Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, April 17, 2012


Up at 3:30 a.m. this mornin' to pick my buddy Rob up at 4:15 a.m. and take him to the airport.

Speaking of Rob... and of course Phil... this used to represent our lives!

Man... those were the days...

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6 comments:

William R. Barker said...

http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/article/will-romney-follow-public-opinion-afghanistan/484201

Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican nominee, has been extraordinarily careful in what he says about Afghanistan.

(*SMIRK*)

* "CAREFUL," HUH?

(*SNORT*)

While he has accused Barack Obama of hurrying to the exits, Romney himself has not committed to any particular strategy and has adopted a position that could justify virtually any policy option.

(*ROLLING MY EYES*)

* MITT ROMNEY - MY HERO. (NOT!)

A President Romney could withdraw all troops immediately or order them to fight for another decade and not violate that commitment.

* I'M GONNA HAVE TO GET SO… SO… SO… FRIGG'N DRUNK ON ELECTION DAY…

(*SIGH*)

Last month, CNN reported that one-third of American troops killed in Afghanistan in 2012 have been killed by Afghan security forces.

(*PURSED LIPS*)

* AND TO REITERATE:

A President Romney could withdraw all troops immediately or order them to fight for another decade and not violate that commitment.

(*SIGH*)

April 17, 2012 at 10:26 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304432704577348080124322186.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_AboveLEFTTop

The public employee unions and other liberals are confident that Wisconsin voters will turn out Governor Scott Walker in a recall election later this year, but not so fast. That may turn out to be as wrong as some of their other predictions as Badger State taxpayers start to see tangible benefits from Mr. Walker's reforms - such as the first decline in statewide property taxes in a dozen years.

(*THUMBS UP*)

On Monday Mr. Walker's office released new data that show the property tax bill for the median home fell by 0.4% in 2011, as reported by Wisconsin's municipalities.

* YEAH, BABY!

Property taxes, which are the state's largest revenue source and mainly fund K-12 schools, have risen every year since 1998 - by 43% overall.

* YET THANKS TO WALKER AND HIS REPUBLICAN LEGISLATURE THEY'VE GONE DOWN! THAT'S A GOOD THING…!!!

The state budget office estimates that the typical homeowner's bill would be some $700 higher without Mr. Walker's collective-bargaining overhaul and budget cuts.

* WHOA!

The median home value did fall in 2011, by about 2.3%, which no doubt influenced the slight downward trend. But then values also fell in 2009 and 2010, by similar amounts, and the state's take from the average taxpayer still climbed by 2.1% and 1.5%, respectively.

(*SMIRK*) (*CHUCKLE*)

In absolute terms homeowners won't see large dollar benefits year over year, but any hold-the-line tax respite is both rare and welcome in this age of ever-expanding government.

* DAMN STRAIGHT!

A year ago amid their sit-ins and other protests, the unions [and their media allies] said such policies would lead to the decline and fall of civilization, but the only things that are falling are tax collections.

The real gains will grow as local school districts continue repairing and rationalizing their budgets using the tools Mr. Walker gave them. Those include the ability to renegotiate perk-filled teacher contracts and requiring government workers to contribute more than 0% to their pensions.

(*SNORT*)

The political lesson is that attempts to modernize government are always controversial, but support usually builds over time as the public comes to appreciate the benefits of structural change that tames the drivers of a status quo that includes ever-higher spending and taxes.

The Wisconsin recall donnybrook in June will test whether voters value their own bottom lines more than the political power of unions.

(*NOD*)

April 17, 2012 at 10:59 AM
William R. Barker said...

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

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304299304577346341282507300.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion

Fraud, waste and abuse in government will always be popular political targets, especially during an election year. But they are not the root causes of this nation's escalating bankruptcy. Washington isn't broke because the government is inefficient. It's broke because it promises too much.

* REPEAT…

Washington isn't broke because the government is inefficient. It's broke because it promises too much.

(*CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)

One entitlement program that highlights the progression of this disease is the Social Security Disability Insurance fund.

In August 2010 a report from the GAO revealed that hundreds of federal employees were receiving millions in fraudulently obtained disability benefits from this fund.

Reforms - including matching disability beneficiaries and recipients to federal payroll data - were recommended but according to the Government Accountability Office have not been implemented.

* YEAH… THAT'S RIGHT… THE SAME GAO OF LAS VEGAS FAME. (*SMIRK*)

According to the latest data from the Social Security Administration (SSA), 8.6 million American workers (and two million dependents) received $10.2 billion in disability payments in February 2012. That translates into a staggering $125 billion in disability payments each year—a number that's increased 17-fold over the past four decades (after adjusting for inflation).

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

According to last year's Social Security Administration's Trustees report, U.S. workers pumped $104 billion into this program in 2010 from payroll taxes while the system paid out $127.7 billion in benefits.

* UH-OH! (*ROLLING MY EYES*) (*SIGH*)

Why is this happening? That's easy - our government keeps expanding the entitlement!

(*SNORT*)

* TO BE CONTINUED...

April 17, 2012 at 11:21 AM
William R. Barker said...

* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)

According to the Congressional Budget Office, between 1970 and 2009 the number of Americans receiving disability benefits more than tripled to 9.7 million from 2.7 million. This increase has dramatically outpaced the growth in America's working-age population. In fact, statistics from the U.S. Department of Labor show that since 1970 the pool of disability recipients has been growing at a rate twice as fast as the pool of potential workers.

* FOLKS… THIS IS INSANITY! THINK ABOUT IT… BEYOND THE RAW NUMBERS, THE PERCENTAGE OF AMERICAN WORKERS ENGAGED IN FARMING AND INDUSTRIAL LABOR HAS BEEN DECLINING; THE MAIN DANGER FACED BY MOST AMERICAN WORKERS TODAY IS A PAPER CUT!

Driving this expansion is government's increasingly malleable definition of what constitutes a "disability." Currently, the SSA deems disabilities to be "total and complete" if applicants demonstrate that their impairments prevent them from earning at least $1,000 a month. But beginning in 1980 (Carter) presumptions of disability began to be made based on age, education, work history and other mitigating factors. Four years later (Reagan) applicants were permitted to count the sum of multiple "non-severe" impairments and count this as a "severe" disability. As a result, workers who complain of "persistent anxiety" and "chronic fatigue" are now viewed by the government as being disabled.

(*BANGING MY HEAD AGAINST THE WALL*)

"Congress and, derivatively, the SSA have gradually expanded the availability of entitlements to greater and greater numbers of persons," SSA Administrative Judges Jeffrey Wolfe and Dale Glendening write in the most recent edition of Regulation magazine, which is published by the Cato Institute, a free-market think tank. "The increased award of benefits is a direct result of expanded legislation, finding its roots within expanded entitlement criteria."

Thanks to the government's lax standards and lethargic enforcement, the U.S. is now home to a burgeoning black market devoted to entitlement fraud. If you have a recent photo, fake name, fake date of birth and a few hundred dollars in cash, you too can obtain a false Social Security number and start supplementing your income at the expense of the U.S. taxpayer.

How much fraud is out there? It is hard to say as estimates vary, but according to the Government Accountability Office, $10.7 billion in overpayments were made by the SSA to disability recipients between 2004 and 2008. That's a sizable figure to be sure, but it's nothing compared with the costs associated with government's expanded "disability" definitions.

Consider this: If the growth in America's "disability" pool had been confined to the same level as the growth in our working-age population over the last 40 years, the annual cost of this program would now total roughly $60 billion - not $125 billion.

Sadly, our government has shown no appetite for reforming eligibility with regard to any of its entitlement programs - and shown only limited appetite for catching fraud within these unsustainable behemoths.

April 17, 2012 at 11:21 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2012/04/16/The-Plot-to-Keep-Health-Care-Prices-from-Consumers.aspx#page1

The possibility that the Supreme Court will strike down all or part of the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) has given new life to Republican calls to put market mechanisms to work in holding down health care costs.

There’s one big problem, though. Markets cannot work when consumers and patients have almost no information about the prices they pay for health care.

(*NOD*)

Have you ever walked into a doctor’s office and seen a price posted for all the tests, products or procedures that might be offered during your visit? At the hospital? Ever seen a price list at the local pharmacy?

The problem of price opacity in health care is not easily solved. Health care providers are more like airlines than the local Best Buy or Macy’s. They charge different patients different prices depending on who insures them. The uninsured pay the highest prices, the equivalent of a hotel rack rate.

* THE SOLUTION - IN MY NOT SO HUMBLE OPINION - IS SIMPLE: OUTLAW PRICE DISPARITY BASED UPON WHO THE CUSTOMER IS! IF ONE DOCTOR OR ONE HOSPITAL WANTS TO CHARGE MORE THAN ANOTHER DOCTOR OR ANOTHER HOSPITAL SO BE IT, BUT WITHIN A PRACTICE… WITHIN A PHARMACY… RETAIL PRICES MUST BE THE SAME FOR ALL.

Medicare sets prices.

* AND IT SHOULDN'T.

Medicaid patients get the lowest available price.

* AND THEY SHOULDN'T!

Privately insured patients are offered differing discounts, with larger groups afforded bigger discounts than smaller groups. The prices between the groups vary wildly.

* ONE… MORE… FRIGG'N… TIME: MEDICAL PRICING SHOULD BE AS TRANSPARENT - AND APPLY TO ALL - AS IS PRICING ON MOST GOODS AND SERVICES.

* OBVIOUSLY EASIER SAID THAN DONE. AND, YES, I SEE THE UTILITY OF PRICE BARGAINING - BUT ONLY ON THE INDIVIDUAL LEVEL. IF INDIVIDUAL DOCTORS, HOSPITALS, AND MEDICAL PRACTICES WANT TO OFFER BUNDLED PRICE/SERVICE PACKAGES FINE, BUT THEY SHOULD ONLY BE ABLE TO DO SO TO INDIVIDUALS.

April 17, 2012 at 12:15 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://news.yahoo.com/gop-cut-food-stamps-deficit-reduction-drive-152825160.html

Republicans controlling the House are eying big cuts to food stamps and would make it more difficult for illegal immigrants to claim child tax credits as they piece together legislation to cut $261 billion in the coming decade.

* GOOD. (I'LL BELIEVE IT WHEN I SEE IT, THOUGH!)

It's the first step in a GOP exercise aimed at cutting domestic programs to forestall big Pentagon budget cuts next year.

* WHY CAN'T WE DO BOTH - CUT DOMESTIC SPENDING AND CUT MILITARY SPENDING? (STUPID FUCKING REPUBLICANS…)

The cuts to food stamps would reduce the monthly benefit for a family of four by almost $60 and would force up to 3 million people off the program altogether by tightening eligibility.

* GOOD! (THEY SHOULD GO FURTHER THOUGH!)

The measure would also eliminate a grant program to states for social services like day care.

* GOOD! LET'S STOP TAKING MONEY FROM THE STATES ONLY TO BE RETURNED TO THE STATES WITH WASHINGTON ACTING AS MIDDLE-MAN AND TAKING A CUT!

April 17, 2012 at 1:40 PM

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