Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
shut up and pull
climber
|
|
WASHINGTON EXAMINER: Using The Debt Ceiling To Send A Powerful Message.
Austan Goolsbee, Obama’s chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, expounds in horror that not raising the national debt ceiling yet again would be “insanity.” Goolsbee should consult a floor speech delivered not so long ago by a certain member of Congress who offered this counterargument to automatic debt ceiling increases: “The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. … It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our government’s reckless fiscal policies.”
Which die-hard Tea Party wingnut said that? It was none other than Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., speaking on the Senate floor in 2006 just before he voted against raising the debt ceiling. Obama was right.
|
|
shut up and pull
climber
|
|
FROM POWERLINE THIS MORNING:
At The Corner, Victor Davis Hanson neatly sums up the whiplash that those who have observed the Democrats over the last five years must be experiencing:
"If you had gone to sleep in early 2006 and woken up today, you would learn that the filibuster is no longer a necessary brake on the tyranny of the majority but rather is a fossilized impediment to necessary progressive change. Recess appointments no longer result in "damaged goods" but are necessary protocols to get the talented by ossified ideologues in the Senate. If raising the debt limit beyond $9 trillion was once reckless and proof of a lack of leadership, exceeding $14 trillion is sober and judicious. Iraq is no longer lost, it is our "greatest achievement." And just as Guantanamo and Predators are no longer constitutional affronts but critical tools against man-made disasters, so too the "fat cat" Bush tax rates ceased being impediments to spreading the wealth and evolved into necessary incentives for economic revival."
The Democrats, of course, are secure in the knowledge that their colleagues in the media are still sleeping.
|
|
shut up and pull
climber
|
|
I love this helpful reminder of how the Dems former righteous indignation dissolves on a 180.
"If you had gone to sleep in early 2006 and woken up today, you would learn that the filibuster is no longer a necessary brake on the tyranny of the majority but rather is a fossilized impediment to necessary progressive change. Recess appointments no longer result in "damaged goods" but are necessary protocols to get the talented by ossified ideologues in the Senate. If raising the debt limit beyond $9 trillion was once reckless and proof of a lack of leadership, exceeding $14 trillion is sober and judicious. Iraq is no longer lost, it is our "greatest achievement." And just as Guantanamo and Predators are no longer constitutional affronts but critical tools against man-made disasters, so too the "fat cat" Bush tax rates ceased being impediments to spreading the wealth and evolved into necessary incentives for economic revival."
|
|
corniss chopper
climber
not my real name
|
|
fattrad - Never bother with ac's trailer trash communication attempts
anymore.
He's probably been warped from years of playing Grand Theft Auto while on drugs. Beyond help. Like a certain delusional ex speaker.
|
|
Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
|
|
The 14th Amendment says that "all persons born ... in the United States" automatically become U.S. citizens.
Should birth grant citizenship?
2010: 14th Amendment rewards immigrants? The group's proposal "is to fix the misapplication of the 14th Amendment as it applies to the children of illegal aliens," McCauslin told CNN.
The group would not divulge additional details of the proposal before it is officially announced, but said that there would be several constitutional scholars on hand to vouch for its legality.
Besides unauthorized immigrants, no other group would be affected by the proposal, the spokesman said.
It's simple! Illegal aliens will be defined as not being persons. This is time tested and was used before.
Article 1, section 1 of the Constitution used to read:
Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.
|
|
shut up and pull
climber
|
|
THE LIBS NOW WANT TO END THE FILIBUSTER. BUT WHAT DID HOPEY CHANGEY SAY BACK IN 2005 WHEN HE WAS IN THE MINORITY AS A SENATOR?
At the National Press Club on April 26, 2005, then-Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., was asked about a move being discussed by Senate Republicans, then in control, to change the Senate rules so as to require a mere majority vote rather than the 60 votes necessary to end a potential filibuster.
“You know, the Founders designed this system, as frustrating it is, to make sure that there’s a broad consensus before the country moves forward,” then-Sen. Obama told the audience
HOPEY CHANGEY SURE DOES CHANGE A LOT.
|
|
shut up and pull
climber
|
|
HOPEY CHANGEY!
DRUDGE HEADLINE NOW:
19 Democrats vote against Pelosi (for Dem minority leader)...
Worst showing for party nominee since 1923...
|
|
Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
|
|
Run away you ignorant little pussy
Cut and run
You could not debate a third grader
|
|
TGT
Social climber
So Cal
|
|
I freelance, no withholding
And how is that different from a "deadbeat tax cheat"?
|
|
Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
|
|
Fatty's plagiarism
Norton,
My comments in today's newspaper:
Cost Plus Inc. powered to a ninefold increase in its stock price last year, making the specialty retailer the best-performing -- by far -- stock in the Bay Area during 2010.
Oakland-based Cost Plus gained 851 percent during 2010, thanks to improved sales and income as well as a rosy outlook for its business. Cost Plus offers an eclectic array of furniture, rugs, baskets, ceramics, and other home decor, along with exotic foods and beverages. Its prices are modest, which may match the mood of worried consumers.
Overall, Bay Area and East Bay stocks generally matched the performance of the broad stock markets last year.
Nevertheless, the big winner was Cost Plus, which saw most of its upswing begin in November. On Nov. 18, the company posted better-than-expected results. The retailer also offered a favorable outlook for same-store sales and profits at that time.
On Nov. 19, the first trading day after the upbeat disclosures, Cost Plus zoomed 35 percent higher. The company's shares followed up with a 10.8 percent gain Nov. 22, the second trading day after the results.
The next-strongest Bay Area performance came from Redwood City-based Cardica Inc., which makes products used in coronary bypass surgery. Cardica jumped 277.6 percent in 2010.
The second-best East Bay stock was Fremont-based AXT Inc., a semiconductor company bolstered by demand for its products in the cutting-edge sectors of wireless phones, television,
satellites, advanced lighting technologies and the solar industry. AXT also is making a big push into Asia.
The worst-performing stock in the Bay Area was Fremont-based ARYx Therapeutics Inc., whose shares plunged 91.6 percent in 2010.
ARYx makes an experimental heart medicine. The company disclosed in February that it had failed to complete a licensing agreement for the drug and would be forced to slash its staff to fewer than 20 workers.
East Bay public companies outgained those in the nine-county Bay Area during 2010.
The companies that make up the Bloomberg East Bay 50 gained 13.5 percent in 2010. East Bay companies outpaced the broad-based S&P 500, which was up 12.8 percent last year.
The Bloomberg Bay Area Index rose 11.6 percent, a surge that lagged the S&P 500 Index in 2010.
"Corporations did very well in 2010, if you look at their profits, cash flow, and how much cash they were able to amass," said Elizabeth Mihalka, president of Livermore-based Altamont Wealth Management, an investment firm. "Companies are actually doing very well."
Other investment executives think the hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer-funded federal efforts could have bolstered the performance of stocks during 2010.
"You had a lot of stimulus dollars from the federal government and the Federal Reserve," said Jeffrey Elfont, president of Walnut Creek-based Pinnacle Capital Management. "Those dollars were spent and some growth occurred."
This year, Congress is likely to be more inclined to chop spending and to curb stimulus programs and bailouts. So whatever stimulus occurred in 2010, if any, that boost won't materialize in 2011.
Even worse, the economy continues to face headwinds in 2011.
"Housing could be going into a double-dip downturn," Elfont said. "We need to have a clearing mechanism to resolve the problems. With housing, you just have to let the downturn occur."
Despite corporate profits, the big problem facing the economy continues to be the labor picture.
"Companies are still not hiring a lot," Mihalka said.
In addition, hiring reluctance could hold back the stock markets in 2011.
"We will see modest gains in the stock markets and a modest recovery for the economy in 2011," Mihalka said. "The rebound won't be glitzy and it won't be fun. It will be down-in-the-trenches sort of stuff."
The evil one
|
|
k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
|
|
I freelance, no withholding
And how is that different from a "deadbeat tax cheat"? -- TGT
TGT, what an ignorant slime mold you are.
FYI, it's called "1099." Look it up, if you have the know-how.
|
|
Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
|
|
Always trying desperately to be what you are not.
Pathetic loser
|
|
Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
|
|
Jeff you lying sack of crap.
You were a RESERVE DEPUTY over 16 years ago.
You were paid ONE DOLLAR a year as a RESERVE DEPUTY.
What a pathetic liar you are.
|
|
Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
|
|
Jeff, why not choose right now to stop being an ignorant ass?
You just can't stop being one, can you?
Just can't help yourself.....don't know how.....
|
|
shut up and pull
climber
|
|
A CALL TO ARMS AGAINST THE SMOTHERING STATE:
A Public Voice for Private Virtue
By Tony Blankley
As we begin a new year, it may be useful to look back to one particular piece of advice that George Washington gave us in his farewell address. In paragraph 28, he reminded us that:
"It is substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free government. Who, that is a sincere friend to it, can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric?"
His point was that no matter how well designed our constitutional mechanisms may be, the healthy future of our nation would depend upon the maintenance of private virtue -- that self-government is only possible if our national character, made up of each individual character, yearns and acts for a free country.
Two centuries later, Martin Luther King Jr. observed a similar truth when he talked about the "content of their character" being essential to our enduring (and more complete) liberty.
I raise this point because in the last few months, as I have written in this space about my optimism for America's future, I received so many e-mails from readers who questioned whether we Americans are the equal of our ancestors. Whether we are or not, of course, one cannot know.
But while we should admire our ancestors, we need to guard against a false nostalgia that imagines we were once a race predominately of moral giants. Any reading of history discloses every attribute -- including horse thieves, con artists, cowards and traitors -- amongst those who came before us.
John Adams believed that barely a third of the American colonists supported our revolution for liberty -- and yet we won. Not everyone showed courage during our dark days. Many people gave up during the Depression. There were shirkers even during World War II.
But on balance, when they have been needed, enough Americans have developed sufficient individual private virtue to rise to the occasions that history has placed in their and America's path.
Thus the basis of the optimism for our future that I have found in the last year -- despite the genuinely dark skies and violent storms that currently lash us -- has precisely been the response of individual Americans to the current crisis.
And this fact, I am sure, has been possible only because so many Americans have continued to strive to improve their moral virtue guided by both secular and religious principles.
By the millions, tea partiers and so many others responded to the crisis by standing up and beginning to take events into their own hands. In community after community, people have reached out to those who are suffering. And in the election, a majority spoke out for and voted for policies that would stop the theft of our grandchildren's prosperity and liberty. So I have been elevated in my hopes for our future.
But now comes reality in the saddle. Congress reconvenes. Political calculations are being made from Capitol Hill to Pennsylvania Avenue to K St. intended to perpetuate the destructive governmental trends of the last years. The world continues to menace.
And it will take more than a mere majority of Americans to be hoping for the best. We must somehow maintain and even enhance collective action for a return to constitutional government, fiscal balance and national security.
In that context, I was struck this weekend by the words of the great Christian theorist and historian of the last century Hilaire Belloc that I read in his book "The Elements of the Great War, The Second Phase" (written in 1916.)
He observed that when the most profound issue may face a nation, there is the danger that "the lesser should conquer the greater, the viler the more noble, the more changeable the more steadfast, the baser the more noble ... We know, upon the analogy of all historical things, small and great, that the less creative, the dullest and the worst elements may destroy, and has frequently attempted to destroy, the vital, the more creative and the best."
That is what America faces today. For too long, the decent American majority of citizens who are productive and hardworking (and those many millions now sincerely, desperately looking for jobs) have sat by while others have tried to usurp our liberty to enhance the power of government; have taxed and borrowed from those who produce to transfer to those who neither work, nor produce, nor seek to produce, nor maintain their private virtue.
Now all these conflicting interests and passions are funneling into Washington, D.C. These next 24 months -- beginning now -- are the decisive moment.
Can the rot that has begun to eat at the ship of state be cut out and replaced with solid timber? Can the will and impulse of the majority assert itself in its capital? Can the grounds for optimism be sustained?
Louder and louder must the public voices of private virtue be heard in this 2,011th year Anno Domini.
|
|
shut up and pull
climber
|
|
January 5, 2011 4:00 A.M.
Obamacare: The End of the Beginning
For the foreseeable future, health care must be the dominant focus of conservative domestic policy.
By Avik Roy
Sixty-eight years ago, after a long-sought victory in Egypt that marked a turning point in World War II, Winston Churchill said, “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”
In what will be a long and arduous struggle to bring fiscal stability and true reform to our tottering health-care system, partial Republican control of Congress was a necessary first step. But, now, the hard work begins.
The Republican health-care platform, such as it is, is pretty simple: Repeal Obamacare and replace it with incremental, common-sense, politically popular reforms. The GOP’s “Pledge to America” may therefore have been an appropriate platform for a midterm election. However, the document barely begins to address the profound and difficult issues that any serious government must. Indeed, if the early signals are any indication, the troubling reality is that the Republican health-care agenda for 2011 and 2012 may actually make it harder to repeal Obamacare in 2013, and thereby harder to achieve conservatives’ long-term goal of a humane, efficient, and fiscally sustainable health-care system.
The best way to grasp the enormous difficulties ahead is to work backwards.
Runaway growth in government spending is America’s biggest fiscal problem today. Growth in Medicare and Medicaid spending, in turn, accounts for nearly all the projected future growth in government outlays relative to GDP. If the principal domestic-policy goal of conservatives is to restore the country to a truly limited government that can live within its means, we can achieve that goal only through serious and thoughtful reform of health-care entitlements.
That is to say: For the foreseeable future, health care must become the single dominant focus of conservative domestic policy.
Hence, our first and most important problem is intellectual. Conservatives speak often of repealing and replacing Obamacare. But how many can articulate a conservative vision of what our health-care system should look like? Leading Republican politicians have plenty of detailed opinions on a broad range of subjects. But does anyone know what John Boehner’s vision is for the future of American health care? How about the main contenders for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination? To ask the question is to answer it.
FREEDOM, SECURITY, AND INNOVATION
It should be said that, within the diminutive circle of conservative health-policy wonks, there is a fair amount of agreement as to where we should go. But translating that wonkery into plain English isn’t easy.
Among less specialized conservatives, a common refrain is, “I’m not clear on the details, but that Paul Ryan sounds like he knows what he’s talking about.” And Rep. Paul Ryan’s plan is indeed a solid start. But unless other Republican leaders fully immerse themselves in health-care policy, they will be able neither to articulate the core principles of free-market health care, nor to address new issues as they arise, nor to persuade American voters that they should be trusted to enact far-reaching reforms.
The core health-care principles that Republicans should embrace can be summarized in three words: freedom, security, and innovation.
First, the conservative vision must, out of both principle and pragmatism, hold that the best health-care system is one that trusts individuals to make the choices that are best for them and their families. The liberal view of health care is the opposite: that individuals are neither knowledgeable enough nor wise enough to make health-care decisions for themselves; instead, these decisions are best left to unelected government experts.
Second, conservatives must stand firmly behind the principle of a safety net for those who are genuinely down on their luck, and also for the principle that those who pay for insurance and play by the rules will get the care that they’ve earned, without losing out on technicalities. Liberals might agree rhetorically with these principles, but they use them as a pretext for expanding the entitlement state, with destructive effects: extension of government insurance to those who don’t need it, at a cost the country can’t afford, and strangulation of private insurers with onerous regulations that the market can’t sustain.
Third, conservatives must always keep in mind that the entire point of health care is to extend and enhance life. Thus their vision can include, but must be broader than, the hot-button issues of abortion and stem-cell research. A pro-life health-care policy involves accelerating the pace of medical innovation, by reducing the regulatory and financial burdens we place on the pharmaceutical and medical-device industries. That means strengthening the influence of market forces, as opposed to subsidies and price controls, on the development of drugs and devices. It also means streamlining the FDA so that innovative new therapies can reach the market more quickly and cheaply. It means minimizing, and if possible eliminating, the ability of federal bureaucrats to deny life-extending care.
Liberals, on the other hand, tend to look askance at medical innovation. Most progressive health-care economists blame new medical technologies for rising health-care costs: costs that can, in their view, be lowered only by restricting patients’ access to those technologies. In addition, new drugs and medical technologies are developed by private companies, for profit: a concept to which many on the Left are instinctively hostile.
Health-care policy is exceedingly complex, and translating these basic principles of freedom, security, and innovation into actual legislation will not be easy. Doing so must start with three policy goals.
First, Republicans must foster a truly free market for health insurance by eliminating the differing tax treatment of employer-sponsored and individually purchased insurance. Second, Republicans must make dramatic improvements to Medicaid, using Mitch Daniels’s impressive reforms in Indiana as a template. Third, Republicans must move Medicare onto a sustainable path that puts financial control in the hands of seniors themselves rather than central planners.
On all three fronts, Obamacare moves us in exactly the opposite direction. The law will force employers to provide insurance for their employees, instead of allowing them to leave that money in their employees’ paychecks so that they can buy insurance for themselves. The law will dramatically expand Medicaid in ways that will accelerate the pending bankruptcy of several large states, even though Medicaid provides far worse care than people can obtain on their own. And the law will effectively eliminate Medicare Advantage and other programs that helped move Medicare from its traditional single-payer approach into a more market-oriented one.
THE OBAMACARE TRAP
And so, it remains true that the most critical task for Republicans in the 112th Congress is to lay the groundwork for the ultimate repeal of Obamacare. Given that House Republicans don’t have the power to repeal the law by themselves, what can they do in the meantime? More importantly, what should they do in the meantime? The question has been asked, but it hasn’t been adequately answered.
We must remind ourselves of the electoral realities. For Republicans to succeed in repealing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), they will need to control the House, the Senate, and the White House. From a political standpoint, if Republicans are not able to achieve this in 2012, they are unlikely ever to repeal Obamacare.
This means that influential Republican activists must — must — coalesce around the most electable Republican presidential candidate who can articulate conservative health-care principles. This is no time for single-issue small-ball or personal score-settling. A GOP nominee who passes all the litmus tests but can’t win in November would only succeed in making Obamacare permanent. One who can win but isn’t capable of pushing for real health-care reform wouldn’t be much better.
In turn, this means that Republican presidential aspirants must place health-care policy front and center in their campaigns. They must avoid the easy rhetorical flourishes and expend the time and effort to gain fluency in the complexities and trade-offs of health-care policy. A politician who regularly speaks of fiscal responsibility and limited government without building a mandate for actual, specific legislation to achieve them will not move the country in his direction. This is a time for serious government, and there can be no greater test of a politician’s seriousness than his command of health-care policy.
And, of course, in order to repeal Obamacare, Republicans also have to gain control of the Senate. Here, too, we cannot afford any more Delaware Debacles: We need candidates who, whatever their flaws, are electable and who pledge to vote for repeal. A realistic best-case scenario is that Republicans get to between 51 and 55 seats in the upper chamber: a majority, but not a filibuster-proof majority. In the 2010 wave election, they gained six seats, raising their total to 47. Despite the favorable turf in 2012, they are unlikely to win the 13 additional seats needed to reach 60.
Hence, full repeal of Obamacare will require the participation of Democrats. There may be some Democratic senators willing to go along with a repeal effort: Joe Manchin in West Virginia, Ben Nelson in Nebraska, and a few others. But it is very likely that even with those Democrats, there won’t be 60 repeal votes in the Senate. If that is the case, then Republicans will need to turn to the reconciliation process to roll back the law.
As we learned last year, the reconciliation process is different from the normal legislative process. The Senate parliamentarian, using Congressional Budget Office estimates, certifies measures that, either by raising taxes or by cutting spending, will reduce the budget deficit. Only deficit-reducing measures can be passed using reconciliation.
The problem for Republicans is that the CBO estimated that the PPACA would reduce the deficit by $132 billion over the 2010–2019 period. Because of amendments passed in late 2010, it’s likely that the CBO’s estimate of the cost of repeal will be even higher in 2013. Hence, a simple, two-paragraph repeal measure won’t get through reconciliation.
This is where the agenda of the next Congress comes in. In place of comprehensive health-care reform, House Republicans are promising to reverse some of Obamacare’s most unpopular elements: for example, the new 1099 provision, which requires that all businesses issue an IRS form 1099 for any payments to vendors of more than $600 per year. The CBO scores this measure as raising $18 billion for the government over ten years: indeed, that’s why it was included in the PPACA in the first place.
The individual mandate is another example. Last June, the CBO projected that repealing the individual mandate would expand the deficit by $252 billion in the 2011–2020 timeframe. In making that calculation, the CBO is counting on some people under PPACA paying the fine for not purchasing health insurance, thus increasing revenues to the government. In addition, the CBO believes that the mandate will reduce spending by reducing the number of people who rely on Medicaid and exchange subsidies.
Hence, if Republicans in the 112th Congress succeed in eliminating some of these provisions, they will increase the fiscal cost, as scored by the CBO, of repealing the rest of Obamacare in the next Congress. Every unpopular tax increase that is eliminated now will need to be offset by additional tax increases or spending cuts, if and when the real repeal effort starts in 2013. Republicans, therefore, may be setting a trap for themselves.
THE REGULATORY INTERREGNUM
Another problem with Obamacare is regulation. The PPACA dramatically expands federal regulatory control over the health-care system, concentrating enormous power within the Department of Health and Human Services. But, because most regulations aren’t germane to the budget, from a parliamentary standpoint, it’s far from clear that Republicans will be able to use the reconciliation process to reverse Obamacare’s substantial regulatory provisions. For example, the PPACA provision requiring health insurers to keep their medical-loss ratios above 80 percent — a technicality that will drive many insurers out of business — isn’t germane to the budget, but it is highly relevant to the future of the private insurance market.
Precisely because these regulations do not affect the fiscal calculus, and therefore will not undermine Republicans’ ability to repeal Obamacare after 2012, it is here that the new House majority can be most constructive.
In other words, Republicans will be well advised to adopt a two-track strategy: using the conventional legislative process to turn back as much of Obamacare’s regulatory architecture as possible, while waiting until 2013 and then using the reconciliation process, to repeal Obamacare’s tax and spending increases.
Hence, in the near term, Republican policy experts and legislative staffers will need to come up with a comprehensive regulatory strategy, one that will entirely replace Obamacare’s regulatory architecture with a sounder one that hews more closely to conservative market principles.
The politics of smart regulatory reform are favorable, too. Remember that many of the negative headlines about Obamacare since the law passed have had to do with new regulations: the fact that McDonald’s almost dropped health coverage for its junior employees; the aforementioned medical-loss-ratio mandates, which will force many insurers to drop out of the market; the lobbyist-driven ban on new hospital construction, which preserves local hospital monopolies; and on and on. Regulatory reform is an important way for the Republican House to earn its credibility on health-care reform, while calling attention to Obamacare’s many flaws.
One other thing to keep in mind: The Prescription Drug User Fee Act — the law that Congress uses to oversee the FDA — is up for reauthorization in 2012. House Republicans should use this opportunity to reform the FDA and demonstrate that they are on the side of patients who want faster access to innovative new medicines.
MEDICARE AND MEDICAID REFORM
Finally, House Republicans must begin to build the case for real entitlement reform. Medicare is the most politically sensitive subject, but it is one where Paul Ryan has already done most of the necessary groundwork. Medicaid is an even more urgent issue, as many states are sinking under the weight of reckless commitments made by their governors in flusher times.
It will be difficult for Republicans in the next Congress to achieve much on these issues without leadership from the other side. If President Obama’s deficit commission is any indication, that leadership does not exist. The commission’s report effectively advocated rearranging Medicare’s deck chairs, and it proposed essentially nothing to address the grave problems with Medicaid.
There is one Medicare-related issue that the next Congress will be forced to deal with: the never-ending saga of Medicare’s Sustainable Growth Rate, a.k.a. the “doc fix,” which governs how Medicare reimburses doctors and hospitals for their services. Remember that the doc fix was kept out of Obamacare because it would have added $239 billion over ten years to the law’s price tag. Republicans will be under significant pressure from the American Medical Association and others to continue to pay doctors and hospitals at current rates, instead of the roughly 25 percent lower rates required by the 1997 Balanced Budget Act.
It’s not clear that Republicans should go along. For one thing, the AMA was a strong supporter of Obamacare (albeit over the dissent of many of its members). More importantly, perpetuating the doc fix will cost tens of billions of dollars: money that will have to come out of some other vital priority. Republicans in the 112th Congress will need to consider ways to address the doc fix, and other pressing problems, without jeopardizing their ability to repeal Obamacare in the 113th.
Recent history is not encouraging. In December, with bipartisan support, Congress passed doc-fix legislation that froze reimbursement rates at 2010 levels for 2011, at a cost of $19 billion. The law was “paid for” using gimmickry: an amendment to Obamacare that would require some individuals to pay back insurance subsidies they may receive at some point in the future. Republicans saw this as a victory, as the compromise reduces future Obamacare spending, albeit in a manner that will be difficult to enforce. However, in the medium term, it is a victory for the Democrats, as the measure adds to the difficulty of repealing the entirety of Obamacare using the reconciliation process.
A TIME FOR GROWN-UPS
It has been said that we campaign in poetry and govern in prose. But the experience of Ronald Reagan adds a corollary: Only those leaders who have a command of public policy before their candidacies begin can succeed at both campaigning and governing.
The problems we face are grave. If their solutions were simple, they would already have been tried. Our presidential aspirants and congressional luminaries, as well as the people who elect them, must face up to the difficult choices ahead. If they do, we just may succeed in turning Obamacare back, and putting something much better in its place.
|
|
shut up and pull
climber
|
|
SPEAKING OF COZYING UP TO DICTATORS ... WHY WOULD THE SCUMBAG DICTATOR HUGO CHAVEZ PICK BY NAME THESE THREE?
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez sought to end a diplomatic stand-off with the United States on Tuesday by suggesting it name Bill Clinton, actor Sean Penn or director Oliver Stone as its envoy to Caracas.
HMMM ... CAN ANYONE TELL ME WHAT THEMATICALLY CONNECTS THESE THREE? ANYONE? ANYONE?
|
|
shut up and pull
climber
|
|
IS THIS GUY RELATED TO JOE BIDEN?
FOOT MEET MOUTH.
THIS SHOULD ENDEAR THE DEMS EVEN MORE TO THE FOLKS.
DEM LEADER STENY HOYER TODAY RE TEA PARTIERS:
There are a whole lot of people in the Tea Party that I see in these polls who don’t want any compromise. My presumption is they have unhappy families. All of you have been in families: single-parent, two-parents, whatever. Multiple parent and a stepfather. The fact is life is about trying to reach accommodation with one another so we can move forward. That is certainly what democracy is about. So if we are going to move forward compromise is necessary.
|
|
shut up and pull
climber
|
|
TWO AMERICAS!
ELIZABETH EDWARDS LEAVES JOHN OUT OF HER WILL...
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!