Saturday, June 9, 2012

Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., June 9 & 10, 2012


The other day I harkened back to the '70's...

Today... the '80's!

Posted by at

9 comments:

William R. Barker said...

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_20809526/metro-state-college-denver-oks-tuition-cut-illegal

As far as Sarahi Hernandez is concerned, the only difference between her and every other student at Metropolitan State College of Denver is nine digits.

"A Social Security number — that's it," Hernandez said, shortly after Metro State's board of trustees voted 7-1 Thursday to pass a new tuition rate for illegal-immigrant students like her.

A sophomore from Denver who carries a 3.8 grade-point average, Hernandez said students like her deserve affordable tuition. The new rate, which will go into effect this fall, is $3,358 per semester, which is higher than in-state students, who pay $2,152, and lower than out-of-staters, who pay $7,992.

* YOU BELIEVE THIS SHIT, FOLKS? THOSE SIX TRUSTEES SHOULD BE CHARGED WITH CONSPIRACY TO OBSTRUCT FEDERAL IMMIGRATION LAW!

June 9, 2012 at 11:29 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/09/us/tombstone-shovel-brigade/index.html?hpt=hp_c1

Tombstone, AZ., is trying to repair a 26-mile pipeline that has brought mountain spring water into the city since 1881.

It was damaged during last summer's Monument Fire and monsoon rains that brought mud, water and boulders crashing down the denuded slopes.

Kevin Rudd, project manager for the Tombstone pipeline, said the repaired pipeline needs to be shored up or it surely will be washed away when the monsoon rains return next month.

* READ THE FULL ARTICLE TO SEE HOW THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IS REACTING... (JUST READ THE ARTICLE... I DARE YOU...)

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

June 9, 2012 at 11:39 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/09/us-afghanistan-soldiers-idUSBRE85805B20120609

A suicide bomber dressed in a burqa blew himself up near a French patrol in Afghanistan on Saturday, killing four soldiers and wounding five as the Taliban step up a spring offensive.

* MY CONDOLENCES TO THE FRENCH PEOPLE.

French President Francois Hollande restated his plan to withdraw all combat troops from Afghanistan by end-2012, well before NATO allies...

* GOOD FOR HOLLANDE.

* I AM AGAINST NATION-BUILDING! HOW MANY AMERICAN SOLDIERS HAVE NOW DIED FOR NOTHING?! WE SHOULD HAVE WITHDRAWN FROM AFGHANISTAN RIGHT AFTER TOPPLING THE TALIBAN AND OVERSEEING THE ELECTION THAT FIRST PUT KARZAI IN POWER. AT THAT POINT THE WAR WAS WON. ONCE A WAR IS WON... IT SHOULD BE ENDED - NOT EXPANDED!

June 9, 2012 at 11:52 AM
William R. Barker said...

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

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303753904577450320997798422.html?mod=WSJ_article_MoreIn_Opinion

[F]ederal bookkeeping is a worthless guide to future spending.

On paper, Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act and other government health programs will consume 9.6% of GDP in 25 years, up from 5.4% today.

* BUT THAT ALMOST DOUBLING OF FEDERAL HEALTHCARE SPENDING AS A PERCENTAGE OF ALL FEDERAL SPENDING - THOUGH TERRIFYING ENOUGH AS IT STANDS - IS MOST LIKELY "WISHFUL" THINKING. HERE'S WHY:

[ObamaCare's] subsidies aren't indexed over the long term.

(Indexation is the standard practice that adjusts policies so they are constant over time as the value of the dollar and the cost of living change.)

ObamaCare's insurance subsidies are like an AMT in reverse. People making up to 400% of the poverty line — or about $96,000 for a family of four in 2016 — are eligible for refundable tax credits to offset the premiums and cost-sharing of their government-approved health plans.

* WHICH IS INSANE! $96,000 IS THE UPPER-MIDDLE CLASS! OBAMA AND THE DEMS HAVE FURTHER EXPANDED THE WELFARE STATE BY FURTHER EXPANDING MIDDLE CLASS AND UPPER-MIDDLE CLASS GOVERNMENT SUBSIDIES! IT'S CRAZY! IT'S THE EXACT BACKWARDS OF "FAIRNESS!"

The system is insanely complicated, but the amounts of the tax credits vary by how much people earn and rise over time so that people never contribute more than a certain share of their paycheck to health care.

Through 2018, the subsidies are indexed to grow in tandem with incomes and health-care costs. When premiums follow their historical pattern of rising faster than income, the subsidies grow by more too so that the individual out-of-pocket percentage is constant year to year. So far, so routine.

But then in 2019, ObamaCare's drafters slip in what they euphemize as "additional indexing."

* MEANING...

According to this new technical formula, the government is never allowed to spend more than 0.504% of the economy on subsidies. If normal indexing applied, CBO expects that the subsidies would blow through the GDP cap in 2022 and keep climbing. But as a result of the additional indexing, and as more and more people flood into ObamaCare, every individual will get a smaller piece of the subsidy pie, which will offset less and less of premiums.

* THE OL' BAIT AND SWITCH! THINK A BACK-LOADED LOAN! IT'S A SCAM TO GET DRAW FOLKS IN BY DELIBERATELY LOW-BALLING INITIAL COSTS AND THEN STARTING IN IN 2019... "SMACK!"

* TO BE CONTINUED...

June 9, 2012 at 1:43 PM
William R. Barker said...

* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)

It sounds like great news for taxpayers — the incredible shrinking entitlement.

* MEANING AT FIRST GLANCE IT LOOKS LIKE WHILE OBAMA AND THE DEMS HAVE SCAMMED THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, IN THE END THEIR SCAM WILL RESULT IN LOWER FUTURE SUBSIDIES. (PRAGMATIC CONSERVATIVES WILL BE ATTEMPTED TO APPLAUD THE RESULT IF NOT THE MEANS.)

The problem is that CBO doesn't think Congress will make the benefits less generous as scheduled, and the pity is that's probably right.

(*NOD*)

Washington rarely if ever takes away entitlements (e.g. the political fire drill when seniors decide Social Security's cost-of-living increases are too small).

CBO's euphemism is that the additional indexing "might be difficult to sustain over a long period."

(*SMIRK*)

Therefore in its alternative fiscal scenario, CBO assumes that Congress will suspend the indexing change every year, just as it passes an annual "patch" to prevent AMT bracket creep. The upshot is that billions of dollars are not counted as part of the formal budget — one more reason that, after ObamaCare, federal bookkeeping is a worthless guide to future spending.

On paper, Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act and other government health programs will consume 9.6% of GDP in 25 years, up from 5.4% today. But then count the indexing ruse, other ObamaCare budget gimmicks like Medicare "cuts" to hospitals that CBO doesn't think will happen, and the Medicare formula that says doctor payments will plunge next year by 27%, which President Obama promised to fix but didn't. In that case government health care will hit 10.4% of GDP in 2037.

* ONE... MORE... TIME: "...WILL HIT 10.4% OF GDP..."

Almost 1% of the economy is a lot of money. And it's part of the epic deception that was necessary to pass this not-so-shrinking entitlement...

(*SIGH*)

June 9, 2012 at 1:44 PM
William R. Barker said...

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

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/302140/orrin-hatch-conservative-nathaniel-botwinick

In 1977, Star Wars opened in theaters, Apple released its first computer, and Orrin Hatch entered the U.S. Senate.

[Hatch] insists that “by any measure, I’m considered one of the top conservatives in the history of this country.”

What explains, then, his continued devotion to the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, which he helped create?

* HATCH DOESN'T UNDERSTAND WHAT CONSERVATISM - OR CONSTITUTIONALISM - IS!

SCHIP was written into the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 to “provide funds to States to enable them to initiate and expand the provision of child health assistance to uninsured, low-income children.” This would be accomplished through a mixture of private and public health plans.

It sounds innocuous, but his program has distorted the market and increased the size of government.

During the original debate over SCHIP, Senator Hatch insisted that his bill “relies on the marketplace, with coverage provided through private insurance and the existing network of local community health centers.”

In practice, however, SCHIP has hurt the marketplace.

Two leading economists, MIT’s Jonathan Gruber and Cornell’s Kosali Simon, have found that SCHIP has crowded out private insurers. According to their data, over 60% of those who were privately insured before enrolling switched to public plans.

(The state plans, funded with taxpayer dollars, offered more benefits than did the traditional private plans, and private insurers could not compete.)

* TO BE CONTINUED...

June 9, 2012 at 2:34 PM
William R. Barker said...

* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)

Despite Hatch’s assurances that “this legislation clearly represents a free market approach at solving an important national problem,” it is nothing of the kind.

Responding to incentives provided by SCHIP, many Americans have shifted from private health-care plans to government-run programs.

* BECAUSE THEY PERSONALLY GOT MORE AND SPENT LESS FOR IT - THE REST OF US BEING FORCED TO SUBSIDIZE THEIR "WIN."

States could afford to spend increasing amounts on children’s health insurance because the states paid only 31% of the bill. The federal government paid the rest.

* MORE SUBSIDIES! (AND WHEN YOU SUBSIDIZE SOMETHING YOU GET MORE OF IT!)

And when states exceeded the federal government’s cap on spending, which they routinely did, they were rewarded with extra funds, lest Washington be accused of allowing children to suffer.

* FOLKS... YA CAN'T MAKE THIS SHIT UP...!!!

Not surprisingly, states have abused the system, expanding insurance programs beyond the original intent of the bill. New York, for example, has extended insurance to families of four earning up to $92,200 a year. The federal government and, indirectly, the other 49 states were required to fund Albany’s largesse.

Government’s increasing involvement in health insurance increases the cost of medical care when there is no incentive to contain costs. Private health insurers can’t compete with government programs, whose fees are hidden in higher taxes, and which seem to pay for everything no cost.

In 2007, Hatch doubled down on his mistake, proposing the Children’s Health Care Quality Act, which would have expanded SCHIP’s mandate.

* YEP. I REMEMBER THAT!

President Bush vetoed the bill twice, and Hatch bemoaned the “bad advice” he says Bush took.

* HATCH IS NO CONSERVATIVE.

President Obama has drastically expanded SCHIP. The cost of the program over the next four years will more than double, to approximately $65 billion.

(*GRITTING MY TEETH*)

Hatch insists that he never "meant" for the program to expand so dramatically, but a conservative would have known the risk for dangerous growth inherent in any entitlement program.

* SO MUCH FOR "EXPERIENCE."

In 1976, Orrin Hatch attacked an incumbent senator, Frank Moss, for serving too long in the Senate. He asked, “What do you call a senator who’s served in office for 18 years? You call him home.”

Senator Hatch has now sat in the Senate for over 35 years and is pursuing his seventh term. His unapologetic championing of SCHIP, an expansion of government, suggests that it’s time for this senator, too, to go home.

* I WOULDN'T VOTE FOR HIM. (*SHRUG*)

June 9, 2012 at 2:35 PM
William R. Barker said...

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

http://www.humanevents.com/2012/06/08/pat-buchanan-the-bell-tolls-for-the-government-unions/

* BY MY FELLOW "USUALLY RIGHT" GUY... PATRICK J. BUCHANAN!

In 1919, after Boston police went on strike to protest the city's refusal to recognize their new union, Gov. Calvin Coolidge ordered the National Guard into the streets.

Sam Gompers, the legendary father of American labor, wrote the governor that the Boston police had been denied their rights.

Coolidge's terse reply: "Your assertion that the Commissioner was wrong cannot justify the wrong of leaving the city unguarded. ... There is no right to strike against the public safety by anyone, anywhere, any time."

(*CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)

Ronald Reagan's firing of the striking air traffic controllers, whose union had been among the few to endorse him, marked him as a leader willing to act against a powerful union if the public interest commands it.

(*THUMBS UP*)

Gov. Scott Walker is now in that tradition. He has just routed a recall campaign that began with state senators disgracefully fleeing to Illinois rather than provide a quorum...

(*PAUSE*)

...and mobs occupying his capitol.

(*STANDING OVATION FOR GOV. WALKER*)

Walker's victory is a fire bell in the night for the public-sector unions. It reflects a rising realization among all Western peoples that to continue accommodating the demands of government unions is to risk our survival as free and prosperous nations.

The public-employee unions first capitulated to the governor's demand that they contribute more to their pensions and health care benefits, but they drew the line at Walker's determination to curtail collective bargaining and to cease deducting union dues from the paychecks of state workers.

(Collect your dues yourself, the governor was telling the unions.)

With their union dues no longer taken out of their paychecks, tens of thousands of Wisconsin public employees refused to pony up those dues and quit their union, instead. What does this tell us?

* INDEED... WHAT DOES THIS TELL US? IT TELLS ME THAT UNION LEADERSHIP IS OUT OF TOUCH NOT JUST WITH SOCIETY, BUT WITH THEIR OWN MEMBERSHIPS!

* TO BE CONTINUED...

June 9, 2012 at 2:49 PM
William R. Barker said...

* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)

Many union members do not believe they get their money's worth from unions that claim to represent them, and would prefer to get out of the union and keep the dues money themselves.

This desertion by their members represents a massive vote of no confidence in unions like the America Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the Service Employees International Union and the American Federation of Teachers.

(AFSCME in Wisconsin lost 34,000 of its 62,000 members last year alone.)

From the Wisconsin experience, if right-to-work laws were enacted in every state, giving employees freedom to join or leave a union, public-employee unions would be abandoned, reduced to shadows of what they are today. What does it say about a union if its members would prefer not to belong if they [are] free to leave?

* THERE SHOULD BE NO "PUBLIC SECTOR" UNIONS. PERIOD.

The curtailment of collective bargaining is the issue on which Walker appeared to be on the weakest ground, as school kids are taught that collective bargaining is a sacrosanct right.

Yet here, too, the governor has a compelling argument.

When union leaders put piles of cash into political campaigns, and union bosses then sit down to bargain with the people they have just put into office, who represents the public?

(*SHRUG*) (*NOD*)

Is there not an inherent conflict of interest when unions literally purchase with campaign contributions the election of officials with whom they are to negotiate the new contracts for their members?

*DUH!

There are other reasons public-employee unions are losing public support. The pay and benefits of federal employees are twice that of the average private-sector worker, while the pay and benefits of state employees are half again as high.

(And government workers enjoy a job security few private-sector workers ever know.)

Unionized government workers are seen by almost no one as victims. Yet their numbers are huge. Where there were twice as many Americans working in manufacturing as in government in 1960, today the reverse is true. We have 22 million workers in government and 11 million in manufacturing. This is an immense and costly army for taxpayers to sustain.

* DAMN STRAIGHT!

Even Democrats, though they howl that we must milk the rich more, are starting to concede that the government sector, now at a peacetime record 37% of the gross domestic product, must be pared back.

The salad days of the government employee are coming to an end, as they have already in Greece, Italy and Spain.

As Europe went farther down that "road to socialism" than did we, the pain there will be greater. But it is coming here, too.

Already, states and cities have begun cutting their labor force.

And the states that were most indulgent in providing pay and benefits their taxpayers could not afford are the states being hit hardest, like Barack Obama's Illinois and Jerry Brown's California.

(*NOD*)

The anger and accusations of union leaders, directed at Gov. Walker, testify to their shocked awareness of the new political realities.

And Obama's conspicuous absence from the battlefield - he sent a tweet and did a flyover - testifies to his recognition that while government unions may be his loyal political allies, they are also an albatross hanging around his neck this November.

June 9, 2012 at 2:50 PM

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)