Monday, April 12, 2010

Barker's Newsbites: Monday, April 12, 2010


As you read today's newsbites, consider the following...

Large pizza... extra cheese... bacon... salami... mushrooms...

God bless the fine folks at the Nanuet Restaurant!

Oh... and those teriyaki wings weren't half bad either...!!!
Posted by at

16 comments:

William R. Barker said...

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0410/35647.html

Congress is poised to miss its April 15 deadline for finishing next year’s budget without even considering a draft in either chamber.

* NOW POLITICO IS ONE OF THE LEAST TRUSTWORTHY "MAINSTREAM" WEB NEWS SITES OUT THERE, BUT... (*SHRUG*)

Indeed, some Democratic insiders suspect that leaders will skip the budget process altogether this year - a way to avoid the political unpleasantness of voting on spending, deficits and taxes in an election year - or simply go through a few of the motions, without any real effort to complete the work.

* SEE... THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT I MEAN. THIS WHOLE "DEMOCRATIC INSIDERS" NONSENSE WITH NO NAMES ATTACHED. (*SHRUG*) STILL... TIME WILL TELL - RIGHT?

Regan Lachapelle, a spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), would go only so far as saying that the budget “is on a list of things that are possible for this work period” - a reference to the window that opens when members roll back into town Monday and closes when they leave around Memorial Day. Congress has failed to adopt a final budget four times in the past 35 years - for fiscal years 1999, 2003, 2005 and 2007 - according to a recent Congressional Research Service report.

If the House does not pass a first version of the budget resolution, it will be the first time since the implementation of the 1974 Budget Act, which governs the modern congressional budgeting process.

* NOTICE... "FINAL BUDGET" IN THE FIRST INSTANCES (1999, 2003, 2005, 2007) BUT "FIRST VERSION" NOW. IN OTHER WORDS, IF THE CONGRESSES OF 1999, 2003, 2005 AND 2007 TRIED BUT FAILED... ACCORDING TO THIS POLITICO REPORT IT SEEMS THE PELOSI/REID CONGRESS ISN'T EVEN INTERESTED IN TRYING! (AGAIN, FOLKS... NO ONE HATED THE RINO CONGRESSES MORE THAN YOURS TRULY, BUT I FEAR WE'VE GONE FROM THE FRYING PAN STRAIGHT INTO THE FIRE...)

April 12, 2010 at 10:06 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/-243422--.html

Those who would remake the economy in their own image and conform your lifestyle to their vision of a globally cooler utopia are advancing their quasiholy mission with the heavy hand of the unaccountable, unelected bureaucracy at the EPA.

Call it government by, of and for the bureaucracy.

There's nothing as insulated, nothing as isolated, nothing as arrogant as a federal bureaucracy. ... The EPA epitomizes the aloof, authoritarian worst of all federal bureaucracies.

We [The People] start with the understanding that this nation's founders never intended a massive government bureaucracy to dictate how Americans must live, what they can and cannot consume or manufacture, let alone how much of the stuff they exhale may legally be emitted.

The EPA begins with the assumption that we've got all of this 100% wrong.

Congress, bless its misguided hearts, at least is a representative body held accountable by voters. That's why Congress, once hell-bent on shoving down our throats an economy-killing, freedom-squashing carbon cap-and-trade law, has backed off.

Politicians still can be cowed by public outrage.

That's also why global warming alarmists shifted the venue from the comparatively responsive Congress to the utterly insulated EPA.

Faceless bureaucrats don't stand for election.

Once upon a time this overbearing regulatory agency restricted its intrusions to matters that pretty much everyone agreed needed attention. Air pollution was a serious problem not long ago. It's debatable whether the might of the federal government was the only, let alone the best, solution. But at least real pollution was a real problem.

The EPA has changed that game, perhaps forever, by declaring CO2 to be a harmful pollutant that must be regulated.

The excuse the EPA uses to exert its regulatory version of martial law over everyday activities is that the globe allegedly is dangerously warming, and manmade greenhouse gas emissions are to blame.

Nevermind, that temperatures are, at most, flat over the past 15 years.

The EPA's power grab officially began at the end of March with press releases declaring the agency's "final decision" that issuing "construction and operating permit requirements for the largest emitting facilities will begin." Today, the "largest." Tomorrow "the not-so-large?" The next day, who knows? At this rate you might want to hold your breath. Exhaling soon may be an emission law violation.

Congress will have a chance this spring to reassert authority over the bureaucracy when it considers reining in the EPA. A pending resolution by Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, would veto the EPA's "endangerment finding" that declared CO2 to be a harmful pollutant. Stay tuned.

* CHECK OUT THE FULL COLUMN.

April 12, 2010 at 12:18 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/federal-eye/2010/04/gao_postal_service_business_no.html

Happy Monday! The U.S. Postal Service's current business model "is not viable"...according to a draft of a government audit acquired by The Federal Eye.

Lawmakers requested the Government Accountability Office report, set for a Monday release, as they prepare to consider the USPS plan, which was introduced last month. The proposals call for an end to six-day delivery and ask Congress to give the mail agency the ability to raise prices beyond the rate of inflation and close post offices if necessary.

* I PROPOSE WE REMOVE THE USPS MONOPOLY OVER LETTER MAIL DELIVERY. LET TRUE COMPETITION FLOURISH AND INSTEAD OF SEEING THE POST OFFICE RAISE PRICES BEYOND THE RATE OF INFLATION PERHAPS WE'LL END UP SEEING THE POST OFFICE REDUCE PRICES IN ORDER TO COMPETE.

[Postmaster General John E.] Potter and his colleagues estimate the Postal Service will lose a record $7 billion in the fiscal year that ends in September and could lose at least $238 billion in the next decade if Congress fails to act.

* WELL... IF ANYBODY IS CAPABLE OF COSTING THE AMERICAN PEOPLE $7 BILLION... OR EVEN $238 BILLION... IT'S THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. (*SMIRK*)

April 12, 2010 at 12:18 PM
William R. Barker said...

TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304222504575173780671015468.html

The U.S. economy added 162,000 jobs in March. That sounds impressive until you look more closely. At least a third of them were temporary government hires to take the census - better than no job but hardly worth writing home about. The 112,000 real new jobs were fewer than the 150,000 needed to keep up with the growth of the U.S. population.

* IN OTHER WORDS, EVEN COUNTING PART-TIME TEMPORARY CENSUS POSITIONS AS "JOBS," THE NET JOB CREATION DEFICIT FOR MARCH WAS NEGATIVE THIRTY-EIGHT THOUSAND. (-38,000)

Since the start of the Great Recession in December 2007, the economy has shed 8.4 million jobs and failed to create another 2.7 million required by an ever-larger pool of potential workers. That leaves us more than 11 million jobs behind. (The number is worse if you include everyone working part-time who'd rather it be full-time, those working full-time at fewer hours, and people who are overqualified for the jobs they're in.) This means even if we enjoy a vigorous recovery that produces, say, 300,000 net new jobs a month, we could be looking at five to eight years before catching up to where we were before the recession began.

* AND WE'RE DEFINITELY NOT LOOKING AT A VIGOROUS RECOVERY THAT PRODUCES, SAY, 300,000 NET NEW JOBS A MONTH.

Given how many Americans are unemployed or underemployed, it's hard to see where we get sufficient demand to support a vigorous recovery. Outlays from the federal stimulus have already passed their peak, and the Federal Reserve won't keep interest rates near zero for very long. Although consumers are beginning to come out of their holes, it will be many years before they can return to their pre-recession levels of spending.

* AND IF THEY DID RETURN TO PRE-RECESSION LEVELS OF SPENDING BASED UPON THE SAME SHOULDERING OF RISK/DEBT AS TYPIFIED THE PRE-RECESSION ECONOMY... (*SIGH*)... THIS WOULD START THE CLOCK RUNNING ON THE "BOOM/BUST" CYCLE ALL OVER AGAIN!

Most households rely on two wage earners, of whom at least one is now likely to be unemployed, underemployed or in danger of losing a job. And even households whose incomes have returned are likely to be residing in houses whose values haven't - which means they can't turn their homes into cash machines as they did before the recession.

* WELL THANK GOD FOR THAT... BUT REICH'S POINT IS THAT THIS NEGATES ANY POSSIBLE "STIMULUS" EFFECT. (*SHRUG*)

* To be continued...

April 12, 2010 at 1:08 PM
William R. Barker said...

* CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 2)

While consumers have been shedding their debts like mad - often simply by defaulting on loans...

* AND GUESS WHO ULTIMATELY PICKS UP THE SLACK FOR THESE DEADBEATS...?!?! (YEP... US... THE NON-DEADBEATS...) (*GRITTING MY TEETH*)

...their remaining burdens are still heavy. At the end of last year, debt averaged $43,874 per American, or about 122% of annual disposable income. Most analysts believe a sustainable debt load is around 100% of disposable income, assuming a normal level of employment and normal access to credit - neither of which we are likely to have for some time.

[M]any of the jobs that have been lost will never return. The Great Recession has accelerated a structural shift in the economy that had been slowly building for years. Companies have used the downturn to aggressively trim payrolls, making cuts they've been reluctant to make before. Outsourcing abroad has increased dramatically. Companies have discovered that new software and computer technologies have made many workers in Asia and Latin America almost as productive as Americans, and that the Internet allows far more work to be efficiently moved to another country without loss of control.

* AND SINCE THE GOP IS THE SELF-PROFESSED PARTY OF "FREE TRADE" AND SINCE THE DEMS ARE PRIMARILY CONCERNED WITH PROTECTING UNION JOBS AND EXPANDING GOVERNMENT EMPLOYMENT... WHERE'S THAT LEAVE THE AVERAGE AMERICAN NON-UNIONIZED PRIVATE SECTOR WORKER...??? (*PENSIVE FROWN*)

[C]ost-cutting moves have allowed many companies to show profits notwithstanding relatively poor sales. Alcoa, for example, had $1.5 billion in cash at the end of last year, double what it had on hand at the end of 2008. It managed this largely by cutting 28,000 jobs, 32% of its work force. Those who have lost their jobs to foreign outsourcing or labor-replacing technologies are unlikely ever to get them back. And they have little hope of finding new jobs that pay as well.

More than 40% of today's unemployed have been without work for over six months, a higher proportion than at any time in 60 years.

(*SIGH*)

The only way many of today's jobless are likely to retain their jobs or get new ones is by settling for much lower wages and benefits. The official unemployment numbers hide the extent to which American workers are already on this downward path. But if you look at income data you'll see the drop.

* AGAIN... THINK OF PAST NEWSBITES CONCERNING THE NEW LUCRATIVENESS OF GOVERNMENT EMPLOYMENT IN THE AGE OF OBAMA; AND AS PREVIOUSLY NOTED, IF YOU'RE A UNION WORKER WHOSE UNION SUPPORTS THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY... WELL... THEY'LL SEE WHAT THEY CAN DO FOR YOU AS WELL. AS FOR THE REST OF US... (*SHRUG*) (*DISMISSIVE SNORT*)

April 12, 2010 at 1:09 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://newledger.com/2010/04/25646/

The ground component of U.S. Forces Korea costs U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars a year to maintain. It is just as unaffordable as a political liability on the South Korean street. We should withdraw it.

Every Saturday night off-post brawl is a headline in the muck-raking Korean press, for which the American soldier is inevitably blamed, and for which angry mobs perpetually demand renegotiations of the Status of Force Agreement to give Korea’s not-even-remotely-fair judicial system more jurisdiction over American soldiers. The South Korean people do not appreciate the security our soldiers provide. The way some of them treat our soldiers ought to be a national scandal. Many off-post businesses don’t even let Americans through their front doors. The degree of anti-Americanism in South Korea is sufficient to be a significant force protection issue in the event of hostilities.

The American security blanket has fostered a state of national adolescence by the South Korean public. Too many of them (some polls suggest most) see America as a barrier to reunification with their ethnic kindred in the North.

South Korea does not have our back. [It] made much of the fact that it sent 3,000 soldiers to Iraq, where they sat behind concrete barriers in a secure Kurdish area of Iraq, protected by peshmerga, making no military contribution and taking no combat casualties. Their contribution to the effort in Afghanistan has been negligible, which is more than can be said of their contribution to the Taliban (previous President Roh Moo Hyun reportedly paid them a ransom of up to $20 million in 2007 to free South Korean hostages who took it upon themselves to charter a shiny new bus to bring Christianity to Kandahar). South Korea has been an equally unsteady ally against China.

South Korea [has, under various governments] subsidized Kim Jong Il’s potential offense with billions of dollars in hard currency that sustained the very threat against which we were ostensibly helping to defend. South Korea never made North Korea’s disarmament a condition of this aid. Instead, that aid effectively undermined U.S. and U.N. sanctions meant to force North Korea to disarm.

* I'VE BEEN SAYING THIS FOR YEARS... FOR DECADES! WE SHOULD NOT HAVE LARGE NUMBERS OF U.S. TROOPS SERVING AS A "TRIPWIRE" (A POTENTIAL PAWN TO BE "SACRIFICED") TO ENSURE U.S INVOLVMENT IN A REIGNITION OF THE KOREAN WAR.

April 12, 2010 at 1:09 PM
William R. Barker said...

* HEY ROB...

You gonna claim "not to recall" our past policy debates on the issue of Korea too...???

(*SNORT*) (*CHUCKLE*)

* Cross threading, folks... I'm "teasing" Rob concerning a "personal" back and forth we had on yesterday's (the past weekend's) newsbites thread.

BILL

April 12, 2010 at 1:11 PM
Rodak said...

I recall. We argued over the definition of "tripwire."

April 12, 2010 at 1:24 PM
William R. Barker said...

And beyond that, Rob...???

(*SMILEY SMIRK*)

You and Ed favored keeping U.S. troops (large numbers... approximately 27,000 at the time) in South Korea while my position was that almost 60 years of "garrisoning" South Korea was enough.

Anyway, Rob... as noted... I was "teasing" with the question.

(*WINK*)

BILL

April 12, 2010 at 2:27 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304846504575177720824287204.html?mod=WSJ_hp_editorsPicks

After losing her condo in San Diego to foreclosure last year, Charissa Kolich thought that at least she was free of mortgage bills.

But Wells Fargo & Co., which holds a home-equity loan made five years ago to Ms. Kolich, last month filed a lawsuit against her in the Superior Court of California, San Diego County, seeking to collect the nearly $72,000 it said she still owed on that second mortgage. "This was all kind of a shock," says Ms. Kolich...

(*SCRATCHING MY HEAD*)

WHY WOULD IT BE A SHOCK...??? SHE BORROWED MONEY FROM WELLS FARGO... WHY SHOULDN'T SHE EXPECT TO PAY WHAT SHE OWES...???

Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat who is chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said in a recent letter to the big banks. He added: "I urge you in the strongest possible terms to take immediate steps to write down these second mortgages."

* HERE'S MY LETTER TO BARNEY:

** DEAR BARNEY... PLEASE SEND ME ALL YOUR MONEY. LOVE... BILL.

(*SNORT*)

* SERIOUSLY... I DON'T UNDERSTAND THIS ATTITUDE. YOU BORROW MONEY; YOU PAY IT BACK. YOU PAY YOUR DEBTS. WHO THE HELL RAISED THESE FRIGG'N PEOPLE...?!?!

April 12, 2010 at 2:28 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304506904575179374230414734.html

U.S. soldiers opened fire on a packed passenger bus in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar, killing at least four civilians and wounding 18 others, Afghan and coalition officials said.

Hours later, Taliban militants took over a school and attacked the main office of Afghanistan's intelligence service in Kandahar city, wounding at least five people. Two insurgents were killed.

The bus shooting and the Taliban attack offered a stark illustration of how ordinary Afghans are often caught up in the increasingly bloody conflict. Civilian deaths - whether caused by American forces or Taliban fighters - usually end up sapping Afghan support for the U.S.-led coalition's campaign against the insurgency.

[T]he bus shooting prompted widespread anti-American anger in Kandahar. Protesters set tires aflame and blocked the highway leading west of the city. Provincial and national officials condemned the incident. President Hamid Karzai said that "opening fire on a passenger bus is an act against NATO's commitment to protect civilians and is by no means justifiable."

Whether Monday's shooting was in line with NATO's rules of engagement is something the military investigators will have to determine. Ramming explosives-laden vehicles into coalition convoys is a frequent Taliban tactic. Soldiers are allowed to open fire if they perceive a threat.The question here is likely to be whether the soldiers did enough to warn off the bus driver.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303828304575180033730459718.html?mod=WSJ_hps_LEFTWhatsNews

ConocoPhillips said Monday that it agreed to sell its 9% stake in the Syncrude oil-sands project in Canada to China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. for $4.65 billion, as the U.S. oil major continues to shed assets.

* GOOD (PERHAPS) FOR CONOCOPHILLIPS' STOCKHOLDERS IN THE SHORT TERM... AS FOR WHAT'S GOOD FOR AMERICA IN THE SHORT, MID, AND LONG TERM... (*SIGH*)

April 12, 2010 at 2:28 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303720604575169992370915372.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_AboveLEFTTop

A new report from the Empire Center for New York State Policy found that New York public schools added 15,000 teachers between 2000 and 2009, even though enrollment fell by 121,000 students over the same period.

New York City, home to the nation's largest school system, added 7,000 teachers and 4,000 nonteaching professionals (guidance counselors, administrators, nurses) even as its enrollment was decreasing by 63,000 kids, according to state data.

[T]he Empire Center report found that "by national standards, class sizes in New York were small even before the further staff expansion of the past nine years." In 2008 New York's pupil-teacher ratio was 13.1, the eighth lowest among the 50 states, and its per-pupil spending ($16,000) leads the nation.

This disconnect between student enrollment and the number of teachers hired is growing nationwide. Between 2001 and 2007, 12 states saw student enrollment fall while teaching staffs grew, according to data from the Census Bureau and the National Center for Education Statistics. And in another half-dozen states, teachers were hired out of all proportion to increased enrollment. For example, Virginia's student enrollment grew by 5% and the number of teachers grew by 21%. In Florida, student enrollment rose by 6% and the number of teachers rose by 20%. Student enrollment was up by 9% in North Carolina, where the number of teachers was up by 22%.

"There ought to be some relationship between hiring personnel and the needs of students," says Mike Antonucci of the Education Intelligence Agency, a research organization. "At what point do we say that we're hiring too many teachers for the number of students that we have?"

When hires are determined by the money available instead of the staff needed, school districts become bloated in the good times.

Yet when tax revenue falls in a recession, union pressure makes it next to impossible to cut teacher rolls.

States raise taxes instead of re-examining enrollment and student needs, which creates a hiring ratchet that leaves states with an ever higher number of teachers, regardless of enrollment.

The good news is that a few state officials are starting to push back. In addition to New York's Governor Paterson, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is trying to reduce state aid to local school districts. In the past decade, student enrollment in the Garden State has grown by 3%, while total school hiring is up 14%. Instead of addressing this reality, a local chapter of the New Jersey Education Association responded to Mr. Christie's proposals by circulating a memo joking that it wishes the Governor were dead. Mr. Christie must be doing something right.

April 12, 2010 at 2:28 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/11/AR2010041102509.html

For the sake of argument, let's assume that [Hamid Karzai,] the Afghan president, is ineffective and corrupt.

* OK.

The only practicable method of replacing Karzai now is a military coup, which would be so destabilizing and discrediting that it isn't worth discussing.

* OR ASSASSINATION... WHICH WOULD AS - IF NOT MORE - DESTABILIZING.

Let's accept that Karzai is a vain, mercurial, hypersensitive man. And let's accept that he presides over a system that is massively corrupt. Does anyone really believe that his successor will be a brilliant manager and a Jeffersonian democrat of unimpeachable virtue?

* WELL... NO... (*PINCHING MY CHIN; DEEP IN THOUGHT*)

This is Afghanistan we're talking about -- one of the five poorest countries in the world, destroyed by 30 years of war. It has a tribal culture and a literacy rate that's among the lowest on Earth.

Compare Karzai, for a moment, with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. When Maliki took his job in April 2006, he would talk partnership with the United States by day and cozy up to Shiite militias that were killing American soldiers by night. His finance minister, Bayan Jabr, has publicly admitted that death squads were operating from within the Interior Ministry when he headed it. Corruption in Iraq was measured in the billions of dollars, not the millions as in Afghanistan, and yet the United States understood that publicly picking fights with Maliki would only make America's job more difficult. Karzai, like Maliki, is better than many of the local leaders we have been obliged to ally with over the decades.

* MAYBE... (TO THOSE WHO SAY HE'S NOT, WHO IS YOUR CANDIDATE AND WHAT IS HIS LEVEL OF SUPPORT WITHIN AFGHANISTAN?)

A perceptive essay by Barnard professor Sheri Berman in the current issue of Foreign Affairs explains that the real challenge facing Afghanistan is state-building, not nation-building. History suggests the job will require a long, arduous process of centralizing political power and authority. In other words, the Kabul government will need to become stronger over time. Undermining Karzai won't help.

* READ THE FULL AND SEE WHAT FAREED ZAKARIA THINKS OF PRESIDENT OBAMA'S AFGHANISTAN POLICY.

April 12, 2010 at 7:48 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://article.nationalreview.com/430875/understanding-illegitimacy/robert-rector

According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), a record 40.6% of children born in 2008 were born outside marriage - a total of 1.72 million children.

The overwhelming majority of the unwed mothers were young adults with low education levels, precisely the kind of individuals who have the greatest difficulty going it alone in our society.

Only about 7.5% of these out-of-wedlock births, 130,000, were to girls under 18.

Of course, these births can be disastrous for the girls involved. But as a social problem, teen pregnancies and births are of quite limited importance. By contrast, 1.72 million out-of-wedlock births amount to an overwhelming catastrophe for taxpayers and society.

* MEANING KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE 92.5% OVERALL ILLEGITIMACY RATE!

The steady growth of childbearing by single women and the general collapse of marriage, especially among the poor, lie at the heart of the mushrooming welfare state. This year, taxpayers will spend over $300 billion providing means-tested welfare aid to single parents. The average single mother receives nearly three dollars in government benefits for each dollar she pays in taxes.

[Far worse, in Bill Barker's humble opinion,] America is rapidly becoming a two-caste society, with marriage and education at the dividing line. Children born to married couples with a college education are mostly in the top half of the population; children born to single mothers with high-school degrees or less are mostly in the bottom half.

The disappearance of marriage in low-income communities is the predominant cause of child poverty in the U.S. today. If poor single mothers were married to the fathers of their children, two-thirds of them would not be poor.

The absence of a husband and father from the home also is a strong contributing factor to failure in school, crime, drug abuse, emotional disturbance, and a host of other social problems.

[L]iberal politicians and anonymous government bureaucrats have a vested interest in the growth of the welfare state, and nothing grows the welfare state like the disappearance of marriage. Single mothers are inherently in far greater need of government support than married couples, so an increase in single parenthood leads almost inevitably to an increase in government benefits and services and a thriving welfare industry to supply them. Marital collapse creates a burgeoning new clientele dependent on government services and political patrons.

* CYNICAL THINKING...? PERHAPS. BUT KNOWING WHAT I DO OF HUMAN NATURE... (*SHRUG*)

For the statist, the collapse of marriage is a gift that keeps on giving. It’s no accident that the modern welfare system rewards single parents and penalizes married couples. President Obama’s new budget proposes to eliminate the only government program aimed at strengthening marriage in low-income communities. If Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have their way, the tiny, recently created “healthy marriage initiative” ($100 million annually) will be abolished next year.

April 12, 2010 at 7:48 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/domestic-taxes/91669-healthcare-law-socks-middle-class-with-a-39-billion-tax-increase

Taxpayers earning less than $200,000 a year will pay roughly $3.9 billion more in taxes - in 2019 alone - because of healthcare reform, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, Congress's official scorekeeper for legislation.

* REPEAT: "LESS THAN." HMM... DOES THIS SOUND LIKE WHAT PRESIDENT OBAMA, NANCY PELOSI, HARRY REID AND THE DEMS PROMISED...??? WELL...???

Taxpayers can currently deduct medical expenses in excess of 7.5 percent of their adjusted gross income. Starting in 2013, most taxpayers will only be allowed to deduct expenses greater than 10 percent of AGI. Older taxpayers are hit by this threshold increase in 2017.

Once the law is fully implemented in 2019, the JCT estimates the deduction limitation will affect 14.8 million taxpayers - 14.7 million of them will earn less than $200,000 a year.

(*SMIRK*)

* CUTE. REAL FRIGG'N CUTE.

The healthcare law contains tax breaks for individuals purchasing health insurance, but the breaks phase out for those making $88,000 a year.

* HMM... JUST CURIOUS... ANYONE RECALL OBAMA, PELOSI, REID, ET AL TELLING US THAT FOLKS MAKING OVER $88,000 A YEAR ARE GETTING A TAX INCREASE DUE TO OBAMACARE...??? (HEY... PARTISANSHIP ASIDE... JUST A STRAIGHT QUESTION - ANYONE REMEMBER THIS...???)

President Barack Obama in his Saturday radio address said the healthcare law keeps his campaign pledge to not raise taxes on the middle class. On the trail he promised that individuals earning less than $200,000 and joint filers earning less than $250,000 would not see a tax increase under his watch.

* FOLKS... THIS IS "THE HILL" REPORTING. THEY'RE NOT EXACTLY KNOWN AS A BUNCH OF RIGHT WINGERS OUT TO "GET" OBAMA.

(*SMIRK*)

April 12, 2010 at 7:49 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5ab51db6-4668-11df-9713-00144feab49a.html

The Obama administration and Congress are gearing up for a battle over sanctions against Iran, with Capitol Hill resisting White House pressure on measures the administration says could antagonise allies and complicate its foreign policy.

Congress, which returned from recess on Monday, will begin final negotiations on the legislation in coming days. The administration says the bill risks falling foul of World Trade Organisation rules and could damage President Barack Obama’s efforts to build a pro-sanctions coalition at the United Nations.

“Taking the bill behind closed doors and quietly gutting it is not a politically feasible trajectory at this point,” countered a Congressional aide. “There is strong bipartisan support in both chambers for this bill, as is, and there will be strong resistance to any effort to water down its substance...I don’t think the administration is in a very strong position right now to come and dictate terms to Congress.”

The legislation would toughen existing sanctions legislation against non-US companies investing in Iran’s energy sector. While the current law has never been enforced, the new legislation would reduce the administration’s scope to grant waivers and would extend sanctions to companies involved in providing Iran with refined oil.

Such extra-territorial legislation could violate the US’s commitments under the WTO, although Washington could try invoking a little used national security clause under trade laws.

* INTERESTING, HUH. HAS ANYONE SEEM SIMILAR REPORTING IN A U.S. MAINSTREAM NEWSPAPER TODAY...??? I HAVEN'T!

Different versions of the bill have already passed the House of Representatives and the Senate by overwhelming margins, leaving the two chambers to hammer out their differences before they cast their final votes on the legislation.

At the same time, members of Congress have resisted administration proposals to make the legislation more flexible by inserting an exemption for companies from “closely cooperating countries” in the effort to put pressure on Iran.

“The idea that we would have ‘cooperating countries’ in total waiver and no assurance from the State Department that every country except Iran would not be listed as a cooperating country makes a further mockery of the legislative process and the role of Congress in foreign affairs,” says [Congressman] Brad Sherman [D-CA].

April 12, 2010 at 7:49 PM

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