn’t materialized yet is the Administration’s recent decision to delay the employer mandate until 2015.
4. Perverse Incentives That Hurt Low-Income Workers: The employer mandate delay hits the pause button on another expected setback for lower-income workers—mainly pricing them out of full-time employment. Labor expert James Sherk warned in 2011 that after paying for new health premiums, the minimum wage, payroll taxes, and unemployment insurance taxes, hiring a full-time worker would cost at least $10.03 an hour. With full-time family health plans easily costing $13.75 an hour, companies would lose money by having full-time workers with low productivity rates. Therefore, less-skilled workers would be at more risk for having their full-time jobs replaced with part-time ones.
Enough for today, but more disasters Obama Care tomorrow.
Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:
www.loathemygovernment.com
It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.
Please visit the following sites for freedom:
Term Limits Now:http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w
This is the fifth but, unfortunately, not the last post this month that covers the political class insanity we have uncovered over the past month or so. It was a long, difficult haul to get all of the idiocy, wasteful spending, ego, and other lunacy compiled but tomorrow should do it, at least for this month. I am sure that early next month there will be another pile of political mess to review and disparage.
1) Let’s start with a U.S. Senator from Louisiana, Mary Landrieu. She has been in the U.S. Senate for almost 18 years during which time we have seen her and the Washington political class preside over and contribute mightily to the following:
- The Great Recession.
- The weakest post recession recovery in the history of the country.
- Chronic long term unemployment and underemployment.
- A national debt close to hitting $17 TRILLION.
- An economic stimulus program that cost over $800 billion with no long term societal benefit in return because of its stupid priorities and programs.
- Health care industry reform legislation known as Obama Care that has virtually no chance of succeeding in reining in out of control health care costs but will suppress employment and economic growth.
- Drops in average household income and wealth that has accelerated since the Great Recession ended.
- No resolutions to any long term national problem, be it illegal immigration, failing public schools, lack of a national energy program, sky high health care costs, a lost war on drugs, etc.
Quite a nasty track record, a track record that should shame and embarrass any politician that has been in office as long as Ms. Landrieu. However, the good Senator does not see it that way. She recently pronounced that: “Without sounding braggadocio, I’m indispensable in this effort to secure for Louisiana a significant and reliable string of revenue to save our coast.”
Given the above track record of the Senator and her peers, indispensable is probably the last word I would be using relative to any sitting politician on any topic or issue. Incompetent yes, indispensable no.
2) In our July 9, 2012 post we related a sordid tale of Washington political cronyism. In late September, 2011, the Department of Energy approved a $737 million loan guarantee to a company called Solarserve that is working on a solar plant in Nevada. Talk about a major “coincidence.“ Turns out that the brother-in-law of former Speaker of the House, Democrat Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, Ronald Pelosi, is second in command at the primary energy investment fund that backs the Solarserve effort. Surprise, surprise.
But lightning recently struck twice regarding a national Democratic woman politician from California. Out of the entire universe of those who could have won the first phase construction contract for California’s high speed rail boondoggle, who do you think won the contract?
Richard Blum and his company won the contract. Turns out that Mr. Blum is the husband of California U.S. Senator Diane Feinstein. Blum is the principle owner of Tutor Perini, the lead firm in the three-firm consortium selected by the California High Speed Rail Authority. Surprise, surprise. The political class continues to take of themselves and their families while the rest of the country suffers and ends up paying for the cronyism mess they create.
3) The Federal government is going to spend $152,000 to study “voice therapy” for transgenders. Voice therapy for transgenders, really? We have a $17 TRILLION national debt and we are worried about voice therapy for transgenders?
Now, do not get me wrong. I really do not care what someone does to their own bodies or what their life style is. But it is their life, they should face reality and pay for the consequences of their choices rather than taxpayers paying for this type of wasteful spending. According to a National Institutes of Health grant:
“This study will illuminate the capabilities of the human larynx and inform the relationship between voice production and perception. The long term goal of this research is to inform and provide new directions for Transgender (TG) voice care, thereby improving the lives of TG people who feel their voice is a great obstacle to living as their preferred gender.”
Again, I have no problem with others messing with their gender. But they should pay for the alterations and the implications of those alterations, not the American taxpayer.
4) You know things are insane in Washington when your read an April 28, 2013 Associated Press article. Lawmakers from both parties have set aside nearly half a billion dollars ($436 million) in taxpayer money over the past two years to build improved versions of the 70-ton Abrams tank for the Defense Department.
However, even the bloated, out of control spending Defense Department does not think they need nor do they want the additional tanks. Why build more tanks then if the Army does not want them and future military conflicts are most likely to be against terrorist organizations where tanks will be useless?
The simple answer is politics and votes. The Abrams tank is made in one location in Ohio and both Ohio Democrats and Republicans in Congress have managed to keep this useless expenditure alive in order to not tick off voters back home in Ohio. Rather than find better uses for this taxpayer wealth, including returning the wealth to the taxpayers, we now have a Federal government that would rather spend the money on useless economic activity in order to protect their political careers.
Producing products just for the sake of producing products that will never be used is certainly suboptimal in any type of economy. It is pure insanity. It is similar to what the Navy did several years ago when they spent over $300 million to build two Navy ships almost to completion and then took them apart for scrap metal before they were ever used.
Between these two atrocities of waste, the combined $736 million could have been used to fund the suspended White House tours for well over 700 years. How many teachers, border agents, drug treatments, and other more beneficial activities could have been funded for over $700 million? But these beneficial activities never happened because some Ohio politicians wanted to protect their own political careers buy funding tanks that even the Army does not want. Pathetic.
5) The MarylandReporter.com reported on April 10, 2013 that the state of Maryland will institute a rain tax in nine of its counties, i.e. people in Maryland will be taxed on how much water falls on their properties. This rain tax will be determined by how much of a property’s area is covered by a hard surface such as a building or a driveway. This calculation will be determined by aerial surveillance of each property.
It will cost Maryland homeowners, business owners, and churches about $300 million a year. The state law exempted state and local government from paying the rain tax (of course, taking care of their own kind!).
Long ago the Beatles warned us this might happen, tax us for rain:
If you drive a car, I'll tax the street,
If you try to sit, I'll tax your seat.
If you get too cold I'll tax the heat,
If you take a walk, I'll tax your feet.
They just never imagined we could be taxed on rain.
6) The Washington Times reported on a nice piece of political class elitism on April 24, 2013. As we have discussed many times in this blog. It is quite apparent that President Obama decided to make the government spending cuts from the measly sequester budget cuts as painful as possible for the ordinary American citizen. The latest insult was to furlough air traffic controllers which has resulted in long delays for American travelers.
Well, at least most American travelers. The chief of the FAA told Congress that Washington D.C. area airports will largely escape the effects of the air traffic controller furlough, making travel for D.C. lawmakers much easier and more hassle-free than for most Americans.
Just another example where selfish Washington politicians take care of themselves before even considering taking care of the rest of America.
That will do it for today. I promise tomorrow’s post will be the last in this series of monthly political class insanity reviews. Tomorrow, we will also spend some time proposing steps that need to be taken to get this insanity, idiocy, and waste under control before it is too late…or before it rains.
Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:
www.loathemygovernment.com
It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.
Please visit the following sites for freedom:
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w
This is Act III in this month’s political class insanity review. The first two acts can be reviewed at the following links:
http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2013/04/april-2013-political-class-insanity_4.html
http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2013/04/april-2013-political-class-insanity.html
Act III starts now.
1) The Democratic controlled Senate recently put together its first full budget since April, 2009, breaking standing law for the four years since then. Their budget calls for tax increases of over one trillion dollars on Americans over the next ten years. As regular readers of this blog know, this is a ridiculous position to hold given the wasteful spending, inefficiencies, and government redundancy that exist today in the Federal government, insanity that has been presided over by this Democratically controlled Senate since 2007.
One reason why Democrats are so fast to raise taxes is possibly because they do not pay all of the current taxes that they owe. The prime example of this comes from an article done by the Daily Caller on February 18, 2013. According to their research of D.C. tax records, Louisiana’s Democrat Senator Mary Landrieu is very big on raising taxes on the country, having openly advocated for higher taxes on Americans during Senate hearings last month. However, she seems a bit less excited and punctual to pay her own taxes:
According to public records available online in the District of Columbia’s “Real Property Assessment Database,” the D.C. government has penalized Landrieu $1,003.33, plus $202.62 in interest, for 2012 taxes on her mansion on East Capitol Street. It is unclear what the penalty is for.
Talk about hypocrisy, she wants to raise your taxes but is late paying her taxes, to late that penalties are now attached. But we should not be surprised when a politician calls for us to pay higher taxes but decides they do not have to pay even their current tax burden:
http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2013/02/washingtons-hunger-games-approach-to_11.html
http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2011/01/politicians-creed-do-as-i-say-not-as-i.html
If you get into these posts you will find a whole cadre of politicians who have tried to avoid paying current taxes while they concurrently say that we should pay more in taxes.
2) A recent Federal government inspector general report and analysis found that in 2012, the Federal government spent about $337 million for shipping and postal costs. Of that $337 million, the U.S. Post Office’s share of that business was about $4.8 million or only about 1.42%. That’s right, one on the most incompetent and inefficient organizations in the history of mankind, the Federal government, finds that they cannot trust or use a sister entity within the Federal government to deliver its mail. I can think of no worst insult than to have the Federal government view you as less trustworthy and inefficient than itself.
3) CBS released a survey of its own on March 26, 2013 and the results should not surprise most Americans who are fed up with the insanity and idiocy of the American political class:
- CBS reports 80% of Americans are unhappy with Washington, and 30% are “angry” at the nation’s politicians.
- 30% are now “angry”, a result that is up 9 points since December, 2012.
- Those who say the U.S. is heading in the right direction is down 8 points to 32% in just one month.
- Those who say America is on the wrong track is up to 64% from 51% over that time frame.
- President Obama’s approval rating is down to 45% and his polling on most issues (including the economy) are down almost across the board from last month. Note: given that the sample for this survey significantly overweighted Democrats in the sample vs. Republicans, Obama’s decline in approval is probably worse than reported by this survey vs. if an honest, balanced sample size had been used.
Makes you wonder if those sitting in Congress and the White House really know how much we hold them in contempt for screwing up the country’s financials, liberties, and future.
4) A particularly galling aspect of the survey is in one of the subset of questions in the CBS survey. When asked what is the most important issue facing America today, 41% of the survey takers said it was the economy and jobs. The budget deficit/national debt, health care, and partisan politics were the next three most important problems.
Guns was the fifth most important problem facing the country but it is probably the problem getting the most attention from Washington politicians today. Another set of bad priorities with Washington out of touch with what Americans find important.
It could be that since he political class has not been able to fix the economy/jobs, national debt/deficit, health care, and partisan politics issues, they have just moved on to something that they will probably not be able to resolve either.
5) In the their never ending quest to take more and more of our money for their own selfish use, Gordon Wozniak, a Berkeley, California city councilman, proposed taxing citizens’ email usage during a recent council meeting. He believes that by taxing email usage, it would prevent professional marketers and spammers from sending out thousands and thousands of emails at one time. Taking the insanity one step further, Wozniak said an email tax could then be given to the U.S. Postal System to keep it in operation.
How stupid is this idea. First, how would this tax be collected and what would it cost to collect it. Since many people use free email services, the logistics to set this up would be expensive and offset much of the revenue it would collect.
Second, I am pretty sure that spammers and marketers are smarter and more clever than most politicians so I am confident they would find a way to get around the payment process.
Third, why would we flush good money after bad by giving it to the Post Office without fixing what ails the Post office from a financial perspective. Fix the root causes of the problem, do not just throw money at a continuing bad situation.
6) The October 5, 2012 issue of disgraceful wasteful spending by the Federal government. According to the article, in 2011 the U.S. Army made an unusual request to Congress: stop sending us new tanks.
Congress and the Washington political class ignored this plea, adding a Defense Department budget line that added $255 million to the overall budget for 42 new M1 Abrams tanks. Apparently, the Army already has 2,300 M1 tanks deployed around the world and 3,000 tanks sitting idle around the country. Thus, the Army’s plea not to send any more tanks to them.
But Ohio politicians, from both parties, pushed to get the tanks made using taxpayer money. Apparently, these tanks would be produced in an Ohio factory and the politicians did not want to see those factory jobs to go away or be reduced. Better to waste taxpayer money on useless military equipment than to give that money back to the rightful owners, the American taxpayers.
An Ohio Republican Congressman issued a most inane comment in defending the production of unneeded military tanks: "I think it’s in the best interests of the U.S. to defend our country." Could not agree more on the need to defend our country but with over 5,100 M1 tanks already in existence, and 60% of them not being used, I doubt another 42 tanks are vital to national security. Nice try Congressman but truly an idiotic statement and idiotic expense.
So, let’s review:
- Politicians want higher taxes but do not pay their “fair share.”
- The Federal government does not even trust its own postal system.
- A recent poll proves what we all know, most Americans think Washington politicians are doing a lousy job.
- The politicians are working on guns why Americans hold that as a very minor priority in their lives.
- A silly politician wants to tax our email transmissions.
- An even the Army wants to spend less on defense but our politicians do not.
Insanity, idiocy and bad priorities. And still more to come tomorrow.
Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:
www.loathemygovernment.com
It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.
Please visit the following sites for freedom:
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w
